["[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-01 00:00]\n<User>The following are some more news I learnt:\nOld Dutch naturally evolved into Middle Dutch. The year 1150 is often cited as the time of the discontinuity, but it actually marks a time of profuse Dutch writing and during this period a rich Medieval Dutch literature developed. There was at that time no overarching standard language; Middle Dutch is rather a collective name for a number of closely related dialects whose ancestor was Old Dutch. But they were all mutually intelligible. In fact, since Dutch is a rather conservative language, the various literary works of that time today are often very readable for modern-day speakers.\n\nA process of standardisation started in the Middle Ages, especially under the influence of the Burgundian Ducal Court in Dijon (Brussels after 1477). The dialects of Flanders and Brabant were the most influential around this time. The process of standardisation became much stronger at the start of the 16th century, mainly based on the urban dialect of Antwerp. In 1585 Antwerp fell to the Spanish army: many fled to the Northern Netherlands, where the Dutch Republic declared its independence from Spain. They particularly influenced the urban dialects of the province of Holland. In 1637, a further important step was made towards a unified language, when the Statenvertaling, the first major Bible translation into Dutch, was created that people from all over the new republic could understand. It used elements from various, even Dutch Low Saxon, dialects but was predominantly based on the urban dialects of Holland of post 16th century.\n\nIn the Southern Netherlands (now Belgium and Luxembourg) developments were different. Under Spanish, then Austrian, and then French rule standardisation of Dutch language came to a standstill. The state, law, and increasingly education used French, yet more than half the Belgian population were speaking a Dutch dialect. In the course of the nineteenth century the Flemish movement stood up for the rights of Dutch, mostly called Flemish. But in competing with the French language the variation in dialects was a serious disadvantage. Since standardisation is a lengthy process, Dutch-speaking Belgium associated itself with the standard language that had already developed in the Netherlands over the centuries. Therefore, the situation in Belgium is essentially no different from that in the Netherlands, although there are recognisable differences in pronunciation, comparable to the pronunciation differences between standard British and standard American English. In 1980 the Netherlands and Belgium concluded the Language Union Treaty. This treaty lays down the principle that the two countries must gear their language policy to each other, among other things, for a common system of spelling.\n\nDutch belongs to its own West Germanic sub-group, West Low Franconian, paired with its sister language Limburgish, or East Low Franconian. Closest relative is the mutual intelligible daughter language Afrikaans. Other West Germanic languages related to Dutch are German, English and the Frisian languages, and the non standardised languages Low German and Yiddish. Dutch stands out in combining a small degree of Ingvaeonic characteristics (occurring consistently in English and Frisian and reduced in intensity from 'west to east' over the continental West Germanic plane) with mostly Istvaeonic characteristics, of which some of them are also incorporated in German. Unlike German, Dutch (apart from Limburgish) has not been influenced at all by the 'south to north' movement of the High German sound shift, and had some changes of its own. The cumulation of these changes resulted over time in separate, but related standard languages with various degrees of similarities and differences between them. For a comparison between the West Germanic languages, see the sections Morphology, Grammar and Vocabulary.\n\nIn the east there is a Dutch Low Saxon dialect area, comprising the provinces of Groningen, Drenthe and Overijssel, and parts of the province of Gelderland as well. The IJssel river roughly forms the linguistic watershed here. This group, though not being Low Franconian and being close to the neighbouring Low German, is regarded as Dutch, because of a number of reasons. From the 14th to 15th century onward, its urban centers (Deventer, Zwolle and Kampen as well as Zutphen and Doesburg) have been increasingly influenced by the western written Dutch and became a linguistically mixed area. From the 17th century onward, it was gradually integrated into the Dutch language area. In other words, this group is Dutch synchronically but not diachronically.[citation needed]\n\nDutch dialects and regional languages are not spoken as often as they used to be. Recent research by Geert Driessen shows that the use of dialects and regional languages among both Dutch adults and youth is in heavy decline. In 1995, 27 percent of the Dutch adult population spoke a dialect or regional language on a regular basis, while in 2011 this was no more than 11 percent. In 1995, 12 percent of the primary school aged children spoke a dialect or regional language, while in 2011 this had declined to 4 percent. Of the three officially recognized regional languages Limburgish is spoken most (in 2011 among adults 54%, among children 31%) and Dutch Low Saxon least (adults 15%, children 1%); Frisian occupies a middle position (adults 44%, children 22%).\n\nThe different dialects show many sound shifts in different vowels (even shifting between diphthongs and monophthongs), and in some cases consonants also shift pronunciation. For example, an oddity of West Flemings (and to a lesser extent, East Flemings) is that, the voiced velar fricative (written as \"g\" in Dutch) shifts to a voiced glottal fricative (written as \"h\" in Dutch), while the letter \"h\" in West Flemish becomes mute (just like in French). As a result, when West Flemish try to talk Standard Dutch, they're often unable to pronounce the g-sound, and pronounce it similar to the h-sound. This leaves f.e. no difference between \"held\" (hero) and \"geld\" (money). Or in some cases, they are aware of the problem, and hyper-correct the \"h\" into a voiced velar fricative or g-sound, again leaving no difference.\n\nNext to sound shifts, there are ample examples of suffix differences. Often simple suffix shifts (like switching between -the, -ske, -ke, -je, ...), sometimes the suffixes even depend on quite specific grammar rules for a certain dialect. Again taking West Flemish as an example. In that language, the words \"ja\" (yes) and \"nee\" (no) are also conjugated to the (often implicit) subject of the sentence. These separate grammar rules are a lot more difficult to imitate correctly than simple sound shifts, making it easy to recognise people who didn't grow up in a certain region, even decades after they moved.\n\nSome Flemish dialects are so distinct that they might be considered as separate language variants, although the strong significance of language in Belgian politics would prevent the government from classifying them as such. West Flemish in particular has sometimes been considered a distinct variety. Dialect borders of these dialects do not correspond to present political boundaries, but reflect older, medieval divisions. The Brabantian dialect group, for instance, also extends to much of the south of the Netherlands, and so does Limburgish. West Flemish is also spoken in Zeelandic Flanders (part of the Dutch province of Zeeland), and by older people in French Flanders (a small area that borders Belgium).\n\nMany native speakers of Dutch, both in Belgium and the Netherlands, assume that Afrikaans and West Frisian are dialects of Dutch but are considered separate and distinct from Dutch: a daughter language and a sister language, respectively. Afrikaans evolved mainly from 17th century Dutch dialects, but had influences from various other languages in South Africa. However, it is still largely mutually intelligible with Dutch. (West) Frisian evolved from the same West Germanic branch as Old English and is less akin to Dutch.\n<Assistant>Sure I will remember them.