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216-609: The United East India Company ( Dutch : Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie [vərˈeːnɪɣdə ʔoːstˈɪndisə kɔmpɑˈɲi] ; abbreviated as VOC [veː(j)oːˈseː] ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company , was a chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies , it

432-561: A common ancestor with languages such as English, German, and the Scandinavian languages . All Germanic languages are subject to the Grimm's law and Verner's law sound shifts, which originated in the Proto-Germanic language and define the basic features differentiating them from other Indo-European languages. This is assumed to have taken place in approximately the mid-first millennium BCE in

648-669: A privateer by the town of Middelburg . Both he and Campbell had previously visited China. The crew for the ship was approximately one hundred men. The expedition started well – passing the Cape of Good Hope and crossing the Indian Ocean , the vessel arrived safely in Canton (now known as Guangzhou ), the trading port for foreigners in China at that time, in September 1732. For the next four months, trading

864-461: A schwa . The Middle Dutch dialect areas were affected by political boundaries. The sphere of political influence of a certain ruler often also created a sphere of linguistic influence, with the language within the area becoming more homogenous. Following the contemporary political divisions they are in order of importance: A process of standardisation started in the Middle Ages , especially under

1080-584: A synod taking place in Corbridge , England , where the decisions are being written down " tam Latine quam theodisce " meaning "in Latin as well as common vernacular". According to a hypothesis by De Grauwe, In northern West Francia (i.e. modern-day Belgium) the term would take on a new meaning during the Early Middle Ages , when, within the context of a highly dichromatic linguistic landscape, it came to be

1296-638: A Dutch ship. The Cambodians defeated the VOC in the Cambodian–Dutch War from 1643 to 1644 on the Mekong River. In 1640, the VOC obtained the port of Galle , Ceylon , from the Portuguese and broke the latter's monopoly of the cinnamon trade. In 1658, Gerard Pietersz Hulft laid siege to Colombo , which was captured with the help of King Rajasinghe II of Kandy . By 1659, the Portuguese had been expelled from

1512-559: A comparison between the West Germanic languages, see the sections Phonology, Grammar, and Vocabulary. Dutch dialects are primarily the dialects that are both related with the Dutch language and are spoken in the same language area as the Dutch standard language . Although heavily under the influence of the standard language, some of them remain diverse and are found in the Netherlands and in

1728-461: A consequence evolve (along with Alemannic , Bavarian and Lombardic ) into Old High German. At more or less the same time the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law, moving over Western Europe from west to east, led to the development of Old English (or Anglo-Saxon), Old Frisian and Old Saxon . Hardly influenced by either development, Old Dutch probably remained relatively close to the original language of

1944-416: A joint-stock company by creating a fixed fund where anyone could subscribe for shares, but not for less than 500 riksdaler in silver. Even after the company went public, it still retained its secrecy regarding the business. The management deliberately withheld information from the shareholders or lied about how profitable parts of the business were. The directors said that the profit from the trade with China

2160-484: A large share of its profits to this end in the period up to 1630. The VOC traded throughout Asia, benefiting mainly from Bengal . Ships coming into Batavia from the Netherlands carried supplies for VOC settlements in Asia. Silver and copper from Japan were used to trade with the world's wealthiest empires, Mughal India and Qing China , for silk, cotton, porcelain, and textiles. These products were either traded within Asia for

2376-566: A minority language in Germany and northern France's French Flanders . Though Belgium as a whole is multilingual, three of the four language areas into which the country is divided ( Flanders , francophone Wallonia , and the German-speaking Community ) are largely monolingual, with Brussels being bilingual. The Netherlands and Belgium produce the vast majority of music , films , books and other media written or spoken in Dutch. Dutch

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2592-657: A minority) and the province of Walloon Brabant . Brabantian expands into small parts in the west of Limburg while its strong influence on the East Flemish of East Flanders and eastern Zeelandic Flanders weakens towards the west. In a small area in the northwest of North Brabant ( Willemstad ), Hollandic is spoken. Conventionally, the Kleverlandish dialects are distinguished from Brabantian, but there are no objective criteria apart from geography to do so. Over 5 million people live in an area with some form of Brabantian being

2808-686: A monopoly on East Indies trade. In 1620, diplomatic agreements in Europe ushered in a period of collaboration between the Dutch and English spice trades. This ended with the notorious Amboyna massacre , where ten Englishmen were arrested, tried and beheaded for conspiracy against the Dutch government. Although this caused outrage in Europe and a diplomatic crisis, the English quietly withdrew from most of their Indonesian activities (except trading in Banten) and focused on other Asian interests. In 1619, Jan Pieterszoon Coen

3024-462: A new era of an abundant supply of capital at low interest rates suddenly opened around this time. The second factor enabled the company easily to finance its expansion in the new areas of commerce. Between the 1680s and 1720s, the VOC was therefore able to equip and man an appreciable expansion of its fleet, and acquire a large amount of precious metals to finance the purchase of large amounts of Asian commodities, for shipment to Europe. The overall effect

3240-589: A number of Dutch merchants and explorers, such as Jan Huyghen van Linschoten and Cornelis de Houtman , went on to obtain firsthand knowledge of the "secret" Portuguese trade routes and practices that were already in place, thereby providing further opportunity for the Dutch to enter the trade. The stage was thus set for Dutch expeditions to the Indonesian islands , beginning with James Lancaster in 1591, Cornelis de Houtman in 1595 and again in 1598, Jacob Van Neck in 1598, Lancaster again in 1601, among others. During

3456-420: A number of closely related, mutually intelligible dialects spoken in the former Old Dutch area. Where Old Dutch fragments are very hard to read for untrained Modern Dutch speakers, the various literary works of Middle Dutch are somewhat more accessible. The most notable difference between Old and Middle Dutch is in a feature of speech known as vowel reduction , whereby vowels in unstressed syllables are leveled to

3672-521: A place to settle down and invest their money in legitimate enterprise. The pirates numbered about 1,500 and commanded a considerable and well-armed fleet of ships. They started by offering the Swedish King Charles XII half a million pounds sterling and 25 armed ships for his protection, but the matter was not resolved. In 1718, representatives for the pirates met again with the King at his camp during

3888-566: A political border, because the traditional dialects are strongly influenced by the national standard varieties. While a somewhat heterogeneous group of Low Franconian dialects, Limburgish has received official status as a regional language in the Netherlands and Germany, but not in Belgium. Due to this official recognition, it receives protection by chapter 2 of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . Afrikaans , although to

4104-420: A quarter of the initial shareholders were Zuid-Nederlanders (people from an area that includes modern Belgium and Luxembourg ), and there were also a few dozen Germans. The VOC had two types of shareholders: the participanten , who could be seen as non-managing members, and the 76 bewindhebbers (later reduced to 60) who acted as managing directors. This was the usual set-up for Dutch joint-stock companies at

4320-413: A result, Nederduits no longer serves as a synonym for the Dutch language. In the 19th century, the term " Diets " was revived by Dutch linguists and historians as well, as a poetic name for Middle Dutch and its literature . Old Dutch can be discerned more or less around the same time as Old English (Anglo-Saxon), Old High German , Old Frisian , and Old Saxon . These names are derived from

4536-505: A result, when West Flemings try to talk Standard Dutch, they are often unable to pronounce the g-sound, and pronounce it similar to the h-sound. This leaves, for example, no difference between " held " (hero) and " geld " (money). Or in some cases, they are aware of the problem, and hyper-correct the "h" into a voiced velar fricative or g-sound, again leaving no difference. The West Flemish variety historically spoken in adjacent parts in France

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4752-656: A route over the Arctic Ocean , the Northern Sea Route , past Japan and further on to China and India . The aim was to bypass the Spanish and Portuguese blockades. The plan did not gain any support as the ice barriers proved even more difficult. At the end of the 1660s, a petition from diplomat and London resident Johan Leijonbergh was sent to the Swedish King Charles XI regarding one Olle Borg who had worked in

4968-572: A second English East India Company voyage commanded by Sir Henry Middleton reached the islands of Ternate , Tidore , Ambon and Banda . In Banda, they encountered severe VOC hostility, sparking Anglo-Dutch competition for access to spices. From 1611 to 1617, the English established trading posts at Sukadana (southwest Kalimantan ), Makassar , Jayakarta and Jepara in Java , and Aceh, Pariaman and Jambi in Sumatra , which threatened Dutch ambitions for

5184-464: A second or third language in the polyglot Caribbean island countries of Aruba , Curaçao and Sint Maarten . All these countries have recognised Dutch as one of their official languages, and are involved in one way or another in the Dutch Language Union . The Dutch Caribbean municipalities ( St. Eustatius , Saba and Bonaire ) have Dutch as one of the official languages. In Asia, Dutch

5400-516: A significant degree mutually intelligible with Dutch, is usually not considered a dialect but instead a separate standardised language . It is spoken in South Africa and Namibia. As a daughter language of 17th-century Dutch dialects, Afrikaans evolved in parallel with modern Dutch, but was influenced by various other languages in South Africa. West Frisian ( Westerlauwers Fries ), along with Saterland Frisian and North Frisian , evolved from

5616-419: A somewhat different development since the late Middle Ages. Two dialect groups have been given the official status of regional language (or streektaal ) in the Netherlands. Like several other dialect groups, both are part of a dialect continuum that continues across the national border. The Dutch Low Saxon dialect area comprises the provinces of Groningen , Drenthe and Overijssel , as well as parts of

5832-424: A source language, mainly for law and history students. In Indonesia this involves about 35,000 students. Unlike other European nations, the Dutch chose not to follow a policy of language expansion amongst the indigenous peoples of their colonies. In the last quarter of the 19th century, however, a local elite gained proficiency in Dutch so as to meet the needs of expanding bureaucracy and business. Nevertheless,

