Talk:Dutch orthography

Orthography v spelling

Throughout this article the word "spelling" has been changed to "orthography". I've no problem with that, because "orthography" is a nicer word anyway, but is it always what we mean? Remember: orthography = spelling + punctuation. In SOME places, like when we're talking about phoneme:grapheme correspondences, isn't "spelling" what we want to say? At any rate, changing the name of the article only makes sense if punctuation is to be discussed here too. --Doric Loon 15:08, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps I was a little hasty in renaming. I thought it was more consistent with similar pages for other languages, but I had not seen the English one yet. Anyway, there is a redirect as well. But still I think it is an improvement. "Spelling" is related to single words. In my view when explaining reasons for the spelling, the system behind it, and relations between words, "orthography" is a better word. −Woodstone 19:49, 2005 Apr 27 (UTC)

OK --Doric Loon 05:12, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have rephrased the part on long/short vowels keeping both our viewpoints in. I also added some examples to show why it is really complex for non-natives. −Woodstone 20:42, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)

Yeh, that seems a reasonable solution. I still can't see that the phrase "length is not phonemic" is meaningful. If two sounds are phonemes, meaning is carried by all the phonetic distinctions between them. To say that some of those distinctions are phonemic and others not seems arbitrary. But at the end of the day, that is not a problem that gives me sleepless nights. The important thing for me was that length remains as one way of looking at the problem, because without it, cross-language comparisons and especially the historical perspective are seriously hindered. We have no idea how the phonemes of PIE were realised phonetically, but we do know that quantitative distinctions are one of the keys to understanding the whole language family. Shalom, --Doric Loon 19:57, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Reform

The last para of the reform section is:

Starting from 9 October there was a new version of the green book, with some reformed rules, not everybody was happy with it.

It asks more questions than it answers: 9 October what year? (I'd assume 2005 based on when it was added, but seek confirmation.) What changes were made? Why are people unhappy with them? If someone knows the details, could they please elaborate on them? —Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 03:54, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I reformed the sentence and added the year, and Woodstone has added some more information on what the changes actually were. FoekeNoppert 19:50, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

He emphasized the need for spelling to relate to pronunciation, therefore Mensch (person/human) and Nederlandsch ought to become mens and Nederlands, Russisch (Russian) he thought should be spelt Russies and moeilijk (difficult) moeilik.

It is interesting to note that these reformed spellings were adopted when the Afrikaans language was given a standardised spelling. Russian is Russies and no word ends in sch or contains that combination of letters. Difficult is moeilik and all -ijk spellings have become -ik. Also it should be noticed that latinate words have been germanised much more aggressively, for example konsekwent rather than consequent and aksie rather than actie. Booshank 15:40, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

The reform of '46/'47 was a bit more sweeping than the article suggests because it did away with the rather artificial (at that point) -n of the masculin definite article in the accusative case thereby essentially ending the case system as well as the masc/fem gender distinction. Shouldn't there be at least some mention of that? nl:wikt:Gebruiker:Jcwf

Missing section?

We have a historical section that discusses Dutch spelling in the Middle Ages up to 1500 -- and another that discusses spelling reforms starting in 1804. What about the period 1500-1804, obviously a very notable one for the Netherlands? Shouldn't something at least be said about what Dutch spelling looked like before the 1804 reforms? RandomCritic 21:33, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Oe is not u

In the section Regularity, it is stated that oe is pronounced as u. Now I may not be a linguist, but dutch is my native language. And oe is not pronounced as u, they are quite different. This should be changed. -- Pepve 15:13, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

What is meant is that the sound represented by oe in boek is written as /u/ in the International Phonetic Alphabet (see the section on vowels there, and this, with examples. Iblardi 15:45, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, I misread that, I feel embarrassed now. Sorry. -- Pepve 19:41, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

O well, we all make silly mistakes from time to time, this user included. No need for embarrassment. Iblardi 19:49, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

short u

According to for example Vandale (the most popular dictionary), the short u is transcribed [Y], not [œ]. In the Standard language, I've never heard u pronounced like a short (undiphtongized) ui ([œ:]). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grytolle (talk • contribs) 19:45, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Logical?

"Dutch orthography has the reputation of being particularly logical. For the foreign learner it is relatively easy as, once one knows the system, one can almost always deduce pronunciation from spelling, if proper names and foreign loan-words are discounted." Sorry, folks, but that's a little silly. Spanish is particularly logical. Portuguese, even, is particularly logical. Dutch? No. I think another word is necessary. InFairness (talk) 22:07, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

"Fairly logical" is subjective, and vague in this place. Once you know the system and ignore loan-words and proper nouns you're as regular as English, and if you're irregular in your core vocabulary you no longer function as an alphabet. I've tagged this with {{clarify-section}}, perhaps there's a better choice. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 08:20, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Maybe the "fairly logical" was looking at it from an English perspective? But yeah, as a Dutchman I would agree that when you look at it from the perspective of a Spaniard or a Portuguese, the spelling system seems insane. There are letters that influence how other letters are pronounced (although Romance languages often have this problem as well, particularly with the c) and some sounds have multiple spellings, like au/ou and ei/ij. Compare it to Latin and weep. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.87.39 (talk) 02:29, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Pronunciation of v