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-02 00:00]\n<User>Here's some more information I came across:\nIn Europe, Dutch is the majority language in the Netherlands (96%) and Belgium (59%) as well as a minority language in Germany and northern France's French Flanders, where it is in the ultimate stage of language death. Though Belgium as a whole is multilingual, the two regions into which the country is divided (Flanders, francophone Wallonia, bilingual Brussels and small 'facility' zones) are largely monolingual. The Netherlands and Belgium produce the vast majority of music, films, books and other media written or spoken in Dutch. Dutch is a monocentric language, with all speakers using the same standard form (authorized by the Dutch Language Union) based on a Dutch orthography employing the Latin alphabet when writing. In stark contrast to its written uniformity, Dutch lacks a prestige dialect and has a large dialectal continuum consisting of 28 main dialects, which can themselves be further divided into at least 600 distinguishable varieties.\n\nOutside of the Netherlands and Belgium, the dialect around the German town of Kleve (South Guelderish) both historically and genetically belongs to the Dutch language. In Northeastern France, the area around Calais was historically Dutch-speaking (West Flemish) of which an estimated 20,000 daily speakers. The cities of Dunkirk, Gravelines and Bourbourg only became predominantly French-speaking by the end of the 19th century. In the countryside, until World War I, many elementary schools continued to teach in Dutch, and the Catholic Church continued to preach and teach the catechism in Flemish in many parishes.\n\nDuring the second half of the 19th century Dutch was banned from all levels of education by both Prussia and France and lost most of its functions as a cultural language. In both Germany and France the Dutch standard language is largely absent and speakers of these Dutch dialects will use German or French in everyday speech. Dutch is not afforded legal status in France or Germany, either by the central or regional public authorities and knowledge of the language is declining among younger generations.\n\nAs a foreign language, Dutch is mainly taught in primary and secondary schools in areas adjacent to the Netherlands and Flanders. In French-speaking Belgium, over 300,000 pupils are enrolled in Dutch courses, followed by over 23,000 in the German states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia, and about 7,000 in the French region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais (of which 4,550 are in primary school). At an academic level, the largest number of faculties of neerlandistiek can be found in Germany (30 universities), followed by France (20 universities) and the United Kingdom (5 universities).\n<Assistant>Noted. I'll remember these details.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-03 00:00]\n<User>Let me tell you about some new developments:\nDespite the Dutch presence in Indonesia for almost 350 years, as the Asian bulk of the Dutch East Indies, the Dutch language has no official status there and the small minority that can speak the language fluently are either educated members of the oldest generation, or employed in the legal profession, as some legal codes are still only available in Dutch. Dutch is taught in various educational centres in Indonesia, the most important of which is the Erasmus Language Centre (ETC) in Jakarta. Each year, some 1,500 to 2,000 students take Dutch courses there. In total, several thousand Indonesians study Dutch as a foreign language. Owing to centuries of Dutch rule in Indonesia, many old documents are written in Dutch. Many universities therefore include Dutch as a source language, mainly for law and history students. In Indonesia this involves about 35,000 students.\n\nUnlike other European nations, the Dutch chose not to follow a policy of language expansion amongst the indigenous peoples of their colonies. In the last quarter of the 19th century, however, a local elite gained proficiency in Dutch so as to meet the needs of expanding bureaucracy and business. Nevertheless, the Dutch government remained reluctant to teach Dutch on a large scale for fear of destabilising the colony. Dutch, the language of power, was supposed to remain in the hands of the leading elite.\n\nAfter independence, Dutch was dropped as an official language and replaced by Malay. Yet the Indonesian language inherited many words from Dutch: words for everyday life as well as scientific and technological terms. One scholar argues that 20% of Indonesian words can be traced back to Dutch words, many of which are transliterated to reflect phonetic pronunciation e.g. kantoor (Dutch for \"office\") in Indonesian is kantor, while bus (\"bus\") becomes bis. In addition, many Indonesian words are calques on Dutch, for example, rumah sakit (Indonesian for \"hospital\") is calqued on the Dutch ziekenhuis (literally \"house of the sick\"), kebun binatang (\"zoo\") on dierentuin (literally \"animal garden\"), undang-undang dasar (\"constitution\") from grondwet (literally \"ground law\"). These account for some of the differences in vocabulary between Indonesian and Malay.\n\nIn Suriname today, Dutch is the sole official language, and over 60 percent of the population speaks it as a mother tongue. Dutch is the obligatory medium of instruction in schools in Suriname, even for non-native speakers. A further twenty-four percent of the population speaks Dutch as a second language. Suriname gained its independence from the Netherlands in 1975 and has been an associate member of the Dutch Language Union since 2004. The lingua franca of Suriname, however, is Sranan Tongo, spoken natively by about a fifth of the population.\n\nIn the United States, an almost extinct dialect of Dutch, Jersey Dutch, spoken by descendants of 17th-century Dutch settlers in Bergen and Passaic counties, was still spoken as late as 1921. Other Dutch-based creole languages once spoken in the Americas include Mohawk Dutch (in Albany, New York), Berbice (in Guyana), Skepi (in Essequibo, Guyana) and Negerhollands (in the United States Virgin Islands). Pennsylvania Dutch is not a member of the set of Dutch dialects and is less misleadingly called Pennsylvania German.\n\nEuropean Dutch remained the literary language until the start of the 1920s, when under pressure of Afrikaner nationalism the local \"African\" Dutch was preferred over the written, European-based standard. In 1925, section 137 of the 1909 constitution of the Union of South Africa was amended by Act 8 of 1925, stating \"the word Dutch in article 137 [...] is hereby declared to include Afrikaans\". The constitution of 1983 only listed English and Afrikaans as official languages. It is estimated that between 90% to 95% of Afrikaans vocabulary is ultimately of Dutch origin.\n\nBoth languages are still largely mutually intelligible, although this relation can in some fields (such as lexicon, spelling and grammar) be asymmetric, as it is easier for Dutch speakers to understand written Afrikaans than it is for Afrikaans speakers to understand written Dutch. Afrikaans is grammatically far less complex than Dutch, and vocabulary items are generally altered in a clearly patterned manner, e.g. vogel becomes vo\u00ebl (\"bird\") and regen becomes re\u00ebn (\"rain\"). In South Africa, the number of students following Dutch at university, is difficult to estimate, since the academic study of Afrikaans inevitably includes the study of Dutch. Elsewhere in the world, the number of people learning Dutch is relatively small.\n\nIt is the third language of South Africa in terms of native speakers (~13.5%), of whom 53 percent are Coloureds and 42.4 percent Whites. In 1996, 40 percent of South Africans reported to know Afrikaans at least at a very basic level of communication. It is the lingua franca in Namibia, where it is spoken natively in 11 percent of households. In total, Afrikaans is the first language in South Africa alone of about 6.8 million people and is estimated to be a second language for at least 10 million people worldwide, compared to over 23 million and 5 million respectively, for Dutch.\n<Assistant>Thank you for sharing. I've noted this information.