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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 ...
of the
Indo-European language family The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...
, spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language and is the third most spoken Germanic language. In Europe, Dutch is the native language of most of the population of the
Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
and
Flanders Flanders ( or ; ) is the Dutch language, Dutch-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, la ...
(which includes 60% of the population of
Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
). "1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." (page 153). Dutch was one of the official languages of
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
until 1925, when it was replaced by
Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
, a separate but partially
mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intellig ...
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 ...
of Dutch. Afrikaans, depending on the definition used, may be considered a
sister language In historical linguistics, sister languages are languages that are descended from a common ancestral language. Every language in a language family that descends from the same language as the others is a sister to them. A commonly given example is ...
, 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 Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
and
Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...
, and evolving from
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, educated sect ...
dialects. In South America, Dutch is the native language of the majority of the population of
Suriname Suriname, officially the Republic of Suriname, is a country in northern South America, also considered as part of the Caribbean and the West Indies. It is a developing country with a Human Development Index, high level of human development; i ...
, and spoken as a second or third language in the
multilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...
Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...
island countries of
Aruba Aruba, officially the Country of Aruba, is a constituent island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in the southern Caribbean Sea north of the Venezuelan peninsula of Paraguaná Peninsula, Paraguaná and northwest of Curaçao. In 19 ...
,
Curaçao Curaçao, officially the Country of Curaçao, is a constituent island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located in the southern Caribbean Sea (specifically the Dutch Caribbean region), about north of Venezuela. Curaçao includ ...
and
Sint Maarten Sint Maarten () is a Countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands located in the Caribbean region of North America. With a population of 58,477 as of June 2023 on an area of , it encompasses ...
. All these countries have recognised Dutch as one of their official languages, and are involved in one way or another in the
Dutch Language Union The Dutch Language Union ( , 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 Word list of th ...
. The
Dutch Caribbean The Dutch Caribbean (historically known as the Dutch West Indies) are the New World territories, colonies, and countries (former and current) of the Dutch Empire and the Kingdom of the Netherlands located in the Caribbean Sea, mainly the norther ...
municipalities ( St. Eustatius,
Saba Saba may refer to: Places * Saba (island), an island of the Netherlands located in the Caribbean Sea * Sabá, a municipality in the department of Colón, Honduras * Șaba or Șaba-Târg, the Romanian name for Shabo, a village in Ukraine * Saba, ...
and
Bonaire Bonaire is a Caribbean island in the Leeward Antilles, and is a Caribbean Netherlands, special municipality (officially Public body (Netherlands), "public body") of the Netherlands. Its capital is the port of Kralendijk, on the west (Windward an ...
) have Dutch as one of the official languages. In Asia, Dutch was used in the
Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies (; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, declared independence on 17 Au ...
(now mostly
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...
) by a limited educated elite of around 2% of the total population, including over 1 million indigenous Indonesians, until it was banned in 1957, but the ban was lifted afterwards. About a fifth of the
Indonesian language Indonesian (; ) is the official language, official and national language of Indonesia. It is a standard language, standardized variety (linguistics), variety of Malay language, Malay, an Austronesian languages, Austronesian language that has ...
can be traced to Dutch, including many
loan words A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...
. Indonesia's
Civil Code A civil code is a codification of private law relating to property law, property, family law, family, and law of obligations, obligations. A jurisdiction that has a civil code generally also has a code of civil procedure. In some jurisdiction ...
has not been officially translated, and the original Dutch language version dating from colonial times remains the authoritative version. 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 and Germany. 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 In historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift is a phonological development (sound change) that took place in the southern parts of the West Germanic languages, West Germanic dialect continuum. The ...
, does not use
Germanic umlaut The Germanic umlaut (sometimes called i-umlaut or i-mutation) is a type of linguistic umlaut (linguistics), umlaut in which a back vowel changes to the associated front vowel (fronting (phonology), fronting) or a front vowel becomes closer to ...
as a grammatical marker, has largely abandoned the use of the
subjunctive The subjunctive (also known as the conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of an utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude toward it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unrealit ...
