Talk:Dutch people

Related ethno-linguistic groups

Should not Germans be included in this section as wel. For example the Low Saxon dialect spoken in the north east don’t stop at the border. Neither do the other border dialects. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.87.73.104 (talk) 14:48, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

So, the Dutch are "related to English" people, yet not the rest of the British. I don't see how that works, but okay. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.185.162.213 (talk) 07:25, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

It's quite simple, really. Of the four home countries of the United Kingdom, England is the closest to the Netherlands, so it makes sense that genes would be transmitted back and fourth between the Netherlands and England to a greater and more direct extent than between Netherlands and Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland (or even the Republic of Ireland, for that matter). Some historical proof of this is the large influx of continental Germanic tribes into England during the Dark Ages, including the Saxons and the Frisians who also settled in the Netherlands. Linguistically, of all continental languages, English is most closely related to Frisian, a minority language of the Netherlands, and it is closely related to general Dutch as well. It's true that the English people maintain a lot of ancestry from population that lived there before the Germanic invasions, as well, but even further back, there is historical documentation that the Belgae, a Celtic people who inhabited the Low Countries (hence Belgium), moved across the English Channel and settled as far west as Winchester (which is incidentally the earliest capital of a unified kingdom of England). All in all, the ethnic composition of the English and the Dutch both have a heavy mix of Germanic and Celtic elements, in addition to the genes of the earliest post-Ice Age settlers of Europe whose languages and identities have been lost in prehistory. --98.114.176.218 (talk) 03:26, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, I'm Dutch, so il try to explain. The most people in the Netherlands use engels, in case of Brits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.10.75.131 (talk) 10:50, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

The Picture

the picture there is damn ugly, it makes my eyes sore. —Preceding unsigned comment added by =92.46.177.236 (talk) 09:49, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree. It looks like a false-colour copy of copy of a copy of a scan of a cheap jigsaw lid. Mannafredo (talk) 11:11, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Ok the picture is not perfect, any better ideas. A collage may be possible but earlier discussion demanded it should be very noticable Dutch people, should not have a bias towards any era or popular field, and should exclude non Dutch or people before the Netherlands were formed. This has resulted in an endless debate and the rather neutral picture was the only compromise. Please read through the archives before setting up an adhoc collage. (I can tell already that the currently proposed collage is horribly biased: Out of 24 images: 2 before the Dutch were recognised (AdrianIV and Erasmus), 3 football player, +2 other sports people bringing the contemporar sportspeople to over 20% of all. Additionally 2 movie stars, a director, a producer, a reporter, 2 musicians and a model bringing the bottom 2 rows (a full third of all) to contemporary pop culture. And with that only 1 scientist or 2 if you count Ockels) 1 politician, 1 inventor/industrialist (and a minor 1 at that). Not a single writer.) Arnoutf (talk) 09:26, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

PS I do not object to a collage in itself. However it should be (a) non biased (or at least as little as possible) in choice of pictures (b) the collage is logically ordered on topic (e.g. order on data of birth, or ordered on type of impact) (c) have only images of sufficient qiality to clearly recognise the depicted person (without need for caption for those familiar with the topic) (d) have all images of the same size and shape. The recent suggestion fails (in a big time) on all these 4 counts and is therefore in my view not an improvement, not even over the admittedly low quality streetview. Arnoutf (talk) 12:40, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

We typically use collage images on all of the "X people" articles. I looked into this because of the silliness with the socking/image replacement of a clearly inferior picture–that's unrelated to this question of course–but looking at the history, I wonder why any "street view" image should be used over a collage.

The last time this debate was mentioned before this was in March of 2010. In that discussion Arnoutf refers back to prior "heated" discussions. The last time I found one of those was April 2008, and there it seemed to be one editor loudly opposing a collage, but not a lot of consensus to remove it. However for whatever reason, it looks like that status quo has continued without much resolution. Given the time since there's been a real discussion of the issue, and the particularized complaints raised back then, it's not enough to just refer to those past debates now, 3 years later, when there's only sporadic concern.

I don't know enough about the nuance of your neutrality argument or about who to include. My general impression is this is a dime holding up a dollar: arguing over minutiae. The other people articles don't have this issue (at least most don't) and many arguably come from more contentious histories. Why is it such an issue here?

A "street view" image doesn't make a lot of sense given the subject matter is the people. It's of course telling that overwhelmingly other "peoples" articles are collages.