6048-403: A sovereign king in a Chinese manner. The first attempt of organizing a Swedish East India trading company was made by a Flemish merchant, Willem Usselincx . During the 17th century, the Dutch merchants dominated the newly founded Gothenburg on the west coast of Sweden. The town was considered ideal for Sweden's international trade since most of the goods were transported on ships and this

6264-448: A trade surplus with other European countries. Coen discovered the obvious solution for the problem: to start an intra-Asiatic trade system, whose profits could be used to finance the spice trade with Europe. In the long run this obviated the need for exports of precious metals from Europe, though at first it required the formation of a large trading-capital fund in the Indies. The VOC reinvested

6480-412: A trading post in the area and eventually to monopolise the trade there, especially the gold trade. By 1669, the VOC was the richest private company the world had ever seen, with over 150 merchant ships, 40 warships, 50,000 employees, a private army of 10,000 soldiers, and a dividend payment of 40% on the original investment. Many of the VOC employees inter-mixed with the indigenous peoples and expanded

6696-701: A treaty of 1684 with the Sultan. Also, on the Coromandel Coast , it moved its chief stronghold from Pulicat to Nagapattinam , so as to secure a monopoly on the pepper trade to the detriment of the French and the Danes. However, the importance of these traditional commodities in the Asian-European trade was diminishing rapidly at the time. The military outlays that the VOC needed to make to enhance its monopoly were not justified by

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6912-538: A unique prestige dialect and has a large dialectal continuum consisting of 28 main dialects, which can themselves be further divided into at least 600 distinguishable varieties. In the Netherlands, the Hollandic dialect dominates in national broadcast media while in Flanders Brabantian dialect dominates in that capacity, making them in turn unofficial prestige dialects in their respective countries. Outside

7128-511: A venture that would continue for 21 years, with a financial accounting only at the end of each decade. In February 1603, the company seized the Santa Catarina , a 1500-ton Portuguese merchant carrack , off the coast of Singapore. She was such a rich prize that her sale proceeds increased the capital of the VOC by more than 50%. Also in 1603, the first permanent Dutch trading post in Indonesia

7344-771: A venture. After having been ruled by a number of autocratic and ambitious kings, Sweden was, at the forming of the SOIC, practically run without the participation of the king. The real political power lay with the Riksdag of the Estates where the first two political parties, the Hats and the Caps , competed for power. The king did not even have to attend the meetings of the Riksdag; he had been substituted with his name stamp. The king, or prince consort, at that time

7560-531: Is kantor , handdoek "towel" in Indonesian is handuk , or bushalte "bus stop" in Indonesian is halte bus . In addition, many Indonesian words are calques of Dutch; for example, rumah sakit "hospital" is calqued on the Dutch ziekenhuis (literally "sickhouse"), kebun binatang "zoo" on dierentuin (literally "animal garden"), undang-undang dasar "constitution" from grondwet (literally "ground law"). These account for some of

7776-553: Is Sranan Tongo , spoken natively by about a fifth of the population. Swedish East India Company It grew to become the largest trading company in Sweden during the 18th century: a total of 132 expeditions were carried out with 37 different ships. The company folded in 1813; nevertheless, it left clear footprints that can still be seen in Gothenburg. Sweden was the last of the more prominent seafaring European nations to engage in

7992-466: Is a calque of the aforementioned Roman province Germania Inferior and an attempt by early Dutch grammarians to give their language more prestige by linking it to Roman times. Likewise, Hoogduits ("High German") and Overlands ("Upper-landish") came into use as a Dutch exonym for the various German dialects used in neighboring German states. Use of Nederduytsch was popular in the 16th century but ultimately lost out over Nederlands during

8208-469: Is a monocentric language , at least what concerns its written form, with all speakers using the same standard form (authorised by the Dutch Language Union ) based on a Dutch orthography defined in the so-called " Green Booklet " authoritative dictionary and employing the Latin alphabet when writing; however, pronunciation varies between dialects. Indeed, in stark contrast to its written uniformity, Dutch lacks

8424-521: Is also an official language of several international organisations, such as the European Union , Union of South American Nations and the Caribbean Community . At an academic level, Dutch is taught in about 175 universities in 40 countries. About 15,000 students worldwide study Dutch at university. In Europe, Dutch is the majority language in the Netherlands (96%) and Belgium (59%) as well as

8640-578: Is found in the Salic law . In this Frankish document written around 510 the oldest Dutch sentence has been identified: Maltho thi afrio lito ("I say to you, I free you, serf") used to free a serf. Another old fragment of Dutch is Visc flot aftar themo uuatare ("A fish was swimming in the water"). The oldest conserved larger Dutch text is the Utrecht baptismal vow (776–800) starting with Forsachistu diobolae ... ec forsacho diabolae (litt.: "Forsake you

8856-513: Is mostly Germanic; it incorporates slightly more Romance loans than German, but far fewer than English. In Belgium, the Netherlands and Suriname, the native official name for Dutch is Nederlands (historically Nederlandsch before the Dutch orthographic reforms ). Sometimes Vlaams (" Flemish ") is used as well to describe Standard Dutch in Flanders , whereas Hollands (" Hollandic ")

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9072-480: Is occasionally used as a colloquial term for the standard language in the central and northwestern parts of the Netherlands. English uses the adjective Dutch as a noun for the language of the Netherlands and Flanders. The word is derived from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz . The stem of this word, *þeudō , meant "people" in Proto-Germanic, and *-iskaz was an adjective-forming suffix, of which -ish

9288-556: Is so distinct that it might be considered as a separate language variant, although the strong significance of language in Belgian politics would prevent the government from classifying them as such. An oddity of the dialect is that, the voiced velar fricative (written as "g" in Dutch) shifts to a voiced glottal fricative (written as "h" in Dutch), while the letter "h" becomes mute (like in French). As

9504-573: Is sometimes called French Flemish and is listed as a French minority language . However, only a very small and aging minority of the French-Flemish population still speaks and understands West Flemish. Hollandic is spoken in Holland and Utrecht , though the original forms of this dialect (which were heavily influenced by a West Frisian substratum and, from the 16th century on, by Brabantian dialects ) are now relatively rare. The urban dialects of

9720-614: Is spoken in Limburg (Belgium) as well as in the remaining part of Limburg (Netherlands) and extends across the German border. West Flemish ( Westvlaams ) is spoken in West Flanders , the western part of Zeelandic Flanders and also in French Flanders , where it virtually became extinct to make way for French. The West Flemish group of dialects, spoken in West Flanders and Zeeland ,

9936-523: Is taught in various educational centres in Indonesia, the most important of which is the Erasmus Language Centre (ETC) in Jakarta . Each year, some 1,500 to 2,000 students take Dutch courses there. In total, several thousand Indonesians study Dutch as a foreign language. Owing to centuries of Dutch rule in Indonesia, many old documents are written in Dutch. Many universities therefore include Dutch as

10152-639: Is the Modern English form. Theodiscus was its Latinised form and used as an adjective referring to the Germanic vernaculars of the Early Middle Ages . In this sense, it meant "the language of the common people". The term was used as opposed to Latin , the non -native language of writing and the Catholic Church . It was first recorded in 786, when the Bishop of Ostia writes to Pope Adrian I about

10368-404: Is the case with the ( standardised ) West Frisian language . It is spoken alongside Dutch in the province of Friesland . Dutch dialects and regional languages are not spoken as often as they used to be, especially in the Netherlands. Recent research by Geert Driessen shows that the use of dialects and regional languages among both Dutch adults and youth is in heavy decline. In 1995, 27 percent of

10584-525: Is the sole official language, and over 60 percent of the population speaks it as a mother tongue . Dutch is the obligatory medium of instruction in schools in Suriname, even for non-native speakers. A further twenty-four percent of the population speaks Dutch as a second language . Suriname gained its independence from the Netherlands in 1975 and has been an associate member of the Dutch Language Union since 2004. The lingua franca of Suriname, however,

10800-519: The 2006 New Zealand census , 26,982 people, or 0.70 percent of the total population, reported to speak Dutch to sufficient fluency that they could hold an everyday conversation. In contrast to the colonies in the East Indies , from the second half of the 19th century onwards, the Netherlands envisaged the expansion of Dutch in its colonies in the West Indies . Until 1863, when slavery was abolished in

11016-564: The Bergakker inscription , found near the Dutch city of Tiel , which may represent a primary record of 5th-century Frankish. Although some place names recorded in Roman texts such as vadam (modern Dutch: wad , English: "mudflat"), could arguably be considered as the oldest single "Dutch" words, the Bergakker inscription yields the oldest evidence of Dutch morphology. However, interpretations of

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11232-450: The Brussels and Flemish regions of Belgium . The areas in which they are spoken often correspond with former medieval counties and duchies. The Netherlands (but not Belgium) distinguishes between a dialect and a streektaal (" regional language "). Those words are actually more political than linguistic because a regional language unites a large group of very different varieties. Such is

11448-553: The Dutch East India Company for eighteen years. Borg stated that if there was a war between Sweden and Denmark, he could deliver the Danish fort in Tharangambadi , India, to the Swedes. Knut Kurck, Peter Schnack and Johan Olivecreutz were appointed directors for the company, but the political unrest in Sweden at that time plus trouble with actually getting the money that had been promised from

11664-541: The English East India Company , thereby threatening their Dutch competitors with ruin. In 1602, the Dutch government followed suit, sponsoring the creation of a single "United East Indies Company" that was also granted monopoly over the Asian trade. For a time in the seventeenth century, it was able to monopolise the trade in nutmeg, mace, and cloves and to sell these spices across European kingdoms and Emperor Akbar

