Pierre Or Pieter

[Just Kia]

I'm seeing the name Pierre used by officials writing French documents, yet when the person signs the document they often sign as Pieter.
Is there a reason for this?

[greenvalley]

Hi,

Pierre, Peter, Pieter, Petrus are all the same name.

Pierre is french, Petrus latin and Pieter and Peter can be Dutch, German and Flemish. In my family tree they are all used for the same person.

Same goes for Johanna who can be a Jeanne, Jo, Anna, Hanna, Joke and Johannus can be Jo, Jan, Johan, Jean

Hope this helps.

Greenvalley

[Viktoria]

Hello Justkea, Pieter is the Dutch or Flemish form of Peter as Pierre is the French form.Were these documents Belgian by any chance?. The official language in Belgium was for many years French much to the justifiable annoyance of the  Flemish people who were the majority . Flemish was proscribed and nothing was printed in it for years.I t was not allowed to be spoken in schools and only when a group of intellectuals fought to get it reinstated was it revived. The spelling was tidied up and a standard A.B.N Allegemene Beleeft Nederlands -like our Standard English (where`s that gone I wonder?)became the accepted form then writers started to write books and poetry again. If you go to different villages however they still can`t understand one another very well and they need sub titles from one T.V. region to another.Cheerio. Viktoria.

[Danchaslyn]

 

How about another one,  Petronella  (female) and Petros, (male), from the Afrikaans, in South Africa, derived from the High Dutch, then the Dutch, then the Afrikaans, based on Flemish!   

Cheers

Danchaslyn

 

[Just Kia]

I know they are different forms of the same name - oh boy there's plenty of them in all languages LOL
I was intrigued by the fact the "officials" wrote the name as Pierre but the person to whom the name belonged signed Pieter.
I guess in my head I would expect to see the "official" write the person's name as they themselves would (or at least as they said it), rather than another version of it - all way too confusing.

The documents are actes de naissance, mariage, et deces, predominantly from the Flanders area, so Flemmish would be on the dot (I think), with the surname Devos being Dutch.

Haven't any Petronella's but plenty of instances of Petronille.
In fact I'm beginning to think my early French/Flemmish ancestors lacked ingenuity with names as much as the English.
Dorothée, Petronille, Jeanne, Marie and Rosalie; Jean, François, Louis and Xavier compared to Elizabeth, Mary, Sarah and Anne; William, Henry, Charles and George.

(Yet, oddly enough I have succeeded in tracing these lines further than some of my English ones)

[Danchaslyn]

 

As you say, Justkia

Still no solution to the fact that the officials wrote something different, to the signatories?   

Petronille, what a sweet name........

Happy hunting

Cheers

Danchaslyn

 

[Viktoria]

Hi Danchaslyn, as I mentioned earlier French was the official Language for all documents etc. but I would assume people were allowed to write their signature or their childrens` names in Flemish especially if that is what was on their birth certificate. It is an interesting thought ,I must get in touch with friends in Belgium who will know.Although  at the time that Flemish was more or less banned most Flemings could only speak and write that, not French. Nowadays they are fluent Flemish, French, German and English speakers but the Walloons will not speak Flemish at all and are most uhelpful when it comes to other languages too.It just shows how arrogant the French biased government of the time were that they could exclude over at least 60% of the population from news papers and official documents even to do with every day life. Children at school were fined a low denomination coin  at school every time they used their own language. I`ve met  very old people years ago who could remember that.We should do that to children who say "sumfink"" ge` i`( get it ) and "like"-- I was like lookin a` im an e was like lookin a me an I said  like wot you lookin a?  Viktoria.( alias Victor Meldrew)

[Danchaslyn]

Hi viktoria

What an amazingly distressing time of it, the Flemmings had, under French rule/occupation of their own country?!   

Wouldn't it be interesting to know, if most of the Flemish emigrants to the Cape of Good Hope, were Walloons?!   

The reason being, that a similar situation occurred in South Africa, in that the majority of the population were educated in a language other than their own, i,e. Afrikaans, all official documents, court proceedings etc etc, were in Afrikaans, and no doubt, before the language of Afrikaans evolved, in High Dutch?     No cognizance whatsoever was taken of the 11 tribal languages at all.

My children, in modern times, i.e. early 1990's when at one stage we were living in an almost 100% Afrikaans speaking area, to be taught in English (our home language), had to be educated at a distance of 125 kms away, and then, English was available up until High School only, when automatically Afrikaans would have become their language (and culture!) of education.

Imagine fining little children for speaking their mother tongue!!!

Your Victor Meldrew comments are hilarious           you have another vote form this corner!   

Cheers

Danchaslyn

 

[greenvalley]

Hi Justkia

Still no solution to the fact that the officials wrote something different, to the signatories?    ??

This still happens, my mother was baptised Johanna, but has always be called Annie, so when she signs something she will use the shortened version, Annie. It's quite legal and customary.  A niece , also called Johanna signs her documents with Joke and agian there are no problems with this.

Regarding the Femish documents, it all depends how old they are, if they were in Beligium during the Napoleonic years, then it will have been in French. You also musn't forget that Belgium only came into being in 1830.

The language isn't always something to go on either: some of my forebears came from Mortroux in Limbourg, wherethey spoke French and moved to Venlo, Limburg where they spoke Dutch, but it was still the same Province so to speak and we are all Limburgers, even if we now are Begium and Dutch nationals.

In the UK the borders are easy, but on the continent they have been far less rigid and a lot of the nations you see nowadays didn't exist in 1800.

In the Netherlands I wasn't allowed to speak Limburgs (a local language or dialect) at school when I grew up, I had to speak Dutch. But you see this in so many countries.  I once read that "a language is a dialect with an army behind it" and it is this that perhaps explains more why rulers wouldn't want people to speak their own mother tongue.

Slight digression I know. What I found really amazing though is that my ancestors, impoverished farmers, moved from a French to a Dutch speaking area and still managed to thrive and communicate at a time that they definitely hadn't had French or Dutch at school

They must have been so clever and I admire them for that.

Greenvalley