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Dutch ( ) is a
West Germanic language The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages). The West Germanic branch is classically subdivided into ...
spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language. It is the third most widely spoken
Germanic language The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, Engli ...
, after its close relatives
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
and
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
. ''
Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
'' is a separate but somewhat
mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
daughter language In historical linguistics, a daughter language, also known as descendant language, is a language descended from another language, its mother language, through a process of genetic descent. If more than one language has developed from the same pro ...
Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .
Afrikaans was historically called Cape Dutch; see , , , , , .
Afrikaans is rooted in 17th-century dialects of Dutch; see , , , .
Afrikaans is variously described as a creole, a partially creolised language, or a deviant variety of Dutch; see .
spoken, to some degree, by at least 16 million people, mainly in
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
and
Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...
, evolving from the
Cape Dutch Cape Dutch, also commonly known as Cape Afrikaners, were a historic socioeconomic class of Afrikaners who lived in the Western Cape during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The terms have been evoked to describe an affluent, apolitical se ...
dialects of
Southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost subregion of the African continent, south of the Congo and Tanzania. The physical location is the large part of Africa to the south of the extensive Congo River basin. Southern Africa is home to a number of ...
. The
dialects The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...
used in Belgium (including
Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...
) and in Suriname, meanwhile, are all guided by the
Dutch Language Union The Dutch Language Union ( Dutch: , NTU) is an international regulatory institution that governs issues regarding the Dutch language. It is best known for its spelling reforms which are promulgated by member states, grammar books, the Green B ...
. In Europe, most of the population of the
Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
(where it is the only official language spoken countrywide) and about 60% of the population of
Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
(as one of three official languages) speak Dutch. "1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." (page 153). Outside the
Low Countries The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...
, Dutch is the native language of the majority of the population of the
South American South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
country of
Suriname Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north ...
, a former Dutch colony, where it also holds an official status, as it does in the
Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...
island countries An island country, island state or an island nation is a country whose primary territory consists of one or more islands or parts of islands. Approximately 25% of all independent countries are island countries. Island countries are historically ...
of
Aruba Aruba ( , , ), officially the Country of Aruba ( nl, Land Aruba; pap, Pais Aruba) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands physically located in the mid-south of the Caribbean Sea, about north of the Venezuela peninsula of ...
,
Curaçao Curaçao ( ; ; pap, Kòrsou, ), officially the Country of Curaçao ( nl, Land Curaçao; pap, Pais Kòrsou), is a Lesser Antilles island country in the southern Caribbean Sea and the Dutch Caribbean region, about north of the Venezuela coast ...
and
Sint Maarten Sint Maarten () is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the Caribbean. With a population of 41,486 as of January 2019 on an area of , it encompasses the southern 44% of the divided island of Saint Martin, while the north ...
, which are constituent countries of the
Kingdom of the Netherlands , national_anthem = ) , image_map = Kingdom of the Netherlands (orthographic projection).svg , map_width = 250px , image_map2 = File:KonDerNed-10-10-10.png , map_caption2 = Map of the four constituent countries shown to scale , capital = ...
. Up to half a million native speakers reside in the United States, Canada and Australia combined, and historical linguistic minorities on the verge of extinction remain in parts of France, Germany and Indonesia.In France, a historical dialect called
French Flemish French Flemish (French Flemish: , Standard Dutch: , french: flamand français) is a West Flemish dialect spoken in the north of contemporary France. Place names attest to Flemish having been spoken since the 8th century in the part of Fland ...
is spoken. There are about 80,000 Dutch speakers in France; see . In French Flanders, only a remnant of 20,000 Flemish-speakers remain; see . French Flemish is spoken in the north-west of France by an estimated population of 20,000 daily speakers and 40,000 occasional speakers; see .
A dialect continuum exists between Dutch and German through the
South Guelderish South Guelderish ( nl, Zuid-Gelders , german: Südgeldersch, ''Kleverländisch'') refers to the easternmost group of Dutch dialects spoken along the lower Rhine (Dutch Nederrijn and German Niederrhein). In its narrower sense, the term refers str ...
and
Limburgish Limburgish ( li, Limburgs or ; nl, Limburgs ; german: Limburgisch ; french: Limbourgeois ), also called Limburgan, Limburgian, or Limburgic, is a West Germanic language spoken in the Dutch and Belgian provinces of Limburg (Netherlands), L ...
dialects.
In 1941, 400,000 Indonesians spoke Dutch, and Dutch exerted a major influence on Indonesian; see . In 1941, about 0.5% of the inland population had a reasonable knowledge of Dutch; see . At the beginning of World War II, about one million Asians had an active command of Dutch, while an additional half million had a passive knowledge; see . Many older Indonesians speak Dutch as a second language; see . Some of the ethnic Chinese in Indonesia speak Dutch amongst each other; see , . Dutch is spoken by "smaller groups of speakers" in Indonesia; see . Some younger Indonesians learn Dutch as a foreign language because their parents and grandparents may speak it and because in some circles, Dutch is regarded as the language of the elite; see . At present, only educated people of the oldest generation, in addition to specialists who require knowledge of the language, can speak Dutch fluently; see . Around 6.4% of present-day Indonesian vocabulary can be traced back to Dutch words, see .
Dutch is one of the closest relatives of both German and English and is colloquially said to be "roughly in between" them. Dutch, like English, has not undergone the High German consonant shift, does not use
Germanic umlaut The Germanic umlaut (sometimes called i-umlaut or i-mutation) is a type of linguistic umlaut in which a back vowel changes to the associated front vowel ( fronting) or a front vowel becomes closer to (raising) when the following syllable conta ...
as a grammatical marker, has largely abandoned the use of the
subjunctive The subjunctive (also known as conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of the utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude towards it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality ...
, and has levelled much of its
morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines * Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts * Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...
, including most of its
case system A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers ( determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nom ...
. Features shared with German include the survival of two to three
grammatical genders In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all noun ...
—albeit with few grammatical consequences—as well as the use of
modal particle In linguistics, modal particles are always uninflected words, and are a type of grammatical particle. They are used to indicate how the speaker thinks that the content of the sentence relates to the participants' common knowledge or add mood to t ...
s,
final-obstruent devoicing Final-obstruent devoicing or terminal devoicing is a systematic phonological process occurring in languages such as Catalan, German, Dutch, Breton, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Turkish, and Wolof. In such languages, voiced obstruents in ...
, and a similar
word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...
. Dutch vocabulary is mostly Germanic; it incorporates slightly more Romance loans than German but far fewer than English.


Name

In both Belgium and the Netherlands, the native official name for Dutch is ''Nederlands''See also: (historically before the Dutch orthographic reforms). Sometimes ''Vlaams'' ("
Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...
") is used as well to describe
Standard Dutch Dutch ( ) is a West Germanic language spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language. It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after its close relatives German and English. ''Afrikaans'' ...
in
Flanders Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, ...
, whereas ''Hollands'' ("
Hollandic Hollandic or Hollandish ( ) is the most widely spoken dialect of the Dutch language. Hollandic is among the Central Dutch dialects. Other important language varieties of spoken Low Franconian languages are Brabantian, Flemish ( East Flemish, ...
") is occasionally used as a colloquial term for the standard language in the central and northwestern parts of the Netherlands. English is the only language to use the adjective ''Dutch'' for the language of the Netherlands and Flanders or something else from the Netherlands. The word is derived from
Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branc ...
. The stem of this word, , meant "people" in Proto-Germanic, and was an adjective-forming suffix, of which is the Modern English form. ' was its Latinised form and used as an
adjective In linguistics, an adjective (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that generally grammatical modifier, modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Tra ...
referring to the Germanic
vernacular A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...
s of the
Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Mi ...
. In this sense, it meant "the language of the common people". The term was used as opposed to
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, the ''non''-native language of writing and the
Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
. It was first recorded in 786, when the
Bishop of Ostia The Roman Catholic Suburbicarian Diocese of Ostia is an ecclesiastical territory located within the Metropolitan City of Rome in Italy. It is one of the seven suburbicarian dioceses. The incumbent Bishop is cardinal Giovanni Battista Re. Since ...
writes to
Pope Adrian I Pope Adrian I ( la, Hadrianus I; died 25 December 795) was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 1 February 772 to his death. He was the son of Theodore, a Roman nobleman. Adrian and his predecessors had to contend with periodic ...
about a
synod A synod () is a council of a Christian denomination, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. The word ''wikt:synod, synod'' comes from the meaning "assembly" or "meeting" and is analogous with the Latin ...
taking place in
Corbridge Corbridge is a village in Northumberland, England, west of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle and east of Hexham. Villages nearby include Halton, Northumberland, Halton, Acomb, Northumberland, Acomb, Aydon and Sandhoe. Etymology Corbridge was kno ...
,
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, where the decisions are being written down "tam Latine quam theodisce" meaning "in Latin as well as common vernacular".M. Philippa e.a. (2003–2009) Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands iets/ref>Cornelis Dekker: The Origins of Old Germanic Studies in the Low Countrie

/ref> In northwestern
West Francia In medieval history, West Francia (Medieval Latin: ) or the Kingdom of the West Franks () refers to the western part of the Frankish Empire established by Charlemagne. It represents the earliest stage of the Kingdom of France, lasting from about ...
(i.e. modern Belgium) the term would take on a new meaning during the
Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Mi ...
, when, within the context of a highly dichromatic linguistic landscape, it came to be the
antonym In lexical semantics, opposites are words lying in an inherently incompatible binary relationship. For example, something that is ''long'' entails that it is not ''short''. It is referred to as a 'binary' relationship because there are two members ...
of '' *walhisk'' (Romance-speakers, specifically
Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligib ...
). The word, now rendered as ''dietsc'' (Southwestern variant) or ''duutsc'' (Central and Northern Variant), could refer to the Dutch language itself, as well as a broader Germanic category depending on context. During the
High Middle Ages The High Middle Ages, or High Medieval Period, was the periodization, period of European history that lasted from AD 1000 to 1300. The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and were followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended ...
"Dietsc/Duutsc" was increasingly used as an umbrella term for the specific Germanic dialects spoken in the
Low Countries The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...
, its meaning being largely implicitly provided by the regional orientation of medieval Dutch society: apart from the higher echelons of the clergy and nobility, mobility was largely static and hence while "Dutch" could by extension also be used in its earlier sense, referring to what to today would be called Germanic dialects as opposed to Romance dialects, in many cases it was understood or meant to refer to the language now known as Dutch. In the Low Countries ''Dietsch'' or its Early Modern Dutch form ''Duytsch'' as an endonym for Dutch gradually went out of common use and was gradually replaced by the Dutch endonym ''Nederlands''. This designation (first attested in 1482) started at the Burgundian court in the 15th century, although the use of ''neder'', ''laag'', ''bas'', and ''inferior'' ("nether" or "low") to refer to the area known as the Low Countries goes back further in time, with the
Romans Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
referring to the region as ''
Germania Inferior Germania Inferior ("Lower Germania") was a Roman province from AD 85 until the province was renamed Germania Secunda in the fourth century, on the west bank of the Rhine bordering the North Sea. The capital of the province was Colonia Agrippin ...
'' ("Lower" Germania). It is a reference to the Low Countries' downriver location at the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta near the
North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...
. From 1551, the designation ''Nederlands'' received strong competition from the name ''Nederduytsch'' (literally "Low Dutch", ''Dutch'' being used in its archaic sense covering all continental West Germanic languages). It is a
calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language wh ...
of the aforementioned Roman province ''Germania Inferior'' and an attempt by early Dutch grammarians to give their language more prestige by linking it to Roman times. Likewise, ''Hoogduits'' ("High German") and ''Overlands'' ("Upper-landish") came into use as a Dutch exonym for the various German dialects used in neighboring German states. Use of ''Nederduytsch'' was popular in the 16th century but ultimately lost out over ''Nederlands'' during the close of the 18th century, with ''(Hoog)Duytsch'' establishing itself as the Dutch exonym for German during this same period. In the 19th century Germany saw the rise of the categorisation of dialects, with German dialectologists terming the German dialects spoken in the mountainous south of Germany as ''Hochdeutsch'' ("High German"). Subsequently, German dialects spoken in the north were designated as ''Niederdeutsch'' ("Low German"). The names for these dialects were calqued by Dutch linguists as ''Nederduits'' and ''Hoogduits''. As a result, ''Nederduits'' no longer serves as a synonym for the Dutch language. In the 19th century, the term "Diets" was revived by Dutch linguists and historians as well, as a poetic name for
Middle Dutch Middle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects whose ancestor was Old Dutch. It was spoken and written between 1150 and 1500. Until the advent of Modern Dutch after 1500 or c. 1550, there was no overarch ...
and its literature.