11880-605: The Heeren XVII (the Lords Seventeen). They were selected from the bewindhebber -class of shareholders. Of the Heeren XVII , eight delegates were from the Chamber of Amsterdam (one short of a majority on its own), four from the Chamber of Zeeland, and one from each of the smaller Chambers, while the seventeenth seat was alternatively from the Chamber of Middelburg-Zeeland or rotated among the five small Chambers. Amsterdam had thereby

12096-495: The High German consonant shift , does not use Germanic umlaut as a grammatical marker, has largely abandoned the use of the subjunctive , and has levelled much of its morphology , including most of its case system . Features shared with German, however, include the survival of two to three grammatical genders  – albeit with few grammatical consequences  – as well as the use of modal particles , final-obstruent devoicing , and (similar) word order . Dutch vocabulary

12312-411: The Indo-European language family , spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language and is the third most spoken Germanic language. In Europe, Dutch is the native language of most of the population of the Netherlands and Flanders (which includes 60% of the population of Belgium ). Dutch was one of the official languages of South Africa until 1925, when it

12528-431: The Low Countries , its meaning being largely implicitly provided by the regional orientation of medieval Dutch society: apart from the higher echelons of the clergy and nobility, mobility was largely static and hence while "Dutch" could by extension also be used in its earlier sense, referring to what today would be called Germanic dialects as opposed to Romance dialects , in many cases it was understood or meant to refer to

12744-473: The Low Franconian languages, paired with its sister language Limburgish or East Low Franconian. Its closest relative is the mutually intelligible daughter language Afrikaans. Other West Germanic languages related to Dutch are German , English and the un-standardised languages Low German and Yiddish . Dutch stands out in combining some Ingvaeonic characteristics (occurring consistently in English and Frisian and reduced in intensity from west to east over

12960-404: The Malabar and Coromandel coasts in India. Direct access to mainland China came in 1729 when a factory was established in Canton . In 1662, however, Koxinga expelled the Dutch from Taiwan ( see History of Taiwan ). In 1663, the VOC signed the "Painan Treaty" with several local lords in the Painan area that were revolting against the Aceh Sultanate . The treaty allowed the VOC to build

13176-416: The Netherlands did not hesitate to attack other ships to prevent competition. A failed attempt to start a competing trade company in Austria , the Ostend Company , was discouraging. What finally made the Swedish venture possible was the strong support from foreign traders and merchants, foremost British but also Dutch, who had been shut out from the companies in their respective countries. The majority of

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13392-476: The Randstad , which are Hollandic dialects, do not diverge from standard Dutch very much, but there is a clear difference between the city dialects of Rotterdam , The Hague , Amsterdam and Utrecht . In some rural Hollandic areas more authentic Hollandic dialects are still being used, especially north of Amsterdam. Another group of dialects based on Hollandic is that spoken in the cities and larger towns of Friesland , where it partially displaced West Frisian in

13608-400: The Sandalwood trade and their resistance lasted throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, causing Portuguese Timor to remain under the Portuguese sphere of control. At the time, it was customary for a company to be funded only for the duration of a single voyage and to be liquidated upon the return of the fleet. Investment in these expeditions was a very high-risk venture, not only because of

13824-406: The Southern Netherlands (now Belgium and Luxembourg), developments were different. Under subsequent Spanish , Austrian and French rule , the standardisation of Dutch language came to a standstill. The state, law, and increasingly education used French, yet more than half the Belgian population were speaking a variety of Dutch. In the course of the 19th century, the Flemish Movement stood up for

14040-410: The Swedish East India Company ). The company's alternative names that have been used include the 'Dutch East Indies Company', 'United East India Company', 'Jan Company', or 'Jan Compagnie'. Before the Dutch Revolt , which began in 1566/68, the Flemish city of Antwerp had played an important role as a distribution center in northern Europe. After 1591, the Portuguese used an international syndicate of

14256-431: The antonym of *walhisk (Romance-speakers, specifically Old French ). The word, now rendered as dietsc (Southwestern variant) or duutsc (Central and Northern Variant), could refer to the Dutch language itself, as well as a broader Germanic category depending on context. During the High Middle Ages " Dietsc / Duutsc " was increasingly used as an umbrella term for the specific Germanic dialects spoken in

14472-425: The campaign against Norway . The new offer was for 60 ships, armed and stocked with goods, if the pirates were allowed to settle down in Gothenburg and start a trade with the East Indies under the Swedish flag. One privateer by the name of Morgan actually obtained a charter for an East India Company and a letter of appointment for himself as governor over the colonies that could be the result of such an enterprise. When

14688-471: The continental West Germanic plane) with dominant Istvaeonic characteristics, some of which are also incorporated in German. Unlike German, Dutch (apart from Limburgish) has not been influenced at all by the south to north movement of the High German consonant shift and had some changes of its own. The cumulation of these changes resulted over time in separate, but related standard languages with various degrees of similarities and differences between them. For

14904-434: The differences in vocabulary between Indonesian and Malay. Some regional languages in Indonesia have some Dutch loanwords as well; for example, Sundanese word Katel or "frying pan" origin in Dutch is " ketel ". The Javanese word for "bike/ bicycle " " pit " can be traced back to its origin in Dutch " fiets ". The Malacca state of Malaysia was also colonized by the Dutch in its longest period that Malacca

15120-524: The pre-Roman Northern European Iron Age . The Germanic languages are traditionally divided into three groups: East (now extinct), West , and North Germanic. They remained mutually intelligible throughout the Migration Period . Dutch is part of the West Germanic group, which also includes English, Scots , Frisian , Low German (Old Saxon) and High German . It is characterised by a number of phonological and morphological innovations not found in North or East Germanic. The West Germanic varieties of

15336-459: The 14th to 15th century onward, its urban centers ( Deventer , Zwolle , Kampen , Zutphen and Doesburg ) have been increasingly influenced by the western written Dutch and became a linguistically mixed area. From the 17th century onward, it was gradually integrated into the Dutch language area. Dutch Low Saxon used to be at one end of the Low German dialect continuum . However, the national border has given way to dialect boundaries coinciding with

15552-531: The 16th century and is known as Stadsfries ("Urban Frisian"). Hollandic together with inter alia Kleverlandish and North Brabantian , but without Stadsfries, are the Central Dutch dialects . Brabantian is named after the historical Duchy of Brabant , which corresponded mainly to the provinces of North Brabant and southern Gelderland , the Belgian provinces of Antwerp and Flemish Brabant , as well as Brussels (where its native speakers have become

15768-668: The 7th century. It was replaced in France by Old French (a Romance language with a considerable Old Frankish influence). However, the Old Franconian language did not die out at large, as it continued to be spoken in the Low Countries, and subsequently evolved into what is now called Old Low Franconian or Old Dutch in the Low Countries. In fact, Old Frankish could be reconstructed from Old Dutch and Frankish loanwords in Old French. The term Old Dutch or Old Low Franconian refers to

15984-513: The Cape (now known as Cape Town ), a port controlled by the Dutch, due to political changes in Europe. But with the end of the American war in 1783, Sweden lost its advantage in the tea trade and the decline of the company resumed. The SOIC's supercargo in Canton in 1777, Finnish Peter Johan Bladh, reflected on this and suggested that an emissary should be sent to the emperor of China with a proposition that

16200-623: The Dutch East Indies for the first time in its history. After the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War , the VOC's financial issues worsened considerably. After vain attempts at reorganisation by the provincial States of Holland and Zeeland , the board of directors in the VOC were sacked in 1796 and the company's management was handed over to a Committee for Affairs relating to East India Trade and Possessions (Dutch: Comité tot de zaken van de Oost-Indische handel en bezittingen ). The VOC charter

16416-417: The Dutch adult population spoke a dialect or regional language on a regular basis, but in 2011, that was no more than 11 percent. In 1995, 12 percent of children of primary school age spoke a dialect or regional language, but in 2011, that had declined to four percent. Of the officially recognised regional languages Limburgish is spoken the most (in 2011 among adults 54%, among children 31%) and Dutch Low Saxon

16632-470: The Dutch argued that they had suspected the vessel of falsely flying the Swedish flag. The expedition was eventually released, but time was lost and the winds unfavourable. Many of the seamen died en route and the ship had to recruit new Norwegian sailors upon reaching the coast of Norway. Almost one and a half years after the departure, the vessel returned to Gothenburg on 27   August 1733. The expedition

16848-535: The Dutch captain's life on condition that he joined his army and trained his soldiers on modern lines. This defeat in the Travancore–Dutch War is considered the earliest example of an organised Asian power overcoming European military technology and tactics; and it signalled the decline of Dutch power in India. The attempt to continue as before as a low volume-high profit business enterprise with its core business in

17064-479: The Dutch government remained reluctant to teach Dutch on a large scale for fear of destabilising the colony. Dutch, the language of power, was supposed to remain in the hands of the leading elite. After independence, Dutch was dropped as an official language and replaced by Indonesian , but this does not mean that Dutch has completely disappeared in Indonesia: Indonesian Dutch , a regional variety of

17280-415: The Dutch standard language is largely absent, and speakers of these Dutch dialects will use German or French in everyday speech. Dutch is not afforded legal status in France or Germany, either by the central or regional public authorities, and knowledge of the language is declining among younger generations. As a foreign language , Dutch is mainly taught in primary and secondary schools in areas adjacent to

17496-524: The Dutch standard language, it is not mutually intelligible with Dutch and considered a sister language of Dutch, like English and German. Approximate distribution of native Dutch speakers worldwide: Dutch is an official language of the Netherlands proper (not enshrined in the constitution but in administrative law ), Belgium, Suriname, the Dutch Caribbean municipalities (St. Eustatius, Saba and Bonaire), Aruba , Curaçao and Sint Maarten . Dutch