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-04 00:00]\n<User>Let me tell you about some new developments:\nUnlike other Germanic languages, Dutch doesn't have phonological aspiration of consonants. Like English, Dutch did not participate in the second consonant shift. Like most Germanic languages, the Dutch consonant system did not undergo the High German consonant shift and has a syllable structure that allows fairly complex consonant clusters. Dutch also retains full use of the velar fricatives that were present in Proto-Germanic, but lost or modified in many other Germanic languages. Dutch has final-obstruent devoicing: at the end of a word, voicing distinction is neutralised and all obstruents are pronounced voiceless. For example, goede (\"good\") is /\u02c8\u0263ud\u0259/ but the related form goed is /\u0263ut/. Dutch shares with German Final-obstruent devoicing (Du brood [bro\u02d0t] and German Brot vs Eng bread).\n\nVoicing of pre-vocalic initial voiceless alveolar fricatives occurs, although less in Dutch than in German (Du zeven, Germ sieben [z] vs. Eng seven and LG seven [s]), and also the shift in /\u03b8/ > /d/. Dutch shares only with Low German the development of /xs/ > /ss/ (Du vossen, ossen and LG V\u00f6sse, Ossen vs. Germ F\u00fcchse, Ochsen and Eng foxes, oxen), and also the development of /ft/ \u2192 /xt/ though it is far more common in Dutch (Du zacht and LG sacht vs. Germ sanft and Eng soft, but Du kracht vs. LG/Germ kraft and Eng cognate craft).\n<Assistant>I've successfully recorded all of this data.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-05 00:00]\n<User>There are some important details I learned:\nVowel length is not always considered a distinctive feature in Dutch phonology, because it normally co-occurs with changes in vowel quality. One feature or the other may be considered redundant, and some phonemic analyses prefer to treat it as an opposition of tenseness. However, even if not considered part of the phonemic opposition, the long/tense vowels are still realised as phonetically longer than their short counterparts. The changes in vowel quality are also not always the same in all dialects, and in some there may be little difference at all, with length remaining the primary distinguishing feature. And while it is true that older words always pair vowel length with a change in vowel quality, new loanwords have reintroduced phonemic oppositions of length. Compare zonne(n) [\u02c8z\u0254n\u0259] (\"suns\") versus zone [\u02c8z\u0254\u02d0n\u0259] (\"zone\") versus zonen [\u02c8zo\u02d0n\u0259(n)] (\"sons\"), or kroes [krus] (\"mug\") versus cruise [kru\u02d0s] (\"cruise\").\n<Assistant>Thanks for sharing. I've committed this to memory.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-06 00:00]\n<User>There are some important details I learned:\nUnique to the development of Dutch is the collaps of older ol/ul/al + dental into ol + dental, followed by vocalisation of pre-consonantal /l/ and after a short vowel, creating the diphthong /\u0251u/ e.g., Dutch goud, zout and bout corresponds with Low German Gold, Solt, Bolt; German Gold, Salz, Balt and English gold, salt, bold. This is the most common diphthong along with /\u025bi \u0153y/. All three are commonly the only ones considered unique phonemes in Dutch. The tendency for native English speakers is to pronounce Dutch names with /\u025bi/ (written as ij or ei) as /a\u026a/, (like the English vowel y) which does not normally lead to confusion among native listeners, since in a number of dialects (e.g. in Amsterdam) the same pronunciation is heard.\n\nThis change is interesting from a sociolinguistic point of view because it has apparently happened relatively recently, in the 1970s, and was pioneered by older well-educated women from the upper middle classes. The lowering of the diphthongs has long been current in many Dutch dialects, and is comparable to the English Great Vowel Shift, and the diphthongisation of long high vowels in Modern High German, which centuries earlier reached the state now found in Polder Dutch. Stroop theorizes that the lowering of open-mid to open diphthongs is a phonetically \"natural\" and inevitable development and that Dutch, after having diphthongised the long high vowels like German and English, \"should\" have lowered the diphthongs like German and English as well.\n\nInstead, he argues, this development has been artificially frozen in an \"intermediate\" state by the standardisation of Dutch pronunciation in the 16th century, where lowered diphthongs found in rural dialects were perceived as ugly by the educated classes and accordingly declared substandard. Now, however, in his opinion, the newly affluent and independent women can afford to let that natural development take place in their speech. Stroop compares the role of Polder Dutch with the urban variety of British English pronunciation called Estuary English.\n\nStandard Dutch uses three genders to differentiate between natural gender and three when discerning grammatical gender. But for most non-Belgian speakers, the masculine and feminine genders have merged to form the common gender (de), while the neuter (het) remains distinct as before. This gender system is similar to those of most Continental Scandinavian languages. As in English, but to a lesser degree, the inflectional grammar of the language (e.g., adjective and noun endings) has simplified over time.\n\nThe Dutch written grammar has simplified over the past 100 years: cases are now mainly used for the pronouns, such as ik (I), mij, me (me), mijn (my), wie (who), wiens (whose: masculine or neuter singular), wier (whose: feminine singular; masculine, feminine or neuter plural). Nouns and adjectives are not case inflected (except for the genitive of proper nouns (names): -s, -'s or -'). In the spoken language cases and case inflections had already gradually disappeared from a much earlier date on (probably the 15th century) as in many continental West Germanic dialects.\n\nMore complex inflection is still found in certain lexicalized expressions like de heer des huizes (literally, the man of the house), etc. These are usually remnants of cases (in this instance, the genitive case which is still used in German, cf. Der Herr des Hauses) and other inflections no longer in general use today. In such lexicalized expressions remnants of strong and weak nouns can be found too, e.g. in het jaar des Heren (Anno Domini), where \"-en\" is actually the genitive ending of the weak noun. Also in this case, German retains this feature. Though the genitive is widely avoided in speech.\n\nIn an interrogative main clause the usual word order is: conjugated verb followed by subject; other verbs in final position: \"Kun jij je pen niet vinden?\" (literally \"Can you your pen not find?\") \"Can't you find your pen?\"\nIn the Dutch equivalent of a wh-question the word order is: interrogative pronoun (or expression) + conjugated verb + subject; other verbs in final position: \"Waarom kun jij je pen niet vinden?\" (\"Why can you your pen not find?\") \"Why can't you find your pen?\"\"\nIn a tag question the word order is the same as in a declarative clause: \"Jij kunt je pen niet vinden?\" (\"You can your pen not find?\") \"You can't find your pen?\"\"\nA subordinate clause does not change its word order: \"Kun jij je pen niet vinden omdat het veel te donker is?\" (\"Can you your pen not find because it far too dark is?\") \"Can you not find your pen because it's too dark?\"\"\n\nIn Dutch, the diminutive is not merely restricted to nouns and exist in numerals (met z'n tweetjes, \"the two of us\"), pronouns (onderonsje, \"t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate\"), verbal particles (moetje, \"shotgun marriage\"), and even prepositions (toetje, \"dessert\"). Most notable however, are the diminutive forms of adjectives and adverbs. The former take an diminutive ending and thus functions as a noun, the latter remain adverbs and have always the diminutive with the -s appended, e.g. adjective: groen (\"green\") \u2192 noun: groentje (\"rookie\"); adverb: even (\"just\") \u2192 adverb: eventjes (\"just a minute\").\n\nSome nouns have two different diminutives, each with a different meaning: bloem (flower) \u2192 bloempje (lit. \"small flower\"), but bloemetje (lit. also \"small flower\", meaning bouquet). A few nouns exist solely in a diminutive form, e.g. zeepaardje (seahorse), while many, e.g. meisje (girl), originally a diminutive of meid (maid), have acquired a meaning independent of their non-diminutive forms. A diminutive can sometimes be added to an uncountable noun to refer to a single portion: ijs (ice, ice cream) \u2192 ijsje (ice cream treat, cone of ice cream), bier (beer) \u2192 biertje. Some diminutive forms only exist in plural, e.g. kleertjes (clothing).