There are a few collage options that have been made in the past. Here are just the ones I've found on my preliminary look through the history:

• this one which is good, but I guess you have some complaints.
• this one seems to have popped up recently, and the source of some edit warring
• [1]
• [2]

Those are just the ones I've found. I'm new to this talk page, and I realize that Arnoutf has been claiming there was consensus to exclude a collage for a long time. I simply don't see that. I think there's an impasse here that it's time be broken. Shadowjams (talk) 17:52, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Can we please try to engage in a fair discussion without statment like "clearly inferior" and " one which is good"

Of the four proposed collages I prefer the last, the 2nd and 3rd are ok, but have only few people on.

The first one (labelled as good) is awful in my opinion, for two reasons. Bias and graphical issues.

The bias is as I explained above incredibly to 2nd half 20-21 st century (14 out 24). Sport (5/24), popular culture (8/24 excluding sports - including sport is would be 13/24). This gives no representative image of the Dutch.

The grpahical issues are even worse. The collage is not at all nicely outlined, some rows are much wider than others, some picture are incredibly narrow, worst of all several people are hardly recognisable from their image: The face of van Basten is too small to allow easy recognition; the image of Krajicek similarly show a small picture of his face, and on top of that several other people.

As said before, I would be happy with a collage, but not with one that is compiled as haphazardly, biased and plain ugly is this one. Arnoutf (talk) 18:08, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Re "clearly inferior" you need to reread what I wrote in the first sentence (I'm talking about my edit here and the previous semi-protection due to claims of socking on the page; none of this is directed or has to do with you or the current picture we're talking about). I'm fine with any of the collages. I don't have much opinion about which one's the most representative. I think the term "bias" carries a bit more weight than intended; perhaps, unrepresentative. And you're right, the graphical issues are bad with the one, but that could be fixed. Shadowjams (talk) 18:49, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

[3] contains a large collage originally made by me (with my old account) but which was deleted because the copyright for it wasn't ok. Now a different person uploaded it. And other images were added. Anyway I made the original collage deliberately with just ethnically dutch people (including for example Dutch Americans). Dutch people who had a different ancestry were avoided. But as always this caused a controversy. If we're going for a collage again let's come to a consensus first about what persons to include. Dutch people, or ethnically Dutch people? I feel that every ethnic group should deserve it's own page on wiki and that's why I limited it to just ethnicy. But others immediately argued that people of different descent should not be excluded. I however feel that just describing people with a different ancestry as Dutch is sometimes close to assimilation. Like for example Dutch Jews. Should we add Spinoza to the collage or exclude him because he was Dutch-Jewish? Someone could argue that Spinoza should be added, because otherwise this would be racist. On the other hand describing him or other Dutch-Jews as just 'Dutch' could be seen of oppression, why deny people a Jewish identity or background? The same discussion can be held over the Princes of Orange who were Dutch, but of (royal) German descent. If everyone voices his opinion I could go with the consensus and try to create a good looking collage. Machinarium (talk) 00:20, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't have strong opinions but I don't think it should include Dutch-Americans... I think it would have a nice cross section of living notable Dutch people and some historical figures. I saw in the archives this Spinoza thing kept being brought up... I don't see why Dutch-Jewish wouldn't apply just as much, but if it's so controversial, shouldn't be hard to find a replacement. Just take cues from other articles (that have been doing this for years). Shouldn't be too controversial. Shadowjams (talk) 08:31, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Current picture is typical Hollandic, not Dutch. It is also very stereotypical! Please change it for a good collage or something like all other people's pages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by J187B (talk • contribs) 21:09, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Red Haired Barbarians?

Typing "red haired barbarians" into search redirects you to "Dutch People".... 11:15, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

No longer so Arnoutf (talk) 11:41, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

It still happens. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.212.41.73 (talk) 10:54, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Shouldn't it be Scottish people? Mannafredo (talk) 10:56, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I resent that. Boney-ersed ginger frae Paisley (talk) 10:59, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Flemings

I've tried to 'clear up' the description of the relation between Flemings and Dutchmen in this article. I think it's great fun ... but also incredibly complicated and could sure use some help.

For example; both Dutch and Flemings don't see each other as a different people, but they don't see themselves as identical either. If you try, academically, to make a case for them being separate ... you'll find its impossible given the language, religion and culture yet that all seems irrelevant as despite all that ... there is generally no shared identity and yet, in some way, there is. A Fleming/Dutchman in the Netherlands/Flanders isn't a "foreigner" in the same way that a German or Frenchman would be.

It's a paradox which seems nigh impossible to explain. It's the concept of 'Flemings' that's the 'problem', which is a national rather than ethnic construct as opposed to 'Dutch' which can be both... which kind of makes you feel you're comparing apples and pears. There has to be a way to explain how the idea of a 'Flemish identity' fits a Dutch ethnic category ... Any thoughts? G.Burggraaf (talk) 02:30, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

That wasn't all you did though, you also eliminated the list that was referenced on diaspora and the whole section on South America. You also eliminated the section on Frisians completely. I see the Fleming people as the same ethnically as the Dutch, but I admit they are more like a subculture in their relationship to each other. Outback the koala (talk) 04:48, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I also may have reverted some of your edits that I agree with, sorry about that. Outback the koala (talk) 04:49, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

First of all thanks for your reaction. As you don't disagree with me on the 'Flemish'-issue. I'll let that rest, though I'd still like others to help me on the wording/thought process because as I said ... I find it very hard to write down the actual relations in simple concrete language.

About the things I deleted. In the list at the top of the article a lot of references were to other Wikipedia-articles and something called the 'Joshua-project', which seems to be some kind of missionary group trying to spread bibles in native languages in mostly 3rd world countries. I don't think either of those makes a reliable source and so I removed them.

About South America. The entire article (which, I must say, is very good when compared to most articles on ethnic groups of this category) when concerning the 'diaspora' talks about large groups of anonymous Dutch people, which to this day can be distinguished. Perhaps not as 100% Dutch, but still, distinguishable in more than just their surname.

The South American text however talks about a pirate, 'a few dozen Dutch families', a man called 'Hageman Egbert' who arrived with his wife and children and then goes on about how the Dutch nominally controlled a piece of Brazil for about 30 years. When I looked up some of the references, I found myself on the 'Dutch Chilean'-article where I, fair enough, saw a number of Dutch surnames, but also a sentence saying that the highest concentration of Dutch Chileans is found in 'Puerto Varas', which I found out in its article, is known for its 'German traditions' and 'kuchen'.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, that I don't believe the information and even if I did, the numbers are really too small to be mentioned in an article like this. Perhaps a sort of list-article should be created in which all the Dutch-X's are listed?

About the Frisians. I think I was too quick there, and a portion of the information there should be stored elsewhere in this article (I'll do that right away) but a section about 'related groups' is really not in place here. Again, thanks for your reply! G.Burggraaf (talk) 13:23, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Hey Burggraaf, sorry for not replying sooner. Ok, I agree with you, the stuff relating to the Joshua-project should probably go since its fairly unrelated anyway. As for the South America references I guess those are also quite minor, but I don't think we should delete it outright. I understand that its a little suspicious sounding, but I believe it; why don't we just shorten it down a lot then(I'll do that right now). A list article is a good idea, but I don't think there enough info to justify a whole other page right now. Thanks for coming back and discussing! Outback the koala (talk) 21:55, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I looked over your edits and see you've already done that. I am concerned about loosing that data about the diaspora from the infobox. Joshua project or not those are significant numbers and for say Chile, which has it's own page, we should really include that, it not a top # of dutch countries list there... Outback the koala (talk) 22:00, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

If the source is unreliable, the numbers are too.G.Burggraaf (talk) 18:12, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

G.Burggraaf, you cite Pan and Pfeil to support the claim that "within the field of ethnography it is generally agreed that the Dutch-speaking populations of the Netherlands and Belgium form a single (though internally diverse) group, with a shared language, religion, generally similar or identical customs and with no clearly separate ancestral origin or origin myth." You cite this to page 20 of their book, but that page is just a list of different linguistic groups in Europe, and doesn't make any claims about what is "generally agreed" upon 'within the field of ethnography", nor does it support the rest of your statement apart from the linguistic part (which isn't disputed). Could you provde some page numbers and quotes that lead you to use this source as support for this statement? Fram (talk) 13:31, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Hello Fram, why did you add a source on the "United Netherlands" (which I would think concerns the cultural and linguistic differences between the French and Dutch rather than the 'Dutch' & 'Flemings' - which did not exist then), aside from religion? Also why did you change the picture? Greetings, G.Burggraaf (talk) 12:12, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

South Africa

We need to try and figure out how many people in SA have Dutch ancestry. Let's see what we have to work with: 4.6 million whites, and 4.4 million coloureds. Well we know that Anglo-Africans are out of the white equation, that gives 2.64 mil + 4.4 million coloureds. The majority of Coloureds have Dutch ancestry and due to intermarriage rates this is likely to be quite high. As for the white percentage, a third in 1904 were of mostly Dutch ancestry, however of course intermarriage rates are not at all barriers and so this number should have decreased and partial Dutch ancestry should have increased across all whites. Any comments? Bezuidenhout (talk) 06:47, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

