Holland English

Holland, Michigan—a Dutch colony begun in 1847 by a small group of religious separatists led by Rev. Albertus C. Van Raalte, nestled on the shore of Lake Michigan. The town still holds onto much of its Dutch lineage, but its own take on the English language is so much more than the sum of its bloodlines. True, the lexicon is vigorously spiced with Dutch words, and the names of its families and buildings are often contain what the average English-speaker might politely consider “liberal” uses of j’s k’s v’s and double vowels, but Holland natives have also inherited pieces of language from other cultures who came to the same area both before and after they settled there. Their speech is not exempt from the influence of the greater state around them, and the speech of their other Midwestern neighbors. The time used to be when one could simply label Holland as “Dutch” and move on, but that time has long since passed. Today Holland is no longer a town of Hollanders isolated among Americans, but an English-speaking part of the country, influenced by the nation as a whole.

         It might seem a bit surreal to young modern Holland residents that their town was not always an English-speaking one—it began of course as a Dutch-speaking settlement. Holland and the small towns that sprung up around it were considered colonies, and the people continued to speak in their native Dutch dialects. The “kolonie” was very much isolated from the united States at large. Hendrik Scholte wrote, “If Hollanders are scattered among foreign populations, they will be too much left to themselves” (Massie, 35) and stressed the importance of hearing sermons preached in their native tongue to keep their spiritual integrity intact. Yet from the very beginning, the people of Holland saw and submitted to the dominant role of English in America. They hired “an American” to set up their first school, and held classes in both Dutch and English, knowing that the new language would be necessary for the colony to prosper (ten Harmsel, 8). English teachers were hired to teach both children and adults, and by 1880, English would establish itself as the primary language of the growing city (ten Harmsel, 12). The change did not come easily though—groups divided (often along religious denominational lines) into pro-isolation and pro-assimilation factions. One man in support of assimilation into American culture described his opponents as “in ‘opposition to hymns, to funeral services, to dead bodies in church during a funeral, to flowers on caskets, to church organs, to fire insurance, to lightning rods, to flowers on bonnets, to white dresses, to the English language, to Christmas trees, to vaccination, and to picnics” (ten Harmsel, 14). Many newspapers were still printed in Dutch, like De Hollander, De Stoompost, and De Grondwet, alongside English-language newspapers like The Holland City News (ten Harmsel, 18). Although English was gaining in popularity, Holland remained a bilingual town for many decades and still thought of itself as a community of Dutch immigrants living on American soil.

         But as the first settlers grew old and their children and grandchildren became the driving force in the city, the idea of a bilingual Holland began to lose its appeal. Many Holland men had fought in the Civil War, including Van Raalte’s own sons (Massie, 49), not for the motherland, but for the new country—America. They fought and died alongside American men, and brought back with them an increased American identity. Later still, Holland-Dutch men fought in World War II, creating conflict between the residents who wished to honor the heritage of the town’s namesake and still harbored bitter feelings towards the British from the Boer War in South Africa, and the more “Americanized” members of the community who began to distrust Dutch publications and church services “thinking them too nearly German to be patriotic” (ten Harmsel,19-20). Ironically, through the early twentieth century, the last vestiges of Dutch newspapers and established bilingualism in Holland began fading away in the very years subsequent to the creation of Tulip Time—Holland’s celebration of its Dutch history.

         By the mid-nineteen hundreds, Holland was officially an English-speaking town. In 1940, Peter Veltman wrote an article studying the Dutch influence on the town. He lamented that “in spite of the Dutch character of this community, English is rapidly replacing Dutch in speech and writing.” Only one church remained that gave services in Dutch, and a church that ten years ago held two Dutch services was now only in English (Veltman, 80). Few of the younger residents spoke or wrote Dutch, although they still understood it when spoken to them. But its Dutch roots still showed in a unique vocabulary. Even into the early 1980’s 90% of high school students in Holland recognized the terms klompen for wooden shoes, dominee for a minister or pastor, and vrouw for woman or wife, while 25-50% recognized the words oma and opa for Grandma and Grandpa, kerk for church, and donder en bliksem for thunder and lightning (ten Harmsel, 27). Today klompen still hangs on, along with oma and opa, welkom is seem on city signs, though it isn’t used in speech and in some families meisje still hangs on as the word for “little girl” or “doll”. Children learn about Sinterklaas and the local children’s choir Kids Healing Kids sings “Sinterklaas Kapoentje” every year at Centennial Park.

         While it’s true that some of the most obviously unique parts of Holland’s lexicon are the Dutch words that one finds almost everywhere, they aren’t the only cross-cultural borrowings Holland has. Many Native American words live on in local place names—“Michigan” itself is derived from a Native American term meaning “big water.” Holland is located in Ottawa County, around the infamous Lake Macatawa, and many of its children attend Waukazoo Elementary School, or live in Waukazoo Woods. Holland is also finding itself having to increase its familiarity with Spanish. The largest local school district, West Ottawa Public Schools, has created a partial Spanish immersion program for kindergarteners and first-graders, with plans to expand. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated that in the year 2000, about 22.2% of Holland’s population was Hispanic or Latino. In public schools, a student hears almost as much Spanish in the halls as English, and classmates expect each other to know at least the most rudimentary Spanish phrases, like Hola, como estas? and the ever-popular cállate!, meaning “shut up.” The word chica is becoming so common it is hardly even viewed as Spanish anymore and the Holland Tulipanes Festival is gaining in popularity.

