DUTCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE (NETHERLANDS, ante). Dutch is the written dialect of the inhabitants of the Netherlands. It belongs to the Aryan family of languages and to the Teutonic division thereof. The alphabet consists of the same letters as the English, the vowels having essentially the same sound as in French. In the inflection of the nouns and in the general construction of words and sentences the language strongly resembles the German. The plural of the noun is usually formed by adding en or n to the singular. The language is characterized by great simplicity, directness, and force, the greater breadth of its inflections giving it some advantage over the English. It has great facilities for the formation of compound words, often a great convenience. In this respect it is superior even to the German. In many instances where the English are compelled in the formation of a technical word to borrow from the Latin or Greek, the Dutch resort to their own indigenous roots. Many nautical terms and phrases in common use among the English are derived from the Dutch.
Some specimens of the Dutch language date as far back as the 9th century. They resemble low German, and show that the language had its origin in the same source as all the other Teutonic dialects. It is almost identkal with the Flemish, the differences being mainly in orthography and pronunciation. Dutch literature, as distinguished from the Flemish, dates no further back than 1570. It has had, however, a very striking development. Among the distinguished scholars of the nation in the past may be men• tioned Erasmus, Grotins, Arminius, Spinoza, and Boerhaave. In the earlier portion of the 17th c., the free commonwealth of Holland was distinguished above every other European nation for its devotion to literature, and it can hardly be said to have fallen much in the rear since that day. The nation has had and still has its eminent poets, historians, travelers, philosophers, scientists, and theologians, whose works have attained a high rank.