Dutch origin of the words sluice and dam and land drainage in the Netherlands

The words "sluice" and "dam" exist in many languages of the world, and they came from Dutch, as did certain other hydraulic terms such as "polder" and "crane". The concepts owe their wide diffusion to the invention of land-drainage technologies and their successful adoption on the territory of the Netherlands as early as the 500s BC. As is well known, a huge part of the modern territory of the kingdom was wrested from the sea and lies below its level, sinking by several centimetres a year and living under the constant threat of flooding in the event of storms or a change in the level of the ocean. According to existing forecasts, within the next hundred years these lands may vanish beneath the waters of a risen ocean. And as for words from Dutch in Russian, the necktie and the flag, for example, come from there too.

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Dutch origin of the words sluice and dam and land drainage in the Netherlands

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