\n\nLike in English, Dutch has generalised the dative over the accusative case for all pronouns, e.g. Du me, je, Eng me, you, vs. Germ mich/mir dich/dir. There is one exception: the standard language prescribes that in the third person plural, hen is to be used for the direct object, and hun for the indirect object. This distinction was artificially introduced in the 17th century by grammarians, and is largely ignored in spoken language and not well understood by Dutch speakers. Consequently, the third person plural forms hun and hen are interchangeable in normal usage, with hun being more common. The shared unstressed form ze is also often used as both direct and indirect objects and is a useful avoidance strategy when people are unsure which form to use.\n\nLike most Germanic languages, Dutch forms noun compounds, where the first noun modifies the category given by the second (hondenhok = doghouse). Unlike English, where newer compounds or combinations of longer nouns are often written in open form with separating spaces, Dutch (like the other Germanic languages) either uses the closed form without spaces (boomhuis = tree house) or inserts a hyphen (VVD-coryfee = outstanding member of the VVD, a political party). Like German, Dutch allows arbitrarily long compounds, but the longer they get, the less frequent they tend to be.\n<Assistant>Thanks for letting me know. I'll keep track of this.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-07 00:00]\n<User>I want to tell you about some new discoveries:\nDutch vocabulary is predominantly Germanic in origin, with an additional share of loanwords of 20%. The main foreign influence on Dutch vocabulary since the 12th century and culminating in the French period has been French and (northern) French, accounting for an estimated 6.8%, or more than a third of all loanwords. Latin, that has been spoken for centuries in the south of the Low Countries, and has since then for centuries plaid a major role as the language of science and religion, follows with 6.1%. High German and Low German, influential until the mid of the 19th century, account for 2.7%, but are mostly unrecognizable since many German loanwords have been \"Dutchified\", e.g. German \"Fremdling\" become Dutch \"vreemdeling\". From English, Dutch has taken over words since the middle of the 19th century, as a consequence of the gaining power of Britain and the United States. The share of English loanwords is about 1.5%, but this number is still on the increase. Conversely, Dutch contributed many loanwords to English, accounting for 1.3%.\n\nDutch is written using the Latin script. Dutch uses one additional character beyond the standard alphabet, the digraph IJ. It has a relatively high proportion of doubled letters, both vowels and consonants, due to the formation of compound words and also to the spelling devices for distinguishing the many vowel sounds in the Dutch language. An example of five consecutive doubled letters is the word voorraaddoos (food storage container). The diaeresis (Dutch: trema) is used to mark vowels that are pronounced separately when involving a pre- or suffix. Whereas a hyphen is used when this problem occurs in compound words. For example; \"be\u00efnvloed\" (influenced), but zee-eend (sea duck). Generally, other diacritical marks only occur in loanwords, though the acute accent can also be used for emphasis or to differentiate between two forms. Its most common use is to differentiate between the indefinite article 'een' (a, an) and the numeral '\u00e9\u00e9n' (one).\n\nOriginally known as Buckingham House, the building at the core of today's palace was a large townhouse built for the Duke of Buckingham in 1703 on a site that had been in private ownership for at least 150 years. It was acquired by King George III in 1761 as a private residence for Queen Charlotte and became known as \"The Queen's House\". During the 19th century it was enlarged, principally by architects John Nash and Edward Blore, who constructed three wings around a central courtyard. Buckingham Palace became the London residence of the British monarch on the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837.\n\nThe original early 19th-century interior designs, many of which survive, include widespread use of brightly coloured scagliola and blue and pink lapis, on the advice of Sir Charles Long. King Edward VII oversaw a partial redecoration in a Belle \u00c9poque cream and gold colour scheme. Many smaller reception rooms are furnished in the Chinese regency style with furniture and fittings brought from the Royal Pavilion at Brighton and from Carlton House. The palace has 775 rooms, and the garden is the largest private garden in London. The state rooms, used for official and state entertaining, are open to the public each year for most of August and September, and on selected days in winter and spring.\n\nIn the Middle Ages, the site of the future palace formed part of the Manor of Ebury (also called Eia). The marshy ground was watered by the river Tyburn, which still flows below the courtyard and south wing of the palace. Where the river was fordable (at Cow Ford), the village of Eye Cross grew. Ownership of the site changed hands many times; owners included Edward the Confessor and his queen consort Edith of Wessex in late Saxon times, and, after the Norman Conquest, William the Conqueror. William gave the site to Geoffrey de Mandeville, who bequeathed it to the monks of Westminster Abbey.\n\nVarious owners leased it from royal landlords and the freehold was the subject of frenzied speculation during the 17th century. By then, the old village of Eye Cross had long since fallen into decay, and the area was mostly wasteland. Needing money, James I sold off part of the Crown freehold but retained part of the site on which he established a 4-acre (16,000 m2) mulberry garden for the production of silk. (This is at the northwest corner of today's palace.) Clement Walker in Anarchia Anglicana (1649) refers to \"new-erected sodoms and spintries at the Mulberry Garden at S. James's\"; this suggests it may have been a place of debauchery. Eventually, in the late 17th century, the freehold was inherited from the property tycoon Sir Hugh Audley by the great heiress Mary Davies.\n\nPossibly the first house erected within the site was that of a Sir William Blake, around 1624. The next owner was Lord Goring, who from 1633 extended Blake's house and developed much of today's garden, then known as Goring Great Garden. He did not, however, obtain the freehold interest in the mulberry garden. Unbeknown to Goring, in 1640 the document \"failed to pass the Great Seal before King Charles I fled London, which it needed to do for legal execution\". It was this critical omission that helped the British royal family regain the freehold under King George III.\n\nThe house which forms the architectural core of the palace was built for the first Duke of Buckingham and Normanby in 1703 to the design of William Winde. The style chosen was of a large, three-floored central block with two smaller flanking service wings. Buckingham House was eventually sold by Buckingham's descendant, Sir Charles Sheffield, in 1761 to George III for \u00a321,000. Sheffield's leasehold on the mulberry garden site, the freehold of which was still owned by the royal family, was due to expire in 1774.\n\nRemodelling of the structure began in 1762. After his accession to the throne in 1820, King George IV continued the renovation with the idea in mind of a small, comfortable home. While the work was in progress, in 1826, the King decided to modify the house into a palace with the help of his architect John Nash. Some furnishings were transferred from Carlton House, and others had been bought in France after the French Revolution. The external fa\u00e7ade was designed keeping in mind the French neo-classical influence preferred by George IV. The cost of the renovations grew dramatically, and by 1829 the extravagance of Nash's designs resulted in his removal as architect. On the death of George IV in 1830, his younger brother King William IV hired Edward Blore to finish the work. At one stage, William considered converting the palace into the new Houses of Parliament, after the destruction of the Palace of Westminster by fire in 1834.