[wkat4242]

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.

[Greenpants]

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.

[OfSanguineFire]

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.

[crote]

Most of it is just handled by selecting the proper font, which automatically gives you the proper ligature.

The interesting thing is that Afrikaans actually went the opposite direction as Dutch. Prior to 1863 Dutch used 'y' and 'ij' pretty much interchangeably, but a spelling reform made 'ij' the official spelling in Dutch. However, Afrikaans seems to have settled on 'y' and 'i', leading to things like the Dutch word 'tijd' being spelled 'tyd' in Afrikaans.

[ctenb]

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.

[Sander_Marechal]

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.

[wcoenen]

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"...

[wkat4242]

On the other hand an electrician is an "electriker" in Flemish and "electricien" in Dutch :)

[OfSanguineFire]

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.

[wkat4242]

I see that lack of comfort also with Flemish people. I have a Flemish neighbour (in her 50s) in Spain and while I'm Dutch I tried speaking it with her but she always switches to Spanish for some reason.

But when I go to Holland these days I hear people speaking a mixture of English and Dutch on the streets. Very American-influenced English though with an accent and some expressions used improperly (I lived in Ireland a long time so I'm more used to British)

It does appear that the language is dying or at least changing. I don't mind though. Languages are meant to be fluid. Trying to be a purist is to try and push back the sea.

[Sander_Marechal]

> Trying to be a purist is to try and push back the sea.

You mean, the thing where Dutch people are absolute world champions at? :-D

[avar]

The same goes for Afrikaans to some extent, i.e. many words in it are a more purist version of Dutch, whereas Dutch itself adopted some loan word: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Afrikaans_and_Du...

[rapnie]

I have a hunch (nothing more than that) that Dutch linguists (to keep their jobs relevant?) helped in making people care less about the language. By continuously changing grammar and spelling rules. The Dutch I learned in school is very different than what you have now, and I wouldn't be able to pass an exam without relearning the whole grammar.

We also have this (rather popular) grammar contest on TV, called "Het Groot Dictee der Nederlandse taal", that seemed designed to only appeal to linguistic purists. With ridiculous sentences that bring orgasms to language elites. Especially the 2013 version [0] by Kees van Kooten was called a "sadistical language experiment" by De Volkskrant newspaper.

Those frequent changes and the TV show made me decide I do not care a single bit about getting the grammar/spelling correct, and I'll just invent own constructs and adopt any slang, if they are fun.

[0] https://archief.ntr.nl/grootdictee/2014/05/27/dicteetekst-20...