Creating Belonging in San Francisco

Chinatown’s Diasporic Community:

Morphosyntactic Aspects of Indexing
Ethnic Identity 1st ed. 2020 Edition
Adina Staicov
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Creating Belonging
in San Francisco
Chinatown’s Diasporic
Community
Morphosyntactic Aspects of
Indexing Ethnic Identity

Adina Staicov
Creating Belonging in San Francisco Chinatown’s
Diasporic Community
 Adina Staicov

Creating Belonging
in San Francisco
Chinatown’s
Diasporic Community
Morphosyntactic Aspects of Indexing
Ethnic Identity
Adina Staicov
Writing Center
Hiroshima University
Hiroshima, Japan

ISBN 978-3-030-24992-2    ISBN 978-3-030-24993-9 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24993-9

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This work was accepted as a PhD thesis by the Faculty of Arts and Social
Sciences, University of Zurich in the fall semester 2016 on the
recommendation of the Doctoral Committee: Prof Dr Marianne Hundt
«main supervisor», Prof Dr Daniel Schreier, Prof Dr Martin Dusinberre.

v
 Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without the help and support of
many different people, and I hope that they all know who they are.
I want to thank Marianne Hundt, Daniel Schreier, and Martin
Dusinberre for their support and guidance throughout my time as a PhD
student. Marianne’s keen eye and attention for detail shaped the project
and the final product in many ways, and I am especially grateful for the
encouraging words she provided during the more difficult times of data
collection. Dani, who at times played devil’s advocate, reminded me to
keep the larger picture in mind and to look beyond the confines of my own
study. Martin was a late addition to my viva committee but offered great
advice and support and reminded me, why this project was so exciting. I
also have to thank Lena Zipp and Michele Badilatti for being great friends,
for always having an open ear, and for being there with chocolate and
laughter when I was struggling with the project—I am genuinely indebted
to you both. I also want to thank Radu Tanase and Nina Benisowitsch for
their help with the statistical analyses in the book. I could not have done it
without you. Thanks also to Nicole Eberle, Danae Perez, Elena Callegaro,
and Rahel Oppliger, my wonderful colleagues who offered much-needed
breaks during some of the more stressful phases of my PhD.

vii
viii Acknowledgements

Finally, I wholeheartedly thank all those people who participated in

this study. This book is for you. It would not have happened without
your contribution, and I fondly remember the time you allowed me to
spend in your company. Your stories will stay with me forever.
 Contents

1 Introduction  1

2 San Francisco Chinatown: Introducing the Community 17

3 Ethnolinguistic Variation in North America 47

4 Ethnic Identity and Morphosyntactic Variation in San

Francisco Chinatown 65

5 Constructing Chinese Americanness in San Francisco

Chinatown125

6 Conclusion159

Appendix169

Index181

ix
 List of Figures

Picture 2.1 A Chinatown family. (Picture courtesy of informant Frank) 19

Picture 2.2 A produce shop in Chinatown. (Picture courtesy of
informant Frank) 24
Fig. 2.1 Participants’ heritage language 39
Fig. 2.2 Participants’ L1 40
Fig. 2.3 Participants’ parents’ L1 40
Fig. 4.1 Heritage language competence in the second generation 76
Fig. 4.2 Self-labelling—questionnaire data, overall results 77
Fig. 4.3 Self-labelling—questionnaire data, Gen1 78
Fig. 4.4 Self-labelling—questionnaire data, Gen2 78
Fig. 4.5 Self-labelling—questionnaire data, Gen2O 79
Fig. 4.6 Self-labelling—questionnaire data, Gen2Y 79
Fig. 4.7 Self-labelling and English proficiency 80
Fig. 4.8 Meim-R and gender 81
Fig. 4.9 Meim-R and generation 82
Fig. 4.10 Meim-R generation and gender 82
Fig. 4.11 Comparison Meim-R (red) and EI score (blue) 85
Fig. 4.12 English article system for singular count nous 91
Fig. 4.13 Cantonese determiner system 92
Fig. 4.14 Interaction tense and EI—Gen1 & Gen2Y 97
Fig. 4.15 Interaction tense and generation—Gen1 & Gen2Y 98
Fig. 4.16 Interaction tense and interlocutor—Gen1 & Gen2Y 99
Fig. 4.17 Interaction tense and clusters—Gen1 & Gen2Y 100

xi
xii List of Figures

Fig. 4.18 Interaction tense and gender—Gen2O and Gen2Y 101

Fig. 4.19 Interaction tense and interlocutor—Gen2O and Gen2Y 102
Fig. 4.20 Interaction tense and clusters—Gen2O and Gen2Y 103
Fig. 4.21 Interaction Articles, INDEF and gender—Gen2O
and Gen2Y 107
Fig. 4.22 Interaction Articles, INDEF and generation—Gen2O
and Gen2Y 107
Fig. 4.23 Interaction Articles, INDEF and proficiency in
Cantonese—Gen2O and Gen2Y 108
Picture 5.1 Playground in Chinatown. (Picture courtesy of
informant Hattie) 134
Picture 5.2 Arriving at 16 and going back at 80 (left in picture 2;
pictures courtesy of informant Hattie) 144
 List of Tables

Table 2.1 Number of participants across age group, gender, and

generation37
Table 2.2 Participants analysed for ethnic identity construction and
morphosyntactic variation 38
Table 4.1 Meim-R and EI per speaker 86
Table 4.2 Distribution of standard and non-standard variants across
gender and generation 95
Table 4.3 Results Gen1 & Gen2Y—Tense 97
Table 4.4 Results Gen2O and Gen2Y—Tense 100
Table 4.5 Results Gen1 and Gen2Y—Number 103
Table 4.6 Results Gen2O and Gen2Y—Number 104
Table 4.7 Results Gen1 and Gen2Y—Articles, INDEF 105
Table 4.8 Results Gen1 and Gen2Y—Articles, DEF 105
Table 4.9 Results Gen2O and Gen2Y—Articles, INDEF 106
Table 4.10 Results Gen2O and Gen2Y—Articles, DEF 109

xiii
 1
Introduction

Sometimes when I walk around Chinatown I forget that I’m in America.

