A Question For The Dutch

[WhiteKnight77]

I am reading a book about an operation in The Netherlands and am interested in the meanings of specific endings to certain words.

I know that straat mean street, but what do these mean?

Seweg as in Utrechtseweg (I know Utrecht is a city in The Netherlands)

I have also seen weg as Parallelweg

I may be incorrect in this but bouwing as in Westerbouwing

These all refer to places in Arnhem, a city I visited some years ago (along with Oosterbeek), and may have walked around some of these places. It would help to understand a bit more if I knew what these referred to.

[Dutchgamer1982]

you could have googled ..

but ok..

weg means road
we even have streets like

straatweg (streetroad)

se.. is just an old suffic meaning "zijn" which means his/their

so Utrecht (cityname se (their) weg (road)
the road of utrecht basicly.

in this context btw it can both mean "of" or like..
in how chinatown is not in china.. but is a certain district..
likewise a road going from a city to another city often was called (name city that road goes to) se (their) road).. or a road that had a lot of merchants from another city living in it.. could be named likewise to that other city.

[Dutchgamer1982]

beek.,. means brook..
ooster means easter..
so oosterbeek - eastern brook.

bouwing is an old dutch term not really used anymore
it refered to a farm that was in between the summer and winterdike of rivers and thus in land that had some floodrisk
(so it is a specific type of farm.. like a ranch has annimals but also is a farm.. like that)

wester means western

so westernbouwing is thus the western farm..

the word bouw (again old dutch no longer just) means "place in active use"
the opposite would be land left to nature..

we still commonly use the word gebouw (meaning building)
the suffic ge from germany ghe.. also is used in verbs
for example
doen (do)
gedaan (did)

we also use the word bebouwing, basicly meaning area's that are part of habitated spots...
meaning basicly a whole area not just the buildings (that would be gebouwen with -en meaning more than one) but the streets, parks.. the whole developed area...
ironicly here farmland generally does not could as bebouwing.. but the farmbuilding itself does.

placenames ofcourse often are given long ago and thus can use old dialects and words no longer used.

[WhiteKnight77]

I did try Google, but seweg just brought up sewer, just like Den Brink brought a used car place in Arnhem.

[Dutchgamer1982]

Originally posted by WhiteKnight77:

I did try Google, but seweg just brought up sewer, just like Den Brink brought a used car place in Arnhem.

yeah you would have to recognise it utrecht - se - weg
seweg is nothing:)

den is old dutch for de.. aka "the"
back when duch still had namefalle like german still has
we used to have den der des in dutch too but we lost it long ago
while german kept theirs

brink again old dutch..
it ment a piece of grassland on the margins of a field or village (sometimes it could also be the grassland at the center... basicly the central square but before paving over was a thing..

in very rural area's you could have that happening as they needed a marketsquare where they could trade cattle.. and there was not enough population to have a church and shops in the center

thus a brink can both be the center of town (often thus paved over old grassland) or the foremer outskirts (though ofcourse if cities have grown since a lotl.. that brink region might now be in the middle of it:)

but why are you trying to translate placenames..
they most usually don't matter for the story..

unless your story is like in the very frisian era of 500ad or perhaps early middle ages of 700-1200 ad?

basicly it;s like wondering why so many britisch towns called -ham -brook or -wytch
which makes sence if you look at old english or even celtic.

with arnhem coming from very very old dutch or even old german
arn -heem
meaning eagle - home
home of the eargles

[L1qu1dator]

Weg is probably a road or route, same word is in German.

[RiO]

Originally posted by Dutchgamer1982:

brink again old dutch..
it ment a piece of grassland on the margins of a field or village

Old Dutch indeed, and brought to English through its mixed Romance and Germanic roots. The word survived in expressions such as "on the brink of [..]" indicating something that's on the verge of occurring, i.e. the event itself is in the shadow-zone between not occurring, or actually occurring. It's not in the meadows, it's not on the cobblestone. It's in the small thin line of unkempt weeds separating them. It's on the brink.

Originally posted by Dutchgamer1982:

we used to have den der des in dutch too but we lost it long ago

We didn't lose it. " 's ochtends" is an abbreviation for "des ochtends" - literally: "of the morning," though the genitive case here should be read as "within the time belonging to" aka "in the morning."

It survives in a more literal sense in some city names like 's-Hertogenbosch or in full: "des hertogen bosch" aka "het bos van de hertog," in English: "the forest of the duke." (The city owes its name to Duke Hendrik the 1st of Brabant, who gave it borough rights.)

Colloquially this place is referred to as Den Bosch - lit. "his forest."

Same with capital of the Netherlands. The city's full name is 's-Gravenhage or in full "des graven hage" aka "het jachtgebied van de graaf," in English: "the count's hunting grounds."

And colloquially referred to as Den Haag - lit. "his hunting grounds."

Yeah- the english way to refer to Den Haag as The Hague is a mistranslation by an idiot that didn't understand the etymology of the bastardization of the word 'haghe' (hunting ground) into 'hage,' and thought it had something to do with a 'haag' - in English: a hague, or hedge.