17712-408: The Dutch, was still spoken by about 500,000 half-blood in Indonesia in 1985. Yet the Indonesian language inherited many words from Dutch: words for everyday life as well as scientific and technological terms. One scholar argues that 20% of Indonesian words can be traced back to Dutch words, many of which are transliterated to reflect phonetic pronunciation e.g. kantoor "office" in Indonesian

17928-533: The Dutch-Hituese alliance. In 1613, the Dutch expelled the Portuguese from their Solor fort, but a subsequent Portuguese attack led to a second change of hands; following this second reoccupation, the Dutch once again captured Solor in 1636. East of Solor , on the island of Timor , Dutch advances were halted by an autonomous and powerful group of Portuguese Eurasians called the Topasses . They remained in control of

18144-601: The East India Trade. The royal privileges for the Swedish East India Company (SOIC) were granted almost a century after the other European trading companies were established. With the advent of the East India trade in the 17th century, Chinese and Indian goods were imported to Sweden. Drinking tea, wearing Indian Chintz clothes and having Chinese objects became the height of fashion among Swedish socialites and

18360-694: The East Indies, but implementation of this policy never materialised, mainly because very few Dutch were willing to emigrate to Asia. Another of Coen's ventures was more successful. A major problem in the European trade with Asia at the time was that the Europeans could offer few goods that Asian consumers wanted, except silver and gold. European traders therefore had to pay for spices with the precious metals, which were in short supply in Europe, except for Spain and Portugal. The Dutch and English had to obtain it by creating

18576-561: The East and the West, the VOC is sometimes considered to have been the world's first multinational corporation . Statistically, the VOC eclipsed all of its rivals in the Asian trade. Between 1602 and 1796 the VOC sent nearly a million Europeans to work in the Asia trade on 4,785 ships and netted for their efforts more than 2.5 million tons of Asian trade goods and slaves. By contrast, the rest of Europe combined sent only 882,412 people from 1500 to 1795, and

18792-459: The European trade with China should be conducted through one single European company, administered by Sweden. He stated that unless the British were stopped in time they would infiltrate China the same way they had done in India by "securing an unbearable domination" there. The request was never sent since the directors wanted to continue the trade in the same way as before. The mercantile expansion of

19008-553: The First Charter, or the First Octroi . The charter was given to Henrik König & Compagnie and consisted of eighteen precise paragraphs on how the trade should be conducted: The issuing of shares was such that early subscribers subscribed for each voyage and had the option of withdrawing their capital after its completion, in a traditional form of corporate trading partnerships; in 1753, this having been found inconvenient, it

19224-592: The Franks. However, the language did experience developments of its own, such as very early final-obstruent devoicing . In fact, the find at Bergakker indicates that the language may already have experienced this shift during the Old Frankish period. Attestations of Old Dutch sentences are extremely rare. The language is mostly recorded on fragmentary relics, and words have been reconstructed from Middle Dutch and loan words from Old Dutch in other languages. The oldest recorded

19440-487: The German Fugger family and Welser family , as well as Spanish and Italian firms, which operated out of Hamburg as the northern staple port to distribute their goods, thereby cutting Dutch merchants out of the trade. At the same time, the Portuguese trade system was unable to increase supply to satisfy growing demand, in particular the demand for pepper. Demand for spices was relatively inelastic ; therefore, each lag in

19656-607: The Great's Mughal Empire at 14–17 times the price it paid in Indonesia ; While Dutch profits soared, the local economy of the Spice Islands was destroyed, because as a monopoly buyer, the VOC forced the prices paid to the local producers in the Spice Islands down to low levels. With a capital of 6,440,200 guilders , the new company's charter empowered it to build forts, maintain armies, and conclude treaties with Asian rulers. It provided for

19872-513: The King was shot and died on 30   November 1718, the venture folded. Sweden was impoverished after the Great Northern War , and trade was seen as an option for rebuilding the country. Opinions about whether trade with the East Indies would be profitable enough diverged. The greatest concern was that Sweden would not have enough resources to defend the company's ships and trading posts . The trading companies from England , France , and

20088-635: The Moluccas), cutting out the Javanese middlemen. The ships returned to Europe in 1599 and 1600 and the expedition made a 400 percent profit. In 1600, the Dutch joined forces with the Muslim Hituese on Ambon Island in an anti-Portuguese alliance, in return for which the Dutch were given the sole right to purchase spices from Hitu. Dutch control of Ambon was achieved when the Portuguese surrendered their fort in Ambon to

20304-568: The Netherlands and Flanders . In French-speaking Belgium , over 300,000 pupils are enrolled in Dutch courses, followed by over 23,000 in the German states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia , and about 7,000 in the French region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais (of which 4,550 are in primary school). At an academic level, the largest number of faculties of neerlandistiek can be found in Germany (30 universities), followed by France (20 universities) and

20520-412: The Netherlands and Belgium, the dialect spoken in and around the German town of Kleve ( Kleverlandish ) is historically and genetically a Low Franconian variety. In North-Western France, the area around Calais was historically Dutch-speaking (West Flemish), of which an estimated 20,000 are daily speakers. The cities of Dunkirk , Gravelines and Bourbourg only became predominantly French-speaking by

20736-436: The Netherlands the following year, but with enough spices to make a considerable profit. In 1598, an increasing number of fleets were sent out by competing merchant groups from around the Netherlands. Some fleets were lost, but most were successful, with some voyages producing high profits. In 1598, a fleet of eight ships under Jacob van Neck had been the first Dutch fleet to reach the 'Spice Islands' of Maluku (also known as

20952-530: The Netherlands, although there are recognisable differences in pronunciation, comparable to the pronunciation differences between standard British and standard American English. In 1980 the Netherlands and Belgium concluded the Language Union Treaty . This treaty lays down the principle that the two countries must gear their language policy to each other, among other things, for a common system of spelling. Dutch belongs to its own West Germanic sub-group,

21168-457: The SOIC during the third octroi provided a setting for Jacob Wallenberg 's comic Min son på galejan ("My Son on [ sic ] the Galley") written during the 18-month round trip to Canton in 1769–71. Among his other joking and casual racism, Wallenberg parodies the serious accounts published by traveling naturalists in the wide web of Carl Linnaeus' correspondence. The SOIC continued into

21384-471: The Stockholm merchants Anders Plomgren and Abraham Grill . These six members of the board later elected Claes Grill , Jacob von Utfall Jeanson, S. N. Wenngren and Nils Ström as directors. The second charter was for 20 years and the directors followed the ways of the first octroi. They collected the means from the investors to fund each of the first 14 ships separately. In 1753, the company was reorganized into

21600-423: The Swedes from doing business there and several incidents occurred. The company decided to refocus in the China trade instead. That trade yielded an average profit of 30–40% during the second charter. When it was time to renew the charter in 1766, the first directors were Robert Finlay of Irish and Scottish origin, Swedish Fabian Löwen and Georg Herman Conradi of German descent, all residing in Stockholm. With this

21816-453: The Swedish East India Company and within Sweden suspicions ran high against foreigners, as they were thought to threaten the Swedish profits in the region. Jealousy from merchants not in the company also played a part. Thus, the books were burned after they had been closed and revised, effectively concealing the company's dealings from contemporaries and historians. The letter of privilege was translated into French and Latin and distributed to

22032-512: The Swedish population "would be weaned from work and crafts and lose their health, strength and spirit by using products from a warmer climate". The emerging Swedish textile industry was also threatened by the trade, and the new company soon promised to refrain from shipping textiles. Of sixty-one successfully returning voyages between 1733 and 1767, only three (in 1735, 1740, and 1742) carried cotton and silk textiles and raw silk from Bengal . Some opposition may have been rooted in pure jealousy of

22248-607: The United Kingdom (5 universities). Despite the Dutch presence in Indonesia for almost 350 years, as the Asian bulk of the Dutch East Indies , the Dutch language has no official status there and the small minority that can speak the language fluently are either educated members of the oldest generation, or employed in the legal profession such as historians, diplomats, lawyers, jurists and linguists/polyglots, as certain law codes are still only available in Dutch. Dutch

22464-535: The VOC by 1685. Even more importantly, the Third Anglo-Dutch War temporarily interrupted VOC trade with Europe. This caused a spike in the price of pepper, which enticed the English East India Company (EIC) to enter this market aggressively in the years after 1672. Previously, one of the tenets of the VOC pricing policy was to slightly over-supply the pepper market, so as to depress prices below

22680-412: The VOC established a capital in the port city of Jayakarta in 1619 and changed its name to Batavia (now Jakarta ). Over the next two centuries the company acquired additional ports as trading bases and safeguarded their interests by taking over surrounding territory. It remained an important trading concern and paid annual dividends that averaged to about 18% of the capital for almost 200 years. Much of

22896-547: The VOC in the Dutch Republic , the VOC made extensive use of local Asian labour markets. As a result, the personnel of the various VOC offices in Asia consisted of European and Asian employees. Asian or Eurasian workers could be employed as sailors, soldiers, writers, carpenters, smiths, or as simple unskilled workers. At the height of its existence, the VOC had 25,000 employees who worked in Asia and 11,000 who were en route. Also, while most of its shareholders were Dutch, about

23112-453: The VOC mainly operated in what later became the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia), the company also had important operations elsewhere. It employed people from different continents and origins in the same functions and working environments. Although it was a Dutch company, its employees included not only people from the Netherlands, but also many from Germany and other countries. Besides the diverse north-west European workforce recruited by

