Hendrik and Jipke Den Hollander and American English: ‘De Dutch most furgit us’

Abstract

This essay attempts to discover why the Dutch who immigrated to the United States between 1847 and approximately 1914 affected American English only minimally. In some respects this is surprising. However, there are at least four reasons why the Dutch contribution to American English was limited to perhaps a few words. First, their contact with the Amercians was generally not confident, intimate, and pervasive. Second, the Dutch were riddled by various kinds of divisions. Third, the Dutch language was not maintained in all arenas. Finally, the tendency of some of the Dutch to mix Dutch and English brought scorn upon Dutch.