[Dutchgamer1982]

Originally posted by RiO:

Originally posted by Dutchgamer1982:

brink again old dutch..
it ment a piece of grassland on the margins of a field or village

Old Dutch indeed, and brought to English through its mixed Romance and Germanic roots. The word survived in expressions such as "on the brink of [..]" indicating something that's on the verge of occurring, i.e. the event itself is in the shadow-zone between not occurring, or actually occurring. It's not in the meadows, it's not on the cobblestone. It's in the small thin line of unkempt weeds separating them. It's on the brink.

Originally posted by Dutchgamer1982:

we used to have den der des in dutch too but we lost it long ago

We didn't lose it. " 's ochtends" is an abbreviation for "des ochtends" - literally: "of the morning," though the genitive case here should be read as "within the time belonging to" aka "in the morning."

It survives in a more literal sense in some city names like 's-Hertogenbosch or in full: "des hertogen bosch" aka "het bos van de hertog," in English: "the forest of the duke."

I did not want to make it too complex with all the irregularities in dutch for our friend:)

btw I can see 's morgens and 's avonds eventually morphing into smorgens and savonds
(loosing the ' alltogether.. it's a common made writing error.. and you know how it is with grammar if enough people make the mistake.. than the mistake becomes the official way to write it..

we lost it in the sence that

Des Grave ende syne jonckfrauwe synd aenwesig by den sgool

(it always bugged be how in dutch we replaced in many words G for CH
and Y for IJ or IE

[AdahnGorion]

Ik heb honger

[Dutchgamer1982]

Originally posted by AdahnGorion:

Ik heb honger :cow:

het irriterend me altijd als het zo gezegd word.
technisch correct.
maar
ik BEN hongerig of ik heb TREK
voelt gewoon als een nettere manier om dat te zeggen.

ik heb & ik heeft.. net als me kind en de zout...
zijn van die kleine ergernissen;)

[AdahnGorion]

Originally posted by Dutchgamer1982:

Originally posted by AdahnGorion:

Ik heb honger

het irriterend me altijd als het zo gezegd word.
technisch correct.
maar
ik BEN hongerig of ik heb TREK
voelt gewoon als een nettere manier om dat te zeggen.

ik heb & ik heeft.. net als me kind en de zout...
zijn van die kleine ergernissen;)

That is why I said it like that, I know Dutch people would react to it.
But you know what they say.....

Het komt veel aan op de manier waarop men iets zegt

[RiO]

Originally posted by Dutchgamer1982:

Originally posted by AdahnGorion:

Ik heb honger :cow:

het irriterend me altijd als het zo gezegd word.
technisch correct.
maar
ik BEN hongerig of ik heb TREK
voelt gewoon als een nettere manier om dat te zeggen.

ik heb & ik heeft.. net als me kind en de zout...
zijn van die kleine ergernissen;)

There's a particular segment in one of Ronald Goedemondt's old stand-up shows; "Binnen de lijntjes," that you'd love. ( Google for either "Hüde" or "fliepeltje" and you'll find it.)

[WhiteKnight77]

Originally posted by Dutchgamer1982:

Originally posted by WhiteKnight77:

I did try Google, but seweg just brought up sewer, just like Den Brink brought a used car place in Arnhem.

yeah you would have to recognise it utrecht - se - weg
seweg is nothing:)

den is old dutch for de.. aka "the"
back when duch still had namefalle like german still has
we used to have den der des in dutch too but we lost it long ago
while german kept theirs

brink again old dutch..
it ment a piece of grassland on the margins of a field or village (sometimes it could also be the grassland at the center... basicly the central square but before paving over was a thing..

in very rural area's you could have that happening as they needed a marketsquare where they could trade cattle.. and there was not enough population to have a church and shops in the center

thus a brink can both be the center of town (often thus paved over old grassland) or the foremer outskirts (though ofcourse if cities have grown since a lotl.. that brink region might now be in the middle of it:)

but why are you trying to translate placenames..
they most usually don't matter for the story..

unless your story is like in the very frisian era of 500ad or perhaps early middle ages of 700-1200 ad?

basicly it;s like wondering why so many britisch towns called -ham -brook or -wytch
which makes sence if you look at old english or even celtic.

with arnhem coming from very very old dutch or even old german
arn -heem
meaning eagle - home
home of the eargles

I don't know if you have figured it out yet, but the book I am reading, Arnhem by English author William F. Buckingham and the above places and roads are in the Arnhem-Oosterbeek area with the main road between the two Utrechtseweg (I have walked this road where English airborne troops fought the Germans during Operation Market Garden). The names and places are all part of the story as to where the fighting occurred.

As it is, I think that the higher ups in the British military had their heads up their rear ends when they planned this. One does not land troops in Wolfheze, over 6 1/2 miles, or over 10 kilometers away, when one wants to capture the road bridge in Arnhem now called the Major John Frost Bridge. It is just a shame that 30 Corps did not feel the need to push through to the bridge that was in Frost's unit's hands so that the Allies could keep the bridge.