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Tired of mocking the Mexicans. Let’s make fun of the Dutch.

This is Queen Beatrice of the Netherlands. Yes, as far as I can tell, she always has that goofy look on her face. She is abdicating the Dutch throne in favor of her son, Willem. Oh, don’t worry, that’s just how they do it over there.

To commemorate, the crown commissioned a song and — here’s where everything went badly wrong — the songwriter asked the Dutch people to submit verses and concepts to be incorporated. The result was so mind-bendingly stupid, 38,000 signed a petition to “kill it, kill it with fire!” Or, in the original Dutch, “doden, doden met vuur!”

It’s a weird mish-mash about watching over Willem while he sleeps, building a dike with bare hands, wakefully eating stamppot together, a traditional Dutch sausage and potato stew. Also, it breaks into a gentle rap in the middle that invites the Dutch people to make a W with their fingers and wave it around. Oh, it’s a treat.

But that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about how close Dutch is to English. It’s like goofy English. LOLcat English. It’s what somebody who didn’t speak English would make people say in a Warner Brothers cartoon starring people who speak English. Here, check out some random lines from the Koningslied (the King’s Song):

Wij lopen met je mee Door de regen en de wind
We walk with you Through the rain and the wind

Ik behoed je voor de storm
I am saving you from the storm

We staan voor elkaar, niet te breken
We face each other, not to break
Een vlag, twee leeuwen
One flag, two lions

Voor jou, mijn kind
For you, my child
Voor m’n pa, voor m’n ma
For my dad, for my mom
Loop voor jou door de wind en regen
Walk for you through the wind and rain

Ik bouw een dijk met m’n blote handen
I’m building a dike with my bare hands
En hou het water bij jou vandaan Laat me weten wat je droomt
And keep the water away from you Let me know what you dream

Drie vingers in de lucht, kom op, kom op De W van Willem is de W van wij <--- rap, y'all Three fingers in the air, come on, come on The William W of the W we De W van Willem De W van wakker, stamppot eten
The W The W William of waking, eating stew

Only, it sounds more like, blubble-up-a-lubbiddle-up. Like a cartoon drowning man. Which…Holland, I guess. Makes sense.

Anyway, here it is in a Dutch newspaper. In Dutch (link to the song at the bottom). Enjoy!

Comments


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: April 25, 2013, 10:34 pm

So, who do you think they’ll get to sing it to her? Keisha or Justin Beiber?


Comment from Stark Dickflüssig
Time: April 25, 2013, 10:38 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9oyr_MKABY


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 25, 2013, 10:46 pm

Yes! Just like the Swedish chef!


Comment from Stark Dickflüssig
Time: April 25, 2013, 11:02 pm

Well, that Pattdeutsch stuff is a lot closer to the Germanic roots of English than the Hochdeutsch we know as German now*. But modern German was solidified by Martin Luther (Sud- oder Hoch-deutsch being his dialect) when he illegally translated the Bible from Latin.

Historically, it probably should have been the other way ’round, as I’m pretty sure that Back in the Day™ there were more Plattdeutsch than Hochdeutsch speakers.

*the Saxons of the Anglo-Saxon speaking homos are assumed to come from the Northern lowlands of Germany, which isn’t really that close to Saxony. Well, I give up.


Comment from David Gillies
Time: April 25, 2013, 11:19 pm

It’s said that someone speaking North Frisian and someone speaking the more recondite versions of Yorkshire dialect would find mutual comprehension.


Comment from dissent555
Time: April 25, 2013, 11:42 pm

“This is your country”

“This is your country on drugs”

“Any questions?”


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 25, 2013, 11:48 pm

Oh, hey, reader Bob Mulroy is about to become Cap’n Bob. Here’s his new desk job:


Comment from QuasiModo
Time: April 25, 2013, 11:53 pm

Didn’t William of Orange conquer everything and maybe that’s where some similarity comes from?


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: April 25, 2013, 11:54 pm

Now that is a very cool boat!

Congratulations, Cap’n Mulroy.


Comment from Stark Dickflüssig
Time: April 26, 2013, 12:01 am

What d’ya say to a newly crowned(?) captain? Break a peg-leg?

Sweet boat.


Comment from Paula Douglas
Time: April 26, 2013, 12:15 am

One of the biggest douchebags I’ve ever met is Dutch. Used to work with him. His picture’s in the dictionary under “turd.”


Comment from Jeff Gauch
Time: April 26, 2013, 12:32 am

QuasiModo: William of Orange didn’t really conquer. He was invited to take over by Parliament after the son (grandson?) of Charles II converted to Catholicism. Queen Mary didn’t exactly endear her religion to her countrymen.


Comment from Christopher Taylor
Time: April 26, 2013, 12:57 am

I know a lot of Dutch immigrants, they are pretty good people if a bit um… they’re the kind of conservative that tells poor people to get a job. But they are good folks, deep down and yeah, Dutch is basically a cross between English and German. And the women are hot. Double plus hot.


Comment from Anonymous
Time: April 26, 2013, 1:02 am

David Gillies @April 25, 2013, 11:19 pm
It’s said that someone speaking North Frisian and someone speaking the more recondite versions of Yorkshire dialect would find mutual comprehension.

The following rhyme is supposed to be the same in both languages:

“Good butter and good cheese
Is good English and good Friese.”


Comment from Frit
Time: April 26, 2013, 1:14 am

Congratulations, Cap’n Bob! That is a beautiful ship you have there! 🙂


Comment from Rich Rostrom
Time: April 26, 2013, 1:20 am

(Reply above to David Gillies is also from me.)

Jeff Gauch @April 26, 2013, 12:32 am:

William of Orange didn’t really conquer. He was invited to take over by Parliament…

Correct so far.

after the son (grandson?) of Charles II converted to Catholicism.