\n\nBuckingham Palace finally became the principal royal residence in 1837, on the accession of Queen Victoria, who was the first monarch to reside there; her predecessor William IV had died before its completion. While the state rooms were a riot of gilt and colour, the necessities of the new palace were somewhat less luxurious. For one thing, it was reported the chimneys smoked so much that the fires had to be allowed to die down, and consequently the court shivered in icy magnificence. Ventilation was so bad that the interior smelled, and when a decision was taken to install gas lamps, there was a serious worry about the build-up of gas on the lower floors. It was also said that staff were lax and lazy and the palace was dirty. Following the queen's marriage in 1840, her husband, Prince Albert, concerned himself with a reorganisation of the household offices and staff, and with the design faults of the palace. The problems were all rectified by the close of 1840. However, the builders were to return within the decade.\n\nBy 1847, the couple had found the palace too small for court life and their growing family, and consequently the new wing, designed by Edward Blore, was built by Thomas Cubitt, enclosing the central quadrangle. The large East Front, facing The Mall, is today the \"public face\" of Buckingham Palace, and contains the balcony from which the royal family acknowledge the crowds on momentous occasions and after the annual Trooping the Colour. The ballroom wing and a further suite of state rooms were also built in this period, designed by Nash's student Sir James Pennethorne.\n\nBefore Prince Albert's death, the palace was frequently the scene of musical entertainments, and the greatest contemporary musicians entertained at Buckingham Palace. The composer Felix Mendelssohn is known to have played there on three occasions. Johann Strauss II and his orchestra played there when in England. Strauss's \"Alice Polka\" was first performed at the palace in 1849 in honour of the queen's daughter, Princess Alice. Under Victoria, Buckingham Palace was frequently the scene of lavish costume balls, in addition to the usual royal ceremonies, investitures and presentations.\n<Assistant>Thanks for letting me know. I'll keep track of this.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-08 00:00]\n<User>I want to share some knowledge I just acquired:\nWidowed in 1861, the grief-stricken Queen withdrew from public life and left Buckingham Palace to live at Windsor Castle, Balmoral Castle and Osborne House. For many years the palace was seldom used, even neglected. In 1864, a note was found pinned to the fence of Buckingham Palace, saying: \"These commanding premises to be let or sold, in consequence of the late occupant's declining business.\" Eventually, public opinion forced the Queen to return to London, though even then she preferred to live elsewhere whenever possible. Court functions were still held at Windsor Castle, presided over by the sombre Queen habitually dressed in mourning black, while Buckingham Palace remained shuttered for most of the year.\n\nThe palace measures 108 metres (354 ft) by 120 metres (390 ft), is 24 metres (79 ft) high and contains over 77,000 m2 (830,000 sq ft) of floorspace. The floor area is smaller than the Royal Palace of Madrid, the Papal Palace in Rome, the Louvre in Paris, the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, or the Forbidden City. There are 775 rooms, including 19 state rooms, 52 principal bedrooms, 188 staff bedrooms, 92 offices, and 78 bathrooms. The principal rooms are contained on the piano nobile behind the west-facing garden fa\u00e7ade at the rear of the palace. The centre of this ornate suite of state rooms is the Music Room, its large bow the dominant feature of the fa\u00e7ade. Flanking the Music Room are the Blue and the White Drawing Rooms. At the centre of the suite, serving as a corridor to link the state rooms, is the Picture Gallery, which is top-lit and 55 yards (50 m) long. The Gallery is hung with numerous works including some by Rembrandt, van Dyck, Rubens and Vermeer; other rooms leading from the Picture Gallery are the Throne Room and the Green Drawing Room. The Green Drawing Room serves as a huge anteroom to the Throne Room, and is part of the ceremonial route to the throne from the Guard Room at the top of the Grand Staircase. The Guard Room contains white marble statues of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, in Roman costume, set in a tribune lined with tapestries. These very formal rooms are used only for ceremonial and official entertaining, but are open to the public every summer.\n\nDirectly underneath the State Apartments is a suite of slightly less grand rooms known as the semi-state apartments. Opening from the Marble Hall, these rooms are used for less formal entertaining, such as luncheon parties and private audiences. Some of the rooms are named and decorated for particular visitors, such as the 1844 Room, decorated in that year for the State visit of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, and, on the other side of the Bow Room, the 1855 Room, in honour of the visit of Emperor Napoleon III of France. At the centre of this suite is the Bow Room, through which thousands of guests pass annually to the Queen's Garden Parties in the Gardens. The Queen and Prince Philip use a smaller suite of rooms in the north wing.\n\nBetween 1847 and 1850, when Blore was building the new east wing, the Brighton Pavilion was once again plundered of its fittings. As a result, many of the rooms in the new wing have a distinctly oriental atmosphere. The red and blue Chinese Luncheon Room is made up from parts of the Brighton Banqueting and Music Rooms with a large oriental chimney piece sculpted by Richard Westmacott. The Yellow Drawing Room has wallpaper supplied in 1817 for the Brighton Saloon, and a chimney piece which is a European vision of how the Chinese chimney piece may appear. It has nodding mandarins in niches and fearsome winged dragons, designed by Robert Jones.\n\nAt the centre of this wing is the famous balcony with the Centre Room behind its glass doors. This is a Chinese-style saloon enhanced by Queen Mary, who, working with the designer Sir Charles Allom, created a more \"binding\" Chinese theme in the late 1920s, although the lacquer doors were brought from Brighton in 1873. Running the length of the piano nobile of the east wing is the great gallery, modestly known as the Principal Corridor, which runs the length of the eastern side of the quadrangle. It has mirrored doors, and mirrored cross walls reflecting porcelain pagodas and other oriental furniture from Brighton. The Chinese Luncheon Room and Yellow Drawing Room are situated at each end of this gallery, with the Centre Room obviously placed in the centre.\n\nWhen paying a state visit to Britain, foreign heads of state are usually entertained by the Queen at Buckingham Palace. They are allocated a large suite of rooms known as the Belgian Suite, situated at the foot of the Minister's Staircase, on the ground floor of the north-facing Garden Wing. The rooms of the suite are linked by narrow corridors, one of them is given extra height and perspective by saucer domes designed by Nash in the style of Soane. A second corridor in the suite has Gothic influenced cross over vaulting. The Belgian Rooms themselves were decorated in their present style and named after Prince Albert's uncle L\u00e9opold I, first King of the Belgians. In 1936, the suite briefly became the private apartments of the palace when they were occupied by King Edward VIII.\n\nThus, Buckingham Palace is a symbol and home of the British monarchy, an art gallery and a tourist attraction. Behind the gilded railings and gates which were completed by the Bromsgrove Guild in 1911 and Webb's famous fa\u00e7ade, which has been described in a book published by the Royal Collection as looking \"like everybody's idea of a palace\", is not only a weekday home of the Queen and Prince Philip but also the London residence of the Duke of York and the Earl and Countess of Wessex. The palace also houses the offices of the Queen, Prince Philip, Duke of York, Earl and Countess of Wessex, Princess Royal, and Princess Alexandra, and is the workplace of more than 800 people.