, 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) that corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nominal ...
. Features shared with German, however, include the survival of two to three
grammatical genders In linguistics, a grammatical gender system is a specific form of a noun class system, where nouns are assigned to gender categories that are often not related to the real-world qualities of the entities denoted by those nouns. In languages wit ...
 – albeit with few grammatical consequences – as well as the use of modal particles,
final-obstruent devoicing Final-obstruent devoicing or terminal devoicing is a systematic phonological process occurring in languages such as Catalan, German, Dutch, Quebec French, Breton, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Turkish, and Wolof. In such languages, voic ...
, and (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 languages employ different orders. Correlatio ...
. Dutch vocabulary is mostly Germanic; it incorporates slightly more Romance loans than German, but far fewer than English.


Name

In Belgium, the Netherlands and Suriname, the native official name for Dutch is (historically before the Dutch orthographic reforms). Sometimes (" Flemish") is used as well to describe
Standard Dutch Dutch ( ) is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language and is the third most spoken Germanic language. In Europe, Dutch is the nati ...
in
Flanders Flanders ( or ; ) is the Dutch language, Dutch-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, la ...
, whereas (" Hollandic") is occasionally used as a colloquial term for the standard language in the central and northwestern parts of the Netherlands. English uses the adjective ''Dutch'' as a noun for the language of the Netherlands and Flanders. The word is derived from
Proto-Germanic 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 ...
. The stem of this word, , meant "people" in Proto-Germanic, and was an adjective-forming suffix, of which is the
Modern English Modern English, sometimes called New English (NE) or present-day English (PDE) as opposed to Middle and Old English, is the form of the English language that has been spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England England is a Count ...
form. ' was its Latinised form and used as an
adjective An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of ...
referring to the Germanic
vernacular Vernacular is the ordinary, informal, spoken language, spoken form of language, particularly when perceptual dialectology, perceived as having lower social status or less Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige than standard language, which is mor ...
s of the
Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages (historiography), Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th to the 10th century. They marked the start o ...
. 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 languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
, the ''non''-native language of writing and the
Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
. It was first recorded in 786, when the Bishop of Ostia writes to
Pope Adrian I Pope Adrian I (; 700 – 25 December 795) was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 1 February 772 until his death on 25 December 795. Descended from a family of the military aristocracy of Rome known as ''domini de via Lata'', h ...
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 '' synod'' comes from the Ancient Greek () ; the term is analogous with the Latin word . Originally, ...
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 k ...
,
England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
, where the decisions are being written down "" meaning "in Latin as well as common vernacular". According to a hypothesis by De Grauwe, In northern
West Francia In medieval historiography, West Francia (Medieval Latin: ) or the Kingdom of the West Franks () constitutes the initial stage of the Kingdom of France and extends from the year 843, from the Treaty of Verdun, to 987, the beginning of the Capet ...
(i.e. modern-day 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 (historiography), Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th to the 10th century. They marked the start o ...
, 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 ''even'' entails that it is not ''odd''. It is referred to as a 'binary' relationship because there are two members i ...
of '' *walhisk'' (Romance-speakers, specifically
Old French Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th [2-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ...
). The word, now rendered as (Southwestern variant) or (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 "/" was increasingly used as an umbrella term for the specific Germanic dialects spoken in the Low Countries, 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 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 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 . This designation (first attested in 1482) started at the Burgundian court in the 15th century, although the use of , , , and ("nether" or "low") to refer to the area known as the Low Countries goes back further in time, with the Romans 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 4th century AD, on the west bank of the Rhine bordering the North Sea. The capital of the province was Colonia Cl ...
'' ("Lower" Germania). It is a reference to the Low Countries' downriver location at the
Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta The Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta is a river delta in the Netherlands formed by the confluence of the Rhine, the Meuse () and the Scheldt rivers. In some cases, the Scheldt delta is considered a separate delta to the Rhine–Meuse delta. The resu ...
near the
North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...
