In this article a description is given of a longitudinal study of language attrition in Dutch
migrants in Australia. In the 1970s, Clyne conducted linguistic research on German‐English
and Dutch‐English bilinguals in Australia. In 1987 those informants who were still fluent in
Dutch were retested, using the same type of tests and elicitation procedures. All the speech
material of the informants from 1971 and 1987 has been transcribed and analysed. It
appears that for this selected set of informants there is no evidence of attrition over the 16 …

Australia did not attract significant numbers of Dutch immigrants until after the Second World
War. Dutch migration to Australia peaked in 1952 around 16,000 and figures remained high
for some years, decreasing from 7000 in 1960 to about 2500 in 1970. The 1986 Census
recorded 95,095 Dutch-born persons in Australia and 4548 Belgian-born, of whom about
two-thirds may be expected to be Flemish. There were also 37,597 people with two
Netherlands-born parents and 89,665 with one Netherlands-born parentThe Dutch are one …