23328-613: The VOC tried to use military force to make Ming dynasty China open up to Dutch trade, the Chinese defeated the Dutch in a war over the Penghu islands from 1623 to 1624, forcing the VOC to abandon Penghu for Taiwan . The Chinese defeated the VOC again at the Battle of Liaoluo Bay in 1633. The Vietnamese Nguyen lords defeated the VOC in a 1643 battle during the Trịnh–Nguyễn War , blowing up

23544-467: The VOC's trade started in the early 1680s, after the temporary collapse of the EIC around 1683 offered an excellent opportunity to enter these markets. The actual cause for the change lies, however, in two structural features of this new era. In the first place, there was a revolutionary change in the tastes affecting European demand for Asian textiles, coffee and tea, around the turn of the 18th century. Secondly,

23760-516: The VOC), literally the 'United Dutch Chartered East India Company' (the United East India Company). The company's monogram logo consisted of a large capital 'V' with an O on the left and a C on the right half and was possibly the first globally recognised corporate logo . It appeared on various corporate items, such as cannons and coins. The first letter of the hometown of the chamber conducting

23976-603: The West Indies, slaves were forbidden to speak Dutch, with the effect that local creoles such as Papiamento and Sranan Tongo which were based not on Dutch but rather other European languages, became common in the Dutch West Indies. However, as most of the people in the Colony of Surinam (now Suriname ) worked on Dutch plantations, this reinforced the use of Dutch as a means for direct communication. In Suriname today, Dutch

24192-558: The Zamorin was made to sign a treaty with the VOC undertaking to trade exclusively with the VOC and expel other European traders. For a brief time, this appeared to improve the company's prospects. However, in 1715, with EIC encouragement, the Zamorin renounced the treaty. Though a Dutch army managed to suppress this insurrection temporarily, the Zamorin continued to trade with the English and the French, which led to an appreciable upsurge in English and French traffic. The VOC decided in 1721 that it

24408-549: The applications was appointed on 24   March 1746, and some weeks later on 14   May, they concluded that the directors from the first charter were best suited to lead the second as well. However, the number of directors was increased from three to at least seven. In addition to Colin Campbell, Niclas Sahlgren and Teodor Ankarcrona, the directors were former secretary of the Executive Board Magnus Lagerström,

24624-652: The area known as the Low Countries goes back further in time, with the Romans referring to the region as Germania Inferior ("Lower" Germania). It is a reference to the Low Countries' downriver location at the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta near the North Sea . From 1551, the designation Nederlands received strong competition from the name Nederduytsch (literally "Low Dutch", Dutch being used in its archaic sense covering all continental West Germanic languages). It

24840-614: The borders of other standard language areas. In most cases, the heavy influence of the standard language has broken the dialect continuum . Examples are the Gronings dialect spoken in Groningen as well as the closely related varieties in adjacent East Frisia (Germany). Kleverlandish is a dialect spoken in southern Gelderland , the northern tip of Limburg , and northeast of North Brabant (Netherlands), but also in adjacent parts of North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany). Limburgish ( Limburgs )

25056-416: The capital invested, but up to 60% was achieved. Much depended on the merchants and the captain; the merchants had to close numerous favourable deals, and the captain had the difficult task of safely sailing the ship to China and back. The vessels were around 50 metres (160 ft) long, and in addition to cargo and men, each ship also carried about 25–30 cannons for self-defence and signaling. In most years of

25272-472: The case with the Gronings dialect , which is considered a variety of the Dutch Low Saxon regional language, but it is relatively distinct from other Dutch Low Saxon varieties. Also, some Dutch dialects are more remote from the Dutch standard language than some varieties of a regional language are. Within the Netherlands, a further distinction is made between a regional language and a separate language, which

25488-553: The close of the 18th century, with (Hoog)Duytsch establishing itself as the Dutch exonym for German during this same period. In the 19th century Germany saw the rise of the categorisation of dialects, with German dialectologists terming the German dialects spoken in the mountainous south of Germany as Hochdeutsch ("High German"). Subsequently, German dialects spoken in the north were designated as Niederdeutsch ("Low German"). The names for these dialects were calqued by Dutch linguists as Nederduits and Hoogduits . As

25704-532: The coastal regions, which were then occupied by the VOC, securing for it the monopoly over cinnamon. To prevent the Portuguese or the English from ever recapturing Sri Lanka , the VOC went on to conquer the entire Malabar Coast from the Portuguese, almost entirely driving them from the west coast of India. In 1652, Jan van Riebeeck established a resupply outpost at the Cape of Storms (the southwestern tip of Africa, now Cape Town , South Africa) to service company ships on their journey to and from East Asia. The cape

25920-418: The company at this time therefore were not hopeless, had one of the plans for reform been undertaken successfully. However, the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War intervened. British naval attacks in Europe and Asia reduced the VOC fleet by half; removed valuable cargo from its control; and eroded its remaining power in Asia. The direct losses of the VOC during the war can be calculated at 43 million guilders. Loans to keep

26136-507: The company operating reduced its net assets to zero. From 1720 on, the market for sugar from Indonesia declined as the competition from cheap sugar from Brazil increased. European markets became saturated. Dozens of Chinese sugar traders went bankrupt, which led to massive unemployment, which in turn led to gangs of unemployed coolies . The Dutch government in Batavia did not adequately respond to these problems. In 1740, rumours of deportation of

26352-418: The company to receive Swedish citizenship and most of the crew aboard the ships during the first and the second octroi were foreigners. Of the 53 supercargoes during the first octroi, about 22 percent were Swedes . The first expedition was organized by Campbell. His reconstructed diary of the voyage, rediscovered in 1986, contains a complete account of the expedition. It started on 9   February 1732, as

26568-538: The company's name for the purpose. Around the world, and especially in English-speaking countries, the VOC is widely known as the 'Dutch East India Company'. The name 'Dutch East India Company' is used to make a distinction from the [British] East India Company (EIC) and other East Indian companies (such as the Danish East India Company , French East India Company , Portuguese East India Company , and

26784-400: The company's overhead rose in step with the growth in trade volume; declining gross margins translated directly into a decline in profitability of the invested capital. The era of expansion was one of "profitless growth". Specifically: "[t]he long-term average annual profit in the VOC's 1630–70 'Golden Age' was 2.1 million guilders, of which just under half was distributed as dividends and

27000-466: The course of fifteen centuries. During that period, they forced Old Frisian back from the western coast to the north of the Low Countries, and influenced or even replaced Old Saxon spoken in the east (contiguous with the Low German area). On the other hand, Dutch has been replaced in adjacent lands in present-day France and Germany. The division into Old, Middle and Modern Dutch is mostly conventional, since

27216-431: The coveted spices or brought back to Europe. The VOC was also instrumental in introducing European ideas and technology to Asia. The company supported Christian missionaries and traded modern technology with China and Japan. A more peaceful VOC trade post on Dejima , an artificial island off the coast of Nagasaki , was for more than two hundred years the only place where Europeans were permitted to trade with Japan . When

27432-483: The decisive voice. The Zeelanders in particular had misgivings about this arrangement at the beginning. The fear was not unfounded, because in practice it meant Amsterdam stipulated what happened. The six chambers raised the start-up capital of the Dutch East India Company: Dutch language Dutch ( endonym : Nederlands [ˈneːdərlɑnts] ) is a West Germanic language of

27648-535: The declaration of independence of Indonesia, Western New Guinea , the "wild east" of the Dutch East Indies , remained a Dutch colony until 1962, known as Netherlands New Guinea . Despite prolonged Dutch presence, the Dutch language is not spoken by many Papuans, the colony having been ceded to Indonesia in 1963. Dutch-speaking immigrant communities can also be found in Australia and New Zealand. The 2011 Australian census showed 37,248 people speaking Dutch at home. At

27864-482: The deterioration of revenues. To a large extent the costs of the operation of the VOC had a "fixed" character (military establishments; maintenance of the fleet and such). Profit levels might therefore have been maintained if the increase in the scale of trading operations that in fact took place had resulted in economies of scale . However, though larger ships transported the growing volume of goods, labour productivity did not go up sufficiently to realise these. In general

28080-585: The development of a separate Dutch language. It was spoken by the descendants of the Salian Franks who occupied what is now the southern Netherlands , northern Belgium , part of northern France, and parts of the Lower Rhine regions of Germany. The High German consonant shift, moving over Western Europe from south to west, caused a differentiation with the Central and High Franconian in Germany. The latter would as

28296-469: The devil? ... I forsake the devil"). If only for its poetic content, the most famous Old Dutch sentence is probably Hebban olla vogala nestas hagunnan, hinase hic enda tu, wat unbidan we nu ("All birds have started making nests, except me and you, what are we waiting for"), is dated to around the year 1100, written by a Flemish monk in a convent in Rochester , England . Since the sentence speaks to

28512-409: The doctors on board were completely helpless when it came to dealing with fevers and tropical illnesses. It is estimated that about 2,000 men died in the service of the company. The first three directors of the SOIC was Henrik König, Colin Campbell and Frans Bedoire. König was a merchant from Stockholm. Bedoir was the son of a French wigmaker who had relocated to Sweden to import French wine. Campbell

28728-482: The end of the 19th century. In the countryside, until World War I , many elementary schools continued to teach in Dutch, and the Catholic Church continued to preach and teach the catechism in Dutch in many parishes. During the second half of the 19th century, Dutch was banned from all levels of education by both Prussia and France and lost most of its functions as a cultural language. In both Germany and France,

28944-416: The enterprise. Since foreign investors were met with suspicion in Sweden, they needed a respectable Swede to front the company. That person would be commissioner Henrik König, a Swede of German ( Bremen ) origin. In 1729, Henrik König submitted an application for a charter for two ships. He supported his request on the charter given previously to other applicants, but the reaction from the Swedish government

