Talk:Holland
From Academic Kids
I'm from The Netherlands (Utrecht), and I'll make it clear to you. Between Dutch people, the word "Holland" is never used to refer to our country, people will always call it "Nederland". Strangely enough, we still use many words derived from Holland, which apply to all the provinces. Like Dutch cheese is translated as Hollandse kaas. Nobody ever says Nederlandse kaas. Holland is also often used in conjuction with our national soccer team. Probaly because it's shorter than Nederland and easier to use in songs.
To people from other countries, we often use Holland to refer to our country. The reason is simple: When you say you're from Holland (even when pronounced in Dutch), everybody immediately knows which country that is, since the word Holland is often the same or almost the same in other languages (Olanda, La Hollande etc.) In other languages, "The Netherlands" are often liturally translated (like Pays Bas in French), so these are much less reconizible for Dutchmen.
In addition, the word "Hollanders" is used in the Northern, Eastern and Southern parts of The Netherlands to refer to people from the Western and center parts of The Netherlands. Quink.
203.0.180.2, the text you keep adding is incorrect. The Netherlands is no longer used for Belgium, an no Belgian is offended by the Netherlands referring to that country, as no Belgian considers himself as such. Also, common usage doesn't make things correct. We often say England or Great Britain when we mean the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Northern Ireland), or America when we mean the United States (of America). Jeronimo
- It is not the job of an encyclopedia to tell people what to use. As a Limburger I may be insulted by the Netherlands being called Holland, but that does not change the fact that a significant amount of English speakers refer to the Netherlands as Holland.--user:Branko
- When I lived in The Netherlands I met lots of Dutch people who explained it's common for them to refer to their country as Holland, although I think this only applies when they're speaking in English. In "Nederlands", as far as I remember, they never refer to their country as Holland. It annoyed the hell out of me that they'd use the same logic for Scotland and England. We Scots DO mind! :) - dduck Dduck 13:06, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I've edited the text further regarding the Holland/Netherlands issue, see Talk:Netherlands. Also amended the etymology and removed Holland Tunnel which I believe is named after its engineer/builder, not this Holland. Scipius 21:28 Sep 20, 2002 (UTC)
From my own education the etymological link to holt land is incorrect, for a number of reasons too: 1) holt is a scandinavian root, while hol is a native root, 2) the evolution of Dutch in language would not have dropped a t that easily, 3) that region of the netherlands is, and has always been, a very low-density area for woods, so the naming would be totally illogical as well.
- This can't be proven - and then there were plenty of Vikings and Saxons around at the time.
- In fact it's very common in Hollandic to drop the t's (never forget the standard language is largely Brabantian)- besides the region might well have been Frisian.
- Perhaps the name originally referred to the wooded transitional area between the dunes and the peat lands as the latter probably were almost uninhabited. And then bushes are "wood" too.--MWAK 11:51, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