\n\nThe palace, like Windsor Castle, is owned by the Crown Estate. It is not the monarch's personal property, unlike Sandringham House and Balmoral Castle. Many of the contents from Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Kensington Palace, and St James's Palace are part of the Royal Collection, held in trust by the Sovereign; they can, on occasion, be viewed by the public at the Queen's Gallery, near the Royal Mews. Unlike the palace and the castle, the purpose-built gallery is open continually and displays a changing selection of items from the collection. It occupies the site of the chapel destroyed by an air raid in World War II. The palace's state rooms have been open to the public during August and September and on selected dates throughout the year since 1993. The money raised in entry fees was originally put towards the rebuilding of Windsor Castle after the 1992 fire devastated many of its state rooms. 476,000 people visited the palace in the 2014\u201315 financial year.\n\nFormerly, men not wearing military uniform wore knee breeches of an 18th-century design. Women's evening dress included obligatory trains and tiaras or feathers in their hair (or both). The dress code governing formal court uniform and dress has progressively relaxed. After World War I, when Queen Mary wished to follow fashion by raising her skirts a few inches from the ground, she requested a lady-in-waiting to shorten her own skirt first to gauge the king's reaction. King George V was horrified, so the queen kept her hemline unfashionably low. Following their accession in 1936, King George VI and his consort, Queen Elizabeth, allowed the hemline of daytime skirts to rise. Today, there is no official dress code. Most men invited to Buckingham Palace in the daytime choose to wear service uniform or lounge suits; a minority wear morning coats, and in the evening, depending on the formality of the occasion, black tie or white tie.\n\nCourt presentations of aristocratic young ladies to the monarch took place at the palace from the reign of Edward VII. These young women were known as d\u00e9butantes, and the occasion\u2014termed their \"coming out\"\u2014represented their first entr\u00e9e into society. D\u00e9butantes wore full court dress, with three tall ostrich feathers in their hair. They entered, curtsied, and performed a choreographed backwards walk and a further curtsy, while manoeuvring a dress train of prescribed length. (The ceremony, known as an evening court, corresponded to the \"court drawing rooms\" of Victoria's reign.) After World War II, the ceremony was replaced by less formal afternoon receptions, usually without choreographed curtsies and court dress.\n<Assistant>Received. I'll store this information.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-09 00:00]\n<User>I have some fresh insights to share:\nInvestitures, which include the conferring of knighthoods by dubbing with a sword, and other awards take place in the palace's Ballroom, built in 1854. At 36.6 m (120 ft) long, 18 m (59 ft) wide and 13.5 m (44 ft) high, it is the largest room in the palace. It has replaced the throne room in importance and use. During investitures, the Queen stands on the throne dais beneath a giant, domed velvet canopy, known as a shamiana or a baldachin, that was used at the Delhi Durbar in 1911. A military band plays in the musicians' gallery as award recipients approach the Queen and receive their honours, watched by their families and friends.\n\nState banquets also take place in the Ballroom; these formal dinners are held on the first evening of a state visit by a foreign head of state. On these occasions, for up to 170 guests in formal \"white tie and decorations\", including tiaras, the dining table is laid with the Grand Service, a collection of silver-gilt plate made in 1811 for the Prince of Wales, later George IV. The largest and most formal reception at Buckingham Palace takes place every November when the Queen entertains members of the diplomatic corps. On this grand occasion, all the state rooms are in use, as the royal family proceed through them, beginning at the great north doors of the Picture Gallery. As Nash had envisaged, all the large, double-mirrored doors stand open, reflecting the numerous crystal chandeliers and sconces, creating a deliberate optical illusion of space and light.\n\nAdjacent to the palace is the Royal Mews, also designed by Nash, where the royal carriages, including the Gold State Coach, are housed. This rococo gilt coach, designed by Sir William Chambers in 1760, has painted panels by G. B. Cipriani. It was first used for the State Opening of Parliament by George III in 1762 and has been used by the monarch for every coronation since George IV. It was last used for the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II. Also housed in the mews are the coach horses used at royal ceremonial processions.\n\nIn 1901 the accession of Edward VII saw new life breathed into the palace. The new King and his wife Queen Alexandra had always been at the forefront of London high society, and their friends, known as \"the Marlborough House Set\", were considered to be the most eminent and fashionable of the age. Buckingham Palace\u2014the Ballroom, Grand Entrance, Marble Hall, Grand Staircase, vestibules and galleries redecorated in the Belle \u00e9poque cream and gold colour scheme they retain today\u2014once again became a setting for entertaining on a majestic scale but leaving some to feel King Edward's heavy redecorations were at odds with Nash's original work.\n\nThe last major building work took place during the reign of King George V when, in 1913, Sir Aston Webb redesigned Blore's 1850 East Front to resemble in part Giacomo Leoni's Lyme Park in Cheshire. This new, refaced principal fa\u00e7ade (of Portland stone) was designed to be the backdrop to the Victoria Memorial, a large memorial statue of Queen Victoria, placed outside the main gates. George V, who had succeeded Edward VII in 1910, had a more serious personality than his father; greater emphasis was now placed on official entertaining and royal duties than on lavish parties. He arranged a series of command performances featuring jazz musicians such as the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (1919) \u2013 the first jazz performance for a head of state, Sidney Bechet, and Louis Armstrong (1932), which earned the palace a nomination in 2009 for a (Kind of) Blue Plaque by the Brecon Jazz Festival as one of the venues making the greatest contribution to jazz music in the United Kingdom. George V's wife Queen Mary was a connoisseur of the arts, and took a keen interest in the Royal Collection of furniture and art, both restoring and adding to it. Queen Mary also had many new fixtures and fittings installed, such as the pair of marble Empire-style chimneypieces by Benjamin Vulliamy, dating from 1810, which the Queen had installed in the ground floor Bow Room, the huge low room at the centre of the garden fa\u00e7ade. Queen Mary was also responsible for the decoration of the Blue Drawing Room. This room, 69 feet (21 metres) long, previously known as the South Drawing Room, has a ceiling designed specially by Nash, coffered with huge gilt console brackets.\n\nDuring World War I, the palace, then the home of King George V and Queen Mary, escaped unscathed. Its more valuable contents were evacuated to Windsor but the royal family remained in situ. The King imposed rationing at the palace, much to the dismay of his guests and household. To the King's later regret, David Lloyd George persuaded him to go further by ostentatiously locking the wine cellars and refraining from alcohol, to set a good example to the supposedly inebriated working class. The workers continued to imbibe and the King was left unhappy at his enforced abstinence. In 1938, the north-west pavilion, designed by Nash as a conservatory, was converted into a swimming pool.