This is WP:OR, we need a reliable source indicating a figure, or we should leave it out. ²Fram (talk) 09:18, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Well you can get all that data just from Demographics of South Africa, and the respective links there? Further information at articles such as White South Africans, Afrikaners, Coloureds, Basters (namibia), White Africans of European Ancestry etc. :) Bezuidenhout (talk) 20:33, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

And where is the number of people with Dutch ancestry reported? And this of course ignores the basic discussion of whether someone who has one Dutch predecessor somewhere in his family tree should be counted as a Dutch person. Where does this stop? We are all Kenyans or Tanzanians by this reasoning, and why adding this to everyone's background may stop a lot of racism and get people to think about any supposed purity of race, it isn't really what is normally expected when people are labelled as belonging to a group. Anyway, we need a reliable source for any figures, not a link to anpther Wikipedia article with some vague indications. Fram (talk) 07:16, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

This whole we-are-all-Kenya thing is different, that was very far back, with this South Africa thing, that's only really 300 years, mostly less than that. There are still Americans that classify themselves as English-ancestry even though their ancestors came in the 17th century! Most South Africans will know if they have SOME Dutch heritage simply by their surnames? Most coloureds also have Dutch surnames. I am not saying have a reference to a wikipedia article, just have a check through some of those articles and THERE you will find the respective references and links to good and reliable websites! One study said "Professor Heese suggested a genetic mix for the average Afrikaner to be: 35.5% Dutch, 34.4% German, 13.9% French, 7.2% African/Asian/Khoi, 2.6% British, 2.6% Other European, and 3.5% undetermined[4]. Here's another study that says the Dutch have contributed 30% to the Afrikaner's heritage. Once again if we take 30%[5] of the Afrikaners thats around 1 million people. However, intermarriage rates are so common, most people have somewhere along the line a Dutch relative. I have Dutch, French, German, Austrian and Portuguese, and I'm only one person! But I think for now there is a Guarenteed 1 million in SA, but I am sure if I nosey around Google some more I can find more hits. Likewise, this means that out of the 64,000 Afrikaners in Namibia, if 30% of them "are of Dutch ancestry", then that means 21,000 "dutch ancestries" in Namibia. Once again I will try and find sources for this. :) Bezuidenhout (talk) 08:01, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

If Afrikaners have on average 30% dutch ancestry that means almost all of them have some dutch ancestry, not 30% of them. An exact number is of course impossible, because you'd have to explore every single persons family tree. Machinarium (talk) 14:44, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I know that, I have made that point many times above, and finally someone recognises it. But what I am saying is that at least we have a "minimum" ancestry of around 1 million, of which we can build up apon. The same goes for Americans, many of which no longer delcare Dutch ancestry and prefer "American-ancestry", but we can still get a figure for Dutch ancestries there. Bezuidenhout (talk) 16:03, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

We should not build anything as that is original research WP:OR. We should sources that clearly and straigthforwardly identify these people as Dutch, or at least Dutch ancestry. Arnoutf (talk) 18:53, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Where are the figures for the other countries' Dutch ancestry figures? Bezuidenhout (talk) 19:46, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

By the way the american figure is probably taken from "average" ancestry anyway. An american of German heritage isn't repelled by an American of Scottish ancestry just from where their ancestors came from. I'm sure there is PLENTY of intermarriage between Americans to the extent of similarly the majority of Americans have some German. I gave you two sources which both state similar figures, I want to start elaborating on that and still don't understand why it's so difficult to digest that there are possibly over 6 million South Africans of Dutch ancestry. this isn't a source, but a general discussion I have found IF anyone actually would like to help me find a proper figure. I'm sorry I'm getting really edgy but this is getting frustrating because it's so obvious in modern-day SA society, yet I could go trolling and find plenty of "no citations" and just remove them, instead of just putting a "citation needed" template. Sorry for the rant, Thanks Bezuidenhout (talk) 19:55, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I dont mind at all about anything but reliable sourcing. There are 2 issues involved here that require such reliable sourcing (a) How distant Dutch ancestry is still enough to be listed as Dutch (b) What are the numbers for those with Dutch ancestry.