(Sun, second-generation Chinese American, male)

The opening quote reflects experiences of members of a diaspora com-

munity navigating between mainstream society and their ethnic and cul-
tural heritage community. In a diaspora setting, issues of ethnicity are
potentially heightened as individuals try to negotiate their identiti(es),
and allegiances, in relation to both communities. Such local acts of iden-
tity construction can further be complicated by ties to the country of
origin. Together, the aforementioned factors add to the complex web of
an individual’s ethnic identity. The reciprocal relationship between ethnic
identity construction and linguistic practices, particularly linguistic vari-
ation, is also at play in the Chinese American diaspora community of San
Francisco Chinatown1; a community in which first- and second-­
generation Chinese Americans draw on their linguistic repertoire to sig-
nal belonging to or distance from the mainstream Anglo-American or the
Chinese American community.
San Francisco Chinatown, the oldest and one of the largest Chinese
diaspora2 communities in North America, provides fertile grounds for

© The Author(s) 2020 1

A. Staicov, Creating Belonging in San Francisco Chinatown’s Diasporic Community,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24993-9_1
2 A. Staicov

the investigation of language and ethnic identity. Tracing its origins back
to the mid-nineteenth century, today’s Chinatown still represents an eth-
nic enclave, a space that allows Chinese Americans of all generations to
remain in contact with Chinese culture. The neighbourhood itself is thus
another factor influencing ethnic identity as well as linguistic practices.

1.1 Language Variation in Chinatown

Despite a growing body of literature on variation in speakers of Chinese
ancestry, Chinese American linguistic practices are still relatively unchar-
tered territory. Chinese Americans are perceived as culturally and linguis-
tically highly assimilated,3 and Asian Americans, in general, have long
been considered not to have their own variety of English (Wong 2010:
5). I will not try to argue here that an ethnically distinct variety of English
or “ethnolect” does exist in Chinatown but want to show that specific
morphosyntactic variables are a resource that is employed to index (eth-
nic) identity.
In traditional sociolinguistic studies on the correlation between mac-
rosocial categories, such as ethnicity, and linguistic variation (e.g. Labov
1966; Trudgill 1972), social categories were perceived as fixed and stable.
Such an essentialist approach, however, can lead to an oversimplification
of “the multivalent and multimodal nature of identities as well as the
nuanced ways in which these identities are indexed and negotiated lin-
guistically” (Wong and Hall-Lew 2014: 27). To avoid this oversimplifica-
tion, I took a constructivist perspective that conceptualises ethnicity and
ethnic identity as being constantly (re-)negotiated in relation with all the
different social groups to which an individual claims membership. In
addition, I discuss how linguistic variables are used to index social mean-
ing through stylistic practices.4
Identity is another concept that is closely intertwined with linguistic
variation. Linguistic identity research aims to uncover how speakers use
features to index their identity and how hearers use those features to infer
information about the speakers (Joseph 2004: 24). Language functions as
the mediator between individual and social identity, and linguistic fea-
tures bind these two types of identities together (Tabouret-Keller 1998:
 1 Introduction 3

317). There is ample evidence of the strong correlation between social

groups and linguistic features (e.g. Labov 1966, 1972; Lakoff 1975,
2000; Tannen 1990; Milroy 1987; Milroy and Milroy 1992), to which
Joseph (2004: 38) adds that:

(1) group identities are sometimes manifested primarily through shared

linguistic features, and (2) these features are not necessarily fixed in a given
individual, whose knowledge of his language always includes a wide range
of features (so that he can understand speakers from outside his group)
which in some cases he can deploy actively, for example in the case of lin-
guistic accommodation.

My discussion shows how Chinese Americans in San Francisco make

use of such “shared linguistic features” to (co-)construct their “group
identities” and membership in a diaspora setting. Drawing on original,
interactive speech data5 collected in San Francisco Chinatown (see Sect.
2.6), I illustrate how the construction of ethnic identiti(es) relates to
morphosyntactic variation in English across different communicative set-
tings and with different interlocutors. Quantitative linguistic and discur-
sive instantiations of identity construction are then localised within the
sociolinguistic constraints of different generations of Chinese Americans.
In my analysis of the interview data, I was guided by three overarching
questions: (1) What role does language play for the indexing of ethnic
identity in a diaspora community like San Francisco Chinatown? (2)
How do Chinese Americans construct ethnic identity discursively? and
(3) Do first- and second-generation speakers differ in their use of their
linguistic repertoires in English (especially with regard to morphosyntac-
tic variation)?
The variety of English spoken in the Chinatown community is likely
influenced by the widely spoken heritage language, Cantonese, and by
varieties of first-generation immigrants’ learner or accented Englishes.
Close contact to these varieties provides the different generations of
Chinese Americans with a broad linguistic repertoire they can employ to
index belonging to or distance from their ethnic background. In addition
to the realisation of specific linguistic features, speakers attitudes towards
the different languages used in the community interacted with their sense
4 A. Staicov

of belonging and identification with both the host and the heritage
communities.
The second question helped uncover the potential for ethnic identity
construction, both through linguistic variation vis-à-vis different inter-
locutors (in the quantitative analysis of morphosyntactic variables in in-­
group and out-group speech) and through open identity negotiations in
discourse (in the qualitative analysis of interview and discussion data).
While linguistic variation could be observed, ethnic identity seemed to
play a lesser role in triggering the use of non-standard features. Rather,
participants seemed to follow a traditional sociolinguistic pattern in that
women used fewer and men more non-standard features. Ethnicity was a
more important factor in the discursive construction of identity. For
most participants, ethnic identity strongly correlated with the use of the
heritage language. In the second generation, in particular, being able to
speak the heritage language was an important prerequisite for identifying
as Chinese American. Taking into account that many second-generation
participants did not consider themselves fluent in Cantonese, this obser-
vation showed the symbolic value of the heritage language.
With an ethnographic approach to the community in mind, the third
question afforded the investigation into different socio-historic and soci-
olinguistic realities of first- and second-generation speakers. Individual
and collective experiences helped shape different linguistic repertoires
and a stronger ethnic orientation that is reflected in a speaker’s use of
morphosyntactic variables. Socio-historic developments were particularly
relevant in the second generation, where older speakers had experienced
a change in American society from anti-Chinese to more inclusive. While
this aspect might not have been traceable in linguistic variation, it was an
important factor in creating a sense of belonging to Chinatown; this was
highlighted in many conversations I had with older participants.
Based on the above research questions, I formulated hypotheses (i)–
(iii), which were tested using both quantitative and qualitative
methodologies:

(i) First-generation speakers show higher ethnic identity indices com-

pared to the second generation. Within the second generation, older
speakers have higher indices.
 1 Introduction 5

(ii) First-generation speakers show higher frequencies of non-standard

variants and variations are less affected by social variables.
(iii) While both older and younger second-generation speakers show
morphosyntactic variation, interlocutor effect and positive ethnic
orientation will be stronger for older second-generation speakers.

