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The Dutch 'letter' IJ (2001)

rudhar.com

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Re: The Dutch 'letter' IJ (2001)

#2
I think the ligature has just disappeared in favor of 'ij' because in Holland we use American keyboards. There used to be a special Dutch keyboard layout but simply using the American ones was cheaper. They lack the accents, the old florin sign and ligatures we have like the 'ij' and the paragraph sign. So we ended up using those less and less. Now I never write accents anymore in Dutch. And good riddance.

Re: The Dutch 'letter' IJ (2001)

#3
post #2

I think the ligature has just disappeared in favor of 'ij' because in Holland we use American keyboards. There used to be a special Dutch keyboard layout but simply using the American ones was cheaper. They lack the accents, the old florin sign and ligatures we have like the 'ij' and the paragraph sign. So we ended up using those less and less. Now I never write accents anymore in Dutch. And good riddance.

I recently distributed laptops to politicians and the first step in the setup process is choosing the keyboard layout. Nearly half of the people were already selecting "Dutch" before I could tell them we don't actually use that for the keyboard layout. We Dutch people are all using the US (international with dead keys) keyboard layout nowadays. There's no need for any special Dutch keys.

Re: The Dutch 'letter' IJ (2001)

#4
post #2

I think the ligature has just disappeared in favor of 'ij' because in Holland we use American keyboards. There used to be a special Dutch keyboard layout but simply using the American ones was cheaper. They lack the accents, the old florin sign and ligatures we have like the 'ij' and the paragraph sign. So we ended up using those less and less. Now I never write accents anymore in Dutch. And good riddance.

In many languages the task of a typesetter is inserting ligatures for when the author’s manuscript had simply written two separate letters. I wonder if the same is true of modern Dutch publishing, even if ordinary people write i+j.

Afrikaans seems to have done fine with just giving up on this letter/sequence of letters entirely.

Re: The Dutch 'letter' IJ (2001)

#5
post #2

I think the ligature has just disappeared in favor of 'ij' because in Holland we use American keyboards. There used to be a special Dutch keyboard layout but simply using the American ones was cheaper. They lack the accents, the old florin sign and ligatures we have like the 'ij' and the paragraph sign. So we ended up using those less and less. Now I never write accents anymore in Dutch. And good riddance.

I think this reflects a cultural phenomenon. Dutch people are very pragmatic when it comes to language. This is also seen in how easily loan words are introduced, especially from English these days, compared to say, French or German people.

Re: The Dutch 'letter' IJ (2001)

#6
post #5
post #2

I think the ligature has just disappeared in favor of 'ij' because in Holland we use American keyboards. There used to be a special Dutch keyboard layout but simply using the American ones was cheaper. They lack the accents, the old florin sign and ligatures we have like the 'ij' and the paragraph sign. So we ended up using those less and less. Now I never write accents anymore in Dutch. And good riddance.

I think this reflects a cultural phenomenon. Dutch people are very pragmatic when it comes to language. This is also seen in how easily loan words are introduced, especially from English these days, compared to say, French or German people.

Also compare it to Belgium. The Flemmish people speak Dutch but they are much more "pure" about the language. Where the Dutch will simply use loan words from English or other languages, the Flemmish try to invent new Dutch words.

Re: The Dutch 'letter' IJ (2001)

#7
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this reflects a cultural phenomenon. Dutch people are very pragmatic when it comes to language. This is also seen in how easily loan words are introduced, especially from English these days, compared to say, French or German people.

Also compare it to Belgium. The Flemmish people speak Dutch but they are much more "pure" about the language. Where the Dutch will simply use loan words from English or other languages, the Flemmish try to invent new Dutch words.

At the same time, I have increasingly witnessed Dutch and Flemish young people using English when they talk to each other – this will usually be explained by the Dutch side as due to their lack of comfort with Flemish, but I think it is simply a result of how highly online young people are these days – highly online in English – and I suspect that bodes badly for the future of purist attitudes even among the Flemish.

Re: The Dutch 'letter' IJ (2001)

#10
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this reflects a cultural phenomenon. Dutch people are very pragmatic when it comes to language. This is also seen in how easily loan words are introduced, especially from English these days, compared to say, French or German people.

Also compare it to Belgium. The Flemmish people speak Dutch but they are much more "pure" about the language. Where the Dutch will simply use loan words from English or other languages, the Flemmish try to invent new Dutch words.

Flemish Dutch is actually full of loan words from French. E.g. a holiday is "congé", a truck is "camion", a trailer is "remorque", a jackhammer is "piqueur", a total loss is "perte totale", a grilled cheese sandwich is "croque-monsieur"...
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