Is it accurate when the article describes the pronunciation of v as IPA [v]? I thought it was more like [f], as in German? /129.142.71.166 (talk) 11:14, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

In some dialects v leans very close to f, but in standard Dutch /f/ and /v/ are distinct phonemes, as shown by the minimal pair vee /veː/ (cattle) and fee /feː/ (fairy). −Woodstone (talk) 16:11, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I have to disagree. As a native speaker, I have always pronounced the v in Anlaut as an f (i.e. /feː/ for both fee and vee), but from some grammar books I understand that this should rightfully be regarded a provincialism, albeit a well-accepted one. Yet, if you want to be on the safe side, you should probably not pronounce initial v as in this sample, because it will easily be confounded with Dutch w, as in wee, which is perceived to be distinctly different from fee and vee by Dutch ears, much more so than fee and vee from each other. Instead you should keep as close to f as possible. (For comparison, you could listen to this speech by Queen Beatrix, in which -to my ears at least- initial v sounds indistinguishable from initial f.) Iblardi (talk) 17:44, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

It is part of a dialect/accent. Initial devoicing is found in a lot of dialects/accents around the Amsterdam/North Holland area. It seems to be creeping into other dialects/accents as well. Most likely due to media influences, where initial devoicing seems prevalent. What also might occur is that the initial onset to voicing is lengthened, thus giving the impression it is unvoiced. However, in standard Dutch, they are distinct phonemes. Furthermore, in some dialects/accents initial devoicing can be frowned upon.

The reason why the difference between <w> and <v> is more noticeable than the difference in <f> and <v> is probably due to a difference in articulation. The <f> and <v> are both labiodental fricatives, where the only difference is voicing. The <w> is a labiodental approximant (in Dutch at least). And do not always trust your ears when it comes to phonetic sounds, what you hear is not always what is being said. The brain seems to interpret sounds according to your own phonetic library. Hence, for native English speakers, the Dutch digraph <ui> and <ou> can sound the same; whilst for native Dutch speakers they differ considerably.Breiz (talk) 19:48, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I have lived in South Holland and North Drenthe and at least in those two areas the v and f are distinct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.87.39 (talk) 02:30, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, be that as it may, several sources indicate that devoicing of /v/ is very common in contemporary speech, and that if there is a regional distinction to be made, it would primarily be one of northern vs. southern speakers:

"For most Dutch speakers, there is (particularly initially) no consistent opposition of /f/ and /f/ in connected speech."[1];

"In Present Day Northern Standard Dutch (ie after 1950) a number of characteristic novelties appear: a very distinct devoicing of /v/ and /z/ in word initial position"[2];

"Dutch /w/ is a labio-dental and therefore resembles English /v/ rather closely. Also, Dutch /v/ is very often devoiced and therefore identical to /f/."[3];

"Dutch v is pronounced somewhere between English v and ƒ and is a sound that can cause the English speaker some difficulty. North of the rivers, however, initial v has been largely devoiced and can be safely pronounced as an ƒ;"[4];

"Many speakers of Standard Dutch, apart from those from the Southern part of the Netherlands, neutralize the voiced and voiceless distinction for labiodental fricatives (as for all fricatives) word-initially, see [2] p.74." [5];

"Gewoonlijk wordt de verstemlozing van v, z en ɣ (vooral aan het begin van een woord) toegeschreven aan het Nederlands van Amsterdammers, inmiddels is dat proces echter bijna in het gehele noorden van het Nederlandse taalgebied aan te treffen. Bij Vlaamse sprekers van het Nederlands is de kans waarschijnlijk nog het grootst dat ze een consequent onderscheid maken tussen stemloze en stemhebbende fricatieven: in het Vlaams Nederlands is het verschil tussen fel en vel vaak nog duidelijk te horen; ook wordt soep met een andere beginklank gesproken dan zoen. Ook voor het Vlaams Nederlands werd echter een aanzet tot verstemlozing vastgesteld (vgl. Van der Velde, Gerritsen/Van Hout, 1995)".[6]

Iblardi (talk) 16:51, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

ʊ

The article uses ʊ but Wikipedia's article on ʊ is crappy.

And it suggests that ʊ is the Latin Upsilon, which suggests a completely different sound than what it must have to be appropriate here. (But I think the assertion that ʊ is the Latin Upsilon may be wrong.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.87.39 (talk) 02:32, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

If is right, then the article is wrong. the oo in ‘koor’ is much closer to a long version of the o in ‘kok’ than to ‘kook’. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.87.39 (talk) 02:37, 21 September 2011 (UTC)