. From 1551, the designation received strong competition from the name (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 ...
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, ("High German") and ("Upper-landish") came into use as a Dutch exonym for the various German dialects used in neighboring German states. Use of was popular in the 16th century but ultimately lost out over during the close of the 18th century, with 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 ("High German"). Subsequently, German dialects spoken in the north were designated as ("Low German"). The names for these dialects were calqued by Dutch linguists as and . As a result, no longer serves as a synonym for the Dutch language. In the 19th century, the term "" 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 , there was no overarching sta ...
and its literature.


History

Old Dutch In linguistics, Old Dutch ( Modern Dutch: ') or Old Low Franconian (Modern Dutch: ') is the set of dialects that evolved from Frankish spoken in the Low Countries during the Early Middle Ages, from around the 6th Page 55: "''Uit de zesde eeu ...
can be discerned more or less around the same time as
Old English Old English ( or , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
(Anglo-Saxon),
Old High German Old High German (OHG; ) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally identified as the period from around 500/750 to 1050. Rather than representing a single supra-regional form of German, Old High German encompasses the numerous ...
,
Old Frisian Old Frisian was a West Germanic language spoken between the late 13th century and the end of 16th century. It is the common ancestor of all the modern Frisian languages except for the North Frisian language#Insular North Frisian, Insular North ...
, 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 Eur ...
. These names are derived from the modern
standard language A standard language (or standard variety, standard dialect, standardized dialect or simply standard) is any language variety that has undergone substantial codification in its grammar, lexicon, writing system, or other features and that stands ...
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, or Salians, sometimes referred to using the Latin word or , were a Frankish people who lived in what was is now the Netherlands in the fourth century. They are only mentioned under this name in historical records relating to ...
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 , there was no overarching sta ...
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 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: * (Old Dutch) * (Middle Dutch) * (Modern Dutch, same word order) * (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 northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...
, Dutch is grouped within the
Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages, 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 spoke ...
, 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. According to modern evolutionary biology, all living beings could be descendants of a unique ancestor commonl ...
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 al ...
. All Germanic languages are subject to the
Grimm's law Grimm's law, also known as the First Germanic Consonant Shift or 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 first millennium BC, first d ...
and Verner's law sound shifts, which originated in the
Proto-Germanic language 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 bran ...
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. The Germanic languages are traditionally divided into three groups:
East East 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 fact that ea ...
(now extinct),
West West 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 Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance langu ...
, 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 ( 300 to 600 AD), also known as the Barbarian Invasions, 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 ...
. Dutch is part of the West Germanic group, which also includes English, Scots, Frisian,
Low German Low German is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language variety, language spoken mainly in Northern Germany and the northeastern Netherlands. The dialect of Plautdietsch is also spoken in the Russian Mennonite diaspora worldwide. "Low" ...
(Old Saxon) and
High German The High German languages (, i.e. ''High German dialects''), 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 Ben ...
. It is characterised by a number of
phonological Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often prefer ...
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 subgrouping of West Germanic languages that consists of Old Frisian, Old English, and Old Saxon, and their descendants. These languages share a number of commonalities, such as a single pl ...
(North Sea Germanic), Istvaeonic (Weser–Rhine Germanic) and
Irminonic Elbe Germanic, also called Irminonic or Erminonic, is a proposed subgrouping of West Germanic languages introduced by the German linguist Friedrich Maurer (1898–1984) in his book, ''Nordgermanen und Alemanen'', to describe the West Germanic d ...
(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 t ...
, found near the Dutch city of
Tiel Tiel () is a Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality and a town in the middle of the Netherlands. The town is enclosed by the Waal (river), Waal river and the Linge river to the South and the North, and the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal to the Eas ...
, 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 file:Frankish arms.JPG, Aristocratic Frankish burial items from the Merovingian dynasty The Franks ( or ; ; ) were originally a group of Germanic peoples who lived near the Rhine river, Rhine-river military border of Germania Inferior, which wa ...
emerged in the southern Netherlands (
Salian Franks The Salian Franks, or Salians, sometimes referred to using the Latin word or , were a Frankish people who lived in what was is now the Netherlands in the fourth century. They are only mentioned under this name in historical records relating to ...