1.2  ome Considerations on Language

S
and Ethnic Identity
Linguistic variation in a diaspora setting like San Francisco Chinatown
can be influenced by and interact with a number of different factors. To
discuss linguistic practices in the Chinese American community, I drew
specifically on the notions of ethnicity, identity, and transnationalism. As
Chinatown is the result of migration, the presence or absence of ties to
the country of origin can affect language choice and impact an individu-
al’s ethnic orientation in various ways. The aforementioned concepts
become salient in the construction and negotiation of (ethnic) identity
and are likely reflected in an individual’s linguistic choices. In addition to
these broader notions, people’s connection to their own, as well as the
mainstream social group, can interact with ethnic identity and language
variation. By drawing on specific linguistic strategies (see Sect. 4.1), indi-
viduals can index belonging to or distance from the different social groups
that constitute their social environment.
Considering that Chinatown was established more than 150 years ago,
the notions of diaspora and transnationalism become relevant in an anal-
ysis of Chinese Americans’ identity construction. For first-generation
speakers, identity is constructed vis-à-vis the country of origin, China,
and the host country, America. In the case of second-generation Chinese
Americans, America is the home country and China the heritage country.
While the original definition of diaspora is related to the expulsion of
the Jews from Babylonia (OED, s.v. Diaspora, n.), the last couple of
decades have seen a broadening of the term to encompass populations
which, due to a variety of reasons, have been dispersed in space (Brubaker
6 A. Staicov

2005: 3). To describe communities that fell under the new definition of
diaspora, Safran (1991) put forward a list of six necessary characteristics6
a population should exhibit. These characteristics centred on an individ-
ual’s relation to the homeland but were criticised for being too restrictive.
No population can maintain Safran’s criteria throughout its history,
which is why shared and on-going experience of suffering or adaptation
and multi-faceted connections within and across borders should also be
taken into account (Clifford 1997: 250). With these complexities in
mind, I followed Mayer (2005: 13) in her definition of a diaspora as “a
community that – either through expulsion or emigration – is dispersed
to at least two peripheries from an original (or imagined original) centre”7
(my translation). The San Francisco Chinatown community has devel-
oped through emigration, and its investigation can help shed light on the
complex web of migration histories, accommodation to local cultural and
linguistic settings, and identity construction.
Migration and transnationalism are two further aspects of a diaspora
community. Initially, a diaspora community was considered t­ ransnational
only when transnationalism was practised, i.e. when actual movement
across borders took place (Vertovec 2005: 3–4). More recently, however,
attention has shifted away from traditional processes and the typical
immigrant population of adult migrants to the social (Glick Schiller et al.
1992), virtual and psychological (Duff 2015) processes involved in creat-
ing transnational networks and to younger immigrants as well. Physical
ties can now be absent so that transnationalism can take a symbolic form
“at the level of imagination [and] shared memory” (Espiritu and Tran
2002: 369) that affects members of diaspora communities. As different
generations of Chinese Americans live in and around Chinatown, the
different kinds of transnational practices are likely to influence an indi-
vidual’s perception of and attitudes towards heritage and mainstream cul-
tures, values, and beliefs (Ong 1993, 1999) in various ways. These effects,
in turn, can interact with identity construction and sense of belonging.
The final and main concepts that inform the investigation of linguistic
practices in the San Francisco Chinatown diaspora community are iden-
tity and ethnicity. Both concepts have originally been described in essen-
tialist terms, as fixed and stable attributes. However, rather than being
easily defined, ethnicity and identity are fuzzy and complex, consisting of
 1 Introduction 7

an intricate network of self-perception, self-presentation, and negotiation

with the environment and social groups an individual is part of (Joseph
2004; Edwards 2009). Within such a constructivist approach, identity
refers to the multi-faceted roles into which people are categorised and
categorise themselves into across different contexts (Block 2013: 18).
As indicated above, identification is a process that involves people’s
ideas about their core identity—considered to be relatively constant—
and the many encounters and experiences they make during the course of
their lives. The self consists of all the roles an individual has inhabited
(Tabouret-Keller 1998: 316); it is capable of reflexivity and can (re-)
negotiate its position relative to the social categories and classifications
with which it comes in contact (Stets and Burke 2000: 224).
As individuals do not exist in isolation, however, the groups they claim
membership to further contribute to identity (Joseph 2004: 5).
Knowledge of one’s membership in a group, the evaluation of one’s mem-
bership in that group together with emotions attached to it and outside
perceptions shape an individual’s group identity and their sense of
­belonging (Tajfel 1978a, b). Based on perceived similarities and differ-
ences, people are placed in an individual’s in-group or out-group (Stets
and Burke 2000: 225), and by comparing one’s own group with others,
social identities that are deemed favourable are created. Such a compari-
son can then allow individuals to feel both included and differentiated
(Isurin 2011: 131). For Chinese Americans in San Francisco Chinatown,
social identity was expected to be salient in relation to ethnicity, one of
the traditional “identity inscriptions” that are based on demographic cat-
egories (Block 2013: 18–19). Before discussing ethnicity, I want to con-
sider one last aspect of identity, its emergence in interaction.
Identity is not only attributable to individuals and groups but also to
situations (Bucholtz and Hall 2004, 2005, 2008); it is a “relational and
socio-cultural phenomenon” that is constructed in discourse and can be
investigated on an interactional level (Bucholtz and Hall 2005: 585–587).
Looking at identity construction from the micro-level of interactions
allows us to move further away from traditional, static views to a perspec-
tive that adds “local ethnographic categories and transitory interactional
positions” to the aforementioned macro-sociological views of identities
(Bucholtz and Hall 2005: 587). Such an investigation of identity is based
8 A. Staicov

on five principles that focus on speakers’ agency in employing linguistic

features to index identity: (1) the emergence principle, (2) the positional-
ity principle, (3) the indexicality principle, (4) the relationality principle,
and (5) the partialness principle (Bucholtz and Hall 2005: 588–6068).
These five principles, which I revisit in more detail later, state the impor-
tance of identity as a concept that is (co-)constructed by individuals, with
language being its main vehicle. Together with the self and group identi-
ties, viewing identity as emergent provides a more fine-grained assess-
ment of identity construction based on moment-to-moment analyses of
discourse and the roles an individual assumes during a given interaction.
As indicated above, ethnicity is the last concept that is relevant and
closely related to identity, and it is considered especially relevant in the
identity construction of members of the San Francisco Chinatown com-
munity. Ethnicity is one of the traditional, social categories investigated
in sociolinguistic studies. Very generally, ethnicity refers to a social group
of common descent that shares cultural traits such as language, dress,
values, and beliefs. Claiming to be a member of a particular ethnic group
raises certain expectations about what it means to be a member of a said
group (Joseph 2004). Whether one is a prototypical or marginal member
of an ethnic group can be related to the degree an individual identifies
with that group; an identification that is likely to adapt and change over
time and according to different situations (Bell 2002: 164).
The concept of ethnic identity I adopt here is taken from Edwards
(2009: 162) who states that:

