…instead of “Hollanders” or “Netherlanders”?
And while we’re at it, why is Flanders so named? It’s the Flemish who live there, so why don’t they call it Flemingland, or Flemishland, or Flemland. Or, conversely, why are natives of Flanders not called Flanderites, or something?
Dutch is obviously a form of Deutsch or German. Sorry, no cite, but I read in one of my books on languages that the English originally called all people speaking German (or a facsimile thereof) Dutch-speaking people, and eventually the name became applied solely to their main German-speaking 17th century rivals in mastery of the seas, the people from the Netherlands.
P.S. The name that group A calls group B is often different from the name that group B calls itself. See this article for example on the country known as Germany, Allemagne, Deutschland, Niemcy, Saksa, …
Not sure what the Dutch call themselves, but I suspect it’s Niederland-something.
IIRC, and until someone who actually is Dutch shows up:
They call their language Hollands.
A person from The Netherlands is a Nederlander, and I think one who comes from the Province of Holland can also be called a Hollander. I do know for sure that the latter is a family name, suggesting that it’s another example of the time-honored and ubiquitous practice in Germanic countries of using the -er ending to form a geographical adjective.
Until about a hundred years ago “Dutch”, in American English, meant about what “German” means today, although I believe that what we now call Dutch was included in that aggregate, as were Standard and Swiss German.
In Dutch, the cognate word to English “Dutch” and German “deutsch” is diets, and means German.
None of this explains in particular how the names for the language, the country, and the people of the land north of Belgium got so confusing.
But that just invites the follow-up question; if we’re (English speakers) going to call them “Dutch”, why don’t we go all the way and call their country “Dutchland”, or “Dutchsylvania”*, or somesuch?
*I realize that since the region is not known for being heavily covered with forests, “Dutchsylvania” would not be very appropriate.
Speakers of Plattdeutsch, the Germanic tongue that did not go through the second sound shift which Hochdeutsch did, were spread from Pomerania to Picardy along the Baltic-North Sea littoral and for some distance inland.
In the states that coalesced into Germany (Deutschland), a Hochdeutsch dialect based on a coalescence of Hessian and Brandenburger dialects became the national standard and is what is today called “German.” The Plattdeutsch dialects becme substandard and largely rural, and have gradually been replaced by “standard [Hochdeutch] German.” Dialecticians seem to indicate that the replacement has not been complete as yet, but it’s nearing completion, and Plattdeutsch in Germany is nearing extinction.
To the west, however, in the Low Countries, Plattdeutsch dialects survived and flourished. The dialects of the County of Holland (now the provinces of North and South Holland in the Netherlands) and of Utrecht became the basis for a standard Nederlands language (“Dutch”). Farther south, the Plattdeutsch dialects of the Counties of Flanders and Brabant became the basis for a standard Vlaamings (Flemish) language. In time, particularly with improved travel and communications, Nederlands and Vlaamings converged to form a single standard tongue still identified by the two distinct names, respectively the official language of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and one of the two languages of the Kingdom of Belgium (the other being the Walloon dialect of French). Belgium is split roughly northwest/southeast between the two, with Brussels, roughly on the dividing line, bilingual. (The national borders do not precisely mirror the linguistic ones, by the way; along the Belgian border in the extreme northwest of France are about a million speakers of Flemish.)
The Flanders/Fleming dichotomy is not so great in Flemish: Vlaanderen/Vlaamings.
Because language is not required to be consistent.
And “Vlaamse”, which became “Flemish” when Anglicised.
Good point.
“Vlaamings” = noun, [the] Flemish [language]
“Vlaamse” = adjective, “Flemish”, “of or related to matters pertaining to Flanders and its natives”
By the way, in answer to a related question not yet asked:
“Holland” for the Netherlands is the result of synecdoche: the predominant state in the United Provinces, the one where The Hague, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Haarkem were all located, became used for the country as a whole. An almost precise parallel exists in American English, where “England” is used as shorthand for “the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland” (to the ongoing annoyance of the Welsh, Scots, and Ulstermen).
Indecently, I am of absolutely NO help in this thread. :smack:
I was just at a lecture given by Dr. Jaap van Marle, Dean of Cultural Studies, Open University, Heerlen, Limburg, Netherlands. This topic was raised. His reply: “It’s complicated. I know of a grad student who will get his degree exploring this topic”.
Perhaps you should consult with Walloon and get back to us? 
Because the Name “Deutschland” was already taken? (Germany)
In-dee-diddly-doo!
Or how “Russia” and “Russians” were used as synonyms for “Soviet Union” and “Soviets”.
Sort of the opposite of us using America to mean just the United States.
How do the Dutch feel about English-speakers calling their entire country “Holland” instead of the Netherlands? Do the ones from the states outside Holland consider it an ignorant or offensive term, in the way that many Scots would react (appropriately, in my opinion) to someone grouping “Scotland” under “England”?
Nitpick: The Flemish Language is called ‘Vlaams’, not Vlaamings; a Flemish person is called Vlaming, (pl. -en).
The Dutch call their language Nederlands, most of the time, although (as Spectre of Pithecanthropus suggests some do speak of Hollands. It has a ring of uneducatedness to me, though, to speak of Hollands. One other slight inaccuracy in the Spectre’s post is that Diets means German. The Dutch word for German is Duits. Diets is not a Dutch word for anything anymore except in circles of neonazis, where it is used to refer to some sort of Dutch-German popular union. In the olden days, however, when there was no unified Dutch language as distinct from a unified German language, but just a bunch of accents gradually sliding into each other, Diets was a collective term taken to refer to those accents as a whole. Hither comes English ‘Dutch’ as referring to the people living in the Netherlands and the language they speak there.
Anyway, when discussing the Netherlands in a language other than Dutch, it is my impression that the Dutch tend to stick to some cognate of ‘Holland’ simply because it’s easier - it’s easier on us but also on the foreigners who recognize Holland sooner than the Netherlands. Compare Olanda, Holandsko, Holland, Holland, l’Hollande to Países Bajos, Nizozemí, The Netherlands, Die Niederlände and les Pays-Bas. Similarly, The Dutch don’t really care when people speak of Holland instead of The Netherlands. They do it themselves all the time, in Dutch and in other languages, whether they’re actually from Holland-proper or not. What does get our goat is when people confuse our country with its capital, Amsterdam. Amsterdam is not the entire country, it’s a tiny city, really (pop. 700,000) and we don’t all live there or go there all the time, there’s plenty of hookers and dope outside Amsterdam, just not as much tourists.
As in the famous “Russian linesman” at the 1966 World Cup final, who was actually from Azerbaijan.