Changing Usage in TDK Publications

In recent editions of the spelling guide published by the Turkish Language Association (TDK), the language spoken in the Netherlands is designated as Hollandaca. In dictionaries and orthographic guides issued prior to 1983, however, the language was referred to not as Hollandaca, but as Felemenkçe.

Following the institutional restructuring of the TDK after 1983, Hollandaca gradually emerged as the preferred form in official publications. Today, both terms continue to coexist within Turkish usage: while the contemporary official TDK dictionary adopts Hollandaca, the older term Felemenkçe still appears naturally in historical sources and even on widely used platforms such as Wikipedia.

The Ottoman View of the Low Countries

The use of the term Felemenkçe reflects the Ottoman perception of the region. The Ottomans did not conceive of it as a single modern nation-state, but rather as the broader geographical and cultural sphere historically associated with Flanders and the Low Countries. Because Ottoman contact with the region was shaped primarily through trade and maritime activity, cities such as Antwerp, Bruges, Ghent and Amsterdam were perceived as belonging to the same commercial world. Consequently, expressions such as “Felemenk merchants” and “Felemenkçe” became established in Ottoman Turkish.

The Etymology of Felemenk

The word Felemenk most likely derives from Flamingen, the ethnonym used by the Flemish people in their own language. The Ottomans probably encountered this designation directly through contact with Flemish merchants and subsequently adapted it phonetically into Felemenk. In other words, the term appears to have entered Turkish primarily through oral transmission within commercial and seafaring circles rather than through written or Latin sources.

The Emergence of Hollandaca

As the name Holland gradually became more widespread internationally, the derivative form Hollandaca increasingly replaced Felemenkçe as the Turkish designation for the language. After 1983, the TDK formally adopted this newer terminology in parallel with broader international tendencies. Nevertheless, this transition does not render one term “correct” and the other “incorrect”: Felemenkçe remains a historical and cultural designation, whereas Hollandaca functions as the modern official term.

Personal Preference

Personally, I believe that the term Felemenkçe may gradually fall out of common usage over time. My own preference is to translate the words Dutch and Nederlands into Turkish as Hollandaca.

Evren Madran

The Talebird