Ethnic identity is allegiance to a group – large or small, socially dominant

or subordinate – with which one has ancestral links. There is no necessity
for a continuation, over generations, of the same socialisation or cultural
patterns, but some sense of a group boundary must persist. This can be
sustained by shared objective characteristics (language, religion, etc.), or by
more subjective contributions to a sense of ‘groupness’, or by some combi-
nation of both. Symbolic or subjective attachments must relate, at however
distant a remove, to an observably real past.

An individual’s “allegiance to a group” and their “‘sense of groupness”

are related to and reflected in their linguistic behaviour. Tapping into the
 1 Introduction 9

construction of a speaker’s ethnic identity enables us to investigate how

this type of social identity is influenced by language and how identity, in
turn, influences a speaker’s linguistic practice. Finally, as individuals do
not have one fixed identity but various identities that are constructed in
relation to the self and others, some of these identities reflect belonging
to the host culture, while others highlight membership in the heritage
culture (Padilla and Perez 2003: 50). For Chinese Americans in San
Francisco, these two groups are represented by the Chinatown commu-
nity and the mainstream Anglo-American community, and speakers’ use
of linguistics repertoires can shed light on how allegiance to these groups
are indexed. In a lifelong process, identity is constructed in a socialisation
process characterised by the self, the group, and by micro-level interac-
tions. This socialisation leads to individuals that have access to “reper-
toires of identity” (Joseph 2004: 9) that can be accentuated or downplayed
according to particular situations and social expectations with language
being one of the key forms of expression of identification.
The concepts and theoretical frameworks outlined above not only
informed the analysis of the interplay of language and identity but also
the decisions made in relation to the settings in which the data were col-
lected. Social identity is relevant since San Francisco Chinatown consti-
tutes an ethnic community, and an individual’s identity might be
influenced by the social group classified as ethnicity or diaspora.
Furthermore, the strength of identification with either host or heritage
group has been shown to vary from individual to individual and to
depend on whom an individual interacts with (c.f. Giles 1978; Bell 2002).
By including the concepts of diaspora and transnationalism, I was able
to address the following questions that have been raised by Mayer (2005)
with relation to the diaspora or by Vertovec (2001) regarding
transnationalism:

(a) Can someone be more or less diasporic/ethnic in their identity?

(b) Is diasporic/ethnic identity based on local definitions as opposed to
global definitions? (Mayer 2005)
(c) How exclusive is transnationalism to the first generation of migrants?
(Vertovec 2001: 557)
10 A. Staicov

(d) Will the so-called ‘second’ generation […] also maintain socio-­
cultural, economic and political ties of some kind (if so, what kind?)
with homelands and with co-ethnic members around the world?
(Vertovec 2001: 557)

As one might expect, for Chinese Americans of San Francisco

Chinatown, being more or less “diasporic/ethnic” is influenced by a vari-
ety of factors, including language use, social network, or identification
with the Chinatown community. For many, local definitions of what it
means to be (Chinese) American seemed to be of greater importance than
national or even transnational ones. Transnational ties were important
across all generations but were weighed differently depending on the type
and intensity of such ties. For all four questions, various factors were at
play, which supports the claim that identity construction is a multi-­
faceted, multi-directional process that does not only vary across or within
generations but also individuals.
At this point, I want to raise an important issue concerning the con-
ceptualisation of ethnicity applied here and its implication for the recruit-
ment of participants. In the recruitment process, an individual’s
“objective” ethnicity was the deciding factor for inclusion in the study.
Imposing categories from outside is strongly connected to a researcher’s
own identification and role in the community and is thus something that
has to be kept in mind when analysing data (c.f. Bucholtz and Hall 2004).
As discussed above, I do not consider an individual’s ethnic identity as a
fixed attribute or given but as a complex and fluid construct influenced
by many different factors. Nevertheless, I follow Bell (2002: 164) who
states that while identities are shaped by experiences, relationships, and
our social and cultural environment “we are more than the sum of those
things”. Such “brought along” identities (Williams 2008: 40) comple-
ment emerging identities in interaction and influence the identity that is
accentuated or downplayed and how it is accentuated or downplayed.
Thus, while participants were selected for this study based on objective or
“brought along” ethnicity/identity, they had the opportunity to negotiate
their position, vis-à-vis these two concepts, in the different communica-
tive settings they participated in.
 1 Introduction 11

Despite growing linguistic research on Chinese Americans, much is

still unknown about linguistic practices and identification processes in
the Chinese American diaspora. The analysis in this book can only address
part of this gap but, by taking a closer look at one specific Chinese
American diaspora community, it furthers our understanding of the
aforementioned processes in two ways: First, it focuses on the neighbour-
hood that laid the foundation for the Chinese American community and,
by analysing what role the neighbourhood plays in speakers’ ethnic orien-
tation, sheds light on the influence this still “foreign” space has on the
ethnolinguistic repertoire of Chinese American speakers. Second, as most
previous variationist studies on Chinese Americans (see Chap. 3) investi-
gated phonetic features, an analysis of morphosyntactic variation helps
broaden our knowledge of the feature pool available for identity con-
struction. This focus on morphosyntactic comes with some challenges.
On the one hand, the number of tokens tends to be lower for morpho-
syntactic features than for phonetic ones, making statistical analysis more
difficult. On the other hand, problems may arise with regard to speakers’
awareness of the social meaning of specific linguistic features. Linguistic
variables are commonly categorised into stereotypes, markers, and indi-
cators of identity or social variables (Labov 1972: 178–180). Indicators
operate below the level of awareness and, contrary to markers and stereo-
types, are not subject to style shifting. Identifying whether morphosyn-
tactic features operate as indicators or markers of identity allows us to
understand the underlying mechanisms of identification and linguistic
practices in the San Francisco Chinatown community.

