Great new look, same great feel!

Love the logo and re-org Marc.

Greetings from Maui–easy biking from beach to beach in search of the best breakers for body surfing.

I have this linguistic theory that Nederlandsk and Hawaiian–both spoken by seafaring peoples–are related. Hawaiian uses only 16 letters, the vast majority being vowel sounds. And the ever-practical Dutch have collected all the castaway consonants and often use them double-time: B, C, D, F, G, J, Q, R, S, X, Y & Z. Now all I need is a generous grant to pay for six months field study in Amsterdam and Waikiki.

Goede Tag & Aloha

Hey John, thanks!

Maui, lucky man!! Your linguistic theory is hilarious, but not far from reality…although I don't think you realize you've touched on something sensitive…mixing Dutch with German in 'Goede Tag'…it's 'Goededag' ;)

Have fun, be well!

Oh, I love these photos! The kids in the Bakfiets… adorable.

great post babe…I like the first paragraph :)

Wow, that girl with the blonde curls just looks amazing! *jealous* ;)

Anyhoo, love the photos as always! And the new set-up too! Gorgeous!

Now I'll never forget that “day” is with “d” in Dutch, and not with “t”. No “T” sounds in Hawaiian either, by the way. Hawaiian for bicycle: “Paikikala”.Roughly translated means “thing that stirs your hip bone.”

So does anyone know the etymology for “fiets”? French “velo” comes from “velocipede”, or “moving swiftly by foot power.” Clunky German and English refer to the mechanics of the bike, “fahrrad” translates to “traveling wheel”, and English “bicycle” means roughly “two wheeler.” My hunch is that “fietsen” has a more poetic etymology, not directly related to the mechanics.

thanks, Christa, can't go wrong with bakfietsen :)

thanks, lief!

Thanks!!

I'm a lingo-man, but you take it to the next level, love it :).

Fiets. Yes, I was forced to do some research. Apparently, no conclusive answers, but a few plausible ones:

1) taken from the word (dialect) 'vietsen', which means 'to transport/move quickly')
2) 'Fietsen' is also still used as 'to fit together' & 'aligning', related to 'fix' in English or 'Figere' in Latin. To date, we still use 'fiets' as the word for the following card in a card game. Also, you can also 'tussendoor fietsen' ('fit something in between' > literally: 'cycling in between'), which means 'to fit into plans'.

'Vitsen' or 'vietsen' (a rare word that's sometimes still used to describe a field), are branches from a certain type of wood, used to construct houses.
Based on that you can deduce that we deal with an old word for 'a configuration of branches'. With that angle the word 'fiets' actually means 'frame'. ;)

Back to more sanity: for long the Dutch used the French word 'vélocipède'. There are a few distinct stepping stones between 'vélocipède' and 'fiets'.

I found a document with a section about the etymology of 'fiets' on our language institute 'Onze Taal' ('Our Language') website.

In short the words history looks like this:
- 'vélocipède' > 'Fielesepée' (phonetic transition)
- 'Fielesepée' > 'fieselepée'
- 'fieselepée' > shortened to 'fiese' (just like 'automobile' became 'auto')
- 'fiese' > 'fietse' (to make the word stronger, as in to describe the rattling noises of the early bicycles)

In 1969 two researchers weren't satisfied with the different myths about the origins of 'fietse'. They weren't able to come to a final conclusion, but did find three distinct influences that transformed and established 'fietse' as the modern word:

- 'vietse' or 'fletse' = dialect word from the South of Limburg, which means 'to quickly get away'
- a duplication of sound: the squeeking of the old vélocipèdes
- slang for the name of the bicycle club 'La Vitesse' in Apeldoorn (founded in 1880)

The only thing these gentlemen could establish for certain was that 'fiets' is a genuine, original Dutch word. Just like the word 'brommer' (='moped', but originally also a sound duplication word -the noise of the engine-) the word 'Fiets' is often used by purists as proof for our linguistic abilities. 'We can, if we want'.

A ginormous thank you for the research Marc. I like the mix of theories — to move quickly, fitting or fixing together, the more pictoral reference to the bicycle frame itself, and the onomatopoeic word originating from the rattling noises of early bikes…

Love to see the sun returning in your recent posts. Happy first day of spring. Biking down the hill to get provisions for first BBQ of 2010 while hubby works in the garden.