English in Contact: German and Dutch

This chapter examines the topic of English in contact with German and Dutch, with the term Low Dutch used to refer to Flemish, Dutch, Frisian, and Low German collectively. It raises several methodological challenges which account for the mismatch between widespread claims in the historical literature underscoring the intensity of contact between speakers of Low Dutch idioms and English, and the scant attention it receives in the historical linguistics literature. Central to these challenges are the effects that purist language ideologies have had on the compilation of standard reference works commonly used to assess the influence of other languages on English. It is suggested that there is considerable scope for refining our, at present, poor understanding of the role of Low Dutch contact in the history of English, and that the combined effects of several groups in contact merit further investigation.