History

Old Dutch In linguistics, Old Dutch (Dutch: Oudnederlands) or Old Low Franconian (Dutch: Oudnederfrankisch) is the set of Franconian dialects (i.e. dialects that evolved from Frankish) spoken in the Low Countries during the Early Middle Ages, from aroun ...
can be discerned more or less around the same time as
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
(Anglo-Saxon),
Old High German Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050. There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...
,
Old Frisian Old Frisian was a West Germanic language spoken between the 8th and 16th centuries along the North Sea coast, roughly between the mouths of the Rhine and Weser rivers. The Frisian settlers on the coast of South Jutland (today's Northern Friesl ...
, and
Old Saxon Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Europe). It i ...
. These names are derived from the modern
standard language A standard language (also standard variety, standard dialect, and standard) is a language variety that has undergone substantial codification of grammar and usage, although occasionally the term refers to the entirety of a language that includes ...
s. In this age no standard languages had yet developed, while a perfect West Germanic
dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...
remained present; the division reflects the contingent future contribution dialect groups would have to the later languages. The early form of Dutch was a set of Franconian dialects spoken by the
Salian Franks The Salian Franks, also called the Salians (Latin: ''Salii''; Greek: Σάλιοι, ''Salioi''), were a northwestern subgroup of the early Franks who appear in the historical record in the fourth and fifth centuries. They lived west of the Low ...
in the 5th century. These happened to develop through
Middle Dutch Middle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects whose ancestor was Old Dutch. It was spoken and written between 1150 and 1500. Until the advent of Modern Dutch after 1500 or c. 1550, there was no overarch ...
to Modern Dutch over the course of fifteen centuries. During that period, they forced Old Frisian back from the western coast to the north of the Low Countries, and influenced or even replaced Old Saxon spoken in the east (contiguous with the Low German area). On the other hand, Dutch has been replaced in adjacent lands in present-day France and Germany. The division into Old, Middle and Modern Dutch is mostly conventional, since the transition between them was very gradual. One of the few moments when
linguists Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
can detect something of a revolution is when the Dutch standard language emerged and quickly established itself. The development of the Dutch language is illustrated by the following sentence in Old, Middle and Modern Dutch: * ''Irlôsin sol an frithe sêla mîna fan thên thia ginâcont mi, wanda under managon he was mit mi'' (Old Dutch) * ''Erlossen sal iin vrede siele mine van dien die genaken mi, want onder menegen hi was met mi'' (Middle Dutch) * ''Verlossen zal hij in vrede ziel mijn van degenen die genaken mij, want onder menigen hij was met mij'' (Modern Dutch, same word order) * ''Hij zal mijn ziel in vrede verlossen van degenen die mij genaken, want onder menigen was hij met mij'' (Modern Dutch, default word order) * ''He will deliver my soul in peace from those who approach me, because, amongst many, he was with me'' (English)


Origins

Among the
Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
, Dutch is grouped within the
Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, Engli ...
, meaning it shares a
common ancestor Common descent is a concept in evolutionary biology applicable when one species is the ancestor of two or more species later in time. All living beings are in fact descendants of a unique ancestor commonly referred to as the last universal comm ...
with languages such as English, German, and the
Scandinavian languages The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is also r ...
. All Germanic languages are subject to the
Grimm's law Grimm's law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift) is a set of sound laws describing the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stop consonants as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the 1st millennium BC. First systematically put forward by Jacob Gr ...
and
Verner's law Verner's law describes a historical sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby consonants that would usually have been the voiceless fricatives , , , , , following an unstressed syllable, became the voiced fricatives , , , , . The law was ...
sound shifts, which originated in the
Proto-Germanic language Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...
and define the basic features differentiating them from other Indo-European languages. This is assumed to have taken place in approximately the mid-first millennium BCE in the pre-Roman Northern European Iron Age. This long-standing, well-known article on the languages can be found in almost any edition of ''Britannica''. The Germanic languages are traditionally divided into three groups:
East East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...
(now extinct),
West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sunset, Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic languages, German ...
, and
North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...
Germanic. They remained mutually intelligible throughout the
Migration Period The Migration Period was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roman ...
. Dutch is part of the West Germanic group, which also includes English, Scots, Frisian,
Low German : : : : : (70,000) (30,000) (8,000) , familycolor = Indo-European , fam2 = Germanic , fam3 = West Germanic , fam4 = North Sea Germanic , ancestor = Old Saxon , ancestor2 = Middle L ...
(Old Saxon) and
High German The High German dialects (german: hochdeutsche Mundarten), or simply High German (); not to be confused with Standard High German which is commonly also called ''High German'', comprise the varieties of German spoken south of the Benrath and ...
. It is characterized by a number of
phonological Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
and morphological innovations not found in North or East Germanic. The West Germanic varieties of the time are generally split into three dialect groups:
Ingvaeonic North Sea Germanic, also known as Ingvaeonic , is a postulated grouping of the northern West Germanic languages that consists of Old Frisian, Old English, and Old Saxon, and their descendants. Ingvaeonic is named after the Ingaevones, a West Ge ...
(North Sea Germanic),
Istvaeonic Weser-Rhine Germanic is a proposed group of prehistoric West Germanic dialects which would have been both directly ancestral to Dutch, as well as being a notable substratum influencing West Central German dialects. The term was introduced by the G ...
(Weser-Rhine Germanic) and
Irminonic Elbe Germanic, also called Irminonic or Erminonic, is a term introduced by the German linguist Friedrich Maurer (1898–1984) in his book, ''Nordgermanen und Alemanen'', to describe the unattested proto-language, or dialectal grouping, ancestra ...
(Elbe Germanic). It appears that the Frankish tribes fit primarily into the Istvaeonic dialect group with certain Ingvaeonic influences towards the northwest, which are still seen in modern Dutch.


Frankish (3rd–5th centuries)

The Frankish language itself is not directly attested, the only possible exception being the
Bergakker inscription The Bergakker inscription is an Elder Futhark inscription discovered on the scabbard of a 5th-century sword. It was found in 1996 in the Dutch town of Bergakker, in the Betuwe, a region once inhabited by the Batavi. There is consensus that the f ...
, found near the Dutch city of
Tiel Tiel () is a municipality and a town in the middle of the Netherlands. The town is enclosed by the Waal river and the Linge river to the South and the North, and the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal to the East. Tiel comprises the population centres Kapel- ...
, which may represent a primary record of 5th-century Frankish. Although some place names recorded in Roman texts such as ' (modern Dutch: ', English: "mudflat"), could arguably be considered as the oldest single "Dutch" words, the Bergakker inscription yields the oldest evidence of Dutch morphology. However, interpretations of the rest of the text lack any consensus. The
Franks The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools, ...
emerged in the southern Netherlands (
Salian Franks The Salian Franks, also called the Salians (Latin: ''Salii''; Greek: Σάλιοι, ''Salioi''), were a northwestern subgroup of the early Franks who appear in the historical record in the fourth and fifth centuries. They lived west of the Low ...
) and central Germany (
Ripuarian Franks Ripuarian or Rhineland Franks (Latin: ''Ripuarii'' or ''Ribuarii'') were one of the two main groupings of early Frankish people, and specifically it was the name eventually applied to the tribes who settled in the old Roman territory of the Ubii, ...
), and later descended into
Gaul Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only during ...
. The name of their kingdom survives in that of France. Although they ruled the
Gallo-Romans Gallo-Roman culture was a consequence of the Romanization (cultural), Romanization of Gauls under the rule of the Roman Empire. It was characterized by the Gaulish adoption or adaptation of Roman culture, Roman culture, language, morals and wa ...
for nearly 300 years, their language,
Frankish Frankish may refer to: * Franks, a Germanic tribe and their culture ** Frankish language or its modern descendants, Franconian languages * Francia, a post-Roman state in France and Germany * East Francia, the successor state to Francia in Germany ...
, became extinct in most of France and was replaced by later forms of the language throughout Luxembourg and Germany in around the 7th century. It was replaced in France by
Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligib ...
(a
Romance language The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European languages, I ...
with a considerable Old Frankish influence). However, the Old Franconian language did not die out at large, as it continued to be spoken in the Low Countries, and subsequently evolved into what is now called Old Low Franconian or Old Dutch in the Low Countries. In fact, Old Frankish could be reconstructed from Old Dutch and Frankish loanwords in Old French.


Old Dutch (5th–12th centuries)

The term ''Old Dutch'' or ''Old Low Franconian'' refers to the set of Franconian dialects (i.e. West Germanic varieties that are assumed to have evolved from
Frankish Frankish may refer to: * Franks, a Germanic tribe and their culture ** Frankish language or its modern descendants, Franconian languages * Francia, a post-Roman state in France and Germany * East Francia, the successor state to Francia in Germany ...
) spoken in the
Low Countries The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...
during the
Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Mi ...
, from around the 5th to the 12th century. Page 27: "''...Aan het einde van de negende eeuw kan er zeker van Nederlands gesproken worden; hoe long daarvoor dat ook het geval was, kan niet met zekerheid worden uitgemaakt.''" t can be said with certainty that Dutch was being spoken at the end of the 9th century; how long that might have been the case before that cannot be determined with certainty./ref> Old Dutch is mostly recorded on fragmentary relics, and words have been reconstructed from Middle Dutch and Old Dutch loanwords in French. Old Dutch is regarded as the primary stage in the development of a separate Dutch language. It was spoken by the descendants of the
Salian Franks The Salian Franks, also called the Salians (Latin: ''Salii''; Greek: Σάλιοι, ''Salioi''), were a northwestern subgroup of the early Franks who appear in the historical record in the fourth and fifth centuries. They lived west of the Low ...
who occupied what is now the southern
Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
, northern
Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
, part of northern France, and parts of the
Lower Rhine The Lower Rhine (german: Niederrhein; kilometres 660 to 1,033 of the river Rhine) flows from Bonn, Germany, to the North Sea at Hook of Holland, Netherlands (including the Nederrijn or "Nether Rhine" within the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta); al ...
regions of Germany. The High German consonant shift, moving over Western Europe from south to west, caused a differentiation with the Central and High Franconian in Germany. The latter would as a consequence evolve (along with
Alemannic Alemannic (''Alamannic'') or Alamanni may refer to: * Alemannic German, a dialect family in the Upper German branch of the German languages and its speakers * Alemanni, a confederation of Suebian Germanic tribes in the Roman period * Alamanni (surna ...
, Bavarian and Lombardic) into Old High German. At more or less the same time the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law, moving over Western Europe from west to east, led to the development of
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
(or Anglo-Saxon),
Old Frisian Old Frisian was a West Germanic language spoken between the 8th and 16th centuries along the North Sea coast, roughly between the mouths of the Rhine and Weser rivers. The Frisian settlers on the coast of South Jutland (today's Northern Friesl ...
and
Old Saxon Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Europe). It i ...
. Hardly influenced by either development, Old Dutch probably remained relatively close to the original language of the Franks. However, the language did experience developments of its own, such as very early
final-obstruent devoicing Final-obstruent devoicing or terminal devoicing is a systematic phonological process occurring in languages such as Catalan, German, Dutch, Breton, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Turkish, and Wolof. In such languages, voiced obstruents in ...
. In fact, the find at Bergakker indicates that the language may already have experienced this shift during the Old Frankish period. Attestations of Old Dutch sentences are extremely rare. The language is mostly recorded on fragmentary relics, and words have been reconstructed from Middle Dutch and loan words from Old Dutch in other languages. The oldest recorded is found in the
Salic law The Salic law ( or ; la, Lex salica), also called the was the ancient Frankish civil law code compiled around AD 500 by the first Frankish King, Clovis. The written text is in Latin and contains some of the earliest known instances of Old Du ...
. In this
Frank Frank or Franks may refer to: People * Frank (given name) * Frank (surname) * Franks (surname) * Franks, a medieval Germanic people * Frank, a term in the Muslim world for all western Europeans, particularly during the Crusades - see Farang Curr ...
ish document written around 510 the oldest Dutch sentence has been identified: ''Maltho thi afrio lito'' ("I say to you, I free you, serf") used to free a serf. Another old fragment of Dutch is ''Visc flot aftar themo uuatare'' ("A fish was swimming in the water"). The oldest conserved larger Dutch text is the Utrecht baptismal vow (776–800) starting with ''Forsachistu diobolae ... ec forsacho diabolae'' (litt.: "Forsake you the devil? ... I forsake the devil"). If only for its poetic content, the most famous Old Dutch sentence is probably ''
Hebban olla vogala "Hebban olla vogala", sometimes spelled "hebban olla uogala", are the first three words of an 11th-century text fragment written in Old Dutch. The fragment, also known as the Rochester Poem, was discovered in 1932 on the flyleaf of a manuscript t ...
nestas hagunnan, hinase hic enda tu, wat unbidan we nu'' ("All birds have started making nests, except me and you, what are we waiting for"), is dated to around the year 1100, written by a Flemish
monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...
in a convent in
Rochester Rochester may refer to: Places Australia * Rochester, Victoria Canada * Rochester, Alberta United Kingdom *Rochester, Kent ** City of Rochester-upon-Medway (1982–1998), district council area ** History of Rochester, Kent ** HM Prison ...
,
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. Since the sentence speaks to the imagination, it is often erroneously stated as the oldest Dutch sentence.


Middle Dutch (12th–15th centuries)