Indeed this should go for all countries, not only SA, but also US etc. I agree that me too could remove all the badly sourced stuff (which I did not do but according to WP:OR would absolutely support) Arnoutf (talk) 20:18, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Well the first answer should be quite easy and the extend should be if they have a blood relative, who was a self-proclaimed Dutchman/Dutchwoman when they immigrated to South Africa (regardless of their departure point). Since europeans have only lived in South Africa since the late 17th century it is actually reasonably quite nearby for when we county Dutch ancestries. As for the second answer, I think thats the horrible one :/, thanks for your time Arnoutf :) Bezuidenhout (talk) 20:28, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree with Arnoutf that it's not proper to call them Dutch (or German). They are Afrikaners, with Dutch ancestry. That's something different than Dutch. I think its safe to save to list and explain how they are Afrikaners with a lot of Dutch ancestry. And perhaps we can find some sources about the ancestry of coloured people. (My guess is that they simply mixed with Afrikaners, so their Dutch ancestry is less). Machinarium (talk) 23:17, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, having one or two Dutch ancestors from e.g. around 1800 is not sufficient to declare that someone belongs to the Dutch people. We need reliable sources stating that they are still part of the Dutch people somehow, not just that they have 1/32nd Dutch ancestry. Fram (talk) 06:43, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

In the infoboks there is the blue and green writing, I am talking about the green writing "ancestries", not people who delcare themselves dutch, but declare themselves having Dutch ancestry. I can bet you that white south africans who are sure they have Dutch ancestry will declare and be proud of it, albeit when asked their current ethnic group they will state "Afrikaans" (not Afrikaner). Once again we can say the same for Canadian or American Dutch who have been there for over 300 years as well, but many still "claim" Dutch anestry by personal opinion, rather than true family history. Coloured people could possibly be as Dutch as Afrikaners because Coloureds dont have so much German or French influence, so although they were only half as much European ancestry, that European was a greater Dutch percentage. Once again many of you probably need a soruce for this though. In responce to Fram, I am not calling them "Dutch", no way! I am just saying that they have had Dutch ancestries (the green writing), I agree that 1/32 is NOT Dutch ancestry in my opinion unless you believe in the one-drop rule, but like I said intermarriage rates are virtually almost always the case so the ancestries are so spread that small fractions like 1/32 is uncommon. Bezuidenhout (talk) 07:24, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

The green text is "Total population including ancestral diaspora": people who have some minor, very remote Dutch ancestry are not part of the total population of Dutch people by any reasonable standards, not matter how proud they may be to have Dutch ancestry. Among the White Afrikaners, there may be more of a feeling of being Dutch, and their ancestry will probably be more fuly Dutch as well. The situation for the Coloureds is quite different though (generally speaking, there are of course numerous exceptions in both groups). Fram (talk) 07:44, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but people in America that "claim" Dutch ancestry may only be 0.5% Dutch just because they remembered one Dutch relative from the 17th century? But down to their personal opinion they declare themselves "American of Dutch Ancestry". Once again I will repeat that Afrikaners have mostly Dutch ancestry. Bezuidenhout (talk) 08:07, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I've removed the figures for Americans and Canadians from the infobox, as they were unsourced as well. I personally don't agree that ancestry-figures should be included, I think we could have two figures, people who are Dutch-born (i.e. first generation migrants) and people who still self-identify as Dutch, or are identified by their national government or some reliable source as Dutch (not simply as having some Dutch ancestry, but as being ethnically Dutch). This may mean that different criteria are used for different countries, but we don't have a sngle clear criterion for ethnicity anyway. But the bottomline is that any figure that gets included has to be directly sourced to a reliable source, without any further research or interpretation by us. Fram (talk) 08:27, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Ok that seems fair, but I want to hear what others have to say first :) Bezuidenhout (talk) 08:29, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm against removing the 'reported ancestry'. It was very informative, and quite clearly only states ancestry and not necessarily identity. When I go to an article like Irish People they also list Irish descendants in the USA, same goes for Scottish people. They don't differentiate between ancestry and ethnicy/identity though, it looked better here. I believe the sources are somewhere down in this article. Machinarium (talk) 11:51, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

The US figures are here[6] and here for Canada[7]. Machinarium (talk) 12:10, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

One reason to have everything sourced: we had some 8 million Americans with Dutch ancestry, even though the US census only has 5 million people with Dutch ancestry, or a difference of 3 million people[8]! Fram (talk) 12:13, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, no idea where the 8 million figure comes from. Machinarium (talk) 12:21, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Ok, so I'm confused now, I gave you a figure of 35% of Afrikaners are of average Dutch ancestry, but you said that this is too little. Then you say that if one has only distant relatives then it's too much. So I am going to add 35% of Afrikaners (35% of 2.7m) to the infobox. Bezuidenhout (talk) 12:28, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

