Folks - a friend posed this question to me, and now I can't get it out of my head. Those from England are English, from Canada are Canadians, from India are Indians. Why, then, are those from the Netherlands called "Dutch"? Really want to know... A little help? Thanks, all... Peace, UrbanHippie.
Got an even better one for you..........Why were the American Indians American Indians? They came before americans and they weren't from India!!!!!!!
Interesting question. I had to look it up and came back with the following:- This is from Eric van Dijk: In the mid 14th century, the word was Duch and it referred to Germans. By the mid 16th century it had come to refer instead to natives of Holland and the Netherlands. It was actually borrowed from Middle Dutch duutsch (modern, Dutch Duits means `German'). Interestingly, duutsch is from the same source as Old English theodisc `the language belonging to the people' and Old High German diutisc `of the German people' (and in modern German it is, of course, deutsch). Old English theodisc comes from theod `people, race, nation' + isc `ish.' In English we find the old meaning of Dutch, `German,' in the term Pennsylvania Dutch. ???? H'mm (scratching my head) ????
People thik that columbus thought that he was in India, but that doesn't make sense seeing as people in India at that time were called Hindus and Lived in Hindustan. I t'ink it comes from In Dios, (A people) in god.
It comes from the word Diets i think. During the middle-ages that was the language people spoke around here, and Germany. Its the same word as the word Deutsch, as in the German word for German.
I think your right Myrtje, as far as I know Germany and the Netherlands were all one place with no borders, but this was a very long time ago indeed.
