Our regular columnist Molly Quell wonders what it really means to be Dutch, and if the city of Amsterdam might be on to something. 

A few weeks ago, I was trolling the editor of this esteemed publication over Amsterdam advertising upcoming national elections in English. 

It’s a confusing sign (“House of Representatives” rather than the much more commonly used “parliament”) to be sure but the editor (my boss and the person who pays me) was ranting about the pointlessness of advertising national elections in English. 

“You have to speak Dutch to vote,” she said. 

And I, a compulsively annoying person, said that wasn’t true. 

“Yes, it is,” she insisted, running down the requirements to obtain Dutch citizenship, which of course includes language proficiency. 

“You have to speak Dutch to become Dutch,” I replied, “but not to be Dutch. And all you need to vote is to be Dutch.”

I am, of course, right. If I wasn’t correct, I wouldn’t be writing a smug column about it. 

There are plenty of people with Dutch nationality who do not speak any Dutch. I haven’t suddenly become a PVV-stan, ranting about insubstantial naturalisation requirements. I mean Dutch people who became Dutch the old fashioned way: by having Dutch parents.

If the ooievaar delivers you to Ingrid and Henk in a rijtjeshuis in a Vinex-wijk, you’re gonna speak Dutch. Even if you get dropped off at the door of Pierre and Eloise on the Herengracht in Amsterdam, you’ll probably speak Dutch (though you may not be Dutch, because Pierre and Eloise are bloody expats of course). 

But if Ingrid and Henk live in Paris or Bali or Costa Rica, you may learn the local language at school, speak it with your friends and refuse to engage with your parents in their native language. 

If, rather than marrying Ingrid, Henk takes off to the south of Spain to pursue his dream of owning a bed and breakfast, shacks up with a local girl with whom he speaks English and is too busy starring in Ik Vertrek to take the time to teach you his language, you may well be a Dutch person who knows what hagelslag is but stumbles over the pronunciation. 

Or maybe Henk is merely on vacation, has a nice evening with a local girl and returns to the Netherlands after you are conceived. You grow up seeing him sporadically and spending a lot of money on therapy to deal with your abandonment issues. 

You’re still a Dutch national and therefore still entitled to vote in Dutch national elections. 

This isn’t a hypothetical. At a recent wedding, a Dutch attendee mentioned he didn’t have the time to teach his children the language. He works in Silicon Valley, his wife is from Peru and their two kids go to an American school. 

A neighbour’s Canadian cousins don’t speak Dutch, despite having two Dutch parents. The stories of immigrant children not speaking their parents’ language are common, we just don’t always think of those immigrants as Dutch people. 

Does it make you less Dutch if you don’t speak Dutch?  You don’t need to speak Dutch to carry a Dutch passport, to vote or to eat hagelslag for breakfast. 

So maybe Amsterdam was on to something.