1.3 Organisation of Chapters

In the following, Chap. 2 outlines some of the key events in Chinese
American history and discusses how the data used for analysis were col-
lected. The brief account of Chinese American migration and settlement
with a focus on San Francisco provides the necessary background infor-
mation to understand possible differences in linguistic behaviour and
ethnic orientation across the different generations analysed. Furthermore,
the sociolinguistic situation of Chinatown is briefly sketched. The last
12 A. Staicov

section of Chap. 2 discusses the fieldwork conducted in San Francisco

over the course of eight months and introduces the participants whose
linguistic practices are investigated in this book. Chapter 3 presents a
discussion of research into other ethnic varieties in North America. Since
research into Asian and Chinese communities in North America is scarce,
such a discussion illustrates how ethnic varieties are used and perceived in
North America and serves as the backdrop against which the data inves-
tigated were interpreted. Furthermore, existing literature on sociolinguis-
tic variation in speakers of Chinese descent is introduced, which helps to
position the San Francisco Chinatown community within the broader
Chinese diaspora in North America.
In Chap. 4, I outline the experimental research design as well as the
methods used in analysing the data with a focus on quantitative analysis.
Following the discussion of the research tools, the results of the quantita-
tive analysis are presented. After some introductory descriptive statistics
on the data set, the results of the interaction between the three dependent
variables (tense marking, number marking, article use) and several
­predictor variables (e.g. gender, generation, and ethnic orientation) are
presented. A qualitative analysis of participants’ discursive ethnic identity
construction is the focus of Chap. 5, where different topics that emerged
with regard to ethnic orientation are discussed. The results of both the
quantitative and qualitative analysis are consolidated in Chap. 6, and
potential avenues for further research are suggested.

Notes
1. This study was partially funded by the Forschungskredit of the University
of Zurich, grant no. 56420402.
2. The largest Chinatown in America, with a population of about 450,000,
can be found in New York city (Zong and Batalova 2017). Some larger
Chinatowns have been established in Canada, namely in Toronto and
Vancouver.
3. Labelled a “model minority” (see Sect. 2.4) also implied that Chinese
Americans were linguistically fully assimilated into mainstream society.
4. Taking a constructivist approach situates this analysis within the third
wave of sociolinguistic variation analysis (Eckert 2012). Linguistic varia-
 1 Introduction 13

tion is investigated in relation with both macrosocial categories as well as

more localised and stylistic practices.
5. This approach to data collection in line with third wave studies in socio-
linguistics, which have emphasised the importance of situated use and an
ethnographically responsible approach to communities.
6. The six characteristics are (1) dispersion from an original “centre” to a
“periphery”; (2) collective memory about the homeland; (3) feeling of not
belonging/being fully accepted by the host community; (4) homeland is
the ideal home, a place one wants to return to; (5) collective interest in
maintaining/supporting the original homeland; and (6) personal relation-
ship to the homeland (Safran 1991: 83–84).
7. Mayer (2005: 13): “eine Gemeinschaft, die sich – durch Vertreibung oder
Emigration – von einem ursprünglichen (oder imaginären ursprüngli-
chen) Zentrum an mindestens zwei periphere Orte verteilte”.
8. (1) The emergence principle: Identity is best viewed as the emergent prod-
uct rather than the pre-existing source of linguistic and other semiotic
practices and therefore as fundamentally a social and cultural phenome-
non. (2) The positionality principle: Identities encompass (a) macro-level
demographic categories; (b) local, ethnographically specific cultural posi-
tions; and (c) temporary and interactionally specific stances and partici-
pant roles. (3) The indexicality principle: Identity relations emerge in
interaction through several related indexical processes, including (a) overt
mention of identity categories and labels; (b) implicatures and presuppo-
sitions regarding one’s own or other’s identity position; (c) displayed eval-
uative and epistemic orientations to on-going talk, as well as interactional
footings and participant roles; and (d) the use of linguistics structures and
systems that are ideologically associated with specific personas and groups.
(4) The relationality principle: Identities are intersubjectively constructed
through several, often overlapping complementary relations, including
similarity/difference, genuineness/artifice, and authority/delegitimacy. (5)
The partialness principle: Any given construction of identity may be in
part deliberate and intentional, in part habitual and hence often less than
fully conscious, in part an outcome of interactional negotiation and con-
testation, in part an outcome of others’ perceptions and representations,
and in part an effect of larger ideological processes and material structures
that may become relevant to interaction. It is therefore constantly shifting
both as interaction unfolds and across discourse context. (Bucholtz and
Hall 2005: 588–606)
14 A. Staicov

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Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Block, David. 2013. Issues in language and identity research in applied linguis-
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Brubaker, Rogers. 2005. The ‘diaspora’ diaspora. Ethnic and Racial Studies 28
(1): 1–19.
Bucholtz, Mary, and Kira Hall. 2004. Language and identity. In A companion to
linguistic anthropology, ed. Alessandro Duranti, 369–394. Malden: Blackwell.
———. 2005. Identity in interaction: A sociocultural linguistic approach.
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———. 2008. Finding identity: Theory and data. Multilingua 27: 151–163.
Clifford, James. 1997. Routes: Travel and translation in the late twentieth century.
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Duff, Patricia A. 2015. Transnationalism, multilingualism, and identity. Annual
Review of Applied Linguistics 35: 577–580.
Eckert, Penelope. 2012. Three waves of variation study: The emergence of mean-
ing in the study of sociolinguistic variation. Annual Review of Anthropology
41: 87–100.
Edwards, John. 2009. Language and identity. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge
University Press.
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Country): Vietnamese Americans and transnationalism. In The changing face
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Mary C. Waters, 367–398. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
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16 A. Staicov

———. 2005. The political importance of diasporas, Centre on Migration, Policy

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 2
San Francisco Chinatown: Introducing
the Community

San Francisco Chinatown was the gateway to America for immigrants

hailing from China during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Chinese immigrants started to arrive on the west coast of the United
States in the mid-nineteenth century and then moved to cities all over the
country. For more than a century-and-a-half, first-generation Chinese
immigrants and later generation Chinese Americans have shaped the eco-
nomic and cultural development of America and have contributed to the
prosperity of American society. From the very beginning, Chinese immi-
grants played an integral part in the economic development of the
American West and were a cheap source of mass labour (Choy 2012: 13).
Throughout their history, Chinese Americans and their communities
were directly affected by economic, political, and societal changes taking
place in American society. In addition, they had to navigate the ever-­
changing perceptions of the Chinese Americans from within the com-
munity and from white American society. These experiences had an
impact on the self-conceptualisation of Chinese Americans in relation to
their own and the host community.
To better understand ethnic identity in Chinese Americans, I begin
this chapter with a historical introduction to San Francisco Chinatown.