...with a good source, I presume? Otherwise it will just get removed again... Fram (talk) 12:33, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

That's just a made up minimum figure tho. I think the best thing to do is list the total of Afrikaners (like 3600000) and say that the ancestry is "up to 3600000"), which is what the sources say. Machinarium (talk) 12:34, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

OK, good thinking but what about the Coloureds? I will look for a link asap. Bezuidenhout (talk) 12:41, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd say ignore them until figures are available. Machinarium (talk) 12:42, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I found another more recent source in Kenan Malik's Strange Fruit: Why both sides are wrong in the race debate (2008):

"The Afrikaner population of South Africa, which is today about 2.5 million strong, is mainly descended from one boatload of Dutch immigrants who landed in 1652. Although there was later immigration, the influence of the early colonists is shown by the fact that almost one million living Afrikaners bear the names of just twenty original settlers. That ship of 1652 contained one man who carried the gene for Huntingdon’s disease. As a result, Huntingdon’s is far more common among Afrikaners than within the Dutch population.

The combination of founder effect and genetic drift may have helped create genetic differences between the major races. All the people in the world today are descended from small bands of Africans who moved out of that continent some 60,000 years ago. These first groups of migrants were very small; perhaps just a few hundred people. Each group would have had a genetic profile slightly different to that of the African population from which they originated, just as the original Afrikaner migrants had a slightly different genetic profile to that of the Dutch population as a whole. Some genes would have been more common than in the mother population, others less so. Along the way, as they journeyed out of Africa, these small bands of original explorers would have picked up new mutations and, thanks to genetic drift, the genetic profiles of the new and the old populations would have continued to move apart." Machinarium (talk) 13:02, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Collage

Why isn't there a collage with famous Dutch people like other articles have? Mythic Writerlord (talk) 15:27, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Read up about 3 sections. It's hopefully in the works. Shadowjams (talk) 08:28, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

It took me some time but I finished creating a collage. I've added some of the most presitgious Dutch people through history. Not by ethnicy but by citizenship. I've ordered them by year of death, except for one whose still alive. I guess many would like to add their favourite contemporary pop star, model, politician and sportsman, so I prefered selecting historical people. And I chose cruyff as the only person living because I guess we can all agree he's the most famous sportsman. I've selected (and colorrfixed)what I believe are the best portraits/photos. I'm not satisfied with the photos of Jacobs and Wilhelmina, but don't have alternatives (yet). Tell me what you think. Machinarium (talk) 13:10, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

1st row: Erasmus • William of Orange • Johan van Oldenbarnevelt • Maurice of Nassau • Piet Heyn
2nd row: Hugo Grotius • Frederick Henry of Orange • Jan Leeghwater • Rembrandt • Michiel de Ruyter
3rd row: Johan de Witt • Baruch Spinoza • Christiaan Huygens • William III of Orange • Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
4th row: Belle van Zuylen • Thorbecke • Multatuli • Vincent van Gogh • Johannes van der Waals
5th row • Hendrik Lorentz • Aletta Jacobs • Wilhelmina • Willem Drees • Johan Cruyff

I think it's a good collage, but maybe some more living people should be included. As for Jacobs and Spinoza, as important as they may have been in Dutch history, they are not any more ethnically Dutch then Ali B. Mythic Writerlord (talk) 13:32, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

That's why I said I didn't define them Dutch by ethnicy ;). I'm personally against more living people. Usually they don't have good photos available, and everyone has his own contemporary idol, so it would be hard to agree on someone. The collage for Italians has only one living person as well (I think). We would also have to throw persons out because otherwise the collage would get too big. Machinarium (talk) 13:38, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I think it looks great. Maybe a few more days for anybody that has any tweaks or objections, then you could implement it? If there are objections changing 5x5 to 4x4 might fit better, but not a big deal either way. Shadowjams (talk) 01:58, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. The collage of Germans also has 5x5, I think provides more opportunity. Machinarium (talk) 11:50, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I like it, although we may want to reduce a bit on some of the 80 yrs war people, to allow for some more recent people. We now have William of Orange, Maurice and Frederick Henry; the first three stadholders in charge of the armies of the republic. That may be overdoing it. We also have Michiel de Ruyter and Piet Heyn, which may overdo the navy heroes a bit.