Old Dutch naturally evolved into
Middle Dutch Middle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects whose ancestor was Old Dutch. It was spoken and written between 1150 and 1500. Until the advent of Modern Dutch after 1500 or c. 1550, there was no overarch ...
. The year 1150 is often cited as the time of the discontinuity, but it actually marks a time of profuse Dutch writing; during this period a rich
Medieval Dutch literature Middle Dutch literature (1150–1500) is the Dutch literature produced in the Low Countries from the 12th century to the 16th century. It is preceded by only a few fragmentary texts existing in Old Dutch, and it was succeeded by Dutch Renaissan ...
developed. There was at that time no overarching
standard language A standard language (also standard variety, standard dialect, and standard) is a language variety that has undergone substantial codification of grammar and usage, although occasionally the term refers to the entirety of a language that includes ...
; Middle Dutch is rather a collective name for a number of closely related, mutually intelligible dialects spoken in the former Old Dutch area. Where Old Dutch fragments are very hard to read for untrained Modern Dutch speakers, the various literary works of Middle Dutch are somewhat more accessible. The most notable difference between Old and Middle Dutch is in a feature of speech known as
vowel reduction In phonetics, vowel reduction is any of various changes in the acoustic ''quality'' of vowels as a result of changes in stress, sonority, duration, loudness, articulation, or position in the word (e.g. for the Creek language The Muscogee lang ...
. Round vowels in word-final syllables are rather frequent in Old Dutch; in Middle Dutch, such vowels are leveled to a
schwa In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...
. The Middle Dutch dialect areas were affected by political boundaries. The sphere of political influence of a certain ruler often also created a sphere of linguistic influence, with the language within the area becoming more homogenous. Following the contemporary political divisions they are in order of importance: *
West Flemish West Flemish (''West-Vlams'' or ''West-Vloams'' or ''Vlaemsch'' (in French-Flanders), nl, West-Vlaams, french: link=no, flamand occidental) is a collection of Dutch dialects spoken in western Belgium and the neighbouring areas of France and t ...
with the
County of Flanders The County of Flanders was a historic territory in the Low Countries. From 862 onwards, the counts of Flanders were among the original twelve peers of the Kingdom of France. For centuries, their estates around the cities of Ghent, Bruges and Ypr ...
at its centre. It had been influential during the earlier Middle Ages (the "Flemish expansion") but lost prestige to the neighbouring Brabantian in the 13th century. *
Brabantian Brabantian or Brabantish, also Brabantic or Brabantine ( nl, Brabants, Standard Dutch pronunciation: , ), is a dialect group of the Dutch language. It is named after the historical Duchy of Brabant, which corresponded mainly to the Dutch provi ...
(and related East Flemish), spoken primarily in the
Duchy of Brabant The Duchy of Brabant was a State of the Holy Roman Empire established in 1183. It developed from the Landgraviate of Brabant and formed the heart of the historic Low Countries, part of the Burgundian Netherlands from 1430 and of the Habsburg Neth ...
and adjacent parts. It was an influential dialect during most of the Middle Ages, during the so-called "Brabantian expansion" in which the influence of Brabant was extended outwards into other areas. *
Hollandic Hollandic or Hollandish ( ) is the most widely spoken dialect of the Dutch language. Hollandic is among the Central Dutch dialects. Other important language varieties of spoken Low Franconian languages are Brabantian, Flemish ( East Flemish, ...
, which had the
County of Holland The County of Holland was a State of the Holy Roman Empire and from 1433 part of the Burgundian Netherlands, from 1482 part of the Habsburg Netherlands and from 1581 onward the leading province of the Dutch Republic, of which it remained a part ...
as its heartland, where originally
Old Frisian Old Frisian was a West Germanic language spoken between the 8th and 16th centuries along the North Sea coast, roughly between the mouths of the Rhine and Weser rivers. The Frisian settlers on the coast of South Jutland (today's Northern Friesl ...
was spoken. The people mixed with Frankish settlers from Flanders and Brabant and a new Frankish dialect with a Frisian substrate developed. It was less influential during most of the Middle Ages but became more so in the 16th century during the "Hollandic expansion"; the
Eighty Years' War The Eighty Years' War or Dutch Revolt ( nl, Nederlandse Opstand) ( c.1566/1568–1648) was an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands between disparate groups of rebels and the Spanish government. The causes of the war included the Refo ...
took place in the Southern Netherlands during this period. *
Limburgish Limburgish ( li, Limburgs or ; nl, Limburgs ; german: Limburgisch ; french: Limbourgeois ), also called Limburgan, Limburgian, or Limburgic, is a West Germanic language spoken in the Dutch and Belgian provinces of Limburg (Netherlands), L ...
, spoken by the people in the modern-day provinces of
Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...
and
Belgian Limburg Limburg ( nl, Limburg, ; li, Limburg or ''Wes-Limburg'' ; french: Limbourg, ) is a province in Belgium. It is the easternmost of the five Dutch-speaking provinces that together form the Region of Flanders, one of the three main political and c ...
, and adjacent lands in Germany. It was over time tied to different political areas and is therefore the most divergent of the dialects. It was even partly influenced by the High German consonant shift and is the most distant to the later developed standard language to which it contributed little. It was, however, the earliest Middle Dutch dialect that developed a literary tradition. * Since it is part of the Old Saxon and not Low Franconian (Old Dutch) area,
Dutch Low Saxon Dutch Low Saxon ( or ''Nederlaands Nedersaksies''; nl, Nederlands Nedersaksisch) are the Low Saxon dialects of the Low German language that are spoken in the northeastern Netherlands and are written there with local, unstandardised orthographi ...
is not strictly a Dutch dialect. However, it was influenced by Middle Dutch since the 14th century and it did play a part in the formation of the standard Dutch language in later periods. It was spoken in the
Oversticht Overijssel (, ; nds, Oaveriessel ; german: Oberyssel) is a province of the Netherlands located in the eastern part of the country. The province's name translates to "across the IJssel", from the perspective of the Episcopal principality of Utr ...
territories of the
episcopal principality of Utrecht The Bishopric of Utrecht ( nl, Sticht Utrecht) was an ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire in the Low Countries, in the present-day Netherlands. From 1024 to 1528, as one of the prince-bishoprics of the Holy Roman Empire, it w ...
and adjacent parts of
Guelders The Duchy of Guelders ( nl, Gelre, french: Gueldre, german: Geldern) is a historical duchy, previously county, of the Holy Roman Empire, located in the Low Countries. Geography The duchy was named after the town of Geldern (''Gelder'') in pr ...
. A
dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...
remained present with Franconian areas to the west and Low Saxon areas to the east.


Modern Dutch (15th century–present)

A process of
standardisation Standardization or standardisation is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organizations and governments. Standardization ...
started in the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
, especially under the influence of the Burgundian Ducal Court in Dijon (
Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
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 Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,
. The 1585
fall of Antwerp The Fall of Antwerp on 17 August 1585 took place during the Eighty Years' War, after a siege lasting over a year from July 1584 until August 1585. The city of Antwerp was the focal point of the Protestant-dominated Dutch Revolt, but was force ...
to the Spanish army led to a flight to the northern Netherlands, where the
Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (Dutch: ''Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden''), and commonly referred to in historiography ...
declared its independence from Spain. This influenced the urban dialects of the province of
Holland Holland is a geographical regionG. Geerts & H. Heestermans, 1981, ''Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal. Deel I'', Van Dale Lexicografie, Utrecht, p 1105 and former province on the western coast of the Netherlands. From the 10th to the 16th c ...
. 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 Dutch Low Saxon ( or ''Nederlaands Nedersaksies''; nl, Nederlands Nedersaksisch) are the Low Saxon dialects of the Low German language that are spoken in the northeastern Netherlands and are written there with local, unstandardised orthographi ...
, dialects but was predominantly based on the urban dialects of Holland of post 16th century. In the
Southern Netherlands The Southern Netherlands, also called the Catholic Netherlands, were the parts of the Low Countries belonging to the Holy Roman Empire which were at first largely controlled by Habsburg Spain (Spanish Netherlands, 1556–1714) and later by the A ...
(now Belgium and Luxembourg), developments were different. Under subsequent
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
,
Austrian Austrian may refer to: * Austrians, someone from Austria or of Austrian descent ** Someone who is considered an Austrian citizen, see Austrian nationality law * Austrian German dialect * Something associated with the country Austria, for example: ...
and French rule, the 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 variety of Dutch. In the course of the 19th century, the
Flemish Movement The Flemish Movement ( nl, Vlaamse Beweging) is an umbrella term which encompasses various political groups in the Belgian region of Flanders and, less commonly, in French Flanders. Ideologically, it encompasses groups which have sought to promo ...
stood up for the rights of Dutch speakers, mostly referred to as "Flemish". However, the dialect variation was a serious disadvantage in the face of the standardised francophony. 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.


Classification

*
Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
** Germanic ***
West Germanic The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages). The West Germanic branch is classically subdivided into t ...
****
Low Franconian Low Franconian, Low Frankish, NetherlandicSarah Grey Thomason, Terrence Kaufman: ''Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics'', University of California Press, 1991, p. 321. (Calling it "Low Frankish (or Netherlandish)".)Scott Shay ...
***** Dutch ****** Afrikaans, Dutch-based creoles Dutch belongs to its own
West Germanic The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages). The West Germanic branch is classically subdivided into t ...
sub-group, the
Low Franconian languages Low Franconian, Low Frankish, NetherlandicSarah Grey Thomason, Terrence Kaufman: ''Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics'', University of California Press, 1991, p. 321. (Calling it "Low Frankish (or Netherlandish)".)Scott Shay ...
, paired with its sister language Limburgish or East Low Franconian. Its closest relative is the
mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
daughter language Afrikaans. Other West Germanic languages related to Dutch are
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
,
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
and the
Frisian languages The Frisian (, ) languages are a closely related group of West Germanic languages, spoken by about 500,000 Frisian people, who live on the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany. The Frisian languages are the closest li ...
and the un-standardised languages
Low German : : : : : (70,000) (30,000) (8,000) , familycolor = Indo-European , fam2 = Germanic , fam3 = West Germanic , fam4 = North Sea Germanic , ancestor = Old Saxon , ancestor2 = Middle L ...
and
Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
. Dutch stands out in combining some Ingvaeonic characteristics (occurring consistently in English and Frisian and reduced in intensity from west to east over the
continental West Germanic The Germanic languages include some 58 ( SIL estimate) languages and dialects that originated in Europe; this language family is part of the Indo-European language family. Each subfamily in this list contains subgroups and individual languages. T ...
plane) with dominant Istvaeonic characteristics, some of which 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 consonant shift and had some changes of its own.Friedrich Maurer uses the term ''
Istvaeonic Weser-Rhine Germanic is a proposed group of prehistoric West Germanic dialects which would have been both directly ancestral to Dutch, as well as being a notable substratum influencing West Central German dialects. The term was introduced by the G ...
'' instead of Franconian; see Friedrich Maurer (1942), ''Nordgermanen und Alemannen: Studien zur germanischen und frühdeutschen Sprachgeschichte, Stammes- und Volkskunde'', Bern: Verlag Francke.
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.


Dialects

Dutch
dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...
s are primarily the dialects that are both related with the Dutch language and are spoken in the same language area as the Dutch
standard language A standard language (also standard variety, standard dialect, and standard) is a language variety that has undergone substantial codification of grammar and usage, although occasionally the term refers to the entirety of a language that includes ...
. Although heavily under the influence of the standard language, some of them remain remarkably diverse and are found in the
Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
and in the
Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
and
Flemish region The Flemish Region ( nl, Vlaams Gewest, ),; german: Flämische Region usually simply referred to as Flanders ( nl, link=no, Vlaanderen ) ; german: link=no, Flandern is one of the three regions of Belgium—alongside the Walloon Region and t ...
s of
Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
. The areas in which they are spoken often correspond with former mediaeval counties and duchies. The Netherlands (but not Belgium) distinguishes between a dialect and a ''streektaal'' ("
regional language * A regional language is a language spoken in a region of a sovereign state, whether it be a small area, a federated state or province or some wider area. Internationally, for the purposes of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Lan ...
"). Those words are actually more political than linguistic because a regional language unites a large group of very different varieties. Such is the case with the
Gronings dialect Gronings (; gos, Grunnegs or Grönnegs), is a collective name for some Friso-Saxon dialects spoken in the province of Groningen and around the Groningen border in Drenthe and Friesland. Gronings and the strongly related varieties in East Fri ...
, which is considered a variety of the
Dutch Low Saxon Dutch Low Saxon ( or ''Nederlaands Nedersaksies''; nl, Nederlands Nedersaksisch) are the Low Saxon dialects of the Low German language that are spoken in the northeastern Netherlands and are written there with local, unstandardised orthographi ...
regional language, but it is relatively distinct from other Dutch Low Saxon varieties. Also, some Dutch dialects are more remote from the Dutch standard language than some varieties of a regional language are. Within the Netherlands, a further distinction is made between a regional language and a separate language, which is the case with the (
standardised Standardization or standardisation is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organizations and governments. Standardization ...
)
West Frisian language West Frisian, or simply Frisian ( fy, link=no, Frysk or ; nl, Fries , also ), is a West Germanic language spoken mostly in the province of Friesland () in the north of the Netherlands, mostly by those of Frisian ancestry. It is the most wid ...
. It is spoken alongside Dutch in the province of
Friesland Friesland (, ; official fry, Fryslân ), historically and traditionally known as Frisia, is a province of the Netherlands located in the country's northern part. It is situated west of Groningen, northwest of Drenthe and Overijssel, north of ...
. Dutch dialects and regional languages are not spoken as often as they used to be, especially in the Netherlands. 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, but in 2011, that was no more than 11 percent. In 1995, 12 percent of children of primary school age spoke a dialect or regional language, but in 2011, that had declined to 4 percent. Of the officially recognized regional languages Limburgish is spoken the most (in 2011 among adults 54%, among children 31%) and Dutch Low Saxon the least (adults 15%, children 1%). The decline of the
West Frisian language West Frisian, or simply Frisian ( fy, link=no, Frysk or ; nl, Fries , also ), is a West Germanic language spoken mostly in the province of Friesland () in the north of the Netherlands, mostly by those of Frisian ancestry. It is the most wid ...
in Friesland occupies a middle position (adults 44%, children 22%). Dialects are most often spoken in rural areas, but many cities have a distinct city dialect. For example, the city of
Ghent Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded in ...
has very distinct "g", "e" and "r" sounds that greatly differ from its surrounding villages. The
Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
dialect combines Brabantian with words adopted from Walloon and French. Some dialects had, until recently, extensions across the borders of other standard language areas. In most cases, the heavy influence of the standard language has broken the
dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...
. Examples are the
Gronings dialect Gronings (; gos, Grunnegs or Grönnegs), is a collective name for some Friso-Saxon dialects spoken in the province of Groningen and around the Groningen border in Drenthe and Friesland. Gronings and the strongly related varieties in East Fri ...
spoken in
Groningen Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...
as well as the closely related varieties in adjacent
East Frisia East Frisia or East Friesland (german: Ostfriesland; ; stq, Aastfräislound) is a historic region in the northwest of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is primarily located on the western half of the East Frisian peninsula, to the east of West Frisia ...
(Germany).
South Guelderish South Guelderish ( nl, Zuid-Gelders , german: Südgeldersch, ''Kleverländisch'') refers to the easternmost group of Dutch dialects spoken along the lower Rhine (Dutch Nederrijn and German Niederrhein). In its narrower sense, the term refers str ...
(''Zuid-Gelders'') is a dialect spoken in southern
Gelderland Gelderland (), also known as Guelders () in English, is a province of the Netherlands, occupying the centre-east of the country. With a total area of of which is water, it is the largest province of the Netherlands by land area, and second by ...
, the northern tip of
Limburg Limburg or Limbourg may refer to: Regions * Limburg (Belgium), a province since 1839 in the Flanders region of Belgium * Limburg (Netherlands), a province since 1839 in the south of the Netherlands * Diocese of Limburg, Roman Catholic Diocese in ...
, and northeast of
North Brabant North Brabant ( nl, Noord-Brabant ; Brabantian: ; ), also unofficially called Brabant, is a province in the south of the Netherlands. It borders the provinces of South Holland and Gelderland to the north, Limburg to the east, Zeeland to the we ...
(Netherlands), but also in adjacent parts of
North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wäßßfaale), commonly shortened to NRW (), is a States of Germany, state (''Land'') in Western Germany. With more tha ...
(Germany).
Limburgish Limburgish ( li, Limburgs or ; nl, Limburgs ; german: Limburgisch ; french: Limbourgeois ), also called Limburgan, Limburgian, or Limburgic, is a West Germanic language spoken in the Dutch and Belgian provinces of Limburg (Netherlands), L ...
(''Limburgs'') is spoken in
Limburg (Belgium) Limburg ( nl, Limburg, ; li, Limburg or ''Wes-Limburg'' ; french: Limbourg, ) is a province in Belgium. It is the easternmost of the five Dutch-speaking provinces that together form the Region of Flanders, one of the three main political and c ...
as well as in the remaining part of
Limburg (Netherlands) Limburg (, ) is the southernmost of the twelve provinces of the Netherlands. It is bordered by Gelderland to the north and by North Brabant to its west. Its long eastern boundary forms the international border with the state of North Rhine-Westph ...
and extends across the German border. West Flemish (''Westvlaams'') is spoken in
West Flanders ) , settlement_type = Province of Belgium , image_flag = Flag of West Flanders.svg , flag_size = , image_shield = Wapen van West-Vlaanderen.svg , shield_size = , image_map ...
, the western part of
Zeelandic Flanders Zeelandic Flanders ( ; zea, Zeêuws-Vlaonderen; vls, Zêeuws-Vloandern)''Vlaanderen'' in isolation: . is the southernmost region of the province of Zeeland in the south-western Netherlands. It lies south of the Western Scheldt that separates t ...
and also in
French Flanders French Flanders (french: La Flandre française) is a part of the historical County of Flanders in present-day France where a dialect of Dutch was or still is traditionally spoken. The region lies in the modern-day region of Hauts-de-France and r ...
, where it virtually became extinct to make way for French.


