We’re forever explaining the whole UK/Britain/England errors here, but it seems to me that there’s equally an issue with Holland/Netherlands. Last night on the TV the BBC consistantly refered to the Dutch team as Holland. Were they wrong?
Or is it, as I suspect, that Holland is only part of the Netherlands, and the football team represents the whole of the Netherlands?
I did a SDMB search that found mentions of this issue, but nothing that plainly spelt it out.
The Netherlands contains two provinces, Noord Holland and Zuid Holland, which is where the name “Holland” came from. Holland was an independent country until the 16th century. I have heard that the convention of calling the whole place “Holland” may also come from the fact that those provinces are located on the coast and were thus more likely to produce sailors who would go out, see the world, and tell everyone that they were from Holland, but I can’t produce any sort of cite for this.
Reports on how much the windmill-builders will tolerate their whole country being called Holland differ, and I can’t report on that aspect of it, being insufficiently Dutch.
Two ‘Holland’ provinces contain the country’s three biggest and most important cities, and have the longest national history, so it’s a pretty logical name after all. In addition, a term like Netherlands/Nederland isn’t very natural to use since it’s a made-up name unlike most country names. Other made up names like UK, USA or USSR have handy acronyms, but there isn’t a similar easy and universal way to shorten Netherlands, thus Holland gets used often, especially in football matches.
I can’t see how. Is Texas or New York a logical name for the US? If I was a resident of one of the other provinces/states I’d not be happy about this at all. Anyone know what they say about it?
How are other country names not ‘made-up’?
It seems to me that the whole Holland/Netherlands confusion is very like what used to be done with Russia/Soviet Union, and that wasn’t right either. Although it hasn’t stopped TV commentators comparing past USSR football performances with the current Russian team, when they are different countries.
I would never ever say I was from Holland in Dutch. Us people from other regions of the country will even talk about “Hollanders” as a separate set of people, namely those from counties North Holland and South Holland.
However, I have no objections saying I’m from Holland in English. It has just come to mean the whole country and it doesn’t feel “wrong” to me. “The Netherlands” always feels a bit contrived and trying too hard IMO. “Nederland” (the Dutch version) does not have that feel.
Mind you, don’t be surprised if at least some Dutch people don’t like “Holland” if they are not from a certain part of the country.
What you must remember is that the term ‘Nederland’/‘the Netherlands’ is also ambiguous, as it can mean all the Low Countries. Hence the fact that what is roughly Belgium was once ‘the Spanish Netherlands’ to distinguish it from the United Provinces. In other words, shortening ‘The Kingdom of the Netherlands’ to ‘the Netherlands’ is a bit like shortening ‘the United States of America’ to ‘America’ - arguably wrong, but everyone knows what is meant.
It is also worth remembering that a parallel confusion once existed regarding the Spanish Netherlands. As those provinces of the Netherlands which, unlike the others to the north, remained under Spanish rule, they were often referred to in English simply as ‘Flanders’, even although the county of Flanders was only one of the constituent provinces. As with Holland, it was used as the collective name because it was the most powerful of them, as well as the one that happened to be directly opposite England. This confusion doesn’t survive in English only because the name ‘Belgium’ was invented instead.
And, of course, the infamous “Russian linesman” who gave that dubious goal in the 1966 World Cup final. He was actually from Azerbaijan (interesting article). Of course, at that time Azerbaijan was part of the USSR, so the usual “Soviet = Russian” misapprehension applied.
There’s arguably a difference. Names of nationalities and countries like France or Italy have origins often so far in history we often can’t be sure what they’ve meant at first. In other words, they sound more natural. Holland is of this kind, it seems to derive from term “holt land” ie. wooded land. (The English name of the language, Dutch, is an old term that used to mean both Dutch and German folk.) On the contrary, names like United Kingdom, Soviet Union or Österreich (Austria) are names that someone at some point had to actually invent and decide to start using. How well the name sticks depends on many things, particularly how easy it is to use and pronounce, and if there are any possible alternatives people could (correctly or incorrectly) use. Thus while Austria is always known as Austria, the USSR was often referred as Russia, and so on. In this case Nederland was an old name for the region but not any specified area, I think. Then seven northern Dutch provinces became the Republic of the United Netherlands in 1579 and the name Netherlands has been official ever since, except during French revolution. Even the language is usually called Nederlands.
This hasn’t stopped others talking about Holland, or even Batavia occasionally. This article about Holland agrees with Gorillaman and elfbabe’s explanation. Sailors from the maritime provinces simply referred their homeland as “Holland” rather than “Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden”. Trade with other Europeans was centered in the big cities of Holland, not other provinces, this had considerable effect too. Also what APB said about Belgium/Flanders.
Depends. Look at other examples: Sweden originally refers to Svea tribe in central part of the country, Finnish were historically only the southwesternmost inhabitants of modern Finland, Russia probably derives from the Finnish name for Swedish vikings et cetera. It isn’t unusual that labels somehow begin to mean something different than they used to. (US, on the other hand, started as a union of multiple states, none of which can really be mistaken for the whole country).
Anyway, you’re correct. Calling the whole Netherlands as Holland is factually wrong, and at least some of the people from other provinces will be offended with this incorrect usage. Don’t know if they get as angry as Scots do when someone mistakes them as English, though.
Eurograff and Pookah are correct in saying that some people tend to be offended with the incorrect usage of Holland…me being one of them.
But only when I am in the Netherlands…I don’t have an issue if somebody over here in the States says I’m from Holland but not back home…the further away you get from Noord and Zuid Holland the stronger the “I’m-not-a-hollander” sentiment gets…
One sure way to piss a Sjeng off is to call him a hollander.
For those of you not in the know - a Sjeng is a born-and-bred citizen of Maastricht
You’re right about Dutch being related to Deutsch. The names of the languages is where it gets really mixed up.
Hollands is what the Dutch call their language. Duits (pron. roughly “deowts”) is what the Dutch call the German language. Dutch is what we now call that language, but it’s what we used to call all the languages from the mouths of the Rhine to the Alps.
I’ll stop now.
“Holland” meaning “The Netherlands” could almost be considered a colloquialism. It wouldn’t be used in formal speech, and, I think, even in most casual conversation.
In Spanish it’s worse as the official name for *The Netherlands * is Los Países Bajos, definitely an ugly name, so everybody calls it Holanda, except in very formal ocassions. I am sure most people here wouldn’t even know that Los Países Bajos is the same as Holanda.
How are other country names not ‘made-up’?