Removing Fred. Henry and Piet Heijn would leave some space to fill out the gap between Drees and Cruijff. I think in particular 20th century Dutch culture is a bit underrepresented. We could consider Annie M.G. Schmidt, Hella Haasse, Harry Mulisch, Gerard Reve or Willem Frederik Hermans as I guess there is more or less general agreement these are the big 5 authors of post WWII Dutch literature. Visual arts may include Piet Mondriaan, Gerrit Rietveld, Willem de Kooning (although often considered American). Arnoutf (talk) 10:23, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your input Arnoutf. It's hard to not overrepresent people from the 80 years war / golden century, that's when the Dutch republic was a world superpower, and had huge amount of prestigious people with international importance and fame. Maurice and Frederik Hendrik were the most important military leaders during the 80 years war (I guess?), and William the Silent is hard to remove for obvious reasons (father of the nation). That's why I included all three. I also don't think two navy captains is too many, due to the importance of the Dutch navy throughout history (just like two painters isn't too many). I would agree that people from the second half of the 20th century are underrepresented, not the early 20th century though. But that's not the only period that's underrepresented, let's have a look:

16th century (1st half): 1 / 16th century (2nd half): 1
17th century (1st half): 6 / 17th century (2nd half): 5
18th century (1st half): 2 / 18th century (2nd half): 0
19th century (1st half): 1 / 19th century (2nd half): 3
20th century (1st half): 3 / 20th century (2nd half): 2

This is the people listed by their year of death rather than birth, which I think better reflects their active years. As you can see the period of 1750-1850 is more underrepresented than 1950-2000. I personally prefer picking people by prestige rather then in which century they lived or died, or what position they held. As for the people you proposed. Some would be hard to add because they don't have a good photo available (or none at all). Anyway the writers may have been famous in the Netherlands, but not internationally. And it's a matter of taste as well. I was never a fan of Harry Mullisch, others are. Just like I never liked Piet Mondriaan's work, but others do. That's the difficulty in selecting someone whose work is quite recent.
Two alternative options we could consider are: throwing Cruyff out and replace him with a historic figure. Then we won't have the problem of selecting a living person. Or changing the collage into a 5x6 collage so there's five more empty spots (and setting it at 350px perhaps), but that would make the collage bigger than any other. Machinarium (talk) 11:50, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

True the writers are more of a national thing, that has to do with the language barrier I guess. Personally I would rather add Haasse or Hermans than Mulisch or Reve myself (indeed taste). Haasse has the added benefit of writing from a Dutch-Indies youth. An alternative once mentioned before has been Anne Frank, who is a bit problematic, as she was born in Germany and migrated to the Netherlands in the 1930's. She did write her famous Diary in Dutch.

The problem with the Dutch period of 1750-1850 is that the Neterlands had become one of the backwaters of Europe (Heinrich Heine famously remarked he would migrate to the Netherlands in case world came to an end, as everything happens 50 years later there....), so I am not surprised at all few remarkable people could be found for the 1750-1850 time slot (I still recall the struggle to find a readable book from that period for my high school reading list....).

I am aware we cannot do without William the Silent, and we need at least one of the great generals (not sure about both but could not chose between the two).

Still the Golden Age of the Republic (17th century) has 11 faces, with the 20th century when the Netherlands became somewhat more relevant at a global level once more, only 5 (2x science, 2x politics, 1x royalty); so I would like to include something from the arts (in the broadest sense).

We might also consider one of the great Dutch entrepreneurs such as Frits Philips, Freddy Heineken or Albert Heijn (born 1927) here?

I do not care about removing Cruyff as his fame in the Netherlands is based on a good football career, but nothing much since (besides creating a mess whenever he involves himself with things). There have been much more interesting sportspeople in the Netherlands in my view including those outside football such as: Fanny Blankers-Koen, Anton Geesink, Ard Schenk, Jan Janssen/Joop Zoetemelk. Arnoutf (talk) 12:33, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

If we consider writers, I would vote for Anne Frank. Of the writers (and martyrs) she has most international fame. It would also add someone WWII related other than Wilhelmina. But a problem is she was formally stateless. I think she identified herself as Dutch (not sure), we could argue in favour of that. The entrepreneurs you proposed don't really thrill me, they were just business men. They don't seem to have portraits available either.

