Your chick's calling
I studied Dutch for my degree and for my third year I spent a year in The Netherlands working at Utrecht University International Office. On my first day with all my colleagues present, the telephone rang in the main office and as a baptism of fire they asked me to answer it. I was quite relieved to discover that it was the Director's wife and not a complex query. I turned to him and said: Jeroen, je wijf is aan de telefoon. Everybody started laughing and I was informed that wijf does not mean "wife", it actually means "chick". Not a good start! On my last day everybody reminded me of this incident amid much hilarity! The Dutch word for wife is vrouw.
Sent by: Anthony
Comments
Wijf doesn't really mean 'chick' any more ... I would say the word has an even ruder connotation, as in bitch or tart.
Vrouw is like the German word Frau, both meaning woman and wife ... so, mijn vrouw and meine Frau both mean my wife!
In the Belgian province West-Flanders, wijf does mean 'wife' in some dialects, though it is often pronounced differently. I'm not sure if this is the same in other dialects. In most places it is indeed a very rude term for a woman.
Same root as the English word 'wife' which in Anglo-Saxon (Wyfe) simply meant woman. Hence, in English Midwife (again, Old English 'Medwyfe' simply meant someone who was 'with' the woman, during birth!) - just as 'Man' in English comes from the Anglo-Saxon 'Mann' which means 'adult person' - it is not gender specific - so any English word ending in 'man' has no gender! - which is why 'madam chairman' makes perfect sense, and 'chairperson' is pure nonesense! :-)
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