W. L. H. Köster Henke

author

W. L. H. Köster Henke

Best known for a lively early-20th-century guide to Dutch criminal slang, this writer drew on real police experience to explain the hidden language of the streets. His work sits at the crossroads of law enforcement, language, and social history.

1 Audiobook

De Boeventaal Zakwoordenboekje van het Bargoensch, of De taal van de jongens van de vlakte

De Boeventaal Zakwoordenboekje van het Bargoensch, of De taal van de jongens van de vlakte

by W. L. H. Köster Henke

About the author

W. L. H. Köster Henke was a Dutch police official and writer whose work grew directly out of his career in law enforcement. Library records identify him as Willem Lodewijk Hendrik Köster Henke, and contemporary sources connect him with the Amsterdam police.

He is best known for De Boeventaal, a compact dictionary of Bargoens, the slang associated with criminals and life on the margins in the Netherlands. Rather than treating the subject as a curiosity, he presented it as practical knowledge, helping readers understand a coded world of words and expressions that ordinary dictionaries did not capture.

Köster Henke also wrote on criminal law for police use and published Herinneringen uit mijn politie-loopbaan (Memories from My Police Career), which suggests a long professional life shaped by everyday police work. Today, his books remain interesting not only as reference works, but also as vivid snapshots of policing, urban life, and language in the Netherlands around the turn of the 20th century.