Amerikaens

Amerikaens ([ˌɑː.meː.riːˈkɑːns]) is a Netherlandic language of the Germanic language family widely spoken across northern America. It initially evolved from a number of Dutch dialects spoken in New Netherland during the 17th and 18th centuries, incorporating influences from immigrant languages such as English, French, and German varieties. It began to be widely recognized as an independent language during the late 18th century, leading to its gradual standardization.

Amerikaens
Amerikaens
Pronunciation	[ˌɑː.meː.riːˈkɑːns]
Language family	Scythian Germanic West Germanic Netherlandic Amerikaens
Early forms	Duits Early Amerikaens Middle Amerikaens
Dialects	(see dialects)
Writing system	Latin
Official status
Official language in	New Netherland Tussenland South Tussenland Amerikaens Free State Opdamsland Boschland
Recognised minority language in	Mexico Panama City Colombia Saint-Domingue
Regulated by	Amerikaens Taelkomisie

Today, it serves as the official language of a number of Amerikaener states such as New Netherland, Tussenland, Boschland, and several others. Since 1910, the language had maintained a standard literary form promulgated by the Amerikaens Taelkomisie and codified in an official encyclopedic dictionary known as the Taelbück. The New Netherland accent is often considered the most prestigious form of the spoken language and thus is generally imitated in formal media and politics.

Nomenclature

Speakers of early forms of Amerikaens mainly referred to their language as Lîg Duyts ('Low Dutch', Leeg Duits in European orthography), a dated term referring to Low German and Dutch dialects. With the independence of New Netherland in the late 18th century, the term Amerikaens gained prominence in accordance with the rise of Amerikaener ethnic identity and the formation of a new national consciousness.

The Dutch term for the language is Amerikaans, while some English speakers may refer to the language simply as 'American Dutch', a term which has been deemed inaccurate and misleading by the Amerikaens Taelkomisie.

Phonology

Since Amerikaens pronunciation differs greatly across the American continent, the prestige accent of New Netherland is often referred to as the standard. It has a native phonemic inventory of 25 consonants and 17 vowels, though the phonetic realization of them varies according to the speaker's socioeconomic, ethnic, and regional background.

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Dorsal	Glottal
Nasal	m	n		ŋ
Plosive	p pʰ b	t tʰ d	tʃ	k kʰ g
Fricative	f v	s z	ʃ ʒ	χ	h
Approximant	w	l		j
Rhotic		r

Vowels

	Front		Central	Back		Diphthongs
	unrounded	rounded		unrounded	rounded	front	back
Close	i iː	yː			u(ː)	iw
Close-mid	eː				o(ː)
Mid	ɛ	œ œː	ə	ʌ	ɔ ɔː	œu	ɔw ɔi
Near-open	æ æː					æi
Open				ɑ ɑː			ɑw ɑi

Amerikaens vowel shift

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Amerikaens underwent a mostly qualitative vowel shift. Front short vowels were lowered, open vowels were backed or rounded, some vowels were lengthened, and two had experienced mergers ([ʏ] → /ʌ/, [ø] → /œ/) likely due to non-Dutch influences. In total, four vowels found in Dutch were either eliminated or never adopted ([aː], [ʏ], [ø], [ɪ]) in Amerikaens. Diphthongs had also changed during this process: [œy] to [œu] and ij [ɛi] to ÿ [ɑi]/[æi].

Dutch	Amerikaens	Example
ɪ	ɛ	[ɪk] ik	[ɛk] ik	'I'
ɛ	æ	[wɛx] weg	[wæχ] weg	'Road'
ɑ	ɑ	[bɑŋk] bank	[bɑŋk] banck	'Bench'
	ɑː	[ɑxt] acht	[ɑːχt] agt	'Eight'
	ʌ	[pɑt] pad	[pʌt] padt	'Toad'
ʏ		[lʏxt] lucht	[lʌχt] lught	'Sky'
o		[os] os	[ʌs] os	'Ox'
	o	[oːk] ook	[oːk] ök	'Also'
	ɔː	[ons]	[ɔːns]	'Us'
i	iː	[tin] tien	[tiːn] tîn	'Ten'
u	uː	[stul] stoel	[stuːl] stül	'Chair', 'seat'
eː	eː	[ˈne.ɣə(n)] negen	[ˈneː.χə] nege	'Nine'
	ɛə, ɛː	[neːr] neer	[nɛːr] nîr	'Near'
	iː	[eːn] een	[iːn] în	'One'
aː	ɑː	[jaːr] jaar	[jɑːr] jaer	'Year'
	ɔː	[ˈɦaː.vər] haver	[ˈhɔː.fər] hafer	'Oats'
ɛi	ɑi	[ˈstrɛi̯kə(n)] strijken	[ˈstrɑikə] strÿcke	'To iron'
	æi	[vɛi̯f] vijf	[væif] vÿf	'Five'
ø	œ	[nøːs] neus	[nœz] neus	'Nose'
œy	œu	[ɦœy̯s] huis	[hœus] huys	'House'

