Introduction

In 1805 the Reverend Pieter Weiland published his Nederduitsche Spraakkunst (‘Dutch grammar’), which was to be the first and also last book of grammar to be officially prescribed by a Dutch government as a writing-regulation. At the behest of the authoritative Maatschappij der Nederlandsche Letterkunde (‘Society of Dutch Language and Literature’), the book had been peer reviewed by a committee of three distinguished Leiden scholars, namely Meinard Tydeman, Adriaan Kluit, and Matthijs Siegenbeek. Weiland had also presented a copy of the text to Johannes van der Palm, a member of the Council of Home Affairs. They had all deemed it to be an excellent and comprehensive grammar. Their judgement was endorsed by the influential Batavian Society for Language and Poetry. Subsequently, Weiland's grammar was published ‘on behalf of and at the behest of the Government of the Batavian Republic’ and was to hold sway into the 1850s, due to the simple fact that many textbooks, both in and outside the Netherlands, were based on it.

In 1804, Siegenbeek's treatise on orthography, the Verhandeling over de Nederduitsche spelling, had also been published at the behest of the ‘Batavian Republic’. This book provided the very first official rules for spelling in the Dutch language. The publication of the Verhandeling and the Spraakkunst, two complementary works, can be seen as inaugurating the final phase of the codification of the Dutch standard written language.