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Sunday, May 14, 2023

05-14-2023-1328 - Low Countries, Low Lands, etc. (draft)

The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands (Dutch: de Lage Landen, French: les Pays-Bas, Luxembourgish: déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands (Dutch: de Nederlanden), Flanders, Belgica, or Benelux, is a coastal lowland region in Northwestern Europe forming the lower basin of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta and consisting of three countries: Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Geographically and historically, the area also includes parts of France and Germany such as French Flanders and the German regions of East Frisia and Cleves. During the Middle Ages, the Low Countries were divided into numerous semi-independent principalities.[1][2]

Historically, the regions without access to the sea linked themselves politically and economically to those with access to form various unions of ports and hinterland,[3] stretching inland as far as parts of the German Rhineland. Because of this, nowadays not only physically low-altitude areas, but also some hilly or elevated regions are considered part of the Low Countries, including Luxembourg and the south of Belgium. Within the European Union, the region's political grouping is still referred to as the Benelux (short for Belgium-Netherlands-Luxembourg).

During the Roman Empire, the region contained a militarised frontier and contact point between Rome and Germanic tribes.[4] With the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Low Countries were the scene of the early independent trading centres that marked the reawakening of Europe in the 12th century. In that period, they rivalled northern Italy as one of the most densely populated regions of Western Europe. Guilds and councils governed most of the cities along with a figurehead ruler; interaction with their ruler was regulated by a strict set of rules describing what the latter could and could not expect. All of the regions mainly depended on trade, manufacturing and the encouragement of the free flow of goods and craftsmen.[5] Dutch and French dialects were the main languages used in secular city life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Countries

The Low Countries comprise the coastal Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta region in Western Europe, whose definition usually includes the modern countries of Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands.[1][2] Both Belgium and the Netherlands derived their names from earlier names for the region, due to nether meaning "low" and Belgica being the Latinized name for all the Low Countries,[3] a nomenclature that became obsolete after Belgium's secession in 1830.

The Low Countries—and the Netherlands and Belgium—had in their history exceptionally many and widely varying names, resulting in equally varying names in different languages. There is diversity even within languages: the use of one word for the country and another for the adjective form is common. This holds for English, where Dutch is the adjective form for the country "the Netherlands". Moreover, many languages have the same word for both the country of the Netherlands and the region of the Low Countries, e.g., French (les Pays-Bas) and Spanish (los Países Bajos). The complicated nomenclature is a source of confusion for outsiders, and is due to the long history of the language, the culture and the frequent change of economic and military power within the Low Countries over the past 2,000 years. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminology_of_the_Low_Countries

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernacular

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_English_wool_trade

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endonym_and_exonym


Names from low-lying geographical features

On the title page of Descrittione (1581), an account of the history and the arts of the Low Countries, no less than three names are used to indicate the Low Countries: 1) Belgia (alongside the woman figure on the left), 2) i Paesi Bassi and 3) Germania inferiore (both to the right)

Place names with "low(er)" or neder, lage, nieder, nether, nedre, bas and inferior are used everywhere in Europe. They are often used in contrast with an upstream or higher area whose name contains words such as "upper", boven, oben, supérieure and haut. Both downstream at the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, and low at the plain near the North Sea apply to the Low Countries.[clarification needed] However, the related geographical location of the "upper" ground changed over time tremendously, and rendered over time several names for the area now known as the Low Countries:

  • Germania inferior: Roman province established in AD 89 (parts of Belgium and the Netherlands), downstream from Germania Superior (southern Germany). In the 16th century the term was used again, though without this contrastive counterpart.
  • Lower Lorraine: 10th century duchy (covered much of the Low Countries), downstream from Upper Lorraine (northern France)
  • Niderlant: Since the 12th century, Niderlant ("Low land") was mentioned in the Nibelungenlied as the region between the Meuse and the lower Rhine. In this context the higher ground began approximately at upstream Cologne.[clarification needed]
  • Les pays de par deçà: used by 15th century Burgundian rulers who resided in the Low Countries, meaning "the lands over here". On the other hand, Les pays de par delà or "the lands over there" was used for their original homeland Burgundy (central France).[40]
  • Pays d'embas: used by 16th century Habsburg ruler Mary, Queen of Hungary, meaning "land down here", used as opposed to her other possessions on higher grounds in Europe (Austria and Hungary). Possibly developed from "Les pays de par deçà".[41]

