Jan Stroop

Young Women’s Farewell to Standard Dutch

During the last decades a new type of spoken 'general' Dutch has developed, which is of sociolinguistic interest for several reasons. First of all, it is spoken mostly by younger women (up to the age of 40) from the higher middle classes (scientists, writers, artists, politicians, of high middle class birth too). Secondly, the new variety has attained a certain amount of prestige, although it differs in many ways from standard Dutch. It is spreading rapidly among other social groups, such as younger women from the lower classes, and among younger men (in their thirties) from the higher and middle classes.

The most characteristic phenomenon in the new variety is the lowering of the nucleus of the diphthongs /ei/, /uy/ en /au/, which results in /a.i/, /au/ and /a.u/: waain (wine), aut (out) and haaus (house). These lowering is the same type of 'natural' change as the lowering which took place in many other languages (see Labov 1994).
The internal reason why this development is taking place, is the fact that lower diphthongs are easier for the speaker and better for the listener: they are louder than higher diphthongs and they don't need the accurate articulation high diphthongs require.
The external reason is the general absence of interest in the Netherlands nowadays to teach and speak the traditional standard Dutch. So this 'natural' change can take place and continue to expand without any restrictions.

The lowering itself has started in the Netherlands in the 15th and 16th centuries, but linguists and writers in those days had banned especially the /a.i/, because it sounded 'bad'; and so the/ei/ still remained the palatal diphthong of standard Dutch until now. In the sixties and seventies of this century our society changed in many ways. It became a society of equality which brought the prosperity of the economic system that is called 'poldermodel'. But in the meantime a strong movement of emancipation was going on. Old traditions and rules were ignored, including the rules of speaking standard Dutch.
Data of an apparent time character make clear that especially women of the higher middle class took advantage of the new social climat, by introducing, among others things, that 'lowered' type of Dutch. It can be seen as a kind of over-reacting considering the fact that up till that time women normally tended to use a variety that was nearer the standard language than the variety used by most men. Now the roles seem to have been reversed.