This article revisits the etymology of the Dutch third-person plural pronoun hullie ∼ hulle, a form of particular interest because of its presence in Afrikaans as well as in American diaspora varieties of Dutch. Although hullie is traditionally analyzed as a contraction of hun (the main third-person plural nonsubject pronoun in standard Dutch) and the noun lie(den) ∼ lui ‘people’, this study argues that its first syllable actually traces back to heur, not hun. The argument is based on a range of historical-linguistic evidence, drawing on both well-known and lesser-known dialect sources. The article furthermore highlights a broader methodological issue: Treating hullie as a reflex of hun has led to incorrect generalizations in the Dutch dialectological literature, artificially inflating the historical distribution of hun at the expense of heur. The findings thus not only resolve a long-standing etymological puzzle, but also underscore the importance of critical etymology for accurate dialect geography and historical-linguistic reconstruction.