Dialect groups

The ''
West Flemish West Flemish (''West-Vlams'' or ''West-Vloams'' or ''Vlaemsch'' (in French-Flanders), nl, West-Vlaams, french: link=no, flamand occidental) is a collection of Dutch dialects spoken in western Belgium and the neighbouring areas of France and t ...
'' group of dialects, spoken in
West Flanders ) , settlement_type = Province of Belgium , image_flag = Flag of West Flanders.svg , flag_size = , image_shield = Wapen van West-Vlaanderen.svg , shield_size = , image_map ...
and
Zeeland , nl, Ik worstel en kom boven("I struggle and emerge") , anthem = "Zeeuws volkslied"("Zeelandic Anthem") , image_map = Zeeland in the Netherlands.svg , map_alt = , m ...
, is so distinct that it might be considered as a separate language variant, although the strong significance of language in Belgian politics would prevent the government from classifying them as such. An oddity of the dialect is that, the
voiced velar fricative The voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound that is used in various spoken languages. It is not found in Modern English but existed in Old English. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , ...
(written as "g" in Dutch) shifts to a
voiced glottal fricative The voiced glottal fricative, sometimes called breathy-voiced glottal transition, is a type of sound used in some spoken languages which patterns like a fricative or approximant consonant ''phonologically'', but often lacks the usual ''phonetic ...
(written as "h" in Dutch), while the letter "h" becomes mute (like in French). As a result, when West Flemings try to talk Standard Dutch, they are often unable to pronounce the g-sound, and pronounce it similar to the h-sound. This leaves, for example, 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. The West Flemish variety historically spoken in adjacent parts in France is sometimes called
French Flemish French Flemish (French Flemish: , Standard Dutch: , french: flamand français) is a West Flemish dialect spoken in the north of contemporary France. Place names attest to Flemish having been spoken since the 8th century in the part of Fland ...
and is listed as a French
minority language A minority language is a language spoken by a minority of the population of a territory. Such people are termed linguistic minorities or language minorities. With a total number of 196 sovereign states recognized internationally (as of 2019) and ...
. However, only a very small and aging minority of the French-Flemish population still speaks and understands West Flemish. ''
Hollandic Hollandic or Hollandish ( ) is the most widely spoken dialect of the Dutch language. Hollandic is among the Central Dutch dialects. Other important language varieties of spoken Low Franconian languages are Brabantian, Flemish ( East Flemish, ...
'' is spoken in
Holland Holland is a geographical regionG. Geerts & H. Heestermans, 1981, ''Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal. Deel I'', Van Dale Lexicografie, Utrecht, p 1105 and former province on the western coast of the Netherlands. From the 10th to the 16th c ...
and
Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city and a List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, pro ...
, though the original forms of this dialect (which were heavily influenced by a West Frisian
substratum In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for "layer") or strate is a language that influences or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum or sup ...
and, from the 16th century on, by
Brabantian dialect Brabantian or Brabantish, also Brabantic or Brabantine ( nl, Brabants, Standard Dutch pronunciation: , ), is a dialect group of the Dutch language. It is named after the historical Duchy of Brabant, which corresponded mainly to the Dutch provi ...
s) are now relatively rare. The urban dialects of the
Randstad The Randstad (; "Rim" or "Edge" City) is a roughly crescent-shaped conurbation in the central-western Netherlands, consisting primarily of the four largest Dutch cities (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht); their suburbs, and many tow ...
, which are Hollandic dialects, do not diverge from standard Dutch very much, but there is a clear difference between the city dialects of
Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...
,
The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...
,
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
and
Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city and a List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, pro ...
. In some rural Hollandic areas more authentic Hollandic dialects are still being used, especially north of Amsterdam. Another group of dialects based on Hollandic is that spoken in the cities and larger towns of
Friesland Friesland (, ; official fry, Fryslân ), historically and traditionally known as Frisia, is a province of the Netherlands located in the country's northern part. It is situated west of Groningen, northwest of Drenthe and Overijssel, north of ...
, where it partially displaced West Frisian in the 16th century and is known as Stadsfries ("Urban Frisian"). Hollandic together with inter alia
South Guelderish South Guelderish ( nl, Zuid-Gelders , german: Südgeldersch, ''Kleverländisch'') refers to the easternmost group of Dutch dialects spoken along the lower Rhine (Dutch Nederrijn and German Niederrhein). In its narrower sense, the term refers str ...
and
North Brabantian North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north'' is ...
, but without Stadsfries, are the
Central Dutch dialects Central Dutch dialects are a group of dialects of the Dutch language from the Netherlands.Wilbert (Jan) Heeringa: ''Chapter 9: Measuring Dutch dialect distances'', of the thesis: ''Measuring Dialect Pronunciation Differences using Levenshtein Distan ...
. ''
Brabantian Brabantian or Brabantish, also Brabantic or Brabantine ( nl, Brabants, Standard Dutch pronunciation: , ), is a dialect group of the Dutch language. It is named after the historical Duchy of Brabant, which corresponded mainly to the Dutch provi ...
'' is named after the historical
Duchy of Brabant The Duchy of Brabant was a State of the Holy Roman Empire established in 1183. It developed from the Landgraviate of Brabant and formed the heart of the historic Low Countries, part of the Burgundian Netherlands from 1430 and of the Habsburg Neth ...
, which corresponded mainly to the provinces of
North Brabant North Brabant ( nl, Noord-Brabant ; Brabantian: ; ), also unofficially called Brabant, is a province in the south of the Netherlands. It borders the provinces of South Holland and Gelderland to the north, Limburg to the east, Zeeland to the we ...
and southern
Gelderland Gelderland (), also known as Guelders () in English, is a province of the Netherlands, occupying the centre-east of the country. With a total area of of which is water, it is the largest province of the Netherlands by land area, and second by ...
, the Belgian provinces of
Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,
and
Flemish Brabant Flemish Brabant ( nl, Vlaams-Brabant ; french: Brabant flamand ) is a province of Flanders, one of the three regions of Belgium. It borders on (clockwise from the North) the Belgian provinces of Antwerp, Limburg, Liège, Walloon Brabant, Haina ...
, as well as Brussels (where its native speakers have become a minority) and the province of
Walloon Brabant Walloon Brabant (french: Brabant wallon ; nl, Waals-Brabant ; wa, Roman Payis) is a province located in Belgium's French-speaking region of Wallonia. It borders on (clockwise from the North) the province of Flemish Brabant (Flemish Region) and ...
. Brabantian expands into small parts in the west of
Limburg Limburg or Limbourg may refer to: Regions * Limburg (Belgium), a province since 1839 in the Flanders region of Belgium * Limburg (Netherlands), a province since 1839 in the south of the Netherlands * Diocese of Limburg, Roman Catholic Diocese in ...
while its strong influence on the
East Flemish East Flemish ( nl, Oost-Vlaams, french: flamand oriental) is a collective term for the two easternmost subdivisions ("true" East Flemish, also called Core Flemish,Hoppenbrouwers, Cor; Hoppenbrouwers, Geer (2001): De Indeling van de Nederland ...
of
East Flanders , native_name_lang = , settlement_type = Province of Belgium , image_flag = Flag of Oost-Vlaanderen.svg , flag_size = , image_shield = Wapen van O ...
and eastern
Zeelandic Flanders Zeelandic Flanders ( ; zea, Zeêuws-Vlaonderen; vls, Zêeuws-Vloandern)''Vlaanderen'' in isolation: . is the southernmost region of the province of Zeeland in the south-western Netherlands. It lies south of the Western Scheldt that separates t ...
weakens towards the west. In a small area in the northwest of North Brabant (
Willemstad Willemstad ( , ; ; en, William I of the Netherlands, William Town, italic=yes) is the capital city of Curaçao, an island in the southern Caribbean Sea that forms a Countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, constituent country of the Kingdo ...
),
Hollandic Hollandic or Hollandish ( ) is the most widely spoken dialect of the Dutch language. Hollandic is among the Central Dutch dialects. Other important language varieties of spoken Low Franconian languages are Brabantian, Flemish ( East Flemish, ...
is spoken. Conventionally, the
South Guelderish South Guelderish ( nl, Zuid-Gelders , german: Südgeldersch, ''Kleverländisch'') refers to the easternmost group of Dutch dialects spoken along the lower Rhine (Dutch Nederrijn and German Niederrhein). In its narrower sense, the term refers str ...
dialects are distinguished from Brabantian, but there are no objective criteria apart from geography to do so. Over 5 million people live in an area with some form of Brabantian being the predominant colloquial language out of the area's 22 million Dutch-speakers. ''
Limburgish Limburgish ( li, Limburgs or ; nl, Limburgs ; german: Limburgisch ; french: Limbourgeois ), also called Limburgan, Limburgian, or Limburgic, is a West Germanic language spoken in the Dutch and Belgian provinces of Limburg (Netherlands), L ...
'', spoken in both
Belgian Limburg Limburg ( nl, Limburg, ; li, Limburg or ''Wes-Limburg'' ; french: Limbourg, ) is a province in Belgium. It is the easternmost of the five Dutch-speaking provinces that together form the Region of Flanders, one of the three main political and c ...
and Netherlands Limburg and in adjacent parts in Germany, is considered a dialect in Belgium, while having obtained the official status of regional language in the Netherlands. Limburgish has been influenced by the Ripuarian varieties like the
Colognian dialect Colognian or Kölsch (; natively ''Kölsch Platt'') is a small set of very closely related dialects, or variants, of the Ripuarian group of dialects of the Central German group. These dialects are spoken in the area covered by the Archdiocese a ...
, and has had a somewhat different development since the late Middle Ages.


Regional languages

Two dialect groups have been given the official status of
regional language * A regional language is a language spoken in a region of a sovereign state, whether it be a small area, a federated state or province or some wider area. Internationally, for the purposes of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Lan ...
(or ''streektaal'') in the Netherlands. Like several other dialect groups, both are part of a dialect continuum that continues across the national border.


Dutch Low Saxon

The Dutch Low Saxon dialect area comprises the provinces of
Groningen Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...
,
Drenthe Drenthe () is a province of the Netherlands located in the northeastern part of the country. It is bordered by Overijssel to the south, Friesland to the west, Groningen to the north, and the German state of Lower Saxony to the east. As of Nov ...
and
Overijssel Overijssel (, ; nds, Oaveriessel ; german: Oberyssel) is a Provinces of the Netherlands, province of the Netherlands located in the eastern part of the country. The province's name translates to "across the IJssel", from the perspective of the ...
, as well as parts of the provinces of
Gelderland Gelderland (), also known as Guelders () in English, is a province of the Netherlands, occupying the centre-east of the country. With a total area of of which is water, it is the largest province of the Netherlands by land area, and second by ...
,
Flevoland Flevoland () is the twelfth and youngest province of the Netherlands, established in 1986, when the southern and eastern Flevopolders, together with the Noordoostpolder, were merged into one provincial entity. It is in the centre of the countr ...
,
Friesland Friesland (, ; official fry, Fryslân ), historically and traditionally known as Frisia, is a province of the Netherlands located in the country's northern part. It is situated west of Groningen, northwest of Drenthe and Overijssel, north of ...
and
Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city and a List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, pro ...
. This group, which is not Low Franconian but instead Low Saxon and close to neighbouring Low German, has been elevated by the Netherlands (and by Germany) to the legal status of ''streektaal'' (
regional language * A regional language is a language spoken in a region of a sovereign state, whether it be a small area, a federated state or province or some wider area. Internationally, for the purposes of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Lan ...
) according to the
European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) is a European treaty (CETS 148) adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe. However, the ...
. It is regarded as Dutch for a number of reasons. From the 14th to 15th century onward, its urban centers (
Deventer Deventer (; Sallands: ) is a city and municipality in the Salland historical region of the province of Overijssel, Netherlands. In 2020, Deventer had a population of 100,913. The city is largely situated on the east bank of the river IJssel, bu ...
,
Zwolle Zwolle () is a city and municipality in the Northeastern Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of Overijssel and the province's second-largest municipality after Enschede with a population of 130,592 as of 1 December 2021. Zwolle is o ...
, Kampen,
Zutphen Zutphen () is a city and municipality located in the province of Gelderland, Netherlands. It lies some 30 km northeast of Arnhem, on the eastern bank of the river Ijssel at the point where it is joined by the Berkel. First mentioned in the 1 ...
and
Doesburg Doesburg () is a municipality and a city in the eastern Netherlands in the province of Gelderland. Doesburg received city rights in 1237 and had a population of in . The city is situated on the right bank of river IJssel, at the confluence of ...
) 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. Dutch Low Saxon used to be at one end of the Low German
dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...
. However, the national border has given way to dialect boundaries coinciding with a political border, because the traditional dialects are strongly influenced by the national standard varieties. Cross-the-border dialects now separated by a plain gap also include
South Guelderish South Guelderish ( nl, Zuid-Gelders , german: Südgeldersch, ''Kleverländisch'') refers to the easternmost group of Dutch dialects spoken along the lower Rhine (Dutch Nederrijn and German Niederrhein). In its narrower sense, the term refers str ...
and Limburgish on the Dutch side of the border and
Meuse-Rhenish Meuse-Rhenish (German: ''Rheinmaasländisch'', Dutch: ''Maas-Rijnlands'', and French: ''francique rhéno-mosan'') is the modern term for literature written in the Middle Ages in the greater Meuse-Rhine area, in a literary language that is eff ...
on the German side of the border.


Limburgish

While a somewhat heterogeneous group of
Low Franconian Low Franconian, Low Frankish, NetherlandicSarah Grey Thomason, Terrence Kaufman: ''Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics'', University of California Press, 1991, p. 321. (Calling it "Low Frankish (or Netherlandish)".)Scott Shay ...
dialects, Limburgish has received official status as a regional language in the
Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
and Germany, but not in Belgium. Due to this official recognition, it receives protection by chapter 2 of the
European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) is a European treaty (CETS 148) adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe. However, the ...
.