\n\nDuring World War II, the palace was bombed nine times, the most serious and publicised of which resulted in the destruction of the palace chapel in 1940. Coverage of this event was played in cinemas all over the UK to show the common suffering of rich and poor. One bomb fell in the palace quadrangle while King George VI and Queen Elizabeth were in residence, and many windows were blown in and the chapel destroyed. War-time coverage of such incidents was severely restricted, however. The King and Queen were filmed inspecting their bombed home, the smiling Queen, as always, immaculately dressed in a hat and matching coat seemingly unbothered by the damage around her. It was at this time the Queen famously declared: \"I'm glad we have been bombed. Now I can look the East End in the face\". The royal family were seen as sharing their subjects' hardship, as The Sunday Graphic reported:\n\nOn 15 September 1940, known as the Battle of Britain Day, an RAF pilot, Ray Holmes of No. 504 Squadron RAF rammed a German bomber he believed was going to bomb the Palace. Holmes had run out of ammunition and made the quick decision to ram it. Holmes bailed out. Both aircraft crashed. In fact the Dornier Do 17 bomber was empty. It had already been damaged, two of its crew had been killed and the remainder bailed out. Its pilot, Feldwebel Robert Zehbe, landed, only to die later of wounds suffered during the attack. During the Dornier's descent, it somehow unloaded its bombs, one of which hit the Palace. It then crashed into the forecourt of London Victoria station. The bomber's engine was later exhibited at the Imperial War Museum in London. The British pilot became a King's Messenger after the war, and died at the age of 90 in 2005.\n\nAn incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is an electric light with a wire filament heated to a high temperature, by passing an electric current through it, until it glows with visible light (incandescence). The hot filament is protected from oxidation with a glass or quartz bulb that is filled with inert gas or evacuated. In a halogen lamp, filament evaporation is prevented by a chemical process that redeposits metal vapor onto the filament, extending its life. The light bulb is supplied with electric current by feed-through terminals or wires embedded in the glass. Most bulbs are used in a socket which provides mechanical support and electrical connections.\n<Assistant>Thanks for the information. I've saved it.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-10 00:00]\n<User>Here's some more information I came across:\nIncandescent bulbs are much less efficient than most other types of electric lighting; incandescent bulbs convert less than 5% of the energy they use into visible light, with standard light bulbs averaging about 2.2%. The remaining energy is converted into heat. The luminous efficacy of a typical incandescent bulb is 16 lumens per watt, compared with 60 lm/W for a compact fluorescent bulb or 150 lm/W for some white LED lamps. Some applications of the incandescent bulb deliberately use the heat generated by the filament. Such applications include incubators, brooding boxes for poultry, heat lights for reptile tanks, infrared heating for industrial heating and drying processes, lava lamps, and the Easy-Bake Oven toy. Incandescent bulbs typically have short lifetimes compared with other types of lighting; around 1,000 hours for home light bulbs versus typically 10,000 hours for compact fluorescents and 30,000 hours for lighting LEDs.\n\nIncandescent bulbs have been replaced in many applications by other types of electric light, such as fluorescent lamps, compact fluorescent lamps (CFL), cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFL), high-intensity discharge lamps, and light-emitting diode lamps (LED). Some jurisdictions, such as the European Union, China, Canada and United States, are in the process of phasing out the use of incandescent light bulbs while others, including Colombia, Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil and Australia, have prohibited them already.\n\nIn 1872, Russian Alexander Lodygin invented an incandescent light bulb and obtained a Russian patent in 1874. He used as a burner two carbon rods of diminished section in a glass receiver, hermetically sealed, and filled with nitrogen, electrically arranged so that the current could be passed to the second carbon when the first had been consumed. Later he lived in the USA, changed his name to Alexander de Lodyguine and applied and obtained patents for incandescent lamps having chromium, iridium, rhodium, ruthenium, osmium, molybdenum and tungsten filaments, and a bulb using a molybdenum filament was demonstrated at the world fair of 1900 in Paris.\n\nWith the help of Charles Stearn, an expert on vacuum pumps, in 1878, Swan developed a method of processing that avoided the early bulb blackening. This received a British Patent in 1880.[dubious \u2013 discuss] On 18 December 1878, a lamp using a slender carbon rod was shown at a meeting of the Newcastle Chemical Society, and Swan gave a working demonstration at their meeting on 17 January 1879. It was also shown to 700 who attended a meeting of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne on 3 February 1879. These lamps used a carbon rod from an arc lamp rather than a slender filament. Thus they had low resistance and required very large conductors to supply the necessary current, so they were not commercially practical, although they did furnish a demonstration of the possibilities of incandescent lighting with relatively high vacuum, a carbon conductor, and platinum lead-in wires. Besides requiring too much current for a central station electric system to be practical, they had a very short lifetime. Swan turned his attention to producing a better carbon filament and the means of attaching its ends. He devised a method of treating cotton to produce 'parchmentised thread' and obtained British Patent 4933 in 1880. From this year he began installing light bulbs in homes and landmarks in England. His house was the first in the world to be lit by a lightbulb and also the first house in the world to be lit by hydroelectric power. In 1878 the home of Lord Armstrong at Cragside was also among the first houses to be lit by electricity. In the early 1880s he had started his company. In 1881, the Savoy Theatre in the City of Westminster, London was lit by Swan incandescent lightbulbs, which was the first theatre, and the first public building in the world, to be lit entirely by electricity.\n<Assistant>Thanks for sharing. I've committed this to memory."]
[{"question": "Who is Buckingham palace home to?", "answer": "the British monarchy"}, {"question": "What did Ray Holmes believe the German pilot was targeting?", "answer": "the Palace"}, {"question": "In what area of France is Calais located?", "answer": "Northeastern France"}, {"question": "In what year was the north-west pavilion turned into a swimming pool?", "answer": "1938"}, {"question": "What was Blore building between 1847 and 1850?", "answer": "the new east wing"}, {"question": "Before Prince Albert died what sort of entertainment was held at Buckingham?", "answer": "musical entertainments"}, {"question": "How many staterooms does the palace have?", "answer": "19 state rooms"}, {"question": "For whom was the Grand Service made?", "answer": "the Prince of Wales"}, {"question": "In what profession is Dutch often required in the Dutch East Indies?", "answer": "the legal profession"}, {"question": "What percentage of adults in the Netherlands spoke a dialect or regional language in 1995?", "answer": "27"}, {"question": "The common/neuter system used in Dutch is a lot like the system used in what other language category?", "answer": "Continental Scandinavian languages"}, {"question": "What did the King give up during the war?", "answer": "alcohol"}, {"question": "At the end of which year were most of the design problems of the palace rectified under Prince Albert?", "answer": "1840"}, {"question": "Under whose reign were young debutantes presented to society at Court?", "answer": "Edward VII"}, {"question": "Would a text written in Middle Dutch be readable or unintelligible for a Dutch speaker today?", "answer": "readable"}, {"question": "What Dutch-based language popped up in the area of Albany, New York?", "answer": "Mohawk Dutch"}, {"question": "What types of feathers did debutantes wear in their hair?", "answer": "ostrich feathers"}, {"question": "What VIP segment of the population in Dutch colonies learned Dutch to participate in business and government?", "answer": "local elite"}, {"question": "What was the old name for the geographical region that's now Belgium and Luxembourg?", "answer": "Southern Netherlands"}, {"question": "What region in France is experiencing Dutch language death?", "answer": "French Flanders"}, {"question": "How