Orthography

Amerikaens orthography was first widely standardized by law in 1910 with the publication of the first edition of the Taelbück in New Netherland. Since then, the Taelbück has been considered the unequivocal authority on Amerikaens spelling in north America. Its conventions, derived mainly from old Dutch orthography, has also incorporated innovations by formalizing the use of diacritics.

Dutch	aa	d	ee	ei	f	ij	k	l	m	oo	oe	ui	uu
Amerikaens	ae	dt	î	ey	v	ÿ	ck	ll	mm	ö	ü	uy	ue

The use of ö and ü has been controversial as they represent entirely different phonetic values in Amerikaens compared to all other Germanic languages, thus creating confusion. Numerous orthographic reforms have been proposed in order to address issues such as this. However they have all been rejected by the Taelkomisie, which has been characterized as a conservative institution in modern times.

Sound change

Lenition is prevalent in Amerikaens, especially affecting consonants in the middle of words. Most notably, it affects the suffix -tie. Initially, the suffix was realized as /tsi/ but has since shifted solely to /si/. Deletion of final sounds (coda) is also common; final consonants and vowels, commonly n and e, are elided. These changes are markedly reflected in modern Amerikaens orthography; for example, Dutch politie has become Amerikaens polisie (/pʌ.ˈliː.si/, lit. 'police').

• Dutch tevreden → tevrede (/təˈvreː.də/, lit. content, satisfied)
• Dutch zeide → zeyd (/zæit/, lit. said)

Letter-sound correspondence

Amerikaens uses a number of graphemes to represent sounds, including several digraphs, trigraphs, and quadgraphs.

Consonants Grapheme IPA initial final b /b/ /b/, /p/ ch /ʃ/ d /d/ /d/, /t/ dj /ʒ/, /dʲ/ f /f/ gh /χ/ g /g/ /k/ h /h/, Ø j /j/ k /k/ l /l/ m /m/ n /n/ ng /ŋ/ p /p/ r /r/ s /s/ /s/, /z/ sj /ʃ/, /sʲ/ sch /ʃ/ t /t/ tsch /tʃ/ tch v /v/ /v/, /f/ w /w/ z /z/

Vowels Grapheme IPA checked free a /ɑ(ː)/, /ʌ/ /ɑ(ː)/ /ə/ ae /ɑː/ aei /ɑ(ː)i/ ai au(w) /ɑw(ː)/, /ɔw(ː)/ e /ɛ/ /eː/ /ə/ ey /æi/ eu /y(ː)/, /œ(ː)/ i /ɛ/ /i(ː)/ /ə/ î /eː/ ie /i(ː)/ ieuw /iw/ o /o(ː)/, /œ(ː)/, /ɔ(ː)/ ö /oː/ oi /ɔi/ ou(w) /ɔw/ u /ʌ/, /y/, /œ(ː)/ /yː/ ü /uː/ uy /œu/ ue /y(ː)/ ÿ /i(ː)/ /ɑi/, /æi/

Grammar

Generally speaking, Amerikaens grammar is largely based on the grammars of early modern Dutch, English, and Flemish. It is often considered to have one of the, if not the simplest syntax and morphology of the Germanic languages. The loss and simplification of several features is usually attributed to the language's early role as a lingua franca between several ethnolinguistic groups.

Nouns

Amerikaens only differs between the singular and plural forms, much like English. The plural form is usually created by the addition of the suffix -s. If a word already ends in an s, then an -en is added to signify plurality.

• kind 'child' → kinds 'children'
• cÿns 'feudal tax' → cÿnsen 'feudal taxes'

Amerikaens preserves the possessive genitive case from archaic Dutch declension unlike other Netherlandic varieties. Its survival beyond the late 17th century most probably was influenced by English.

