The paper focuses on three important themes in historical sociolinguistics: (1) the emergence of national language planning in the Netherlands around 1800, (2) the influence of historical prescriptivism on usage, and (3) genre as a crucial factor in explaining variation and change. The case study… read more
Over the course of the long eighteenth century, a distinct Southern Dutch linguistic identity emerged in the region now known as Flanders, and spelling features are at the heart of this developing linguistic autonomy. By analyzing eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century normative and… read more
The chapter discusses language norms and language use in the Northern Netherlands in the seventeenth century. The seventeenth century is traditionally considered a crucial stage in the development of the Dutch standard variety. Nevertheless, the influence of normative publications on language use… read more
The chapter discusses language norms and language use in the Northern Netherlands in the eighteenth century. The eighteenth century is traditionally considered a period of consolidation, i.e. of ongoing codification of the seventeenth-century standard variety. So far, the influence of… read more
The paper discusses epistolary formulae and writing experience in Dutch private letters from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Reviewing research into the history of reading and writing skills in Early Modern Europe, we argue that writing experience varied in the language community across… read more
In late Middle Dutch, the temporal adverb dan “then” grammaticalized into an adversative coordinator (“but”), which remained in use up to the nineteenth century. This paper investigates how adversative dan can be deduced from earlier usages and why it later disappeared. The paper’s first part… read more
This paper focuses on Dutch grammar-writing in the 18th century so as to put the linguistic works of Robert Lowth (1710–1787) in an international, comparative perspective. It demonstrates that certain characteristics of the “Lowthian” approach to grammar and of 18th-century English linguistics in… read more
Wray (2002) distinguishes three main functions of formulaic language relating to processing, interaction and discourse marking. In this paper, we show that Wray’s analysis of the functions of formulaic language also applies to historical letter-writing in a corpus of seventeenth- and… read more
The reunion of the Northern and Southern Low Countries under William I (1814–1830) marked the beginning of a renewed and intensified linguistic contact between the North and the South of the Dutch linguistic area. Two writing traditions usually regarded as different came into close contact, giving… read more
In this contribution, we will introduce the recently rediscovered collection of Dutch documents from the second half of the seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries, comprising over 38,000 letters, both commercial and private ones. The socio-historical linguistic value of these private… read more
In historical sociolinguistics, it is often assumed that ego-documents such as private letters represent the spoken language of the past as closely as possible. In this paper, we will try to determine the degree of orality of seventeenth-century Dutch private letters: the degree to which the… read more
From the nineteenth century onwards, a nationalist turn can be discerned in the history of Dutch linguistics. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, however, Dutch linguists did not address the people or nation but only a cultivated élite. In order to trace the rise of nationalist thinking in… read more
Until now the Dutch linguist Lambert ten Kate (1674–1731), famous for his early discovery of Ablaut, has not been honoured with a publication concerning his relationship to German 17th-century linguists. Such an interpretation, however, shows great similarities between ten Kate and especially… read more