Umm. James II was the brother of Charles II, who had no legitimate children. He converted to Catholicism before he became king, but he had two adult daughters who had been born and raised Protestant (one of them William’s wife), and no other children. So there would be no Catholic succession after him, and he was accepted.

Then he had a son by his Catholic second wife (the famous “warming-pan baby”). Oops. And he started throwing his weight around, overriding Parliament and appointing lots of Catholics to high offices. Then Parliament invited William to intervene.

It was actually a very tricky affair. Initially, William just claimed to be protecting the rights of Protestants. Deposing the “rightful” king was too much for most Englishmen – until James panicked and fled the country, which William tacitly connived at. I believe his escape route passed somewhere near Badger House.


Comment from Christopher Taylor
Time: April 26, 2013, 3:05 am

The wierd thing about the Dutch is that their official color is Orange. Their ruling house is Orange. And their flag?

Red white and blue.


Comment from Sporadic Small Arms Fire
Time: April 26, 2013, 8:30 am

On an unrelated matter, this handsome rascal just begs him for some Taco Font. He already gots the hat.

I am a marijuana virgin and I do not require any chemical stimulant to giggle like a tickled goat when I see the prim and dapper Mr. Lakhan. Could NOT happen to a nicer (or weepier) Father in Law.

http://bit.ly/15UKie6


Comment from (+) (-)
Time: April 26, 2013, 9:03 am

Barak in all his resplendent glory.

http://i.imgur.com/kdmX8Mc.jpg

Photoshop, Dame Stoat! Photoshop like a wind!


Comment from Tom
Time: April 26, 2013, 10:09 am

Bill Bryson has the following passage in Neither Here Nor There after having discussed the fact that Dutch sounds amazingly similar to English. So much so that he kept straining to understand it as though he was listening to a conversation that was just out of listening range. The bit below happens as he tries to book a room in a Dutch B&B:

I asked the kind-faced proprietor if he had a single room.
‘Oh, I don’t believe so,’ he said, ‘but let me check with my wife.’
He thrust his head through a doorway of beaded curtains and called,
‘Marta, what stirs in your leggings? Are you most moist?’
From the back a voice bellowed, ‘No, but I tingle when I squirt.’
‘Are you of assorted odours?’ ‘Yes, of beans and sputum.’
‘And what of your pits – do they exude sweetness?’ ‘Truly.’
‘Shall I suckle them at eventide?’ ‘Most heartily!’
He returned to me wearing a sad look. ‘I’m sorry, I thought there might have been a cancellation, but unfortunately not.’
‘A smell of petroleum prevails throughout,’ I said by way of thanks and departed.


Comment from CoyoteKhan
Time: April 26, 2013, 11:03 am

…I’m glad I wasn’t the only one to think of Swedish Chef.


Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: April 26, 2013, 1:52 pm

Things I know about the Dutch:
1. They eat eels.
2. They are total suckers for tulips, sometimes spending the price of a house for one.
3. Wooden shoes. Say no more.
4. Women in windows, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
5. A Dutch boy became a hero for putting his finger in a big Dutch Dyke, because he thought there was a wet spot.


Comment from Wolfus Aurelius
Time: April 26, 2013, 2:48 pm

Thanks to Anonymous, who posted :

“Good butter and good cheese
Is good English and good Friese.”

. . . so I didn’t have to.

There’s also “Dutch courage,” “going Dutch,” “[talking to someone like a] Dutch uncle,” “being in Dutch.” And “Dutch Girl Cleanser.”


Comment from Deborah
Time: April 26, 2013, 3:18 pm

Did anyone have singer George Jones in the Dead Pool? He died this morning in Nashville.


Comment from Stark Dickflüssig
Time: April 26, 2013, 3:26 pm

He was a singer? What did he singe?


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: April 26, 2013, 5:13 pm

The key thing about William III’s accession wasn’t William III: it was that it ushered in ‘the Glorious Revolution’ of which the Bill Of Rights was a key component.

There is a good case to be made that the Bill of Rights is the key ancestor of the American Constitution and, some claim, of the War of Independence itself.


Comment from thefritz
Time: April 26, 2013, 5:15 pm

Cap’n Bob, She’s a fine looking trawler…when it’s time to sell call me..I’m a yacht broker. http://www.seaborneyacht.com/


Comment from Christopher Taylor
Time: April 26, 2013, 5:30 pm

There is a good case to be made that the Bill of Rights is the key ancestor of the American Constitution and, some claim, of the War of Independence itself.

And even further back, the Magna Carta, and related documents. Britain was the birthplace of modern liberty


Comment from Christopher Taylor
Time: April 26, 2013, 5:31 pm

Did anyone have singer George Jones in the Dead Pool?

Yeah, he stopped loving her today. He was a terrific country singer, one of the best.


Comment from mojo
Time: April 26, 2013, 9:36 pm

They’re letting the Russkies into NORAD?

But… They’ll see EVERYTHING! They’ll see the big board!

(NB: NORAD is the North American Aerospace Defense Command, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. You know – where they keep the Stargate.)


Comment from dissent555
Time: April 26, 2013, 11:07 pm

And even further back, the Magna Carta, and related documents. Britain was the birthplace of modern liberty

So what you’re telling me is that in 800 years it’s all going to go to hell just like in MOE (Merry Olde England)?

Somehow I get the feeling it may not take that long . . .


Comment from Stark Dickflüssig
Time: April 27, 2013, 3:31 am

The key thing about William III’s accession wasn’t William III: it was that it ushered in ‘the Glorious Revolution’ of which the Bill Of Rights was a key component.

Sexually.

I Have nowe klew HWæt I was gon=ing to say, Because that was funy to me. Which means I”m a nerd. which means nobody else will get the joke.

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