29160-484: The established trading nations, primarily England, the Netherlands and France, to help and acknowledge the SOIC during the first years were founded on the suspicion that the company was merely a front for those merchants who wished to circumvent the rules and regulations of the East India trade in their own countries. These suspicions were well founded. All of the initiators of the SOIC were non-swedes or of foreign origin. Swedish law made it possible for anyone who invested in

29376-428: The first charter. Four of the ships were lost at sea. Only three of these expeditions went to Bengal ; the rest sailed directly to Canton. Books and accounts from the first expeditions are missing, partially or completely, but starting with the eighth expedition (the ships Fredericus Rex Sueciae , Stockholm and Riddarhuset in 1740) until the closing of the last in 1748, records were so complete that an estimate of

29592-449: The fleet of the English (later British) East India Company , the VOC's nearest competitor, was a distant second to its total traffic with 2,690 ships and a mere one-fifth the tonnage of goods carried by the VOC. The VOC enjoyed huge profits from its spice monopoly and slave trading activities through most of the 17th century. Having been set up in 1602 to profit from the Malukan spice trade,

29808-591: The fortunes of the VOC started to decline. Five major contributing factors are attributed to its decay in the 50 years between 1730 and 1780: Despite these problems, the VOC in 1780 remained an enormous operation. Its capital in the Republic, consisting of ships and goods in inventory, totalled 28 million guilders; its capital in Asia, consisting of the liquid trading fund and goods en route to Europe, totalled 46 million guilders. Total capital, net of outstanding debt, stood at 62 million guilders. The prospects of

30024-459: The four-ship exploratory expedition by Frederick de Houtman in 1595 to Banten , the main pepper port of West Java, the crew clashed with both Portuguese and indigenous Javanese. Houtman's expedition then sailed east along the north coast of Java , losing twelve crew members to a Javanese attack at Sidayu and killing a local ruler in Madura . Half the crew were lost before the expedition made it back to

30240-436: The fourth charter, much the same company that had existed during the last part of the third. The management was the same, a fixed fund existed and some of the fees, taxes and regulations were altered. During this octroi, the company owned 12 ships that were sent out on a total of 31 journeys. Three of the ships were lost and one was damaged and sold. The shareholders received no dividend during the fourth octroi. The profit from

30456-458: The gangs from the Batavia area led to widespread rioting. The Dutch military searched houses of Chinese in Batavia for weapons. When a house accidentally burnt down, military and impoverished citizens started slaughtering and pillaging the Chinese community. This massacre of the Chinese was deemed sufficiently serious for the board of the VOC to start an official investigation into the Government of

30672-415: The imagination, it is often erroneously stated as the oldest Dutch sentence. Old Dutch naturally evolved into Middle Dutch . The year 1150 is often cited as the time of the discontinuity, but it actually marks a time of profuse Dutch writing; during this period a rich Medieval Dutch literature developed. There was at that time no overarching standard language ; Middle Dutch is rather a collective name for

30888-578: The increased profits of this declining trade. Nevertheless, this lesson was slow to sink in and at first the VOC made the strategic decision to improve its military position on the Malabar Coast (hoping thereby to curtail English influence in the area, and end the drain on its resources from the cost of the Malabar garrisons) by using force to compel the Zamorin of Calicut to submit to Dutch domination. In 1710,

31104-579: The influence of the Burgundian Ducal Court in Dijon ( Brussels after 1477). The dialects of Flanders and Brabant were the most influential around this time. The process of standardisation became much stronger at the start of the 16th century, mainly based on the urban dialect of Antwerp . The 1585 fall of Antwerp to the Spanish army led to a flight to the northern Netherlands, where the Dutch Republic declared its independence from Spain. This influenced

31320-536: The interim could only do this by selling their share to others on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange . Confusion of confusions , a 1688 dialogue by the Sephardi Jew Joseph de la Vega analysed the workings of this one-stock exchange. The VOC consisted of six Chambers ( Kamers ) in port cities: Amsterdam , Delft , Rotterdam , Enkhuizen , Middelburg and Hoorn . Delegates of these chambers convened as

31536-524: The investors in that company had to look for other ways to be part of the profitable East India trade and they now looked to Sweden. Scottish merchant Colin Campbell , formerly active in the Ostend Company, met with Swedish Niclas Sahlgren during Sahlgren's stay in Amsterdam in the late 1720s. Together they made plans for a Swedish trading company, but it was evident that Campbell was the driving force in

31752-619: The investors thwarted this venture as well, and in 1674, the charter was dissolved. Residual resources were used to send two ships, the Solen (the Sun) and the Trumslagaren (the Drummer), to Lisbon for salt. A later attempt to establish the Swedish trade on the East Indies was made by pirates sailing out from Madagascar . After having attacked other trading ships, they had become wealthy and were looking for

31968-403: The investors' faith in the trade now broken, no ships were sent out and at a shareholders meeting on 13   December 1813, the company folded, eight years before the octroi ended. The remaining stock and inventory was sold to foreign buyers and in 1814, the trade was declared free for anyone. The main valuable cargo from China was tea. In an overview from 1774, its share was about 90%. Much of

32184-401: The investors, as well as the buyers of the goods imported by the company, were foreigners. Granting permission for a charter was not entirely uncontroversial during that time when mercantilism , which advocated regulations so that the production of export goods was promoted and import reduced, was the dominant idea for trade. Opposition became even more apparent after the first journey made by

32400-613: The labor that built its colonies was from people it had enslaved. Weighed down by smuggling, corruption and growing administrative costs in the late 18th century, the company went bankrupt and was formally dissolved in 1799. Its possessions and debt were taken over by the government of the Dutch Batavian Republic . In Dutch, the name of the company was the Vereenigde Nederlandsche Geoctroyeerde Oostindische Compagnie (abbreviated as

32616-548: The language now known as Dutch. In the Low Countries Dietsch or its Early Modern Dutch form Duytsch as an endonym for Dutch gradually went out of common use and was gradually replaced by the Dutch endonym Nederlands . This designation (first attested in 1482) started at the Burgundian court in the 15th century, although the use of neder , laag , bas , and inferior ("nether" or "low") to refer to

32832-560: The later part of the third charter, it became common practice for one of the supercargoes to stay on permanently in Canton for years. One of those was Jean Abraham Grill, who made ample use of his time there for his own private affairs, a practice that was continued by other resident supercargoes. Carl Linnaeus and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences also made use of the company's ships. They sent out scientists and researchers to gather information about animals and plants from all

33048-484: The latter came close to bankruptcy; its share price plummeted from 600 to 250; and its president Josiah Child was temporarily forced from office. However, the writing was on the wall. Other companies, like the French East India Company and the Danish East India Company also started to make inroads on the Dutch system. The VOC therefore closed the theretofore flourishing open pepper emporium of Bantam by

33264-428: The latter period, 3.4 percent." Nevertheless, in the eyes of investors the VOC did not do too badly. The share price hovered consistently around the 400 mark from the mid-1680s (excepting a hiccup around the Glorious Revolution in 1688), and they reached an all-time high of around 642 in the 1720s. VOC shares then yielded a return of 3.5 percent, only slightly less than the yield on Dutch government bonds. After 1730,

33480-512: The least (adults 15%, children 1%). The decline of the West Frisian language in Friesland occupies a middle position (adults 44%, children 22%). Dialects are most often spoken in rural areas, but many cities have a distinct city dialect. For example, the city of Ghent has very distinct "g", "e" and "r" sounds that greatly differ from its surrounding villages. The Brussels dialect combines Brabantian with words adopted from Walloon and French . Some dialects had, until recently, extensions across

33696-405: The level where interlopers were encouraged to enter the market (instead of striving for short-term profit maximisation ). The wisdom of such a policy was illustrated when a fierce price war with the EIC ensued, as that company flooded the market with new supplies from India. In this struggle for market share, the VOC (which had much larger financial resources) could wait out the EIC. Indeed, by 1683,

33912-404: The main administrator of the VOC's activities in Asia, although the Heeren XVII , a body of 17 shareholders representing different chambers, continued to officially have overall control. VOC headquarters were located in Ambon during the tenures of the first three governors-general (1610–1619), but it was not a satisfactory location. Although it was at the centre of the spice production areas, it

34128-418: The major powers. Their reaction was reluctant and they made clear that they considered the new company a most unwelcome competitor. The Swedish ambassador to Britain did not dare to present the letter to the British government. Pledges of assistance at their bases if needed were not answered. France and the Netherlands declared that they saw Sweden as a competitor and they would not contribute to or assist in such

34344-459: The middle class. Culture, philosophy, art, agriculture, and architecture were also studied and copied. The most prominent example of this is the Chinese Pavilion at Drottningholm , which was followed by smaller parks like the one built by Jean Abraham Grill at Godegård . This culminated during the 18th century, when many Swedish scientists and politicians even suggested that Sweden should be governed by intellectual bureaucrats, " mandarins ", led by

34560-437: The modern standard languages . In this age no standard languages had yet developed, while a perfect West Germanic dialect continuum remained present; the division reflects the contingent future contribution dialect groups would have to the later languages. The early form of Dutch was a set of Franconian dialects spoken by the Salian Franks in the 5th century. These happened to develop through Middle Dutch to Modern Dutch over

34776-419: The only supplier of tea. This was reflected in the total sum of the profit for the third octroi, which was 58% higher than the previous two. The goods that were exported from Sweden also changed during that period. The former main products such as iron, wood and tar are missing from the freight lists. Instead the biggest item was silver, followed by English lead and Swedish woollen cloth or broadcloth . During

