Thread: Holland vs. Netherlands

why does the country have two absolutely different names? and which one is the rightest or are they equal? I heard that some Dutch people prefer "Netherlands"... why?

AFAIK, Holland is the name of one of several provinces, so "Netherlands" is more correct when refering to the whole country.

Originally Posted by Friendy

AFAIK, Holland is the name of one of several provinces, so "Netherlands" is more correct when refering to the whole country.

"more correct" again?

'more nearly correct' would be more ahem actually correct, I think. This is how we weasel our way around ungradeables.

but more correct has become ubiquitous.

the fight to be MR's #1 pedant continues

There's no single Dutch province named Holland, but in fact two sizeable provinces called Northern Holland ("Noord-Holland" - capital: Haarlem) and Southern Holland ("Zuid Holland" - capital: Den Haag) which together make up a large portion of the country.



If you're not picky about these things, you might use the two terms interchangably (most people do), but this is not technically correct. Especially considering there's not even one united Holland in the Netherlands.

This makes me think of a funny Seinfeld dialouge.

George: What is Holland?
Jerry: What do you mean, what is it? It's a country right next to Belguim.
George: No, that's the Netherlands.
Jerry: Holland is the Netherlands.
George: Then who are the Dutch?!

well both have same meaning for me

my mom always says holland

and my family there always says holland too ..

so for me they are same

Since being a child, the word Holland has always brought a more romantic image for me than Netherlands.Probably because in all the children's books with pictures of windmills and tulips and country-side, Holland was the name used.Are those Holland provences any more stereotypical than elsewhere in Netherlands, in regards to windmills, tulips and clogs?
Australia used to be called New Holland.And nextdoor to us is New ZeAland, named after the provence Zeeland (one would assume).
If you throw in the french name for Netherlands, Pays-Bas, no-one will ever find the place on an atlas ever again.Curious... does anyone actually know why they're called 'the Dutch'? I'd like to know.I DEMAND SATISFACTION! We have just too many words for this place and it's people.Can't we just use their word for the land, 'Nederland'? And for it's inhabitants, 'Nederlanders', or something sensible like that?

Originally Posted by brett

Australia used to be called New Holland.And nextdoor to us is New ZeAland, named after the provence Zeeland (one would assume).

And also New York - New Amsterdam, and Haarlem....

Holland comes from 16th century, When north and south holland(provences) were rich and ruled the world with trading slaves and so forth , I come from the east of the country and prefer "Netherlands" cause I do not want to be associated with the decendants of slave traders
BTW
"We"(the slavetraders from holland) sold New-Amsterdam to the English(whom renamed it to New-York) for 10 florijn and a piece of land now called: Suriname

( Because there were more slaves there)

Holland is just wrong, easy as that. It's like calling the USSR Russia, or the UK England. They are parts of a whole.

I am not from Holland, I'm from the Netherlands!

The word 'Dutch' could be an English word, I don't know. Do any of you Nederlanders know where the word 'Dutch' came from? It's not as if your country is called Dutchland, which is why I don't use it if I can avoid it. I would guess it has to do with linguistic ties to Deutschland. Do Nederlanders know, or is it a mystery to you/them aswell as to myself?

*Forgive me for not using English words for Nederland (country), Nederlands (language) and Nederlander (inhabitant), but I'm a sucker for sense, and I don't believe English has settled on a sensible reference pattern to this country, its inhabitants and its language. So, I just use the Nederlands words instead.

From Oxford English Dictionary:

Dutch... ....In Germany, the adj. was used (in the 9th c.) as a rendering of L. vulgaris, to distinguish the _vulgar tongue' from the Latin of the church and the learned; hence it gradually came to be the current denomination of the vernacular, applicable alike to any particular dialect, and generically to German as a whole. From the language, it was naturally extended to those who spoke it (cf. English), and thus grew to be an ethnic or national adjective; whence also, in the 12th or 13th c., arose the name of the country, Diutisklant, now Deutschland, = Germany. In the 15th and 16th c. _Dutch' was used in England in the general sense in which we now use _German', and in this sense it included the language and people of the Netherlands as part of the _Low Dutch' or Low German domain. After the United Provinces became an independent state, using the _Nederduytsch' or Low German of Holland as the national language, the term _Dutch' was gradually restricted in England to the Netherlanders, as being the particular division of the _Dutch' or Germans with whom the English came in contact in the 17th c.; while in Holland itself duitsch, and in Germany deutsch, are, in their ordinary use, restricted to the language and dialects of Germany and of adjacent regions, exclusive of the Netherlands and Friesland; though in a wider sense _deutsch' includes these also, and may even be used as widely as _Germanic' or _Teutonic'. Thus the English use of Dutch has diverged from the German and Netherlandish use since 1600.

In the Middle Ages, the language we spoke was referred to here as "Diets". It is probably from this adverb the English "Dutch" was derived.

"Dutch" and "Deutsch" (German) have both the same root.
The derive from the Old High German (600 - 1100 A. D.) word "diot" or "diut" wich means people / crowd / populace. From this noun derive the adjectives "diutisc" and later the variants "diutsch / tiutsch / tiusch."
The word "diutisc" was used in old Latin texts to distinguish the language of the educted people who were able to converse in Latin from the language used by the majority of the people.

Originally Posted by Старик

the adjectives "diutisc" and later the variants "diutsch / tiutsch / tiusch."

Ah, so that's where the Swedish word 'tysk' for German (person from Germany) comes from.

It's like the UK, Great Britain, Brtain, England. Most people don't understand the differences, even the majority of the British people.

I think it`s really sad that even Dutch people call their country `Holland`. 99 percent when I ask where they come form, they say `Holland`.

Hmm have to disagree that using 'Holland' is simply wrong. Officially yes, but native speakers use it for themselves as well when asking where they are from and I do not consider this sad. Most languages are alive and change in the course of time. The main point of using it is to get your message across in a direct and understandable way. When mentioning you're from Holland, worldwide everybody knows straight away what you mean - so I guess that makes a pretty good point. As for mr. politically correct slave blablabla.....uhm...wasn't this a few centuries ago?

It is know as
Nederlands
Netherlands
Holland <-- lol most people relate that to the Windmills in Kinderdijk...

Before i went to the Netherlands... I didnt know they Spoke Dutch lol. i kept on thinking Dutch was a country o.O next to holland. i thought they spoke German lol

I was wrong but..i love Netherlands xD

Apart from all the above, one can say that The Netherlands is more formal than Holland. On envelopes for instance one writes: the Netherlands

Holland, by the way is derived from Houtland, meaning woodland.