Daughter and sister languages

Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
, although to a significant degree mutually intelligible with Dutch, is not a dialect but a separate standardised language. It is spoken in South Africa and Namibia. As a daughter language of Dutch, Afrikaans evolved mainly from 17th-century Dutch dialects, but was influenced by various other languages in South Africa. '' West Frisian'' (''Westerlauwers Fries''), along with Saterland Frisian and North Frisian, evolved from the same branch of the
West Germanic languages The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic languages, Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic languages, North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages, East Germanic ...
as
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
(i.e.
Anglo-Frisian The Anglo-Frisian languages are the Anglic (English, Scots, and Yola) and Frisian varieties of the West Germanic languages. The Anglo-Frisian languages are distinct from other West Germanic languages due to several sound changes: besides the ...
) and are therefore genetically more closely related to English and Scots than to Dutch. The different influences on the respective languages, however, particularly that of Norman French on English and Dutch on West Frisian, have rendered English quite distinct from West Frisian, and West Frisian less distinct from Dutch than from English. Although under heavy influence of the Dutch standard language, it is not mutually intelligible with Dutch and considered a
sister language In historical linguistics, sister languages are cognate languages; that is, languages that descend from a common ancestral language, their so-called proto-language. Every language in a language family that descends from the same language as the oth ...
of Dutch, like English and German.


Geographic distribution

Dutch is an
official language An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...
of the Netherlands proper, Belgium, Suriname, the Dutch Caribbean municipalities (St. Eustatius, Saba and Bonaire),
Aruba Aruba ( , , ), officially the Country of Aruba ( nl, Land Aruba; pap, Pais Aruba) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands physically located in the mid-south of the Caribbean Sea, about north of the Venezuela peninsula of ...
,
Curaçao Curaçao ( ; ; pap, Kòrsou, ), officially the Country of Curaçao ( nl, Land Curaçao; pap, Pais Kòrsou), is a Lesser Antilles island country in the southern Caribbean Sea and the Dutch Caribbean region, about north of the Venezuela coast ...
and
Sint Maarten Sint Maarten () is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the Caribbean. With a population of 41,486 as of January 2019 on an area of , it encompasses the southern 44% of the divided island of Saint Martin, while the north ...
. Dutch is also an official language of several international organisations, such as the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
,
Union of South American Nations The Union of South American Nations (USAN; es, links=no, Unión de Naciones Suramericanas, UNASUR; pt, links=no, União de Nações Sul-Americanas, UNASUL; nl, links=no, Unie van Zuid-Amerikaanse Naties, UZAN; French: ''Union des nations s ...
and the
Caribbean Community The Caribbean Community (CARICOM or CC) is an intergovernmental organization that is a political and economic union of 15 member states (14 nation-states and one dependency) throughout the Caribbean. They have primary objectives to promote econom ...
. At an academic level, Dutch is taught in about 175 universities in 40 countries. About 15,000 students worldwide study Dutch at university.


Europe

In 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 French Flanders (french: La Flandre française) is a part of the historical County of Flanders in present-day France where a dialect of Dutch was or still is traditionally spoken. The region lies in the modern-day region of Hauts-de-France and r ...
. Though Belgium as a whole is multilingual, three of the four language areas into which the country is divided (
Flanders Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, ...
, francophone
Wallonia Wallonia (; french: Wallonie ), or ; nl, Wallonië ; wa, Waloneye or officially the Walloon Region (french: link=no, Région wallonne),; nl, link=no, Waals gewest; wa, link=no, Redjon walone is one of the three regions of Belgium—alo ...
, and the
German-speaking Community The German-speaking Community (german: links=no, Deutschsprachige Gemeinschaft, or DG; french: links=no, Communauté germanophone; nl, links=no, Duitstalige Gemeenschap), since 2017 also known as East Belgium (german: links=no, Ostbelgien), is ...
) are largely monolingual, with
Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
being bilingual. The Netherlands and Belgium produce the vast majority of
music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...
,
film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
s,
book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arr ...
s and other media written or spoken in Dutch. Dutch is a monocentric language, at least what concerns its written form, with all speakers using the same standard form (authorized by the
Dutch Language Union The Dutch Language Union ( Dutch: , NTU) is an international regulatory institution that governs issues regarding the Dutch language. It is best known for its spelling reforms which are promulgated by member states, grammar books, the Green B ...
) based on a
Dutch orthography Dutch orthography uses the Latin alphabet. The spelling system is issued by government decree and is compulsory for all government documentation and educational establishments. Legal basis In the Netherlands, the official spelling is regulated ...
defined in the so-called "
Green Booklet The Word list of the Dutch language ( nl, Woordenlijst Nederlandse Taal ) is a spelling dictionary of the Dutch language (Dutch orthography). It is officially established by the Dutch Language Union (). Because of the colour of its published fo ...
" authoritative dictionary and employing the
Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...
when writing; however, pronunciation varies between dialects. Indeed, in stark contrast to its written uniformity, Dutch lacks a unique
prestige dialect Prestige refers to a good reputation or high esteem; in earlier usage, ''prestige'' meant "showiness". (19th c.) Prestige may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Films * ''Prestige'' (film), a 1932 American film directed by Tay Garnett ...
and has a large dialectal continuum consisting of 28 main dialects, which can themselves be further divided into at least 600 distinguishable varieties. In the Netherlands, the
Hollandic dialect Hollandic or Hollandish ( ) is the most widely spoken dialect of the Dutch language. Hollandic is among the Central Dutch dialects. Other important language varieties of spoken Low Franconian languages are Brabantian, Flemish (East Flemish, We ...
dominates in national
broadcast media Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum ( radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began w ...
while in Flanders
Brabantian dialect Brabantian or Brabantish, also Brabantic or Brabantine ( nl, Brabants, Standard Dutch pronunciation: , ), is a dialect group of the Dutch language. It is named after the historical Duchy of Brabant, which corresponded mainly to the Dutch provi ...
dominates in that capacity, making them in turn unofficial
prestige dialect Prestige refers to a good reputation or high esteem; in earlier usage, ''prestige'' meant "showiness". (19th c.) Prestige may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Films * ''Prestige'' (film), a 1932 American film directed by Tay Garnett ...
s in their respective countries. Outside the Netherlands and Belgium, the dialect spoken in and around the German town of
Kleve Kleve (; traditional en, Cleves ; nl, Kleef; french: Clèves; es, Cléveris; la, Clivia; Low Rhenish: ''Kleff'') is a town in the Lower Rhine region of northwestern Germany near the Dutch border and the River Rhine. From the 11th century ...
(
South Guelderish South Guelderish ( nl, Zuid-Gelders , german: Südgeldersch, ''Kleverländisch'') refers to the easternmost group of Dutch dialects spoken along the lower Rhine (Dutch Nederrijn and German Niederrhein). In its narrower sense, the term refers str ...
) is historically and genetically a
Low Franconian Low Franconian, Low Frankish, NetherlandicSarah Grey Thomason, Terrence Kaufman: ''Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics'', University of California Press, 1991, p. 321. (Calling it "Low Frankish (or Netherlandish)".)Scott Shay ...
variety. In North-Western France, the area around
Calais Calais ( , , traditionally , ) is a port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's prefecture is its third-largest city of Arras. Th ...
was historically Dutch-speaking (West Flemish), of which an estimated 20,000 are daily speakers. The cities of
Dunkirk Dunkirk (french: Dunkerque ; vls, label=French Flemish, Duunkerke; nl, Duinkerke(n) ; , ;) is a commune in the department of Nord in northern France.Gravelines Gravelines (, ; ; ) is a commune in the Nord department in Northern France. It lies at the mouth of the river Aa southwest of Dunkirk. It was formed in the 12th century around the mouth of a canal built to connect Saint-Omer with the sea. As ...
and
Bourbourg Bourbourg (; ) is a commune in the Nord department in northern France. It is situated in the maritime plain of northern France, in the middle of a triangle formed by Dunkirk, Calais, and Saint-Omer. Population In 1945 Bourbourg absorbed the fo ...
only became predominantly French-speaking by the end of the 19th century. In the countryside, until
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, many elementary schools continued to teach in Dutch, and the Catholic Church continued to preach and teach the
catechism A catechism (; from grc, κατηχέω, "to teach orally") is a summary or exposition of doctrine and serves as a learning introduction to the Sacraments traditionally used in catechesis, or Christian religious teaching of children and adult c ...
in Dutch in many parishes. During the second half of the 19th century, Dutch was banned from all levels of education by both
Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
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. As a
foreign language A foreign language is a language that is not an official language of, nor typically spoken in, a given country, and that native speakers from that country must usually acquire through conscious learning - be this through language lessons at schoo ...
, Dutch is mainly taught in primary and secondary schools in areas adjacent to the Netherlands and
Flanders Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, ...
. In
French-speaking Belgium In Belgium, the French Community (french: Communauté française; ) refers to one of the three constituent constitutional linguistic communities. Since 2011, the French Community has used the name Wallonia-Brussels Federation (french: Fédé ...
, over 300,000 pupils are enrolled in Dutch courses, followed by over 23,000 in the German states of
Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...
and
North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wäßßfaale), commonly shortened to NRW (), is a States of Germany, state (''Land'') in Western Germany. With more tha ...
, and about 7,000 in the
French region France is divided into eighteen administrative regions (french: régions, singular ), of which thirteen are located in metropolitan France (in Europe), while the other five are overseas regions (not to be confused with the overseas collect ...
of
Nord-Pas-de-Calais Nord-Pas-de-Calais (); pcd, Nord-Pas-Calés); is a former administrative region of France. Since 1 January 2016, it has been part of the new region Hauts-de-France. It consisted of the departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais. Nord-Pas-de-Cala ...
(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).


Asia and Australasia


Asia

Despite the Dutch presence in Indonesia for almost 350 years, as the Asian bulk of the
Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...
, 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 such as historians, diplomats, lawyers, jurists and linguists/polyglots, as certain
law code A code of law, also called a law code or legal code, is a systematic collection of statutes. It is a type of legislation that purports to exhaustively cover a complete system of laws or a particular area of law as it existed at the time the cod ...
s 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 Jakarta (; , bew, Jakarte), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta ( id, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Lying on the northwest coast of Java, the world's most populous island, 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. Unlike 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. After 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. ' "office" in Indonesian is ''kantor'', ''handdoek'' "towel" in Indonesian is ''handuk'', or ''bushalte'' "bus stop" in Indonesian is ''halte bus''. In addition, many Indonesian words are
calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language wh ...
s of Dutch; for example, ''rumah sakit'' "hospital" is calqued on the Dutch ''ziekenhuis'' (literally "sickhouse"), ''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. Some
regional language * A regional language is a language spoken in a region of a sovereign state, whether it be a small area, a federated state or province or some wider area. Internationally, for the purposes of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Lan ...
s in Indonesia have some Dutch loanwords as well; for example,
Sundanese Sundanese may refer to: * Sundanese people * Sundanese language * Sundanese script Standard Sundanese script (''Aksara Sunda Baku'', ) is a writing system which is used by the Sundanese people. It is built based on Old Sundanese script (' ...
word ''Katel'' or "frying pan" origin in Dutch is "ketel". The Javanese word for "bike/
bicycle A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-powered assisted, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A is called a cyclist, or bicyclist. Bic ...
" "pit" can be traced back to its origin in Dutch "fiets".


Australasia

After the declaration of independence of Indonesia,
Western New Guinea Western New Guinea, also known as Papua, Indonesian New Guinea, or Indonesian Papua, is the western half of the Melanesian island of New Guinea which is administered by Indonesia. Since the island is alternatively named as Papua, the region ...
, the "wild east" of the
Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...
, remained a Dutch colony until 1962, known as
Netherlands New Guinea Dutch New Guinea or Netherlands New Guinea ( nl, Nederlands-Nieuw-Guinea, id, Nugini Belanda) was the western half of the island of New Guinea that was a part of the Dutch East Indies until 1949, later an overseas territory of the Kingd ...
. Despite prolonged Dutch presence, the Dutch language is not spoken by many Papuans, the colony having been ceded to Indonesia in 1963. Dutch-speaking immigrant communities can also be found in Australia and New Zealand. The 2011 Australian census showed 37,248 people speaking Dutch at home. At the
2006 New Zealand census The New Zealand Census of Population and Dwellings ( mi, Te Tatauranga o ngā Tāngata Huri Noa i Aotearoa me ō rātou Whare Noho) is a national population and housing census conducted by government department Statistics New Zealand every five y ...
, 26,982 people, or 0.70 percent of the total population, reported to speak Dutch to sufficient fluency that they could hold an everyday conversation.