As for 1750-1850. I don't know enough about the Dutch colonial past, but Hendrik Merkus de Kock seems like an interesting person and was from this period in time. Perhaps Jan van Swieten or Karel van der Heijden are more symbolic of the Dutch Indies wars. They were not from 1750-1850 which might be a problem in only selecting De Kock. I also have no idea if De Kock is controversial.

I would argue that if we're going for sports people Cruyff should be on top of the list. And I'm pretty objective here as a supporter of Feyenoord ;). Cruyff usually appears in the top three football players, ever. World Soccer (magazine) lists him third, the IFFHS 2nd. And football is the world's most popular sport. His career goes further than just a football player. He was a very succesful coach too (and does humanitarian work for his foundation). The current mess within Ajax shouldn't be relevant (I would argue it wasn't his fault though). The other sports people don't seem to appear as high on international lists, and add to that that a sport like iceskating or cycling is much less popular, and has had less competition. If we're going to remove Cruyff, I would argue against replacing him with another sports person. Machinarium (talk) 13:41, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Agree on WWII, but again the Dutch were hardly heroic in that war. [I am not sure whether Wilhelmina was stateless, as any decision about Wilhelmina's status post May 1940 cannot have been made by a legal installed Dutch government. In any case, if Wilhelmina was stateless, chances are Anne Frank (as a migrated German Jew) would be made stateless as well by some decision. In summary, I would leave up Wilhelmina. Alternative WWII people might be Karel Doorman who bravely (and not very wisely) took on the Japanese battle fleet with some minor cruisers, and was killed in action. Otherwise chances are we might end up with Prince Bernhard who is also royalty. Or people from the resistance (although across the board Dutch resistance was rather limited) Hannie Schaft might do, or Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema.

Regarding colonial past, again, the great age of the Dutch colonial enterprise was in the 1700th rather than 18th/19th century, the Governors of the Dutch indies tended to be of limited relevance, and colonial crimes against humanity were abundant, so I would be careful with these guys. More relevant might be Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck who is interesting in his own right as one of the leaders of the ill fated Batavian Republic. Otherwise we just may have to accept there was little of interest going on in the 1750-1850 period.

The industrialists are indeed not very interesting people, although they all were very succesful captains of industry who made their family business multinationals. Also their photos are lacking indeed.

I don't mind with Cruyff who is indeed one of the best football players ever - and helped Feyenoord become champion in his last year ;-) Football is indeed more popular than Judo, Cycling, athletics or speedskating - of whom I listed some all time top ranking people ;-). His other performance is somewhat more mediocre though, as he has been a reasonably succesful coach (but compare with Hiddink), has done some good charity (Cruyff foundation/university). However in both those capacities, and now in the Ajax mess he has also shown that he has no idea about his personal limitations. But that is besides the point anyway. If we need a Dutch sportsperson, Cruyff seems a logical choice. Arnoutf (talk) 16:23, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

It's hard to judge an entire nation during WWII, comments like 'the Dutch were hardly heroic during the war' are typically Dutch. No offense there. There were many heroes in the Netherlands, both during the German invasion and during the German occupation. And don't forget that the Dutch suffered a huge amount of casualties (up to 300,000 deaths). Sure there were collaborators, many of them (just like in every other occupied state). But that doesn't make the martyrs any less heroic, and shouldn't be a reason to exclude them from a collage.

Anne Frank never held Dutch citizenship I think, unlike Wilhelmina. That's the only obstacle (I would love to add her). I remember she appeared in a collage of Germans as well once. The Dutch government tried to naturalize her posthumous, but that wasn't possible. As for the governors in the indies, not every governor was as bad a man as Jan Pieterszoon Coen, from a purely military perspective they might have been heroic, but I know too little about them. How about a Dutch Patriot? I read how they played an important part in the French revolution, but admittedly I know too little about the 1750-1850 period. We could indeed just drop this period in time.

Anyway if we think about adding someone, we also have to think about removing someone. Perhaps Leeghwater? He was from the 17th century too. Or Cruyff simply to exclude living people and avoid the debates surrounding them. Machinarium (talk) 18:31, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

So why is this collage already in use on the Dutch wikipedia about Dutch people (Nederlanders), but not here? It's not a big deal on the Dutch wiki, but it is here? I don't get it.. J187B (talk) 01:05, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

The Dutch version was recently created. It has many famous Dutch people, who are not generally known outside of the Netherlands. Part of the discussion here is to what extend the shown people should be internationally known. Arnoutf (talk) 10:54, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Added the collage for now. Suggestions on changing it are always welcome. Machinarium (talk) 13:16, 13 February 2012 (UTC)