• Dutch de vriend van de man lit. 'the friend of the man' → Amerikaens des mans friendt lit. 'the man's friend'

Pronouns

Like Dutch, Amerikaens pronouns retain case distinction; subject (nominative), object (accusative), and possessive (genitive). Pronouns occur in a stressed form and an unstressed form (shown in brackets). The stressed form retains the whole original vowel and is used mainly in formal situations or when distinction is necessary.

Person	Subject	Object	Possessive
1st singular	Ik ('k)	Mÿ (me)	Mÿn (men)
2nd singular	Jÿ (je)	Jou (ju)	Jouw (juw)
3rd singular, masculine	Hÿ (he)	Hem (em)	Hÿs (hes)
3rd singular, feminine	Sÿ (se)	Her (er)	Hers (ers)
1st plural	Wÿ (we)	Ons
2nd plural	Jul		Juls
3rd plural, for a person	Hun		Huns
3rd plural, for an object	It		Its

Determiners

Only two articles, a definitive (de) and an indefinitive (în), exist in Amerikaens. They may be inflected in the genitive form (for example, Koninckrÿck der Nederlands lit. 'Kingdom of the Netherlands').

	Singular	Plural	Indefinite
Nominative	de		în ('n)
Genitive	des	der	îns ('ns)

Demonstratives are words used to distinguish entities being referred to. As grammatical gender does not exist, there are only four demonstrative determiners in Amerikaens. Proximal indicates that the entities are close to the speaker, while distal incidates that they are far away.

	Singular	Plural	English
Proximal	dese		'This', 'these'
Distal	die		'That', 'those'
Possessive	dies	dier	'Their's', 'the latter's'

Verbs

Amerikaens is considered a tenseless language as verbs do not have morphological tenses; they do not conjugate or inflect. The infinitive form of the verb is complimented by a pronoun and an auxiliary verb to indicate different tenses.

Tense	Form	Amerikaens	Dutch	English
Infinitive		Ît(e)	Eten	(To) eat
Present	Pronoun + verb	Ik ît	Ik eet	I eat
Past	Pronoun + hab + verb	Ik hab ît	Ik at	I ate
Future	Pronoun + zhal + verb	Ik zhal ît	Ik zal eten	I will eat
Continuous aspect
Present	Pronoun + dü + verb	Ik dü ît	Ik ben aan het eten	I am eating
Past	Pronoun + dîd + verb	Ik dîd ît	Ik was aan het eten	I was eating
Future	Pronoun + zhal dü + verb	Ik zhal dü ît	—	I will be eating

Vocabulary

Main article: Amerikaens vocabulary

Amerikaens vocabulary is predominately Germanic in origin with significant Latinate and indigenous American influences. The language has also adopted numerous terms from Corean, Chinese, as well as Slavic and Semitic languages following waves of immigration to Amerikaener northern America in the 19th and 20th centuries. Some varieties of Amerikaens may show marked influence from a particular language; for example, 20% of the lexicon of Free Stater Amerikaens derives from Spanish.

Notes

1. ^ /tʃ/'s allophones include [tɕ], [dʒ], and [c], while /ʃ/ can be realized as [ɕ].
2. ^ While the majority of speakers tend to devoice voiced consonants in final position, a significant portion of Amerikaens speakers retain them. This can be attributed to the loss of Dutch assimilation rules in some dialects and sociolects.
3. ^ /χ/ formed as a merger of the original Dutch phonemes [ɣ] and [x]. Before the semi-vowel /j/, it can be fronted to [ç].
4. ^ /h/ has two allophones, [h] and [ɦ].
5. ^ The Dutch /ʋ/ split into phonemes /w/ and /v/ in Amerikaens.
6. ^ Amerikaens speakers of a Slavic background often velarize /l/ as [ɫ] more than others.
7. ^ /r/ has numerous allophones; [r], [ʁ], [ɹ] and [ɾ].
8. ^ Allophones of /u/ include [u], [uː], and [ʊ].
9. ^ A process of front vowel lowering occured in Amerikaens. Dutch [ɪ] lowered to [ɛ], [ɛ] to [æ]
10. ^ Dutch [ø] and [œ] have lost distinction, with both having phonemically merged into /œ/.
11. ^ Dutch /aː/, a development of the late 17th century, corresponds to phonemes /ɑː/ and /ɔː/ in Amerikaens. This phonological feature, characteristic of the southern Netherlands, was brought to the Amerikaener world by the earliest settlers.
12. ^ Occurs in word-final position.
13. ^ Occurs in word-medial and word-final position.

See also

• List of languages
• Amerikaeners