The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-12-30
DUTCH WORDS COMMON
Sense and Sound of Some Terms Ere
quently Seen in Dispatches.
From the New York Tribune.

quently Seen in Dispatches.
From the New York Tribune.
Matters in South Africa are fast APP
preaching a point where the average
newspaper reader will need little
more than the average knowledge Of
Dutch words to understand what ls
going on, and OF Dutch pronunciations
to talk about it without confusion and
mutual misunderstanding. 1t might
seem strange to Paul Kruger that the
citizens of this originally Dutch settle
ment should be in any doubt as to the
pronunciation of Dutch words; but then
if you come to that, the very lineal de-
scendants of the New York Dutch do
not always know how to pronounce the
names they have inherited, in which
/ strange ignorance they are distanCe1
by the Irish Americans, who often turn
| O'Meara into OMeerer and Mahoney
! into a-ho-ney in two generations
What mlsleads the English-speaking
| New Yorker in the language of the
| Beers is its similarity in spelling to
| German. The confusion is Increased by
| an occasional oversight of the London
| transmitters Of Transvaal news, sub
| stituting, e. g., the German "stein" for
| "steen." the Dutch for stone" II
/ looks as if the Dutch were philologic-
/ ally akin to German more than to Eng
! lish The fact is Just the reverse. Eng
! lish Dutch and Flemish beloag in one
! group of the Teutonic languages Gow
| Dutch); German is the only surviving
| written language of the other group
! High Dutch). This once understood. it
| is not very difficult especially if one
has read a little Chaucer, or even
! Spenser, to guess correctly the mean
! ings of the Transvaal names which will
soon fill the European dispatches.
"Bloemfontein," for instance pro-
| nounCed Bloom -fone- tne"--is Bloom
, Spring, or Flower Spring. Laing's
Mex needs no explanation. Majuba-
/ pronounced. OF course, Ma-yoo- -ba-is
not a Dutch word, except by right of
adoption and conquest. but Kaffir a
Boer general is called a "veldheer" or
field lord" The weld" is simply "the
feld"-the open country, as when it is
said that an army takes the field"
The rural guard or military police of
| the Transvaal are the "VeldwaChteren"
or field watchers. The weld in many
parts of the Transvaal is much cut up
by clefts or ravines, which the news
paper correspondents are sure to call
| by the Cape name of "kloOfs'--prO-
nOunCed "klofes," as, by the way.
| President Kruger's pet name should be
pronounced "Ome Powl." You must
also be sure, if you would do the proper
thing, to speak of Dom Pauls general,
not as If JOubert were a French name,
but with the pronunciation Yowbert
The members of the first ana second
"raads," or orders, Of the legislature
are called "jonkheeren'-prono
''yonkhairen"-or young lords" and
they assemble in the rand huis," pro-
nounced "rahd hOys." The much band
led name Of the individuals who are
excluded from voting. spelled Tit
lander" is pronounced "Oyt-lahn- der"
That part of the Transyaal territory
which has been found to contain the
wealth Of Ophir and Of Golconda com-
bined is the rand" the word means
"diyision" or border linp"-the line
that rends or sewers one state from
another "Witwatersrand" mear s edge
Of the White Water" Many of the
Buer names of places end in "dorf, ''
which is neither more nor less than
"thorp," the Yorkshire name for 4
hamlet: German "dorf" "Stad" is like
the German "stadt," "a city" "Stroom,"
sometimes printed 'strom," is stream"
Berg" means "mountair," but "kopje"
or little head" is also used for smaller
emnences.
one feature of the South African
open country of which much is likely 70
b. heard is the "maaie field" The
English seeking coonists ofter pro-
nOunce the former of these two words
as it would be in English the Dutch
pronunciation is more like nelly" it
means just what it looks--a field where
you get the vegetable material for a
meal. which material in those parts. is
chiefly what Americans call corn and
Englshmen maize. The unfortunate
young Prince Imperial was killed in a
mealie field in the Zulu war. He had
gone on reconnaissance several miles
away from his "laage cad
something like lah-her-which means u
camp, or, as it would be called if the
hosts were a host of wild beasts, his
layer" in modern spelling "lair.'
When hunters or soldiers in the weld
are not in "laager," they are on the
trek" or making tracks, as the
fortV-niners We're i'm the habit of say
Ing And the Dutch settlers who made
the Great Trek across the Vaal river
sixty-five years ago, because the Brit
ish authorities suppressed their "pe.
culiar institution" of slavery, and who
have been blocking up the trek" Ot
advancing civilization. ever since, pro-
nounced their distinctive name Doors"
which, like the German bauer" and
the identical English word means
"rustics" 1t seems a little paradoxlcal
to read Of 1.-The Boor burghers," be-
cause "burgher" bourgeois, or man