) and central Germany (
Ripuarian Franks The Rhineland or Ripuarian Franks, also often referred to using the Latin plurals ''Ribuarii'', or ''Ripuarii'', were the Franks who established themselves in and around the formerly Roman city of Cologne, on the Rhine river in what is now Germa ...
), and later descended into
Gaul Gaul () was a region of Western Europe first clearly described by the Roman people, Romans, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and parts of Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, and Northern Italy. It covered an area of . Ac ...
. The name of their kingdom survives in that of France. Although they ruled the Gallo-Romans for nearly 300 years, their language, Frankish, 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 (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th
Romance language The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...
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 (linguistics)">Franconian dialects (i.e. West Germanic varieties that are assumed to have evolved from Frankish) spoken in the Low Countries during the
Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages (historiography), Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th to the 10th century. They marked the start o ...
, from around the 5th to the 12th century. Old Dutch is mostly recorded on fragmentary relics, and words have been reconstructed from Middle Dutch and Old Dutch loanwords in French.Webster's New World Dictionary: Old Dutch 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, or Salians, sometimes referred to using the Latin word or , were a Frankish people who lived in what was is now the Netherlands in the fourth century. They are only mentioned under this name in historical records relating to ...
who occupied what is now the southern
Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
, northern
Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
, part of northern France, and parts of the
Lower Rhine Lower Rhine (, ; kilometres 660 to 1,033 of the Rhine) is the section of the Rhine between Bonn in Germany and the North Sea at Hook of Holland in the Netherlands, including the '' Nederrijn'' () within the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta; alternat ...
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, 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 , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
(or Anglo-Saxon),
Old Frisian Old Frisian was a West Germanic language spoken between the late 13th century and the end of 16th century. It is the common ancestor of all the modern Frisian languages except for the North Frisian language#Insular North Frisian, Insular North ...
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 Eur ...
. 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, Quebec French, Breton, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Turkish, and Wolof. In such languages, voic ...
. 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 ; ), also called the was the ancient Frankish Civil law (legal system), civil law code compiled around AD 500 by Clovis I, Clovis, the first Frankish King. The name may refer to the Salii, or "Salian Franks", but this is deba ...
. In this Frankish document written around 510 the oldest Dutch sentence has been identified: ("I say to you, I free you, serf") used to free a serf. Another old fragment of Dutch is ("A fish was swimming in the water"). The oldest conserved larger Dutch text is the Utrecht baptismal vow (776–800) starting with (litt.: "Forsake you the devil? ... I forsake the devil"). If only for its poetic content, the most famous Old Dutch sentence is probably ("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 , ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a man who is a member of a religious order and lives in a monastery. A monk usually lives his life in prayer and contemplation. The concept is ancient and can be seen in many reli ...
in a convent in Rochester,
England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
. 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 , there was no overarching sta ...
. 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 developed. There was at that time no overarching
standard language A standard language (or standard variety, standard dialect, standardized dialect or simply standard) is any language variety that has undergone substantial codification in its grammar, lexicon, writing system, or other features and that stands ...
; 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 Muscogee language), and which ar ...
, whereby vowels in unstressed syllables are leveled to a schwa. 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 with the
County of Flanders The County of Flanders was one of the most powerful political entities in the medieval Low Countries, located on the North Sea coast of modern-day Belgium and north-eastern France. Unlike the neighbouring states of Duchy of Brabant, Brabant and ...
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 (and related East Flemish), spoken primarily in the
Duchy of Brabant The Duchy of Brabant, a Imperial State, state of the Holy Roman Empire, was established in 1183. It developed from the Landgraviate of Brabant of 1085–1183, and formed the heart of the historic Low Countries. The Duchy comprised part of the Bu ...