Americas

In contrast to the colonies in the
East Indies The East Indies (or simply the Indies), is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The Indies refers to various lands in the East or the Eastern hemisphere, particularly the islands and mainlands found in and around t ...
, from the second half of the 19th century onwards, the Netherlands envisaged the expansion of Dutch in its colonies in the
West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...
. Until 1863, when
slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
was abolished in the West Indies, slaves were forbidden to speak Dutch, with the effect that local creoles such as
Papiamento Papiamento () or Papiamentu (; nl, Papiaments) is a Portuguese-based creole language spoken in the Dutch Caribbean. It is the most widely spoken language on the Caribbean ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao), with official status in Arub ...
and
Sranan Tongo Sranan Tongo (also Sranantongo "Surinamese tongue," Sranan, Surinaams, Surinamese, Surinamese Creole) is an English-based creole language that is spoken as a ''lingua franca'' by approximately 550,000 people in Suriname. Developed originally amo ...
which were based not on Dutch but rather other European languages, became common in the Dutch West Indies. However, as most of the people in the Colony of Surinam (now
Suriname Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north ...
) worked on Dutch plantations, this reinforced the use of Dutch as a means for direct communication. In
Suriname Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north ...
today, Dutch is the sole official language, and over 60 percent of the population speaks it as a
mother tongue A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...
. 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 A person's second language, or L2, is a language that is not the native language (first language or L1) of the speaker, but is learned later. A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speaker's home country, or a fo ...
. Suriname gained its independence from the Netherlands in 1975 and has been an associate member of the
Dutch Language Union The Dutch Language Union ( Dutch: , NTU) is an international regulatory institution that governs issues regarding the Dutch language. It is best known for its spelling reforms which are promulgated by member states, grammar books, the Green B ...
since 2004. The
lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
of Suriname, however, is
Sranan Tongo Sranan Tongo (also Sranantongo "Surinamese tongue," Sranan, Surinaams, Surinamese, Surinamese Creole) is an English-based creole language that is spoken as a ''lingua franca'' by approximately 550,000 people in Suriname. Developed originally amo ...
, spoken natively by about a fifth of the population.Recognition of Surinamese-Dutch (''Surinaams-Nederlands'') as an equal natiolect was expressed in 1976 by the publication of the ''Woordenboek van het Surinaams-Nederlands – een geannoteerde lijst van Surinaams-Nederlandse woorden en uitdrukkingen'' (''Dictionary of Surinam Dutch – an annotated list of Surinam-Dutch words and expressions''), see Johannes van Donselaar ''Woordenboek van het Surinaams-Nederlands – een geannoteerde lijst van Surinaams-Nederlandse woorden en uitdrukkingen'', Utrecht : Instituut A. W. de Groot voor Algemene Taalwetenschap van de Rijksuniversiteit te Utrecht (1976), Amsterdam, E.T.Rap (1977) , published in 1989 as the ''Woordenboek van het Surinaams-Nederlands'' (''Dictionary of Surinam Dutch''), by Van Donselaar, and later by the publication of the ''Woordenboek Surinaams Nederlands'' (''Dictionary Surinam Dutch'') in 2009 (editor Renata de Bies, in cooperation with lexicologists Willy Martin en Willy Smedts), which was previously published as the ''Woordenboek van de Surinaamse Bijdrage aan het Nederlands'' (''Dictionary of the Surinam Contribution to Dutch"''). In
Aruba Aruba ( , , ), officially the Country of Aruba ( nl, Land Aruba; pap, Pais Aruba) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands physically located in the mid-south of the Caribbean Sea, about north of the Venezuela peninsula of ...
,
Bonaire Bonaire (; , ; pap, Boneiru, , almost pronounced ) is a Dutch island in the Leeward Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. Its capital is the port of Kralendijk, on the west ( leeward) coast of the island. Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao form the ABC i ...
,
Curaçao Curaçao ( ; ; pap, Kòrsou, ), officially the Country of Curaçao ( nl, Land Curaçao; pap, Pais Kòrsou), is a Lesser Antilles island country in the southern Caribbean Sea and the Dutch Caribbean region, about north of the Venezuela coast ...
and
Sint Maarten Sint Maarten () is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the Caribbean. With a population of 41,486 as of January 2019 on an area of , it encompasses the southern 44% of the divided island of Saint Martin, while the north ...
, all parts of the
Kingdom of the Netherlands , national_anthem = ) , image_map = Kingdom of the Netherlands (orthographic projection).svg , map_width = 250px , image_map2 = File:KonDerNed-10-10-10.png , map_caption2 = Map of the four constituent countries shown to scale , capital = ...
, Dutch is the official language but spoken as a first language by only 7% to 8% of the population, although most native-born people on the islands can speak the language since the education system is in Dutch at some or all levels. In the United States, a now extinct dialect of Dutch,
Jersey Dutch The New York Dutch, also known simply as Dutchmen (Dutch: ''Duitsers''), were a cultural group native to New York and New Jersey found along the old borders of New Netherland. In New York they were known as the New York Dutch, and in New Jersey ...
, 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 A Dutch creole is a creole language that has been substantially influenced by the Dutch language. Most Dutch-based creoles originated in Dutch colonies in the Americas and Southeast Asia, after the 17th century expansion of Dutch maritime powe ...
once spoken in the Americas include
Mohawk Dutch Mohawk Dutch is a now extinct Dutch-based creole language mainly spoken during the 17th century west of Albany, New York in the area around the Mohawk River, by the Dutch colonists who traded with or to a lesser extent mixed with the local popul ...
(in
Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York City ...
),
Berbice Berbice is a region along the Berbice River in Guyana, which was between 1627 and 1792 a colony of the Dutch West India Company and between 1792 to 1815 a colony of the Dutch state. After having been ceded to the United Kingdom of Great Britain ...
(in Guyana), Skepi (in Essequibo, Guyana) and
Negerhollands Negerhollands ('Negro-Dutch') was a Dutch-based creole language that was spoken in the Danish West Indies, now known as the U.S. Virgin Islands. Dutch was its superstrate language with Danish, English, French, Spanish, and African elements ...
(in the
United States Virgin Islands The United States Virgin Islands,. Also called the ''American Virgin Islands'' and the ''U.S. Virgin Islands''. officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of Caribbean islands and an unincorporated and organized territory ...
).
Pennsylvania Dutch The Pennsylvania Dutch ( Pennsylvania Dutch: ), also known as Pennsylvania Germans, are a cultural group formed by German immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. They emigrated primarily from German-spe ...
is not a member of the set of Dutch dialects and is less misleadingly called Pennsylvania German.
Martin Van Buren Martin Van Buren ( ; nl, Maarten van Buren; ; December 5, 1782 – July 24, 1862) was an American lawyer and statesman who served as the eighth president of the United States from 1837 to 1841. A primary founder of the Democratic Party (Uni ...
, the eighth
President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...
, spoke Dutch natively and is the only U.S. president whose first language was not English. Dutch prevailed for many generations as the dominant language in parts of
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...
along the
Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...
. Another famous American born in this region who spoke Dutch as a first language was
Sojourner Truth Sojourner Truth (; born Isabella Baumfree; November 26, 1883) was an American abolitionist of New York Dutch heritage and a women's rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, New York, but escaped with her infant daughter to f ...
. According to the
2000 United States census The United States census of 2000, conducted by the Census Bureau, determined the resident population of the United States on April 1, 2000, to be 281,421,906, an increase of 13.2 percent over the 248,709,873 people enumerated during the 1990 ce ...
, 150,396 people spoke Dutch at home, while according to the 2006 Canadian census, this number reaches 160,000 Dutch speakers. At an academic level, 20 universities offer Dutch studies in the United States. In Canada, Dutch is the fourth most spoken language by farmers, after English, French and German, and the fifth most spoken non-official language overall (by 0.6% of Canadians).


Africa

The largest legacy of the Dutch language lies in South Africa, which attracted large numbers of Dutch, Flemish and other northwest European farmer (in Dutch, ''
boer Boers ( ; af, Boere ()) are the descendants of the Dutch-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape Colony, Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controll ...
'') settlers, all of whom were quickly assimilated. The long isolation from the rest of the Dutch-speaking world made the Dutch as spoken in Southern Africa evolve into what is now Afrikaans. In 1876, the first Afrikaans newspaper called ''
Die Afrikaanse Patriot ''Die Afrikaanse Patriot'' was the first Afrikaans-language newspaper. The first issue was published in Paarl on 15 January 1876. Initially a monthly magazine, it became a weekly two years later. Even though the first edition had just 50 subscrib ...
'' was published in the Cape Colony. European Dutch remained the
literary language A literary language is the form (register) of a language used in written literature, which can be either a nonstandard dialect or a standardized variety of the language. Literary language sometimes is noticeably different from the spoken langu ...
until the start of the 1920s, when under pressure of
Afrikaner nationalism Afrikaner nationalism ( af, Afrikanernasionalisme) is a nationalistic political ideology which created by Afrikaners residing in Southern Africa during the Victorian era. The ideology was developed in response to the significant events in Afrik ...
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 The Union of South Africa ( nl, Unie van Zuid-Afrika; af, Unie van Suid-Afrika; ) was the historical predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the Cape, Natal, Trans ...
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. Both 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 ''voël'' ("bird") and ''regen'' becomes ''reën'' ("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. Afrikaans is the third largest language of South Africa in terms of native speakers (~13.5%),Key results of the 2011 census
Statistics South Africa
of whom 53% are
Coloureds Coloureds ( af, Kleurlinge or , ) refers to members of multiracial ethnic communities in Southern Africa who may have ancestry from more than one of the various populations inhabiting the region, including African, European, and Asian. South ...
and 42.4%
Whites White is a racialized classification of people and a skin color specifier, generally used for people of European origin, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, and point of view. Description of populations as " ...
. 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 A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
in Namibia, where it is spoken natively in 11 percent of households. In total, Afrikaans is the
first language A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...
in South Africa alone of about 7.1 million people and is estimated to be a
second language A person's second language, or L2, is a language that is not the native language (first language or L1) of the speaker, but is learned later. A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speaker's home country, or a fo ...
for at least 10 million people worldwide, compared to over 23 million and 5 million respectively, for Dutch. The Dutch colonial presence elsewhere in Africa, notably
Dutch Gold Coast The Dutch Gold Coast or Dutch Guinea, officially Dutch possessions on the Coast of Guinea (Dutch: ''Nederlandse Bezittingen ter Kuste van Guinea'') was a portion of contemporary Ghana that was gradually colonized by the Dutch, beginning in 1612. ...
, was too ephemeral not to be wiped out by prevailing colonizing European successors. Belgian colonial presence in Congo and
Rwanda-Urundi Ruanda-Urundi (), later Rwanda-Burundi, was a colonial territory, once part of German East Africa, which was occupied by troops from the Belgian Congo during the East African campaign in World War I and was administered by Belgium under militar ...
(
Burundi Burundi (, ), officially the Republic of Burundi ( rn, Repuburika y’Uburundi ; Swahili language, Swahili: ''Jamuhuri ya Burundi''; French language, French: ''République du Burundi'' ), is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley at the ...
and
Rwanda Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...
, held under
League of Nations The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...
mandate and later a UN trust territory) left little Dutch (Flemish) legacy, as French was the main colonial language.


Phonology

For further details on different realisations of phonemes, dialectal differences and example words, see the full article at
Dutch phonology Dutch phonology is similar to that of other West Germanic languages, especially Afrikaans and West Frisian. Standard Dutch has two main ''de facto'' pronunciation standards: Northern and Belgian. Northern Standard Dutch is the most prestigi ...
.


Consonants

Unlike other Germanic languages, Dutch has no phonological aspiration of consonants. Like most other Germanic languages, the Dutch
consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...
system did not undergo the High German consonant shift and has a
syllable A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "bu ...
structure that allows fairly-complex
consonant cluster In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...
s. Dutch also retains full use of the
velar Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum). Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive a ...
fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
s of
Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branc ...
that were lost or modified in many other Germanic languages. Dutch has
final-obstruent devoicing Final-obstruent devoicing or terminal devoicing is a systematic phonological process occurring in languages such as Catalan, German, Dutch, Breton, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Turkish, and Wolof. In such languages, voiced obstruents in ...
. At the end of a word, voicing distinction is neutralised and all obstruents are pronounced voiceless. For example, Dutch ' (̇'good') is but the related form ' is . Dutch shares this
final-obstruent devoicing Final-obstruent devoicing or terminal devoicing is a systematic phonological process occurring in languages such as Catalan, German, Dutch, Breton, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Turkish, and Wolof. In such languages, voiced obstruents in ...
with German (the Dutch noun ''goud'' is pronounced ɑut the adjective ''gouden'' is pronounced ɑudə(n) like the German noun ''Gold'', pronounced ɔlt adjective ''golden'', pronounced ɔldnvs English ''gold'' and ''golden'', both pronounced with ) Voicing of pre-vocalic initial
voiceless alveolar fricative The voiceless alveolar fricatives are a type of fricative consonant pronounced with the tip or blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (gum line) just behind the teeth. This refers to a class of sounds, not a single sound. There are at least ...
s occurs although less in Dutch than in German (Dutch ', German ' with versus English ''seven'' and Low German ' with , and also the shift → . Dutch shares only with Low German the development of → (Dutch ', ' and Low German ', ' versus German ', ' and English ''foxes'', ''oxen''), and also the development of → though it is far more common in Dutch (Dutch ' and Low German ' versus German ' and English ''soft'', but Dutch ' versus German ' and English ''craft''). Notes: * is not a separate phoneme in Dutch, but is inserted before vowel-initial syllables within words after and and often also at the beginning of a word. * The realization of phoneme varies considerably from dialect to dialect and even between speakers in the same dialect area. Common realisations are an
alveolar trill The voiced alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r. ...
,
alveolar tap Alveolus (; pl. alveoli, adj. alveolar) is a general anatomical term for a concave cavity or pit. Uses in anatomy and zoology * Pulmonary alveolus, an air sac in the lungs ** Alveolar cell or pneumocyte ** Alveolar duct ** Alveolar macrophage * M ...
,
uvular trill The voiced uvular trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a small capital letter ''R''. This consonant is one of several collectively ...
,
voiced uvular fricative The voiced uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , an inverted small uppercase letter , or in broad transcription if rhot ...
, and
alveolar approximant The voiced alveolar approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the alveolar and postalveolar approximants is , a lowercase letter ''r'' rotated 18 ...
. * The realization of also varies somewhat by area and speaker. The main realisation is a
labiodental approximant The voiced labiodental approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It is something between an English / w/ and / v/, pronounced with the teeth and lips held in the position used to articulate the letter V. The sym ...
, but some speakers, particularly in the south, use a
bilabial approximant The voiced bilabial fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is B. The official symbol is the G ...
or a labiovelar approximant . * The lateral is slightly velarized postvocalically in most dialects, particularly in the north. * and may be true velars and , uvular and or palatal and . The more palatal realisations are common in southern areas, and uvulars are common in the north. * Some northern dialects have a tendency to devoice all fricatives, regardless of environment, which is particularly common with but can affect others as well. * and are not native phonemes of Dutch and usually occur in borrowed words, like ' and ' ('baggage'), but may occur if and are palatalised. * is not a native phoneme of Dutch and occurs only in borrowed words, like '.


