Five Brothers and a War

History—Pre-history to 1400 AD

Even being a very small country, there are distinct differences between regions, and even between cities. These distinctions continue to this day in language and thought. There are very noticeable differences between the accents of various cities, despite the fact that the cities are relatively close together. The way a person from Amsterdam talks is different from the way someone from Den Haag speaks, which is in turn different from the way a resident of Rotterdam talks. Yet those are far more similar than the almost separate language spoken by the people of Limburg. The Dutch spoken in northern Belgium is again very distinct. In the United States, (although far larger) the accent distinction is similar. For example, there are huge distinctions between New York City (which even has distinctions between its boroughs) and New Jersey or Boston. And of course those northeast accents are completely different from those of the south, which have their own idiosyncrasies. A South Carolina accent is different from a Georgia accent which is very different from a Louisiana accent which is again completely different from a Texas accent. Friesland in Holland is unique in many ways, and not only in terms of language, though Frisian is still an official Dutch language. The northern sector of Holland has been inhabited by the Frisians, who had an on-again, off-again independent status over the centuries. While Frisians were never conquered by the Romans, they certainly did have a great deal of interaction with them. Independence was a constant motivation that continued in resisting all external forces, including Christianity. As a part of its resistance to Christian expansion, Frisians murdered the highly revered missionary Bonifacius in 754. It took many generations, and an acceptance by the Christian church of the Frisians heathen beliefs to finally convert them. For example, the Teuton Yule, which honored the lengthening of days was converted into Christmas. Fertility eggs, long a symbol of the Spring season were amalgamated into the Christian Easter festival. Other Frisian tenets were simply accepted wholesale—such as the persecution of witches. Tests of potential conversion of visiting missionaries were undertaken to see whether the Christian God they professed was more powerful than their own gods. The Frisians were aided in their independence fight by the forces of nature when floods changed the geography of the region, leaving them far more isolated. Rising sea levels expanded the inland lake known in Latin as Lacus Flevo , (in Dutch as Flevomeer , and in English as “Lake Flevo”) into the Zuiderzee (Southern Sea). Note that the Nordzee (“North Sea”) and the Zuiderzee take their bearings from a Frisian perspective—the northern body of water being the North Sea and the southern body being the Zuider Zee. Also note that the newest Dutch province is Flevoland, having been reclaimed from the sea by means of draining the water from the area and creating a polder.

holland

Five Brothers and a War

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