© The Author(s) 2020 17

A. Staicov, Creating Belonging in San Francisco Chinatown’s Diasporic Community,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24993-9_2
18 A. Staicov

Following this introduction, I describe how I approached the community

as an outside researcher, how I collected my data, and who my partici-
pants were.

2.1 Chinatown: The Beginning

A sound understanding of San Francisco Chinatown’s beginnings is only
possible by travelling back in time and by looking at Chinese-Western
trade history of the nineteenth century—a period characterised by colo-
nial endeavours of Western powers in all corners of the world.
In Asia in general, and in China more specifically, the colonisers estab-
lished trade ports in order to gain access to goods such as tea, silk, and
ginseng (Choy 2012: 15). The Chinese government of the Qing
dynasty—sceptical towards the increasing influence of the West—was
reluctant to allow Western powers into the country and attempted to
confine trade to one port only: the city of Canton. The Chinese demand
for silver to be used as payment caused high deficits for Western traders
and encouraged smuggling of opium into China. Tensions between
British traders and the Chinese increased and finally resulted in the first
Opium War (1839–1842). Without difficulty, the British defeated China
and forced the country to open five additional trading ports to Western
powers. Additionally, Hong Kong fell under British rule. With the estab-
lishment of the new trading ports, commercial relations between China
and Western countries intensified, and the United States was among the
countries trading extensively with China.
The relative geographic proximity between the Canton province in
China and California in America was among the many reasons why
Chinese immigration started on the American west coast. In America, the
discovery of gold in California and the abolition of slavery created new
demands for cheap labour, which were to be met by the Chinese (Choy
2012: 19). As a result of the deteriorating economy in China and, in some
cases, encouraged by a sense of adventure, Chinese from all social back-
grounds embarked on a long journey to America (Picture 2.1). As one of
the commercial centres on the west coast, San Francisco served as the main
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Studiën in
Nederlandsche Namenkunde
 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
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are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: Studiën in Nederlandsche Namenkunde

Author: Johan Winkler

Release date: September 19, 2023 [eBook #71689]

Language: Dutch

Original publication: Haarlem: H. D. Tjeenk Willink & Zoon, 1900

Credits: Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net/ for Project
Gutenberg (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STUDIËN IN

NEDERLANDSCHE NAMENKUNDE ***
[Inhoud]

[Inhoud]

Studiën in Nederlandsche Namenkunde.

[Inhoud]
 STUDIËN
IN
NEDERLANDSCHE
NAMENKUNDE

DOOR
JOHAN WINKLER.
 HAARLEM
H. D. TJEENK WILLINK & ZOON
1900

[Inhoud]
Boeck, ey soo men di wil laecken,
Segg’ dat si yet beters maecken.
Laecken end maecken is groet verscil,
Dye nyet en can maecken magh swigen still.

D’æbarre traeppet plomp yn ’t gnod,

Oer ’t goe kruwd hinne in sykt de Podd’.
Dy hier uwt naet az fuwl op-syckje,
Momme eack, mey rjuecht, by Rea-schonck
lyckje.

Gysbert Japicx.

Wy willen gheerne ’t onse om een beter gheven,

Isser iet ghefaelt, tsy groot oft cleene.
Maer qualick can ment elck te passe gheweven:
Want niemant volmaeckt, dan God alleene.

Marcus van Vaernewyck.

[Inhoud]
 INHOUD.

Bladz.
Inleiding
I. Spotnamen van steden en dorpen 3
II. Nederlandsche plaatsnamen in Frankrijk 91
III. Gentsche geslachtsnamen 136
IV. Helmondsche namen uit de middeleeuwen 171
V. Friesche namen 196
VI. De namen der ingezetenen van Leeuwarden ten
jare 1511 255
VII. De hel in Friesland 280
Register 293

[1]

[Inhoud]
 INLEIDING.

De Namenkunde vormt een belangrijk onderdeel van de Taalkunde

in haren grootsten omvang, en staat tevens in menigvuldige
betrekking tot Geschiedenis en Volkenkunde.

De kennis van de namen in ’t algemeen, wat hun oorsprong,

geschiedenis en beteekenis aangaat, is inderdaad een zeer
bijzonder vak van wetenschap, een tak van studie die mij steeds
bijzonder heeft aangetrokken, en die bij voorkeur door mij beoefend
is geworden. Herhaaldelijk heb ik dan ook het een en ander werk of
werkje geschreven en in ’t licht doen komen, dat de Namenkunde
van Nederland (plaatsnamen) en van Nederlanders (vóórnamen en
geslachtsnamen) in bijzondere onderdeelen behandelt. Ik behoef
hier slechts mijn werk De Nederlandsche Geslachtsnamen in
Oorsprong, Geschiedenis en Beteekenis 📘 (Haarlem, H. D. Tjeenk
Willink, 1885) te noemen en mijne Friesche Naamlijst (Leeuwarden,
Meyer en Schaafsma, 1898), twee uitgebreide, omvangrijke werken,
die mij veel moeitevolle studie hebben gekost, maar die mij evenzeer
veelvuldige voldoening hebben bereid. Buitendien is er nog in
tijdschriften en jaarboekjes 1 menig opstel van mijne hand
verschenen, dat het een of ander gedeelte der Namenkunde tot
onderwerp heeft, dat Nederlandsche namen uit verschillende
tijdperken van ons volksbestaan, en uit verschillende gouwen en
plaatsen behandelt. [2]

Een zestal van die verhandelingen, uit den aard der zaak weinig
bekend, heb ik uitgekozen, en, ten deele aangevuld, vermeerderd,
verbeterd, hier opnieuw doen afdrukken. Een grooter opstel, over de
Spotnamen van steden en dorpen, het hoofdnummer van dezen
bundel, heb ik daarbij gevoegd. Dat verschijnt hier voor ’t eerst in ’t
licht.

Deze verschillende verhandelingen hangen slechts los te zamen;

slechts in zooverre als ze allen een onderwerp van Namenkunde
behandelen. Overigens niet.

