Why does Dutch say “turnen” for gymnastics?

Dutch uses turnen for “to do gymnastics,” borrowed from German turnen, the verb tied to Friedrich Ludwig Jahn’s early-1800s German gymnastics movement. Jahn opened his first Turnplatz in Berlin in 1811, and the German tradition spread across central and northern Europe. Dutch took the word in fully: turnen, turner (gymnast), turnvereniging (gymnastics club), turndag (gymnastics day). English borrowed the Greek-rooted gymnastics instead, so Dutch turnen surprises English ears even though the underlying activity is the same.

In this clip, a Dutch mother-daughter pair remembers a moeder-dochter turndag (“mother-daughter gymnastics day”). The Dutch national gymnastics federation, KNGU, runs many of these days at clubs across the country.