34992-422: The operation was placed on top. The monogram, versatility, flexibility, clarity, simplicity, symmetry, timelessness, and symbolism are considered notable characteristics of the VOC's professionally designed logo. Those elements ensured its success at a time when the concept of the corporate identity was virtually unknown. An Australian vintner has used the VOC logo since the late 20th century, having re-registered

35208-470: The original Dutch language version dating from colonial times remains the authoritative version. Up to half a million native speakers reside in the United States, Canada and Australia combined, and historical linguistic minorities on the verge of extinction remain in parts of France and Germany. Dutch is one of the closest relatives of both German and English, and is colloquially said to be "roughly in between" them. Dutch, like English, has not undergone

35424-412: The period after 1766 one or two SOIC ships were loaded at Canton, or as many a four (1785–86). The last vessel returned to Gothenburg in March 1806, and even though the company had charters until 1821, it ceased to exist in 1813. Life onboard the ships was hard and hazardous, the crew was malnourished and not used to the heat and humidity in the ports they visited during the journey. In addition to this,

35640-416: The places that the ships visited and to keep detailed journals. The company would not allow idle passengers on board, so most of the scientists were given "crash courses" in theology and were hastily ordained to serve as ship's chaplains. These arrangements started during the second charter and peaked during the third. In 1758, the Swedes were finally able to let their ships anchor and replenish provisions at

35856-418: The population of Indos in pre-colonial history . Around 1670, two events caused the growth of VOC trade to stall. In the first place, the highly profitable trade with Japan started to decline. The loss of the outpost on Formosa to Koxinga in the 1662 siege of Fort Zeelandia and related internal turmoil in China (where the Ming dynasty was being replaced with the China's Qing dynasty ) brought an end to

36072-457: The power within the management shifted from Gothenburg to Stockholm, where two new ships also were bought. The Swedish government extorted a loan at 6% interest to the SOIC to be paid during 1766–69, estimated in 1813 to have been the equivalent of £100,000, and another, interest-free, for half of that sum, to be repaid out of import duties, in essence an advance payment of duty. During the third charter, 39 voyages were made to Canton and none of

36288-415: The predominant colloquial language out of the area's 22 million Dutch-speakers. Limburgish , spoken in both Belgian Limburg and Netherlands Limburg and in adjacent parts in Germany, is considered a dialect in Belgium, while having obtained the official status of regional language in the Netherlands. Limburgish has been influenced by the Ripuarian varieties like the Colognian dialect , and has had

36504-440: The profits could be made for these. The total sum of the income from the imported goods was 24.649 million riksdaler (approx. US$ 1,222.6 million), making the dividend about 39% in average. During those years the share of the profit for the five directors totaled 550,000 riksdaler (approx. US$ 27.28 million) and the total sum that went to the 53 supercargoes was about 800,000 riksdaler (approx. US$ 39.67 million). The unwillingness of

36720-420: The profits the SOIC were making from the trade. Those who supported the establishing of a Swedish trade company argued that if people wanted goods from China, they were going to buy them anyway and it would be better to import them using Swedish ships and trading company, and thereby keep the profits within Sweden. With the suspension of the charter for the Ostend company by the Emperor Charles VI in May 1727,

36936-411: The provinces of Gelderland , Flevoland , Friesland and Utrecht . This group, which is not Low Franconian but instead Low Saxon and close to neighbouring Low German, has been elevated by the Netherlands (and by Germany) to the legal status of streektaal ( regional language ) according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . It is regarded as Dutch for a number of reasons. From

37152-408: The remainder reinvested. The long-term average annual profit in the 'Expansion Age' (1680–1730) was 2.0 million guilders, of which three-quarters was distributed as dividend and one-quarter reinvested. In the earlier period, profits averaged 18 percent of total revenues; in the latter period, 10 percent. The annual return of invested capital in the earlier period stood at approximately 6 percent; in

37368-455: The rest of the text lack any consensus. The Franks emerged in the southern Netherlands ( Salian Franks ) and central Germany ( Ripuarian Franks ), and later descended into Gaul . The name of their kingdom survives in that of France. Although they ruled the Gallo-Romans for nearly 300 years, their language, Frankish , became extinct in most of France and was replaced by later forms of the language throughout Luxembourg and Germany in around

37584-423: The rights of Dutch speakers, mostly referred to as "Flemish". However, the dialect variation was a serious disadvantage in the face of the standardised francophony . Since standardisation is a lengthy process, Dutch-speaking Belgium associated itself with the standard language that had already developed in the Netherlands over the centuries. Therefore, the situation in Belgium is essentially no different from that in

37800-462: The same branch of the West Germanic languages as Old English (i.e. Anglo-Frisian ) and are therefore genetically more closely related to English and Scots than to Dutch. The different influences on the respective languages, however, particularly that of Norman French on English and Dutch on West Frisian, have rendered English quite distinct from West Frisian, and West Frisian less distinct from Dutch than from English. Although under heavy influence of

38016-402: The set of Franconian dialects (i.e. West Germanic varieties that are assumed to have evolved from Frankish ) spoken in the Low Countries during the Early Middle Ages , from around the 5th to the 12th century. Old Dutch is mostly recorded on fragmentary relics, and words have been reconstructed from Middle Dutch and Old Dutch loanwords in French. Old Dutch is regarded as the primary stage in

38232-411: The shareholders of the situation and on 18   May 1811, the company of the fourth charter was declared bankrupt. There was a fifth octroi, starting in 1806 with privileges granted for 15 years, but those were quite different from the previous. Now anyone had the right to trade with the countries on the other side of Cape if the SOIC had not started the trade by launching a ship within two years. With

38448-476: The ship Friedericus Rex Sueciae sailed out from Gothenburg. Campbell was the first supercargo onboard and had also been appointed ambassador to the Chinese court by the King. The other three supercargos were English: Charles Graham, Charles Morford and John Pike. The captain of the Fredericus was Georg Herman af Trolle, a seasoned sailor who had been brought up in Amsterdam and previously served on English, French, Dutch and Danish ships. He had also been employed as

38664-417: The ship Friedericus Rex Sueciaes in 1735. Demands were made in the Riksdag for sanctions and restrictions for the trade company, a number of pamphlets were written, arguing that Swedish steel and timber were wastefully being exchanged for such "worthless goods" as tea and porcelain . One of the most ardent critics against the charter was Johan Arckenholtz. He even spoke of the moral aspects, saying that

38880-408: The ships was lost or damaged, but the profit from the trade with China was declining. The turning point for Sweden came in 1780, with the American Revolutionary War when France, the Dutch Republic and Spain joined forces against Britain and thereafter were blocked from trading with China. The price of tea fell in Canton due to the lack of demand, but went up in Europe where Sweden was now practically

39096-420: The silk trade after 1666. Though the VOC substituted Mughal Bengal 's for Chinese silk, other forces affected the supply of Japanese silver and gold. The shogunate enacted a number of measures to limit the export of these precious metals, in the process limiting VOC opportunities for trade, and severely worsening the terms of trade. Therefore, Japan ceased to function as the linchpin of the intra-Asiatic trade of

39312-414: The spice trade had therefore failed. The company had however already (reluctantly) followed the example of its European competitors in diversifying into other Asian commodities, like tea, coffee, cotton, textiles, and sugar. These commodities provided a lower profit margin and therefore required a larger sales volume to generate the same amount of revenue. This structural change in the commodity composition of

39528-420: The supply of pepper caused a sharp rise in pepper prices. In 1580, the Portuguese crown was united in a personal union with the Spanish crown (known as the Iberian Union ), with which the Dutch Republic was at war. The Portuguese Empire thus became an appropriate target for Dutch military incursions. These factors motivated Dutch merchants to enter the intercontinental spice trade themselves. Further,

39744-459: The tea was re-exported and smuggled into England, undercutting the prices of that country's own trade monopoly held by the East India Company . Porcelain was also important, accounting for about 5% of the cargo's value. Over the years it is estimated that some 50 million pieces of porcelain were imported by the SOIC. The spirit arrack , a new commodity for Sweden, was also considered valuable. A cargo tally, printed by William Milburn in 1813, shows

39960-420: The terms of the second charter 36 ships were sent out, three to Surat , the rest to Canton, and only one was lost. The profit for the shareholders during the first charter generated large interest for a second charter. Except for the foreign investors, most of the merchants during the first charter had been from Gothenburg. With the second charter, a number of merchants from Stockholm started to show interest in

40176-430: The time are generally split into three dialect groups: Ingvaeonic (North Sea Germanic), Istvaeonic (Weser–Rhine Germanic) and Irminonic (Elbe Germanic). It appears that the Frankish tribes fit primarily into the Istvaeonic dialect group with certain Ingvaeonic influences towards the northwest, which are still seen in modern Dutch. The Frankish language itself is not directly attested, the only possible exception being

40392-486: The time made this difficult to discern for the managers of the company, which may partly explain the mistakes they made from hindsight. This lack of information might have been counteracted (as in earlier times in the VOC's history) by the business acumen of the directors. By this time these were almost exclusively recruited from the political regent class, which had long since lost its close relationship with merchant circles. Low profit margins in themselves do not explain

40608-420: The time. The innovation in the case of the VOC was that the liability of not just the participanten but also of the bewindhebbers was limited to the paid-in capital (usually, bewindhebbers had unlimited liability). The VOC therefore was a limited liability company . Also, the capital would be permanent during the lifetime of the company. As a consequence, investors that wished to liquidate their interest in

40824-412: The trade continued to decline, much because of the new rules and regulations regarding the import of tea to England. Most of the SOIC's earlier tea cargoes had been smuggled to England, but the profit no longer made up for the risk of such an undertaking. Talk of shutting down the company started in 1789, and after 1804, no more ships were sent out from Sweden. On 27   June 1808, the company informed

