When Henk de Boer (37) hears other Dutch people talking on holiday, he pricks up his ears. If it sounds flat Standard Dutch, then he, like most, prefers to duck behind a car. But when he hears the familiar sounds of Volendam, he perks up. “Then you look, make eye contact,” he says. “If they are Volendam people, everything is fine.”
According to De Boer, it’s not just about recognition, but especially about familiarity. “Whether you meet them in Groenlo or Tokyo, you can always ask a Volendammer if they would like to look after your bag.”
Yesterday, Sijmen Tol and Tiny Hoogland from the Grôsk òp ûis Vòlledams Foundation organized an evening about the dialect in a theater hall in Volendam. The duo has long been committed to preserving and promoting the language, and achieved a major victory last year by establishing the language’s first official spelling.
“Our language reflects how the Volendammer is grounded,” says Hoogland. “Without any fuss, and in a direct manner. You don’t say: ‘Would you please close the door?’, but simply: ‘Close the door.'”