Netherlands

Under Philip the Good (1396–1467), Duke of Burgundy, the provinces of the Netherlands began to grow together: Flanders, Artois, Namur, Holland, Zeeland, Hainaut, Brabant, Limburg and Luxembourg were ruled in personal union. He has been honored by later humanists as the founding father of the Netherlands. (Portrait by Early Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1450).
The Low Countries in 1786 with the Austrian Netherlands highlighted

Apart from its topographic usage for the then multi-government area of the Low Countries, the 15th century saw the first attested use of Nederlandsch as a term for the Dutch language, by extension hinting at a common ethnonym for people living in different fiefdoms.[42][43] This was used alongside the long-standing Duytsch (the Early Modern spelling of the earlier Dietsc or Duutsc). The most common Dutch term for the Dutch language remained Nederduytsch or Nederduitsch until it was gradually superseded by Nederlandsch in the early 1900s, the latter becoming the sole name for the language by 1945. Earlier, from the mid-16th century on, the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) had divided the Low Countries into the northern Dutch Republic (Latin: Belgica Foederata) and the southern Spanish Netherlands (Latin: Belgica Regia), introducing a distinction, i.e. Northern vs. Southern Netherlands; the latter evolved into the present-day Belgium after a brief unification in the early 19th century.

The somewhat dated English adjective "Netherlandish", meaning "from the Low Countries", is derived directly from the Dutch adjective Nederlands or Nederlandsch. It is typically used in reference to paintings or music produced anywhere in the Low Countries during the 15th and early 16th centuries. There are works of art that are now collectively called "Early Netherlandish painting", although the term it aspires to replace, namely "Flemish primitives", remains in use. In music the Franco-Flemish School is also known as the Netherlandish School. Later art and artists from the southern Catholic provinces of the Low Countries are usually called Flemish and those from the northern Protestant provinces Dutch, but art historians sometimes use "Netherlandish art" for art of the Low Countries produced before 1830, i.e., until the secession of Belgium from the Netherlands to distinguish the period from what came after.

Apart from this largely intellectual use, the term "Netherlandish" as adjective is not commonly used in English, unlike its Dutch equivalent. Many languages, however, do have a cognate or calque derived from the Dutch adjective Nederlands:

Toponyms

Low Countries

The Low Countries (Dutch: Lage Landen) refers to the historical region de Nederlanden: those principalities located on and near the mostly low-lying land around the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. That region corresponds to all of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, forming the Benelux. The name "Benelux" is formed from joining the first two or three letters of each country's name Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg. It was first used to name the customs agreement that initiated the union (signed in 1944) and is now used more generally to refer to the geopolitical and economical grouping of the three countries, while "Low Countries" is used in a more cultural or historical context.

In many languages the nomenclature "Low Countries" can both refer to the cultural and historical region comprising present-day Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, and to "the Netherlands" alone, e.g., Les Pays-Bas in French, Los Países Bajos in Spanish and i Paesi Bassi in Italian. Several other languages have literally translated "Low Countries" into their own language to refer to the Dutch language:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminology_of_the_Low_Countries

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighty_Years%27_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Frisian


The Latin title Index Batavicus is translated in the subtitle (not shown) as Naamrol van de Batavise en Hollandse schrijvers ("Index of Batavian and Dutch writers"). The Dutch Virgin sits on the Dutch lion. Left in the background a bookcase bearing the coats of arms of the Dutch Republic (1701).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batavian_Legion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_Indies


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminology_of_the_Low_Countries#Frisian

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salian_Franks


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowland_paca

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowland_Scottish

 


A guild (/ɡɪld/ GILD) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular territory. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradespeople belonging to a professional association. They sometimes depended on grants of letters patent from a monarch or other ruler to enforce the flow of trade to their self-employed members, and to retain ownership of tools and the supply of materials, but most were regulated by the local government. Guild members found guilty of cheating the public would be fined or banned from the guild. A lasting legacy of traditional guilds are the guildhalls constructed and used as guild meeting-places. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upland_and_lowland

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophone

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paronym

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Part_of_speech#Open_and_closed_classes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filler_(linguistics)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_forms_of_word_play

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assimilation_(phonology)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_salad

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homonym

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homograph

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heteronym_(linguistics)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_error

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_single_cause

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavior-shaping_constraint

 

 

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliteration

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunking_(psychology)

 

 

 




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