Vowels

Like English, Dutch did not develop
i-mutation I-mutation (also known as umlaut, front mutation, i-umlaut, i/j-mutation or i/j-umlaut) is a type of sound change in which a back vowel is fronted or a front vowel is raised if the following syllable contains , or (a voiced palatal approxi ...
as a morphological marker and shares with most other Germanic languages the lengthening of short
vowels A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
in stressed open syllables, which has led to contrastive
vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, f ...
being used as a morphological marker. Dutch has an extensive
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
inventory. Vowels can be grouped as back rounded, front unrounded and front rounded. They are also traditionally distinguished by length or
tenseness In phonology, tenseness or tensing is, most broadly, the pronunciation of a sound with greater muscular effort or constriction than is typical. More specifically, tenseness is the pronunciation of a vowel with less centralization (i.e. either mo ...
. Vowel length is not always considered a distinctive feature in Dutch phonology because it normally occurs with changes in vowel
quality Quality may refer to: Concepts *Quality (business), the ''non-inferiority'' or ''superiority'' of something *Quality (philosophy), an attribute or a property *Quality (physics), in response theory *Energy quality, used in various science discipli ...
. One feature or the other may be considered redundant, and some phonemic analyses prefer to treat it as an opposition of
tenseness In phonology, tenseness or tensing is, most broadly, the pronunciation of a sound with greater muscular effort or constriction than is typical. More specifically, tenseness is the pronunciation of a vowel with less centralization (i.e. either mo ...
. However, even if it is 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, some of which may be little difference at all, with length remaining the primary distinguishing feature. Although all older words pair vowel length with a change in vowel quality, new loanwords have reintroduced phonemic oppositions of length. Compare ''zonne(n)'' ("suns") versus ''zone'' ("zone") versus ''zonen'' ("sons"), or ''kroes'' ("mug") versus ''cruise'' ("cruise"). Notes: * The distinction between and is only slight and may be considered allophonic for most purposes. However, some recent loanwords have introduced distinctively-long , making the length distinction marginally phonemic. * The long close-mid vowels are realised as slightly closing diphthongs in many northern dialects. * The long open-mid vowels occur only in a handful of loanwords, mostly from French. In certain Belgian Dutch varieties, they may also occur as realisations of . * The long close and close-mid vowels are often pronounced more closed or as centering diphthongs before an in the syllable coda, which may occur before coda as well.


Diphthongs

Unique to the development of Dutch is the collapse of older ''ol''/''ul''/''al'' + dental into ''ol'' + dental, followed by vocalisation of pre-
consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...
al /l/ and after a short vowel. That created the diphthong : Dutch ''goud'', ''zout'' and ''bout'' corresponds with Low German ''Gold'', ''Solt'', ''Bolt''; German ''Gold'', ''Salz'', ''Balt'' and English ''gold'', ''salt'', ''bolt''. It is the most common diphthong, along with . All three are the only ones commonly considered unique phonemes in Dutch. The tendency for native English speakers is to pronounce Dutch names with (written as ''ij'' or ''ei'') as , (like the English "long i"), which does not normally lead to confusion for native listeners since in a number of dialects (such as in Amsterdam), the same pronunciation is heard. In contrast, and are rare in Dutch. The "long/tense" diphthongs are indeed realised as proper diphthongs but are generally analysed phonemically as a long/tense vowel, followed by a glide or . All diphthongs end in a close vowel () and are grouped here by their first element.


Phonotactics

The
syllable structure A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological " ...
of Dutch is (C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C). Many words, as in English, begin with three consonants: ''straat'' (street). There are words that end in four consonants: ''herfst'' (autumn), ''ergst'' (worst), ''interessantst'' (most interesting), ''sterkst'' (strongest), the last three of which are superlative adjectives. The highest number of consonants in a single cluster is found in the word ''slechtstschrijvend'' (writing worst), with seven consonant phonemes. ''angstschreeuw'' (scream in fear) has six in a row.


Polder Dutch

A notable change in pronunciation has been occurring in younger generations in the Dutch provinces of
Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city and a List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, pro ...
,
North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...
and
South Holland South Holland ( nl, Zuid-Holland ) is a province of the Netherlands with a population of over 3.7 million as of October 2021 and a population density of about , making it the country's most populous province and one of the world's most densely ...
, which has been dubbed "Polder Dutch" by Jan Stroop. Such speakers pronounce , and , which used to be pronounced respectively as , , and , as increasingly lowered to , , and respectively. In addition, the same speakers pronounce , , and as the
diphthongs A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...
, , and respectively, making the change an example of a
chain shift In historical linguistics, a chain shift is a set of sound changes in which the change in pronunciation of one speech sound (typically, a phoneme) is linked to, and presumably causes, a change in pronunciation of other sounds as well. The soun ...
. The 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 The Great Vowel Shift was a series of changes in the pronunciation of the English language that took place primarily between 1400 and 1700, beginning in southern England and today having influenced effectively all dialects of English. Through ...
and the diphthongisation of long high vowels in Modern
High German The High German dialects (german: hochdeutsche Mundarten), or simply High German (); not to be confused with Standard High German which is commonly also called ''High German'', comprise the varieties of German spoken south of the Benrath and ...
, which had 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 it had diphthongised the long high vowels like German and English, "should" have lowered the diphthongs like German and English as well. Instead, he argues that the development has been artificially frozen in an "intermediate" state by the standardisation of Dutch pronunciation in the 16th century in which lowered diphthongs found in rural dialects were perceived as ugly by the educated classes and were accordingly declared substandard. Now, however, he thinks that 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 Estuary English is an English accent associated with the area along the River Thames and its estuary, including London. Phonetician John C. Wells proposed a definition of Estuary English as "Standard English spoken with the accent of the south ...
. Among
Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...
and Surinamese Dutch-speakers and speakers from other regions in the Netherlands, this vowel shift is not taking place.


Grammar

Dutch is grammatically similar to
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
, such as in
syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...
and verb
morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines * Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts * Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...
(for verb morphology in English verbs, Dutch and German, see
Germanic weak verb In the Germanic languages, weak verbs are by far the largest group of verbs, are therefore often regarded as the norm (the regular verbs). They are distinguished from the Germanic strong verbs by the fact that their past tense form is marked by ...
and
Germanic strong verb In the Germanic languages, a strong verb is a verb that marks its past tense by means of changes to the stem vowel (ablaut). The majority of the remaining verbs form the past tense by means of a dental suffix (e.g. ''-ed'' in English), and are kn ...
).
Grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In vari ...
s have largely become limited to pronouns and many
set phrase Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics *Set (mathematics), a collection of elements *Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively Electro ...
s. Inflected forms of the articles are often grace surnames and toponyms. Standard Dutch uses three genders across natural and grammatical genders but for most non-Belgian speakers, masculine and feminine have merged to form the common gender (with ''de'' for "the"). The neuter (which uses ''het'') remains distinct. This is similar to those of most Continental Scandinavian tongues. Less so than English, inflectional grammar (such as in adjectival and noun endings) has simplified.


Verbs and tenses

When grouped according to their conjugational class, Dutch has four main verb types: weak verbs, strong verbs,
irregular verb A regular verb is any verb whose conjugation follows the typical pattern, or one of the typical patterns, of the language to which it belongs. A verb whose conjugation follows a different pattern is called an irregular verb. This is one instance ...
s and mixed verbs. Weak verbs are most numerous, constituting about 60% of all verbs. In these, the past tense and past participle are formed with a dental suffix: * Weak verbs with past in ''-de'' * Weak verbs with past in ''-te'' Strong verbs are the second most numerous verb group. This group is characterised by a vowel alternation of the stem in the past tense and perfect participle. Dutch distinguishes between 7 classes, comprising almost all strong verbs, with some internal variants. Dutch has many 'half strong verbs': these have a weak past tense and a strong participle or a strong past tense and a weak participle. The following table shows the vowel alternations in more detail. It also shows the number of roots (bare verbs) that belong to each class, variants with a prefix are excluded. There is an ongoing process of "weakening" of strong verbs. The verb "ervaren" (to experience) used to be strictly a class 6 strong verb, having the past tense "ervoer" and participle "ervaren", but the weak form "ervaarde" for both past tense and participle is currently also in use. Some other verbs that were originally strong such as "raden" (to guess) and "stoten" (to bump), have past tense forms "ried" and "stiet" that are at present far less common than their weakened forms; "raadde" and "stootte". In most examples of such weakened verbs that were originally strong, both their strong and weak formations are deemed correct.


Genders and cases

As in English, the case system of Dutch and the
subjunctive The subjunctive (also known as conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of the utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude towards it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality ...
have largely fallen out of use, and the system has generalised the
dative In grammar, the dative case (abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a ...
over the
accusative The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘the ...
case for certain
pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not co ...
s (NL: ''me'', ''je''; EN: ''me'', ''you''; LI: ''mi'', ''di'' vs. DE: ''mich/mir'', ''dich/dir''). While standard Dutch has three
grammatical genders In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all noun ...
, this has few consequences and the masculine and feminine gender are usually merged into a common gender in the Netherlands but not in Belgium (EN: none; NL/LI: common and neuter; in Belgium masculine, feminine and neuter is in use). Modern Dutch has mostly lost its case system. However, certain idioms and expressions continue to include now archaic case declensions. The article has just two forms, ''de'' and ''het'', more complex than English, which has only ''the''. The use of the older inflected form ''den'' in the dative and accusative, as well as use of ''der'' in the dative, is restricted to numerous set phrases, surnames and toponyms. But some dialects still use both, particularly "der" is often used instead of "haar" (her). In modern Dutch, the genitive articles ''des'' and ''der'' in the bottom line are commonly used in
idioms An idiom is a phrase or expression that typically presents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase; but some phrases become figurative idioms while retaining the literal meaning of the phrase. Categorized as formulaic language, ...
. Other usage is typically considered archaic, poetic or stylistic. One must know whether a noun is masculine or feminine to use them correctly. In most circumstances, the preposition ''van'', the middle line, is instead used, followed by the normal article ''de'' or ''het'', and in that case it makes no difference whether a word is masculine or feminine. For the idiomatic use of the articles in the genitive, see for example: * Masculine singular: "des duivels" (''lit'': "of the devil") (common proverbial meaning: Seething with rage) * Feminine singular: het woordenboek der Friese taal ("the dictionary of the Frisian language") * Neuter singular: de vrouw des huizes ("the lady of the house") * Plural: de voortgang der werken ("the progress of (public) works") In contemporary usage, the
genitive case In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...
still occurs a little more often with plurals than with singulars, as the plural article is ''der'' for all genders and no special noun inflection must be taken account of. ''Der'' is commonly used in order to avoid reduplication of ''van'', e.g. ''het merendeel der gedichten van de auteur'' instead of ''het merendeel van de gedichten van de auteur'' ("the bulk of the author's poems"). There is also a genitive form for the pronoun ''die/dat'' ("that ne those
nes The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in American ...
), namely ''diens'' for masculine and neuter singulars (occurrences of ''dier'' for feminine singular and all plurals are extremely rare). Although usually avoided in common speech, this form can be used instead of possessive pronouns to avoid confusion. Compare: * ''Hij vertelde over zijn zoon en zijn vrouw''. – He spoke about his son and his (own) wife. * ''Hij vertelde over zijn zoon en diens vrouw''. – He spoke about his son and the latter's wife. Analogically, the relative and interrogative pronoun ''wie'' ("who") has the genitive forms ''wiens'' and ''wier'' (corresponding to English ''whose'', but less frequent in use). Dutch also has a range of fixed expressions that make use of the genitive articles, which can be abbreviated using apostrophes. Common examples include "'s ochtends" (with 's as abbreviation of ''des''; "in the morning") and ''desnoods'' (lit: "of the need", translated: "if necessary"). The 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. Inflection of adjectives is more complicated. The adjective receives no ending with indefinite neuter nouns in singular (as with ''een'' 'a/an'), and ''-e'' in all other cases. (This was also the case in Middle English, as in "a goode man".) ''Fiets'' belongs to the masculine/feminine category, while ''water'' and ''huis'' are neuter. An adjective has no e if it is in the predicative: ''De soep is koud''. More 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. Similarly in some place names: '' ‌'s-Gravenbrakel, ‌'s-Hertogenbosch'', etc. (with weak genitives of ''graaf'' "count", ''hertog'' "duke"). Also in this case, German retains this feature.


Word order

Dutch shares much of its word order with German. Dutch exhibits
subject–object–verb Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to: Philosophy *'' Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing **Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective con ...
word order, but in main clauses the conjugated verb is moved into the second position in what is known as verb second or
V2 word order In syntax, verb-second (V2) word order is a sentence structure in which the finite verb of a sentence or a clause is placed in the clause's second position, so that the verb is preceded by a single word or group of words (a single constituent ...
. This makes Dutch word order almost identical to that of German, but often different from English, which has subject–verb–object word order and has since lost the V2 word order that existed in
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
. An example sentence used in some Dutch language courses and textbooks is "''Ik kan mijn pen niet vinden omdat het veel te donker is''", which translates into English word for word as "''I can my pen not find because it far too dark is''", but in standard English word order would be written "''I cannot find my pen because it is far too dark''". If the sentence is split into a main and subclause and the verbs highlighted, the logic behind the word order can be seen. Main clause: "''Ik kan mijn pen niet vinden''" Verb infinitives are placed in final position, but the finite, conjugated verb, in this case "kan" (can), is made the second element of the clause. In subordinate clauses: "''omdat het veel te donker is''", the verb or verbs always go in the final position. In an
interrogative An interrogative clause is a clause whose form is typically associated with question-like meanings. For instance, the English sentence "Is Hannah sick?" has interrogative syntax which distinguishes it from its declarative counterpart "Hannah is ...
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?''" In the Dutch equivalent of a
wh-question A question is an utterance which serves as a request for information. Questions are sometimes distinguished from interrogatives, which are the grammatical forms typically used to express them. Rhetorical questions, for instance, are interrogative ...
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?''" In 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?''" A 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 far too dark?''"


