Now I Have to Go to The Netherlands

About midway through Island at the Center of the World, I had the inexplicable urge to go to The Netherlands (which I'd been calling Holland - Holland is actually just a part of The Netherlands, like a county or state), and I began researching Study Abroad opportunities. I'd been planning on going to Vienna for a year now, but I was really, really tempted to change my application destination to Leiden. I didn't in the end, but I do know I will be heading north, towards Scandinavia, for Spring Break, and not south to Ibiza.
But that's all anecdotal - there's a particular passage in Chapter 13 about the linguistic contributions of the Dutch that fascinated me. Specifically, the words "boss" (which, as Shorto points out in a footnote referencing Bruce Springsteen, is a classically American word), "cookies" (without which Girl Scout Cookies would not be the phrase it is), and "cole slaw" (essential to all good BBQ - essentially the cuisine of America). Shorto also spends a mere paragraph on the Dutch origins of the American celebration of Christmas, which, by now, has not only completely forgotten its Eurpoean roots, but is synonymous with American consumerism, since the Christmas shopping season begins about two months before thre actual holiday.
Previous to reading this book, I had never given much thought to the Dutch in general - I couldn't point out The Netherlands on a map, and I was pretty sure Dutch was spoken in Denmark. I was wrong, of course.
I'd be interested to learn if there were any linguistic similarities between the Indian languages spoken at the time and Dutch, since so much of New York is named after either. I also wonder whether there are words in our vernacular that originated in Indian languages, or if Europeans so thoroughly dessimated the culture as to ensure that even the tiniest remnant - like "cookie" - could not permeate.
Overall, Shorto's book was very lively and edifying.