Millioenen namen, mans- en vrouwen-vóórnamen in honderderlei

vormen en vervormingen, oorspronkelijk volkseigene en vreemde,
zoowel als geslachts- en plaatsnamen, eveneens in honderderlei
vormen, en die voor een groot deel van die vóórnamen zijn afgeleid
—inderdaad millioenen namen zijn over alle Nederlanden verspreid,
bij het Nederlandsche volk in gebruik. Elke naam heeft zijnen
eigenen, bijzonderen oorsprong, zijne geschiedenis, zijne
beteekenis, en zeer vele namen zijn in hunnen oorsprong, in hunne
geschiedenis en beteekenis belangrijk en merkwaardig. Elke naam
kan met andere soortgelijke in verschillende groepen vereenigd
worden, en al die namengroepen afzonderlijk in wetenschappelijken
zin beoefend en behandeld worden. Welk een arbeidsveld! En, voor
zooveel het onze Nederlandsche namen betreft, is dat veld nog zoo
weinig ontgonnen!

Ik heb slechts hier en daar een greep kunnen doen in deze rijke stof,
die zoo ruimschoots voorhanden, en voor iedereen toegankelijk is;
slechts hier en daar een greep ter verklaring van sommige
namengroepen en namen.

Mogen de volgende studiën, die uit den aard der zaak slechts in zeer
beperkten en beknopten vorm sommige namengroepen behandelen,
den lezer welkom zijn, en zijne belangstelling opwekken! En mogen
velen, door de lezing en de beoefening dezer verhandelingen zich
aangespoord gevoelen om al mede aan dit onderwerp, aan de
Namenkunde, hunne krachten te wijden; en moge onze
vaderlandsche wetenschap daardoor grootelijks verrijkt en gebaat
worden!

Den vriendelijken lezer een vriendelijke groet van

Johan Winkler.

H a a r l e m , 1900. [3]

1 De Navorscher, De Vrije Fries (tijdschrift van het Friesch Genootschap voor

Geschied-, Oudheid- en Taalkunde, Leeuwarden), Rond den Heerd (Brugge),
Ostfriesisches Monatsblatt (Emden), Nomina Geographica Neerlandica (tijdschrift
van het Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap), Belfort (Gent), de Friesche
Volksalmanak (Leeuwarden), de Noordbrabantsche Almanak (Helmond), enz. ↑
[Inhoud]
I
 SPOTNAMEN VAN STEDEN EN DORPEN.

Onderscheid in geaardheid, onderscheid in volkseigene zaken, taal

en tongval, kleeding, zeden en gebruiken, nering en bedrijf bij zee-,
steê- en landvolk, onderscheid in richting en partijschap op
godsdienstig en op staatkundig en maatschappelijk gebied is er
heden ten dage in ons vaderland nog ruimschoots voorhanden,
tusschen de bevolking van het eene en van het andere gewest, van
de verschillende Nederlandsche gewesten onderling.
Niettegenstaande dit onderscheid langzamerhand al minder en
minder wordt, en gedurig uitslijt, vooral door het meerdere en
gemakkelijke verkeer tusschen de lieden uit de verschillende
gewesten van ons land onderling, zoo onderkent men toch den Fries
aan allerlei volkseigene en bijzonder Friesche zaken en
eigenaardigheden nog gemakkelijk uit alle andere Nederlanders.
Maar ook de Groningerlander en de Zeeuw, de Hollander en de
Gelderschman, de Overijsselaar en de Brabander, de Drent en de
Limburger, ja ook de Hollander uit het Noorden (West-Friesland) en
die uit het Zuiden (het Overmaassche) zijn voor den opmerkzamen
man duidelijk en gemakkelijk te kennen, duidelijk en gemakkelijk de
een van den ander te onderscheiden.

Oudtijds traden de kenteekenen die den Fries en den Brabander,

den Gelderschman en den Hollander, den Drent en den Zeeuw
onderscheiden, veel sterker te voorschijn dan heden ten dage. Ja,
allerlei bijzondere kenmerken waren zelfs op te merken [4]bij de
bewoners van verschillende steden en dorpen—kenmerken,
waardoor dezen zich onderscheidden van de ingezetenen van
andere, van naburige of ook van verderaf gelegene plaatsen. Het
onderscheid tusschen de bewoners van twee naburige plaatsen, al
waren die lieden dan ook oorspronkelijk van geheel den zelfden
volksstam, viel juist hen onderling, over en weêr, bijzonder in ’t oog,
klonk juist te duidelijker in hun oor, werd juist door hen te scherper
opgemerkt. Voor den Hollander moge er geen onderscheid zijn te
bespeuren, in spraak noch in voorkomen, noch in eenigerlei andere
volkseigene zaak tusschen eenen burgerman uit Leeuwarden en
eenen uit Dokkum, voor den Leeuwarder en den Dokkumer zelven is
dit onderscheid zeer wel te hooren en te zien. De Friezen mogen de
Noord-Brabanders en Limburgers dooréén werpen, en niet
afzonderlijk onderkennen, Bosschenaren en Maastrichtenaren, die
van Breda en die van Roermond, zijn diep doordrongen van het
verschil dat er tusschen hen onderling bestaat. De Hollander, in ’t
algemeen de Nederlander uit het Westen en het Zuiden des lands
moge al Groningerlanders en Friezen over eenen en den zelfden
kam scheren en niet onderscheiden, de Amsterdamsche
grootstedeling moge die twee gelijkelijk als „buitenlui”, als
„provincialen, uit het Noorden” bestempelen en ze niet
onderscheidenlijk onderkennen, voor den Fries en den
Groningerlander zelven, over en weêr, zijn de bijzondere kenmerken,
die hen onderscheiden, zeer duidelijk en zeer groot, en de
Leeuwarder begrijpt zoo min als de Groninger hoe de Hollander den
een met den ander als in eenen adem kan noemen, hoe hij den een
met den anderen kan verwisselen en verwarren.

In oude tijden, toen de gelegenheden van onderling verkeer

tusschen de verschillende Nederlandsche gewesten, ook tusschen
de verschillende steden en dorpen van het zelfde gewest zoo veel
minder en geringer waren dan thans, kwamen de menschen, over ’t
algemeen genomen, uit de eene plaats vaak weinig of niet, soms
schier nooit in aanraking met die uit eene andere plaats, al ware ’t
ook dat die twee plaatsen, naar ons hedendaagsch begrip, volstrekt
niet verre van elkander af lagen. Natuurlijk bleven, ten gevolge van
dit besloten zijn binnen de muren en wallen en grachten van de
eigene stad, hoogstens binnen de [5]grenzen van de eigene gouw,
de oude volkseigenheden steeds vast en duidelijk in wezen, bleven
scherper begrensd, hielden veel langer stand dan heden ten dage,
nu schier de helft van de Nederlanders niet meer woont in de
plaatsen, waarin ze geboren en groot gebracht zijn, waar hunne
maagschap van oudsher gezeten is.

