• Skua
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      291 month ago

      English-speakers used to use it to mean all non-Scandinavian Germanic peoples. When the Netherlanders became a distinctly separate group Britain had way more contact with them than with anyone else that the word used to cover, so we used it to refer to them specifically

      • @[email protected]
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        11 month ago

        If I remember correctly, this is also one of the leading explanations why the Pennsylvania Dutch are called like that even though they speak German (or a German dialect).

      • kronisk
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        01 month ago

        TIL that “dutch” and “deutsch” comes from the same root!