Rabu, 31 Desember 2014
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| Holland |
From the 10th to the 16th century, Holland proper was a unified political region within the Holy Roman Empire as a county ruled by the Counts of Holland. By the 17th century, Holland had risen to become a maritime and economic power, dominating the other provinces of the newly independent Dutch Republic.
Today, the former County of Holland roughly consists of the two Dutch provinces of North Holland and South Holland, which together include the Netherlands' three largest cities: the capital city of Amsterdam; the seat of government of The Hague; and Rotterdam, home of Europe's largest port.
The name Holland first appeared in sources in 866 for the region around Haarlem, and by 1064 was being used as the name of the entire county. By this time, the inhabitants of Holland were referring to themselves as "Hollanders". Holland is derived from the Middle Dutch term holtland ("wooded land"). This spelling variation remained in use until around the 14th century, at which time the name stabilised as Holland (alternative spellings at the time were Hollant and Hollandt). A popular folk etymology holds that Holland is derived from hol land ("hollow land") and was inspired by the low-lying geography of Holland.
The proper name of the area in both Dutch and English is "Holland". "Holland" is a part of the Netherlands. "Holland" is informally used in English and other languages, including sometimes the Dutch language itself, to mean the whole of the modern country of the Netherlands. This example of pars pro toto or synecdoche is similar to the tendency in the past to refer to the United Kingdom as "England".
The people of Holland are referred to as "Hollanders" in both Dutch and English. Today this refers specifically to people from the current provinces of North Holland and South Holland. Strictly speaking, the term "Hollanders" does not refer to people from the other provinces in the Netherlands, but colloquially "Hollanders" is sometimes mistakenly used in this wider sense.
In Dutch, the Dutch word "Hollands" is the adjectival form for "Holland". The Dutch word "Hollands" is also colloquially and occasionally used by some Dutch people in the sense of "Nederlands" (Dutch), but then often with the intention of contrasting with other types of Dutch people or language, for example Limburgish, the Belgian form of the Dutch language ("Flemish"), or even any southern variety of Dutch within the Netherlands itself.
However, in English there is no commonly used adjective for "Holland". "Dutch" refers to the Netherlands as a whole, not just the region of Holland. "Hollands" is ordinarily expressed in English in two ways:
a possessive construction (e.g. "Holland's economic power"); or
an "of Holland" or "from Holland" construction (e.g. "the Maid of Holland"; "a girl from Holland").
The following usages apply in certain limited situations but do not ordinarily serve as the English equivalent of the commonly used Dutch adjective "Hollands".
Occasionally, the noun "Holland" is used in apposition (e.g. "the Holland Society").
The adjective "Hollandic" is occasionally used by some historians and other academic writers as an adjective for Holland. Historians who use the word tend to reserve it to pre-Napoleonic Holland. Hollandic is also the name linguists give to the dialect spoken in Holland.
The adjective "Hollandish" is a word in English but is no longer in use.
History
Each of the provinces in the Netherlands has a history that deserves full attention on its own. However, to a certain extent at least, the history of Holland is the history of the Netherlands, and vice versa. See the article on "History of the Netherlands" for a more detailed history. The article here focuses on those points that are specific to Holland itself or that highlight the nature of the role played by Holland in the Netherlands as a whole.
reff: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland
