Hollandic dialect

Hollandic or Hollandish (Dutch: Hollands [ˈɦɔlɑnts]) is, together with Brabantian, the most frequently used dialect of the Dutch language. Other important Low Franconian language varieties spoken in the same area are Zeelandic, East Flemish, West Flemish and Limburgish.

Development

Originally in the later county of Holland, Old Frisian was spoken. Low Franconian settlers only came in the 12th century and 13th century when Flemish settlers (Frankish speaking) played an important part in draining the swamplands between the coast of Holland and Utrecht. They mixed with the original inhabitants and a Hollandic dialect was created that was partly Franconian, partly Frisian. In the 16th century the Dutch language was standardized, the Brabantian Dutch of Antwerp being the most influential. In that time the written language of the county of Holland, then the most urbanised province in Europe, imitated this Brabantish standard. During the Eighty Years' War and especially after 1585, the sack of Antwerp, and the successes of the Duke of Parma in the 1580s between 100,000 and 200,000 of Brabantish and Flemish Calvinist (and other) refugees and emigrants settled in the cities of Holland proper, which had the result of creating a mixture of their Dutch with the Dutch of the residents before this immigration. This new language perhaps locally destroyed most of the original Hollandic dialects, replacing it with Brabantian influences, further diluting the Frisian influences on the Dutch language, and certainly slowed linguistic change through the influence on spoken language of the very conservative written standard. As a result, nowadays standard Dutch has many similarities with late 16th century Brabantian.