Talk:Zeeland

Antipode

I hate to be a stickler but the Antipodes of Nea Zealand lies in or off the coast of Spain. I have therefore deleted the claim Graemec2 09:43, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Spelling

The use of the spelling Zeeland in English is incorrect according to traditional English spelling. The Dutch province, after which New Zealand is named, has always been spelt Zealand in English. The use of the same name and spelling for the Danish island came into use later. Spellings such as Zeeland/Zeelandic and Friesland/Friesian are not acceptable English spellings (they should be Zealand/Zealandic, Frisia/Frisian), although they are used in Wikipedia, and arise from improper knowledge of English orthographic tradition by Dutch contributors to Wikipedia. -AvL 15 January 2006

I doubt this. I looked it up in two reference sources, in the Van Dale Handwoordenboek Nederlands-Engels (1996), which translates 'Friesland' as 'Friesland' and 'Zeeland' as 'Zeeland' (but at the same time, 'Noord-Brabant' is translated as 'North Brabant'); and secondly, the New Lexicon Webster's Dictionary of the English language (1991), which lists under 'Zealand' only the Danish Island, and under 'Zeeland' the Dutch province; also, it lists 'Friesland' (not only for the Dutch province, but also for the entire region) but not 'Frisia' - however, the adjective it uses is 'Frisian' (without 'e'). It seems that, at the very least, the authorities are divided - do you have anything to substantiate your point of view?

The common usage on Wikipedia seems to be that Friesland refers to the Dutch province, whereas Frisia seems to refer to the entire region that stretches out from the Netherlands to Denmark. Joost 23:51, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Here's a really good example to substantiate my point of view on the spelling "Zealand": consider the spelling of "New Zealand"!!! Also, according to the Prisma Woordenboek Nederland-Engels: "Zeeland > Zealand". Historically Zealand played a much more dominant role on the world stage than today, and many languages had their own variants of the province's name: la Zélande, Zelanda, Seeland, Zealand, etc. Now that the region is all but forgotten by most, people often erroneously use the Dutch name in place of their own form of the name. I will concede on one point, namely the Friesland/Frisia question. According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary: "Frisian > (Native, language) of Friesland." So, Friesland in English for the Dutch province. But NOT "Friesian" for the language! AvL 25 January 2006

I agree that Friesian with 'ie' is a misspelling (except - apparently - when it concerns certain cows, but I won't make any claims about that). It is only used a few times here on Wikipedia, however, and in general the adjective Frisian is used. About Zeeland: yes, New Zealand is a pointer that, historically, the province may also have been spelled Zealand, but it seems that nowadays, the authorities simply have differing opinions, and I think it goes too far to say that one is simply wrong. So I suggest to edit any occurence of Friesian to Frisian, but other than that just to keep things as they are, as there is nothing which is clearly wrong according to contemporary standards. The article on Zealand (the Danish island) has a redirect to Zeeland at the top, so this shouldn't cause much problems, either. Perhaps it would be better, though, to start the article with: "Zeeland, in English also called Zealand, etc..." Joost 11:02, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Or: "Zeeland, traditionally spelt Zealand in English, hence 'New Zealand'"... I checked some more sources today; the usage of neither spelling seems to be consistently applied (ehhh... anymore!). Anyway, this is the very last I'm going to contribute to the matter; though not a linguistic purist, I suppose I prefer to stick to tradional spellings and somewhat bemoan the loss of usages that are particular to a certain region... AvL 26 January 2006

"It has also been suggested that Captain Cook assumed Nieuw Zeeland was named after the island of Zealand, Denmark": Suggested by whom? By a contributor to Wikipedia? Obviously not by any contemporary of Captain James Cook himself! This cannot but be the speculations of someone who is not knowledgeable of the place that Zealand (Netherlands) holds in maritime history! One must not assume that this Zealand has always been the backwater Dutch province it had become by the twentieth century. It is not by any accident that New Zealand is named as such, and not for instance New Drenthe or New Limburg. Zealand held for a long period after the independence of the Northern Netherlands from Habsburg rule the place of a more or less autonomous state, and even founded its own colonies. Surinam was a colony exclusively governed by the Estates of Zealand from 1667 to 1682; Paramaribo was originally called Nieuw-Middelburg. Also the Berbice (Guyana) and Demerary were Zealandic colonies, and Tobago fell to Zealandic hands for some time. From 1745 to 1770 Dutch (Hollandic) ships were even prohibited from entering the waters of Demerary! Also, to this day both the arms of Holland and Zealand -in equal proportions- can be seen gracing the old port in Mauritius. It is then also entirely implausible that a well-travelled eighteenth century sea captain like James Cook might have confused the name Zeeland with that of the Danish island of Zealand (Sjaelland) and not have known the traditional English name for the Netherlandic province of Zeeland (Zealand). In fact, I would even hazard to guess that the use of Zealand for Sjaelland came into being later than for the Netherlandic Zealand, and perhaps is even copied from it. The other bits in this portion of the article about sound shifts that might have changed "Nieuw-Zeeland" to "New Zealand" are also rooted in the lack of understanding that Zealand is simply the traditional English name for Zeeland. I still remain adamant that the article should also be titled Zealand and not Zeeland; the arguments of contributors that the English language has no institution dictating the usage for names does not mean that one is justified in bringing changes to a language in an encyclopaedia. An encyclopaedia is meant to mirror current and traditional usage, and is not the place to effect change. Moreover, tradition itself may be seen as being the institution that dictates appropriate English language usage. -A Zealandic-Canadian- 19 May 2006

Requested move

I totally agree with above! I'm from the Netherlands, but my conclusion is also that the Enlgish name of Zeeland should be "Zealand". The title "Zeeland" is not according to the Wikipedia:Naming conventions. So, therefore I will put the template {move|new title} in top of this article. My suggestion is to rename this article to: Zealand (Netherlands). Demophon (talk) 02:32, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Seems ok, although in that case the Danish one should be renamed Zealand (Denmark) and Zealand without any additions should point to the (already existing) disambiguation page. Arnoutf (talk) 21:33, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Roosevelt family ancestral home

Should we mention that the ancestral home of the Roosevelt Family (FDR, TR, etc.) is located in Zeeland? 04:48, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Maybe interesting for the Roosevelt family - merely trivia here. Arnoutf (talk) 21:32, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Religion

Perhaps it's interesting to mention the specific religious situation in Zeeland? In Zeeland are many strict-calvinist churches, Zeeland has an interesting place in Dutch church-history especialy for the so-called 'bevindelijk gereformeerden'. My English is pretty bad :), so I can't do it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.241.190.142 (talk) 12:35, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Flooding Photo Caption

The same photo labelled here as showing the 1953 flood in a town in Zeeland, appears in the article on that 1953 flood but there it's captioned as a different town that's not in Zeeland. Does anyone know which one is correct? 118.93.239.253 (talk) 09:51, 13 April 2019 (UTC)