The Sword and Laser discussion

One of the unexpected things that I'm enjoying about The Rook is the use of Dutch (or the Flemish dialect of Dutch, specifically, since it's from Belgium) in the speech and other assorted information about the Grafters. It makes sense, since they're from Belgium, but having just recently learned Dutch I'm enjoying that I am able to recognize these words. Specifically, I'm enjoying things like Wetenschappelijk Broederschap van Natuurkundigen, the name of the Grafters organization (which is like... Scientific Brotherhood of Physicists, which made me giggle because it's such a silly name).

I do wonder how others view the use of Flemish - especially if you don't speak the language. What kind of impression does it give you? I've always thought that Dutch was kind of goofy looking to my American eyes (my Dutch friend says it's "like German and English had a bit of a bar fight") but now that I'm more familiar with the language, it doesn't seem so strange. I do wonder if O'Malley made the choice to make them from Belgium specifically in order to use Flemish words, which many people might not know or be able to recognize, to give a sort of a characterization to the Grafters.

Anyway, curious about how other folks are perceiving the use of Flemish in the novel here and how it may or may not affect your perception of the Grafters organization.

You're going to LOVE Stiletto then.

It feels foreign in the sense of not being the typical non-English other language. I like it but it wasn't a focus of mine.

Full marks to the audiobook narrator for managing to even pronounce "Wetenschappelijk Broederschap van Natuurkundigen" and make it sound natural!

I didn't even know I was curious about how the audiobook narrators handled it until now. I wonder if they got a Flemish speaker to model it for them? Does anyone know how that kind of thing works when recording audiobooks?

I found it really refreshing that they choose dutch!
It's also exciting because I live in the Netherlands and I've been learning that language for a few years.
What pulled me a bit out of the story was that there were a few words that I didn't recognize (nor did the dutch people I asked).
As far as I know a secretary is just secretaresse (if it's a woman), so I wonder where geheimschrijver came from :P I understand that's funny because "secretary" has the word "secret" in it and in dutch geheim=secret ( and schrijver = writer), but I don't think that's the word people actually use.
If I'm not wrong there was also "hardwerkmannen", which if I pull it apart would be: hard = hard, werk = work, mannen = men... so it might mean hard working men, which sounds funny but I couldn't find it in any dictionary.
I'm aware that are differences between dutch from the Netherlands and from Belgium, but I couldn't find any clues online of where these words came from >.<

Considering the 'scientific brotherhood of scientists' that they were going for, I wouldn't be surprised if these were a little bit made up. :) So I took it to be another commentary on the ridiculous nature of this group.
I did read the first footnote in Stiletto, and it said something like "Translates to 'Scientific Brotherhood of Scientists' if your Dutch is not very good."

haha, then they should be called: Wetenschappelijk Broederschap van Wetenschappers. To make it accurately ridiculous :)

'Geheimschrijver' is an old fashioned word, nowadays it's 'secretaris/esse'. In the old days they were tasked with writing the secret correspondence of the king/ruler. The word 'geheimschrift' is still commonly in use.