41040-430: The trade. On 23   September 1745, a request for a second octroi was presented by the firm Abraham and Jacob Arfwedsson & Co . They received a preliminary grant for it. A couple of weeks later, a second request for an octroi was made by the company Anders Plomgren & C:o and partner Carl Broman. The directors from the first charter submitted their request on 20   January 1746. A commission to investigate

41256-417: The transition between them was very gradual. One of the few moments when linguists can detect something of a revolution is when the Dutch standard language emerged and quickly established itself. The development of the Dutch language is illustrated by the following sentence in Old, Middle and Modern Dutch: Among the Indo-European languages , Dutch is grouped within the Germanic languages , meaning it shares

41472-420: The urban dialects of the province of Holland . In 1637, a further important step was made towards a unified language, when the Statenvertaling , the first major Bible translation into Dutch, was created that people from all over the new republic could understand. It used elements from various, even Dutch Low Saxon , dialects but was predominantly based on the urban dialects of Holland of post 16th century. In

41688-412: The usual dangers of piracy, disease and shipwreck, but also because the interplay of inelastic demand and relatively elastic supply of spices could make prices tumble, thereby ruining prospects of profitability. To manage such risk, the forming of a cartel to control supply would seem logical. In 1600, the English were the first to adopt this approach by bundling their resources into a monopoly enterprise,

41904-438: Was Frederick I , considered the most incompetent king of Sweden by many contemporary politicians and later historians. His only interests were hunting and women; the king's absence gave the Riksdag and the bureaucrats a free rein to promote trade and science. During its entire existence from 1731 to 1813, the SOIC made 131 voyages, using 37 different ships. Of these, eight ships were lost, totally or partially. The sorest loss

42120-408: Was a huge economic success, the auction bringing in some 900,000 Swedish riksdaler. The dividend paid was 75% of the capital invested. According to the ledgers of the Gothenburg Main Customs Cambers for Sea Trade in 1733 to 1734, goods for 518,972 riksdaler were exported; the rest stayed in Sweden. The charter was renewed in 1746, 1766 and 1786, creating the Second, Third and Fourth Octrois. Under

42336-557: Was also brought, as was timber. The expeditions called at Cádiz where they traded goods to acquire essential Spanish silver, on which the China trade depended in the form of coins, pesos duros , since the charter stated that the silver carried to China, coined or uncoined, could not be Swedish. The company also had to pay tax to the Dey of Algiers and carry Moroccan passports, thereby being ensured protection from raids by Barbary pirates . These transactions are documented in receipts. The return on expeditions could be around 25–30% of

42552-590: Was appointed governor-general of the VOC. He saw the possibility of the VOC becoming an Asian power, both political and economic. On 30 May 1619, Coen, backed by a force of nineteen ships, stormed Jayakarta, driving out the Banten forces; and from the ashes established Batavia as the VOC headquarters. In the 1620s almost the entire native population of the Banda Islands was driven away, starved to death, or killed in an attempt to replace them with Dutch plantations. These plantations were used to grow nutmeg for export. Coen hoped to settle large numbers of Dutch colonists in

42768-503: Was approximately to double the size of the company. The tonnage of the returning ships rose by 125 percent in this period. However, the company's revenues from the sale of goods landed in Europe rose by only 78 percent. This reflects the basic change in the VOC's circumstances that had occurred: it now operated in new markets for goods with an elastic demand, in which it had to compete on an equal footing with other suppliers. This made for low profit margins. The business information systems of

42984-415: Was carried out successfully. Initially, different spices were the primary commodity along with tea, silk and miscellaneous luxury items, but on later voyages, porcelain and tea made up the bulk of the trade to meet the demand for such goods back in Europe. On its return, the vessel was stopped by the Dutch between Java and Sumatra , and brought to Batavia . Campbell protested and produced his papers, but

43200-405: Was declining and that the company should be granted permission to send a ship to India, contrary to the regulations for the trade so far. An exemption was granted in 1749, and a ship was sent to Surat in India. On its return in 1752, that ship yielded a profit of 103% and two more ships were sent to Surat. The English and the Dutch controlled most of the trade in the town and did everything to prevent

43416-408: Was determined that capital should be considered invested in the company as a whole, on the model of other East India companies. A partner desiring to withdraw his funds was responsible for finding another willing to substitute capital of his own. The reasons for secrecy on finances and shareholders were both internal and external: British citizens were forbidden to engage in trade in Asia on behalf of

43632-399: Was established in Banten , West Java , and in 1611, another was established at Jayakarta (later "Batavia" and then "Jakarta"). In 1610, the VOC established the post of governor-general to more firmly control their affairs in Asia. To advise and control the risk of despotic governors-general, a Council of the Indies ( Raad van Indië ) was created. The governor-general effectively became

43848-427: Was far from the Asian trade routes and other VOC areas of activity ranging from Africa to India to Japan. A location in the west of the archipelago was thus sought. The Straits of Malacca were strategic but became dangerous following the Portuguese conquest, and the first permanent VOC settlement in Banten was controlled by a powerful local ruler and subject to stiff competition from Chinese and English traders. In 1604,

44064-546: Was granted a 21-year monopoly to carry out trade activities in Asia. Shares in the company could be purchased by any citizen of the United Provinces (Dutch Republic) and subsequently bought and sold in open-air secondary markets (one of which became the Amsterdam Stock Exchange ). The company possessed quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, imprison and execute convicts, negotiate treaties, strike its own coins , and establish colonies. Also, because it traded across multiple colonies and countries from both

44280-443: Was later renamed Cape of Good Hope in honour of the outpost's presence. Although non-company ships were welcome to use the station, they were charged exorbitantly. This post later became a full-fledged colony, the Cape Colony , when more Dutch and other Europeans started to settle there. Through the seventeenth century VOC trading posts were also established in Persia , Bengal , Malacca , Siam , Formosa (now Taiwan), as well as

44496-415: Was no longer worth the trouble to try to dominate the Malabar pepper and spice trade. A strategic decision was taken to scale down the Dutch military presence and in effect yield the area to EIC influence. In the 1741 Battle of Colachel , warriors of Travancore under Raja Marthanda Varma defeated the Dutch. The Dutch commander Captain Eustachius De Lannoy was captured. Marthanda Varma agreed to spare

44712-433: Was probably the Götheborg in 1745, as it sank just off Älvsborg fortress at the entrance to Gothenburg having managed to journey safely to China and back. Even though most books were burned, it is evident that the voyages were extremely profitable for the shareholders, and many Swedes became wealthy due to the SOIC. From Gothenburg the vessels carried iron, both in bars and processed, as axes, anchors, steel, etc. Copper

44928-436: Was reluctant: the closing of the Ostend Company in 1731, following British diplomatic pressure as part of the Treaty of Vienna , boded ill for the Swedes' competition against the main powers when trade and politics were so intimately associated. König took the matters to the Swedish parliament and succeeded, gaining royal privileges for the company on 14   June 1731, initially for a period of 15 years. These privileges were

45144-403: Was renewed several times, but was allowed to expire on 31 December 1799. Most of the possessions of the former VOC were subsequently occupied by Great Britain during the Napoleonic wars , but after the new United Kingdom of the Netherlands was created by the Congress of Vienna , some of these were restored to this successor state of the Dutch Republic by the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 . While

45360-440: Was replaced by Afrikaans , a separate but partially mutually intelligible daughter language of Dutch. Afrikaans, depending on the definition used, may be considered a sister language , spoken, to some degree, by at least 16 million people, mainly in South Africa and Namibia , and evolving from Cape Dutch dialects. In South America, it is the native language of the majority of the population of Suriname , and spoken as

45576-529: Was seized by the Dutch and the second was destroyed by the British and the French. This fueled the opposition against the trade in Sweden and the SOIC started a massive PR-campaign about the benefits of trading with the East Indies. They also agreed to make certain concessions about what goods to import from China. To avoid confrontations with the other trading countries, the company refrained from seeking trade with India and focused on China instead. A total of 15 expeditions supported by 25 ships were launched during

45792-444: Was supported by a number of prominent Swedes, including the King himself, but raising the necessary money proved harder. Political difficulties and Sweden's participation in the Thirty Years' War , where King Gustav II was killed, put an end to the plans. The resources were instead used for a smaller company, trading within Europe. The next attempt to start a trading company was made in 1661, by German merchant Erlenkamp, who suggested

46008-418: Was the driving force for the whole enterprise since he had gained firsthand knowledge of the China trade as supercargo for the Ostend Company. He was knighted by King Frederick I and moved to Gothenburg to organize the first expedition. The first two expeditions proved dangerous and complicated since the rest of the trading nations did not take kindly to Sweden's attempt to engage in the trade. The first ship

46224-466: Was the only major Swedish port accessible without having to pass the Danish customs at Øresund . On 14   June 1626, Usselincx received royal privileges for a trading company for twelve years, from the Swedish King Gustav II Adolf . The privileges included clauses about the ethics of trading with foreign, indigenous people. The first priority was to establish friendly, long-term relations that would be mutually beneficiary for both parties. The venture

46440-417: Was under foreign control. In the 19th century, the East Indies trade started to dwindle, and with it the importance of Malacca as a trading post. The Dutch state officially ceded Malacca to the British in 1825. It took until 1957 for Malaya to gain its independence. Despite this, the Dutch language is rarely spoken in Malacca or Malaysia and only limited to foreign nationals able to speak the language. After

46656-403: Was used in the Dutch East Indies (now mostly Indonesia ) by a limited educated elite of around 2% of the total population, including over 1 million indigenous Indonesians, until it was banned in 1957, but the ban was lifted afterwards. About a fifth of the Indonesian language can be traced to Dutch, including many loan words . Indonesia's Civil Code has not been officially translated, and

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