Het onderlinge verschil tusschen de ingezetenen van de eene plaats

en die van de andere, werd ook wel eene oorzaak van min
vriendelijke verhouding over en weêr, van onderlingen naijver—ja,
als ’t hoog liep, van onderlingen afkeer, zelfs van haat.
Kleingeestigheid, bekrompenheid, uit onkunde geboren, weêrhield,
aan den eenen kant, wederzijdsche erkenning als volks-, als
stamgenooten, en mat, aan de andere zijde, het onderlinge, veelal
onwezenlijke verschil ten breedsten, ten hatelijksten uit.
Leeuwarders en Dokkumers, bij voorbeeld, gevoelden zich niet als
volksgenooten, als Friezen, de eene zoo goed als de andere, maar
als Leeuwarders en Dokkumers op zich zelven, als „L e e u w a r d e r
G a l g e l a p p e r s ” en als „D o k k u m e r G a r n a t e n ”, zoo als
men elkanderen over en weêr betitelde, ja wel uitschold. Tusschen
Amsterdammers en Haarlemmers, al hoe nabij elkanderen hunne
steden ook gelegen zijn, heerschte in de 16e eeuw de grootste
naijver—een naijver die zich onder anderen lucht gaf in de
spotnamen „K o e k e t e r s ” en „M u g g e n ”, die men elkanderen
wederkeerig toevoegde—een naijver die, bij voorbeeld, ook blijkt uit
het min of meer smalende vers, waarmede de blijspeldichter
Gerbrand Adriaense Brederoô, een Oud-Amsterdammer in merg en
been, de Haarlemmers uitdaagde:

„Haerlemsche drooge harten nu,

Toont nu eens wie gy syt!
Wy Amsterdammers tarten u
Te drincken eens om stryt.”
En juist zulk eene verhouding bestond er tusschen den Zwolschen
B l a u w v i n g e r en den Kamper S t e u r , tusschen den
Deventerschman en den Zutfenaar, tusschen den Franeker
K l o k k e d i e f en den Harlinger To b b e d a n s e r , tusschen den
Rotterdammer en den Dordtenaar, tusschen den Emder
P o t s c h ij t e r en den Auriker P o g g e , tusschen den
Antwerpschen S i n j o o r en den Mechelschen
M a n e b l u s s c h e r , tusschen den Gentenaar [6]en den Bruggeling,
tusschen den K e u n e t e r van Duinkerke en den D r i n k e r van St.
Winoksbergen.

Overal in al de Nederlanden, Noord en Zuid, en in aangrenzende

stamverwante gewesten die thans tot Duitschland en Frankrijk
behooren (Oost-Friesland, Bentheim, Munsterland, Fransch-
Vlaanderen en Artesië), had men oudtijds zulke spotnamen voor de
inwoners van steden en dorpen; en al mogen die namen
tegenwoordig al minder sterk op den voorgrond treden als in vorige
tijden het geval geweest is, ze zijn toch heden ten dage nog
geenszins volkomen verdwenen. Oudtijds gaf de onderlinge naijver,
zich vooral ook uitende in het wederkeerig elkander noemen en
schelden met spotnamen, wel aanleiding tot zeer gespannen
verhoudingen, tot wrevel en haat, tot vechtpartijen zelfs, waarbij men
elkanderen wel bloedige koppen sloeg. Dit behoort in onzen tijd tot
het verledene, maar de oude spotnamen zijn nog wel bekend, en
worden nog wel eens gebruikt, zij het dan ook in tamelijk
onschuldige plagerij, of geheel in scherts.

Deze oude spotnamen zijn voor een goed deel belangrijk in menig
opzicht. Velen daarvan zijn reeds zeer oud en dagteekenen uit de
middeleeuwen. Velen ook berusten op het eene of andere
geschiedkundige feit, anderen op het wapen dat eigen is aan stad of
dorp (K l o k k e d i e v e n van Franeker, B a l k e d i e v e n van ’t
Ameland, M o l l e n van Schermerhorn). Anderen weêr danken hun
ontstaan aan het eene of andere bijzondere voorval, waarbij door
den nabuur, den tegenstander, in ’t geven van den spotnaam, juist
de domme, de belachelijke zijde der zaak werd in ’t licht gesteld
(K a l f s c h i e t e r s van Delft, K e i s l e p e r s van Amersfoort,
M a n e b l u s s c h e r s van Mechelen, R o g s t e k e r s van Weert).
Weêr anderen zijn ontleend aan eenen bijzonderen tak van handel,
van nering of bedrijf, die in de eene stad bestond, in de andere niet;
G o r t b u i k e n of G o r t z a k k e n van Alkmaar—te Alkmaar
bestonden oudtijds vele grutterijen, en de Alkmaarsche gort was wijd
vermaard in den lande; B o t e r v r e t e r s van Diksmude en
K a a s m a k e r s van Belle—beide deze Vlaamsche plaatsen zijn
van ouds bekend om hare zuivelbereiding. Sommigen ook zijn
ontstaan door de eene of andere lekkernij, die in de eene of andere
stad bijzonder gemaakt en [7]door de inwoners bij voorkeur gegeten
of gedronken werd. (K o e k e t e r s van Amsterdam,
K l i e n r o g g e n van de Joure, D ú m k e f r e t t e r s van Sneek,
M o l b o o n e n van Groningen, R o o d b i e r d r i n k e r s van
Harelbeke.)

Kieskeurig waren de oude Nederlanders geenszins, in het bedenken

en gebruiken van spotnamen. Van daar dat sommige dezer namen
heden ten dage slechts ternauwernood in beschaafd mannen-
gezelschap genoemd kunnen worden; (Z a n d p i s s e r s van de
Zijpe, G r u p p e n d r i e t e r s van Oldenzaal, P o t s c h ij t e r s van
Emden, L u z e k n i p p e r s van Eernewoude,
M o s t e r d s c h ij t e r s van Diest). Maar, jufferachtig preutsch moet
men niet zijn, als men sommige eigenaardigheden onzer voorouders
in nadere behandeling neemt.

Al deze Oud-Nederlandsche spotnamen te zamen genomen geven

een veelal verrassend, ook leerzaam en soms niet onvermakelijk