Diminutives

In Dutch, the diminutive is used extensively. The nuances of meaning expressed by the diminutive are a distinctive aspect of Dutch, and can be difficult for non-native speakers to master. It is very productive and formed by adding one of the
suffixes In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry g ...
to the noun in question, depending on the latter's phonological ending: * ''-je'' for ending in -b, -c, -d, -t, -f, -g, -ch, -k, -p, -v, -x, -z or -s: neef → neef''je'' (''male cousin'', ''nephew'') * ''-pje'' for ending in -m: boom (''tree'') → boom''pje'' * ''-kje'' for ending in -ing if the preceding syllable carries the stress: koning (''king'') → konin''kje'' (the 'ng'-sound transforms into 'nk'); but ring → ring''etje'' (''ring''), and vondeling → vondeling''etje'' (''foundling'') without this stress pattern * ''-'' for ending in -h, -j, -l, -n, -r, -w, or a vowel other than -y: zoen → zoen' (''kiss''). A single open vowel is doubled when adding "-" would change the pronunciation: aut''o'' → aut''oo'' (''car''). *''-′'' for ending in -y and for abbreviations: baby → baby', cd → cd', A4 → A4' * ''-etje'' for ending in -b, -l, -n, -ng or -r preceded by a "short" (lax) vowel: bal → ball''etje'' (''ball''). Final consonant is doubled (except for -ng) to preserve the vowel's shortness. The diminutive suffixes ''-ke'' (from which ''-'' has derived by palatalization), ''-eke'', ''-ske'', ''-'' (only for words ending -ch, -k, -p, or -s), ''-kie'' (instead of -kje), and ''-pie'' (instead of -pje) are used in southern dialects, and the forms ending on - as well in northern urban dialects. Some of these form part of expressions that became standard language, like ''een makkie'', from ge''mak'' = ''ease''). The noun joch (''young boy'') has, exceptionally, only the diminutive form jochie, also in standard Dutch. The form -ke is also found in many women's given names: Janneke, Marieke, Marijke, Mieke, Meike etc. In Dutch, the diminutive is not restricted to nouns, but can be applied to
numerals A numeral is a figure, symbol, or group of figures or symbols denoting a number. It may refer to: * Numeral system used in mathematics * Numeral (linguistics), a part of speech denoting numbers (e.g. ''one'' and ''first'' in English) * Numerical d ...
(''met z'n tweetjes'', "the two of us"),
pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not co ...
s (''onderonsje'', "tête-à-tête"), verbal particles (''moetje'', "shotgun marriage"), and even
preposition Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
s (''toetje'', "dessert").
Adjective In linguistics, an adjective (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that generally grammatical modifier, modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Tra ...
s and
adverbs An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering que ...
commonly take diminutive forms; the former take a diminutive ending and thus function as nouns, while the latter remain adverbs and always have the diminutive with the ''-s'' appended, e.g. adjective: groen ("green") → noun: groen' ("rookie"); adverb: even ("a while") → adverb: even''tjes'' ("a little while"). Some nouns have two different diminutives, each with a different meaning: bloem (''flower'') → bloem''pje'' (lit. "small flower"), but bloem''etje'' (lit. also "small flower", meaning '' bouquet''). A few nouns exist solely in a diminutive form, e.g. zeepaardje (''
seahorse A seahorse (also written ''sea-horse'' and ''sea horse'') is any of 46 species of small marine fish in the genus ''Hippocampus''. "Hippocampus" comes from the Ancient Greek (), itself from () meaning "horse" and () meaning "sea monster" or " ...
''), 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'') → ijsje (''ice cream treat'', ''cone of ice cream''), bier (''beer'') → biertje. Some diminutive forms only exist in the plural, e.g. kleertjes (''clothing''). When used to refer to time, the Dutch diminutive form can indicate whether the person in question found it pleasant or not: ''een uur''tje'' kletsen'' (''chatting for a "little" hour.'') The diminutive can, however, also be used pejoratively: ''Hij was weer eens het "mannetje"''. (''He acted as if he was the "little" man.'') All diminutives (even lexicalised ones like "meisje" ''(girl)'') have neuter gender and take neuter concords: "''dit'' kleine meisje", not "''deze'' kleine meisje".


Pronouns and determiners

There are two series of personal pronouns, subject and objects pronouns. The forms on the right-hand sides within each column are the unemphatic forms; those not normally written are given in brackets. Only ''ons'' and ''u'' do not have an unemphatic form. The distinction between emphatic and unemphatic pronouns is very important in Dutch. Emphatic pronouns in English use the
reflexive pronoun A reflexive pronoun is a pronoun that refers to another noun or pronoun (its antecedent) within the same sentence. In the English language specifically, a reflexive pronoun will end in ''-self'' or ''-selves'', and refer to a previously n ...
form, but are used to emphasize the subject, not to indicate a direct or indirect object. For example, "I gave (to) myself the money" is reflexive but "I myself gave the money (to someone else) " is emphatic. Like English, Dutch has generalised the dative over the accusative case for all pronouns, e.g. NL 'me', 'je', EN 'me', 'you', vs. DE '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. Dutch shares also with English the presence of h- pronouns, e.g. NL ''hij'', ''hem'', ''haar'', ''hen'', ''hun'' and EN ''he'', ''him'', ''her'' vs. DE ''er'', ''ihn'', ''ihr'', ''ihnen''.


Compounds

Like 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 (''boomhut'' = 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. The longest serious entry in the
Van Dale ''Van Dale's Great Dictionary of the Dutch Language'' ( nl, Van Dale Groot woordenboek van de Nederlandse taal ), called ' for short, is the leading dictionary of the Dutch language. The latest edition was published in April 2022. History Van ...
dictionary is (ceasefire negotiation). Leafing through the articles of association (Statuten) one may come across a 30-letter (authorisation of representation). An even longer word cropping up in official documents is ''ziektekostenverzekeringsmaatschappij'' (health insurance company) though the shorter ''zorgverzekeraar'' (health insurer) is more common. Notwithstanding official spelling rules, some Dutch-speaking people, like some Scandinavians and German speakers, nowadays tend to write the parts of a compound separately, a practice sometimes dubbed ''de Engelse ziekte'' (the English disease).


Vocabulary

Dutch vocabulary is predominantly Germanic in origin, with loanwords accounting for 20%. The main foreign influence on Dutch vocabulary since the 12th century and culminating in the
French period In Northern European historiography, the term French period (french: Période française, german: Franzosenzeit, nl, Franse tijd) refers to the period between 1794 and 1815 during which most of Northern Europe was controlled by Republican or Napo ...
has been French and (northern) Oïl languages, accounting for an estimated 6.8% of all words, or more than a third of all loanwords.
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, which was spoken in the southern Low Countries for centuries and then played a major role as the language of science and religion, follows with 6.1%. High German and Low German were influential until the mid-20th century and account for 2.7%, but they are mostly unrecognizable since many have been "Dutchified": German ' → Dutch '. Dutch has borrowed words from English since the mid-19th century, as a consequence of the increasing power and influence of Britain and the United States. English loanwords are about 1.5%, but continue to increase. Many English loanwords become less visible over time as they are either gradually replaced by calques (''skyscraper'' became Dutch ''wolkenkrabber'') or neologisms (''bucket list'' became ''loodjeslijst''). Conversely, Dutch contributed many loanwords to English, accounting for 1.3% of its lexicon. The main Dutch dictionary is the '' Van Dale groot woordenboek der Nederlandse taal'', which contains some 268,826
headword In morphology and lexicography, a lemma (plural ''lemmas'' or ''lemmata'') is the canonical form, dictionary form, or citation form of a set of word forms. In English, for example, ''break'', ''breaks'', ''broke'', ''broken'' and ''breaking'' ...
s. In the field of
linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
, the 45,000-page ''
Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal The ''Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal'' (''WNT''; ) is a dictionary of the Dutch language. It contains between 350,000 and 400,000 entries describing Dutch words from 1500 to 1976. The paper edition consists of 43 volumes (including three sup ...
'' is also widely used. That scholarly endeavour took 147 years to complete and contains all recorded Dutch words from the
Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Mi ...
onward.


Spelling and writing system

Dutch is written using the
Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy ...
. 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 Food storage containers are widespread in use throughout the world and have probably been in use since the first human civilizations. Early civilizations In early civilizations cereal grains such as maize, wheat, barley etc. were stored in large ...
). The diaeresis (Dutch: ''trema'') is used to mark vowels that are pronounced separately when involving a pre- or suffix, and a
hyphen The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. ''Son-in-law'' is an example of a hyphenated word. The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes (figure d ...
is used when the problem occurs in compound words. For example; "''be''ïnvloed" (influenced), de zee''ën'' (the seas) but ''zee-eend'' (scoter; litt: sea duck). Generally, other
diacritical marks A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
occur only in loanwords. However, the
acute accent The acute accent (), , is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accent in the Latin and Greek alphabets, precomposed ch ...
can also be used for emphasis or to differentiate between two forms, and its most common use is to differentiate between the indefinite
article Article often refers to: * Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness * Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication Article may also refer to: G ...
'een' /ən/ (a, an) and the numeral 'één' /e:n/ (one). Since the 1980s, the Dutch Language Union has been given the mandate to review and make recommendations on the official spelling of Dutch. Spelling reforms undertaken by the union occurred in 1995 and 2005. In the Netherlands, the official spelling is currently given legal basis by the Spelling Act of September 15, 2005.see This came into force on February 22, 2006, replacing the Act on the Spelling of the Dutch Language of February 14, 1947. see The Spelling Act gives the Committee of Ministers of the Dutch Language Union the authority to determine the spelling of Dutch by ministerial decision. In addition, the law requires that this spelling be followed "at the governmental bodies, at educational institutions funded from the public purse, as well as at the exams for which legal requirements have been established". In other cases, it is recommended, but it is not mandatory to follow the official spelling. The Decree on the Spelling Regulations 2005 of 2006 contains the annexed spelling rules decided by the Committee of Ministers on April 25, 2005.see This decree entered into force on August 1, 2006, replacing the Spelling Decree of June 19, 1996. see In Flanders, the same spelling rules are currently applied by the Decree of the Flemish Government Establishing the Rules of the Official Spelling and Grammar of the Dutch language of June 30, 2006.see The '' Woordenlijst Nederlandse taal'', more commonly known as "''het groene boekje''" (i.e. "the green booklet", because of its color), is the authoritative orthographic word list (without definitions) of the Dutch Language Union; a version with definitions can be had as ''Het Groene Woordenboek''; both are published by Sdu.


Example text

Article 1 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the Human rights, rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN Drafting of the Universal De ...
in Dutch: : Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English: :All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.


See also

*
Bargoens ''Bargoens'' is a form of Dutch slang. More specifically, it is a cant language that arose in the 17th century, and was used by criminals, tramps and travelling salesmen as a secret code, like Spain's '' Germanía'' or French ''Argot''. It is sp ...
*
Dutch Braille Dutch Braille is the braille alphabet used for the Dutch language in the Netherlands and in Flanders. History In the Netherlands, braille was introduced in 1890. In Belgium, braille has been in use at least since the foundation of the Braillel ...
*
Dutch grammar This article outlines the grammar of the Dutch language, which shares strong similarities with German grammar and also, to a lesser degree, with English grammar. Preliminary considerations Vowel length is indicated in Dutch spelling using a comb ...
*
Dutch Language Union The Dutch Language Union ( Dutch: , NTU) is an international regulatory institution that governs issues regarding the Dutch language. It is best known for its spelling reforms which are promulgated by member states, grammar books, the Green B ...
*
Dutch literature Dutch language literature () comprises all writings of literary merit written through the ages in the Dutch language, a language which currently has around 23 million native speakers. Dutch-language literature is the product of the Netherlands, Be ...
*
Dutch name Dutch names consist of one or more given names and a surname. The given name is usually gender-specific. Dutch given names A Dutch child's birth and given name(s) must be officially registered by the parents within 3 days after birth. It is not ...
*
Dutch orthography Dutch orthography uses the Latin alphabet. The spelling system is issued by government decree and is compulsory for all government documentation and educational establishments. Legal basis In the Netherlands, the official spelling is regulated ...
*
Dutch-based creole languages A Dutch creole is a creole language that has been substantially influenced by the Dutch language. Most Dutch-based creoles originated in Dutch colonies in the Americas and Southeast Asia, after the 17th century expansion of Dutch maritime powe ...
*
Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...
*
French Flemish French Flemish (French Flemish: , Standard Dutch: , french: flamand français) is a West Flemish dialect spoken in the north of contemporary France. Place names attest to Flemish having been spoken since the 8th century in the part of Fland ...
*
Grand Dictation of the Dutch Language The Grand Dictation of the Dutch Language ( nl, Groot Dictee der Nederlandse Taal) was a televised spelling test for adults organized by the Belgian newspaper ''De Morgen'', the Dutch newspaper '' de Volkskrant'' and the Dutch public broadcaster N ...
*
Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
*
Istvaeones The Istaevones (also spelled Istvaeones) were a Germanic group of tribes living near the banks of the Rhine during the Roman Empire which reportedly shared a common culture and origin. The Istaevones were contrasted to neighbouring groups, the In ...
*
List of English words of Dutch origin This is an incomplete list of Dutch expressions used in English; some are relatively common (e.g. ''cookie''), some are comparatively rare. In a survey by Joseph M. Williams in ''Origins of the English Language'' it is estimated that about 1% of ...
*
List of countries and territories where Afrikaans or Dutch are official languages The following is a list of the countries and territories where Afrikaans or Dutch are official languages. It includes countries, which have Afrikaans and/or Dutch as (one of) their nationwide official language(s), as well as dependent territorie ...
*
Low Dietsch Low Dietsch ( nl, Platdiets, li, Platduutsj, french: francique rhéno-mosan or ) refers to a handful of transitional Limburgish– Ripuarian dialects spoken in a number of towns and villages (e.g., Gemmenich, Hombourg, Montzen, Welkenraedt). T ...
*
Low Franconian Low Franconian, Low Frankish, NetherlandicSarah Grey Thomason, Terrence Kaufman: ''Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics'', University of California Press, 1991, p. 321. (Calling it "Low Frankish (or Netherlandish)".)Scott Shay ...
*
Meuse-Rhenish Meuse-Rhenish (German: ''Rheinmaasländisch'', Dutch: ''Maas-Rijnlands'', and French: ''francique rhéno-mosan'') is the modern term for literature written in the Middle Ages in the greater Meuse-Rhine area, in a literary language that is eff ...
*
Middle Dutch Middle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects whose ancestor was Old Dutch. It was spoken and written between 1150 and 1500. Until the advent of Modern Dutch after 1500 or c. 1550, there was no overarch ...
*
Old Frankish Frankish ( reconstructed endonym: *), also known as Old Franconian or Old Frankish, was the West Germanic language spoken by the Franks from the 5th to 9th century. After the Salian Franks settled in Roman Gaul, its speakers in Picardy an ...
*
Surinamese Dutch Surinamese Dutch (, ) is the form of Dutch spoken in Suriname and is the official language in Suriname, a former Dutch colony. Dutch is spoken as a native language by about 60% of the population, most of them being bilingual with Sranan Tongo, H ...


Notes


Citations


General references

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Maurer, Friedrich (1942), ''Nordgermanen und Alemannen: Studien zur germanischen und frühdeutschen Sprachgeschichte, Stammes- und Volkskunde'', Strasbourg: Hünenburg. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


External links

*
The Nederlandse Taalunie
Dutch language union
The Dutch Learner's Grammar
from The
University of Sheffield , mottoeng = To discover the causes of things , established = – University of SheffieldPredecessor institutions: – Sheffield Medical School – Firth College – Sheffield Technical School – University College of Sheffield , type = Pu ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dutch Language Articles containing video clips Germanic languages Languages of Belgium Languages of Saint Martin (island) Languages of the Dutch Caribbean Languages of the Netherlands Low Franconian languages Stress-timed languages Subject–object–verb languages Standard languages Verb-second languages