In 1609 the first Dutchmen, Flemings, and Frisians landed on the American East Coast; they brought with them their culture, customs, and religion, and, of course, their language, too. The Dutch language was to remain the official language of the East Coast for half a century. Although the Dutch colony was taken over by the English in 1664, Dutch managed to hold its own surprisingly long in the United States. Four centuries have passed in the meantime – which is what we celebrate in this “Hudson year” – and up to this day, the Dutch traces in the North American languages have not been wiped out. This book describes why that is and what those traces are. It will become abundantly clear that there have been special linguistic and cultural ties between the Low Countries and the United States for a very long time.

At first, Dutch immigrants came to the East Coast of America to trade with the Native Americans. They brought furs back with them to Europe, and in exchange they took all kinds of Dutch products with them to the New World. Much of that was new to the Native Americans, who adopted the Dutch terms for these items, adding them in their languages. In chapter 3, 69 Dutch loanwords that were borrowed by one or more North American Indian languages will be discussed.

When New Netherland was annexed to New England in 1664, English began to compete heavily with Dutch as the primary language in the area. Dutch remained in use for quite a while, however; this was true in (originally) Dutch circles, as well as outside of them. Despite this, Dutch eventually lost more and more ground to English. Just when most Dutch descendants had exchanged Dutch for English, halfway through the nineteenth century, a second wave of Dutch, Flemish, and Frisian immigrants arrived and settled in several American states, bringing Dutch and Frisian to the American continent once more. Some of them quickly exchanged their native language for English, others stuck to Dutch or Frisian. Chapter 1 describes the fates of the Dutch, Flemish, and Frisian languages in relation to both the first and the second wave of immigrants.