You drive through Drenthe and see them everywhere: place names that end in -lo or -loo. Dwingeloo, Grolloo, Taarlo, Zweeloo. It seems like a small difference, but it doesn’t feel arbitrary. When do you write one ‘o’ and when do you write two? And is there any meaning behind that?
“The word lo or loo comes from the Germanic lauhaz, which means an open space in a forest or grove on high sandy ground,” says Arja Olthof, regional language officer at Huus van de Taol. Those kinds of places were attractive to live. You were sheltered, but also had room for agriculture.
“Loo often comes as a suffix, like Balloo (Baal), Dwingeloo (Dwingel) Grolloo (Grol), Leggeloo (Leggel), Langelo (Langel) Taarlo (Taorl), Tynaarlo (Tynaorl) and Zweeloo (Zweel/Sweel) but the loess word ‘Loo’ also exists. Deink mar an ‘Paleis het Loo’,” Olthof explains.
Then the question remains: why do you write one village with one ‘o’ and the other with two? According to Olthof, this mainly has to do with how spelling was used in different times.
“The spelling of the Dutch place name can be given in two ways, either single or double. This has to do purely with the writer’s opinion about how long vowels are written, or how the spelling rules are used.”
In other words: there is no difference in meaning -lo and -loo. It is mainly a matter of how someone thought it should be put on paper.
A good example of this is Dwingeloo. That place name was written with one ‘o’ for centuries. “The place name Dwingelo has been written down since its first written mention in 1181,” says Olthof.
This did not change until 1898. “Then mayor FEB van den Biesheuvel, on his own initiative, sent a letter to the Minister of Justice with the failure to write the name of that day with two o’s. This failure was acknowledged, and there was an adjustment in the writing style of that time. Dwingelo became Dwingeloo from then on.”
In Drenthe itself it makes less difference, Olthof explains. “But in Dreints we don’t have any problems with that, that’s why the fire often falls.”
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