         Other distinctive features of Holland’s speech aren’t as easy to spot. My roommate, born in New York City and recently moved to Washington State, was extremely confused when she first came to Holland and heard me and other recent high school graduates talking about our “open houses,” thinking it strange that so many people were selling their houses right before college. She was downright bewildered when she learned that “open house” is the local term for a graduation party. She and another girl coming to Holland from Utah both expressed frustration once at the local habit of saying “I feel like” instead of “I think.” Where the average English speaker will say, “I think this professor is really strict,” a Holland native is more likely to say “I feel like this professor is really strict,” and if you ask them, both phrases are completely synonymous. The vague phrase “the beach” invariably refers to the shore of Lake Michigan, which is often simply referred to as “the lake” or “the big lake.” Holland English-speakers also have a habit of using “though” in completely unnecessary places, leading to sentences like “Do you think it’s good enough though?” and “I wasn’t done until five though.” Holland has also inherited many Michigan language traits, with terms like glovebox instead of “glove compartment,” an undying love of the card game “Euchre,” and a habit of visiting that vague, nebulous place known as “Up North,” which can anywhere above the mid-lower peninsula.

         Holland’s lexicon isn’t the only part of its speech affected by Dutch, and changed by the influence of the English-speaking nation, though. In the 1940’s Veltman described Hollanders’ speech as “the practice of carrying over Dutch sounds and habits into English” (81). He described Hollanders as using [f] and [v] interchangeably, a switch seen in Americanized Dutch names, the relationship between Vogelsang and Fogelsang, for instance. The fricatives tended to be harsh, and people trilled [r]’s. In cognates between Dutch and English, the Dutch pronunciation was usually preferred and often Dutch word-order and stresses were forced on the residents’ English speech. Veltman describes such odd phrases as “’I can you not see.’-Ik kan je niet zien. ‘How come you by that?’-Hoe komt u daar by? ‘Hear you me not?’-Hoort u my niet?” and “’I cannot much pay.’-Ik kan niet veel betalen” (82). As time passed however, these grammatical “Dutchisms” were wiped out by the influence of Standard English, both from the simple passage of time leading Hollanders further away from their Dutch-speaking roots, and perhaps the growing popularity of Tulip Time bringing more Standard English speakers into the city and further pushing out the Dutch language. Some borrowings from Dutch Veltman notes still hide in the speech of older residents, like “’be looking. ‘That’s the one we be looking for,’” and “go with. For go along. ‘May I go with?’ From Dutch meegaan’” (82), but these are small remnants, and those furthest from Standard English are not used by younger residents. In modern day, most Holland residents can blend in perfectly fine with other Americans, their only noticeable phonological trait being their Midwestern accents, which can be quite nasal. In fact, Holland’s speech so fits in with its surrounding community now, that one can even see signs of the Northern City Vowel Shift in its residents. When telling a story, Hollander will often say, “’This guy, he says to me, ‘Get going!’ he says,” pronouncing “says” more as “siz” and “get” sounds closer to“gat.” While the shift is not as pronounced as in other places, the changes can be seen; Holland is not only English-speaking, but it is subject to the patterns of change taking place throughout the country.

         So what does all this say about Holland? Certainly that it has come a long way from its roots. In less than two centuries it’s gone from a settlement of Dutch immigrants trying to survive so far away from home, to a regular American town. It’s gone from entirely Dutch-speaking to mostly English-speaking, with the largest non-English-speaking population talking in Spanish, not the native Dutch, and the community’s awareness of the growing importance of Spanish is growing rapidly. No one worries that few Holland residents can even understand spoken Dutch, much less speak it themselves or read it—English is Holland’s language, and its residents are Americans with Dutch heritage, no longer Dutchmen on American land. The odd Dutch phrase still lingers, and the odd Dutch speaking habit, but many Holland residents can still name the family member that immigrated here—I know I can, as the last one only recently passed away—so many people are still quite close to their Dutch blood. Holland will continue to change, blending in and continuing to align itself with the rest of the country. How much of its Dutch character will still be found in twenty years is hard to say. Certainly names like Kleinheksel, Hoekstra and Vanderploeg will still be common. And some Dutch terms will linger in specialized places, like in Hope College’s Kletz café, and klompen in the Tulip Time Klompen Dancers. But the trend certainly hints that grandparents and great-grandparents will no longer affectionately call their grandchildren schat or kleina meisje, but instead the more American “pumpkin” or “sweetheart.” From its beginning, most of Holland welcomed English into its town, and as a result, it lost much of its Dutch roots. But on the other hand, one could also say instead, that it gained the whole country as a community, and accepted America as its home away from home.



Bibliography

Massie, Larry B. Haven, Harbor and Heritage: The Holland, Michigan, Story. Allegan Forest, MI: The Priscilla Press, 1996. Print.



ten Harmsel, Larry. Dutch in Michigan. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2002. Discovering the Peoples of Michigan. Print.



Eric, Weaver. The Michigan Accent Pronunciation Guide Ed. Weaver Eric. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2009. <http://www.michigannative.com/ma_home.shtml>.



Veltman, Peter. "Dutch Survivals in Holland, Michigan." American Speech 15.1 (1940): 80-83. JSTOR. Web. 10 Dec. 2009.



With help also from K. Bechtel, D. and M. Boeve, M. Wilson, and A. Valkema