are the rooms in the Belgian Suite connected?", "answer": "by narrow corridors"}, {"question": "How many people work at Buckingham Palace?", "answer": "more than 800"}, {"question": "The knee breeches men formerly wore to the palace were of what era's design?", "answer": "18th-century design"}, {"question": "After the war what did Holmes become?", "answer": "King's Messenger"}, {"question": "Who convinced the king to lock the wine cellars?", "answer": "David Lloyd George"}, {"question": "Buckingham Palace was untouched during which war?", "answer": "World War I"}, {"question": "What does the acronym CFL refer to?", "answer": "compact fluorescent lamps"}, {"question": "About how many people around Calais, France speak Dutch every day?", "answer": "20,000"}, {"question": "How many primary school aged children were found to speak a dialect or regional language by 2011?", "answer": "4 percent"}, {"question": "When did the palace become the London residence for the monarchs?", "answer": "1837"}, {"question": "When was the Grand Service made?", "answer": "1811"}, {"question": "Buckingham Palace is actually owned by whom?", "answer": "Crown Estate"}, {"question": "What kind of governmental boundary does dialect distribution transcend, reflecting medieval divisions?", "answer": "political boundaries"}, {"question": "Because Dutch has many vowel sounds and compound words, what occurs frequently in Dutch spelling?", "answer": "doubled letters"}, {"question": "Guests attending the Queen's Garden Parties will mostly likely see which room?", "answer": "Bow Room"}, {"question": "What researcher posited that the lowering of diphthongs is \"natural\"?", "answer": "Stroop"}, {"question": "In what year did William Winde design the house which forms the core of the palace?", "answer": "1703"}, {"question": "What was the north-west pavilion converted into in 1938?", "answer": "swimming pool"}, {"question": "What was destroyed in one of the bombing that hit the palace in WWII?", "answer": "the chapel"}, {"question": "Who oversaw the redecoration that used a Belle \u00c9poque cream and gold colour scheme?", "answer": "King Edward VII"}, {"question": "In what country other than France did Dutch lose most of it usage in the 19th century?", "answer": "Prussia"}, {"question": "How many different major dialects of Dutch are there?", "answer": "28"}, {"question": "Who established a mulberry garden on the property?", "answer": "James I"}, {"question": "Which King was horrified to see the raised hemline on the Queen?", "answer": "George V"}, {"question": "Which king fled to London leaving allowing the Royal family to keep it's freehold on the property?", "answer": "King Charles I"}, {"question": "The Principle Corridor has which type of doors?", "answer": "mirrored doors"}, {"question": "The hemline of daytime skirts were allowed to rise after which year?", "answer": "1936"}, {"question": "What is the largest room in the palace?", "answer": "Ballroom"}, {"question": "When did Holmes die?", "answer": "2005"}, {"question": "Where were valuables evacuated to during the war?", "answer": "Windsor"}, {"question": "What was destroyed in 1940?", "answer": "the palace chapel"}, {"question": "Who was the first monarch to reside there?", "answer": "Queen Victoria"}, {"question": "What was located on the site that is now the Queen's Gallery?", "answer": "chapel"}, {"question": "Which property tycoon inherited the property in the late 17th century?", "answer": "Sir Hugh Audley"}, {"question": "What were women obliged to wear in their hair?", "answer": "tiaras or feathers"}, {"question": "Buckingham Palace is also the London Residence for which Duke?", "answer": "Duke of York"}, {"question": "The king refrained from doing what during the war?", "answer": "alcohol"}, {"question": "How many bathrooms are there?", "answer": "78"}, {"question": "What was the problem with chimneys in the palace?", "answer": "the chimneys smoked"}, {"question": "What country has the most universities offering courses in neerlandistiek?", "answer": "Germany"}, {"question": "What provides the electricity to most light bulbs?", "answer": "a socket"}, {"question": "Who built the first house on the site?", "answer": "Sir William Blake"}, {"question": "What word described standalone expressions that retain some outdated convention as an exception?", "answer": "lexicalized"}, {"question": "The royal family was seen as sharing what with their subjects after the bombings?", "answer": "their subjects' hardship"}, {"question": "Which room has the famous balcony used by the royals?", "answer": "Centre Room"}, {"question": "Where do State Banquets take place?", "answer": "the Ballroom"}, {"question": "What was the name for the ceremony where debutantes had their first introduction into society?", "answer": "coming out"}, {"question": "Which part of the incandescent light bulb is heated?", "answer": "wire filament"}, {"question": "After WWII what was the coming out ceremony replaced with?", "answer": "less formal afternoon receptions"}, {"question": "In what year were the railings and gates completed?", "answer": "1911"}, {"question": "When did Swan receive a patent for parchmentised thread?", "answer": "1880"}, {"question": "From what century were men's knee breeches worn at Buckingham designed in?", "answer": "18th-century design"}, {"question": "Which designer did Queen Mary work with to enhance the Centre Room?", "answer": "Sir Charles Allom"}, {"question": "Under whose reign did the last major building works take place?", "answer": "King George V"}, {"question": "Where do state banquets take place?", "answer": "in the Ballroom"}, {"question": "The Dutch influence on Afrikaans was seasoned with languages from what country?", "answer": "South Africa"}, {"question": "Which piece of music by Johann Strauss was first performed at Buckingham in honor of Princess Alice?", "answer": "Alice Polka"}, {"question": "Which queen wanted to shorten her skirt's hemline?", "answer": "Queen Mary"}, {"question": "Where were valuable items from Buckingham Palace taken during WWI?", "answer": "Windsor"}, {"question": "Under whose reign did court presentations of young aristocratic ladies take place?", "answer": "Edward VII"}, {"question": "Which king preferred official entertaining and royal duties to lavish parties?", "answer": "George V"}, {"question": "In what year did Lodygin demonstrate a lamp at the World's Fair?", "answer": "1900"}, {"question": "What area that abuts Belgium still has some older people who speak West Flemish?", "answer": "French Flanders"}, {"question": "Is the voicing of pre-vocalic initial voiceless alveolar fricatives more common in Dutch or German?", "answer": "German"}, {"question": "What forced the Queen to return to London?", "answer": "public opinion"}, {"question": "How many rooms does the palace have?", "answer": "775 rooms"}, {"question": "What was the name of Lord Goring Garden?", "answer": "Goring Great Garden"}, {"question": "Which church often preached in Flemish prior to World War I?", "answer": "the Catholic Church"}, {"question": "The palace frequently hosted which type of events prior to the death of Prince Albert?", "answer": "musical entertainments"}, {"question": "In 2011, what percentage of Dutch adults spoke Frisian?", "answer": "44%"}, {"question": "Where are the suites located that the Queen and Prince Phillip use?", "answer": "the north wing"}, {"question": "Who suggested the use of brightly coloured scagliola and blue and pink lapis?", "answer": "Sir Charles Long"}, {"question": "Who was the main architect that transformed the house into the palace?", "answer": "John Nash"}, {"question": "At the high end, what percentage of Afrikaans words come from Dutch?", "answer": "95%"}, {"question": "How would you say \"good\" in Dutch?", "answer": "goede"}, {"question": "Who dealt with the design faults of the palace?", "answer": "Prince Albert"}, {"question": "Who was responsible for decorating The Blue Drawing Room?", "answer": "Queen Mary"}, {"question": "Leaders wanted to hang onto knowledge of the Dutch language because it's the language of what?", "answer": "power"}, {"question": "What's the English type equivalent for the Dutch word order that is an interrogative pronoun/expression, then a verb followed by a subject?", "answer": "a wh-question"}, {"question": "What type of garden did James I create?", "answer": "mulberry"}]