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, which had the
County of Holland The County of Holland was a Imperial State, state of the Holy Roman Empire from its inception until 1433. From 1433 onward it was part of the Burgundian Netherlands, from 1482 part of the Habsburg Netherlands and from 1581 onward the leading pro ...
as its heartland, where originally
Old Frisian Old Frisian was a West Germanic language spoken between the late 13th century and the end of 16th century. It is the common ancestor of all the modern Frisian languages except for the North Frisian language#Insular North Frisian, Insular North ...
was spoken. The people adopted Low Franconian 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 (; 1566/1568–1648) was an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands between disparate groups of rebels and the Spanish Empire, Spanish government. The Origins of the Eighty Years' War, causes of the w ...
took place in the Southern Netherlands during this period. *
Limburgish Limburgish ( or ; ; also Limburgian, Limburgic or Limburgan) refers to a group of South Low Franconian Variety (linguistics), varieties spoken in Belgium and the Netherlands, characterized by their distance to, and limited participation ...
, spoken by the people in the modern-day provinces of Dutch and Belgian Limburg, 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''; ) are Low Saxon dialects from the Low German language that are spoken in the northeastern Netherlands and are mostly, but not exclusively, written with local, unstandardised orthographies base ...
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 (; ; ; ) is a province of the Netherlands located in the eastern part of the country. The province's name comes from the perspective of the Episcopal principality of Utrecht, which held the territory until 1528. The capital city of ...
territories of the
episcopal principality of Utrecht The Bishopric of 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 was ruled by the b ...
and adjacent parts of
Guelders The Duchy of Guelders (; ; ) 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 present-day Germany. Though the present 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 Low Franconian areas to the west and Low Saxon areas to the east.


Modern Dutch (15th century–present)

A process of
standardisation Standardization (American English) or standardisation (British English) is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organiza ...
started in the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
, especially under the influence of the Burgundian Ducal Court in Dijon (
Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...
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 (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...
. The 1585 fall of Antwerp to the Spanish army led to a flight to the northern Netherlands, where the
Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, commonly referred to in historiography as the Dutch Republic, was a confederation that existed from 1579 until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. It was a predecessor state of the present-day Netherlands ...
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 provinces of the Netherlands, province on the western coast of the Netherland ...
. 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''; ) are Low Saxon dialects from the Low German language that are spoken in the northeastern Netherlands and are mostly, but not exclusively, written with local, unstandardised orthographies base ...
, 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 ...
(now Belgium and Luxembourg), developments were different. Under subsequent Spanish, Austrian 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 (, ) is an umbrella term which encompasses various political groups in the Belgium, Belgian region of Flanders and, less commonly, in French Flanders. Ideologically, it encompasses groups which have sought to promote Flemis ...
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 French language, 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 Dutch Language Union, 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 northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...
** Germanic *** West Germanic languages, West Germanic **** Low Franconian languages, Low Franconian ***** Dutch ****** Afrikaans, Dutch-based creole languages, Dutch-based creoles Dutch belongs to its own West Germanic languages, West Germanic sub-group, the Low Franconian languages, paired with its sister language Limburgish or East Low Franconian. Its closest relative is the mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible daughter language Afrikaans. Other West Germanic languages related to Dutch are German, English language, English and the un-standardised languages
Low German Low German is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language variety, language spoken mainly in Northern Germany and the northeastern Netherlands. The dialect of Plautdietsch is also spoken in the Russian Mennonite diaspora worldwide. "Low" ...
and Yiddish. Dutch stands out in combining some Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law, Ingvaeonic characteristics (occurring consistently in English and Frisian and reduced in intensity from west to east over the continental West Germanic 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 In historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift is a phonological development (sound change) that took place in the southern parts of the West Germanic languages, West Germanic dialect continuum. The ...
and had some changes of its own. 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 Phonology, Grammar, and Vocabulary.


Dialects

Dutch dialects 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 (or standard variety, standard dialect, standardized dialect or simply standard) is any language variety that has undergone substantial codification in its grammar, lexicon, writing system, or other features and that stands ...
. Although heavily under the influence of the standard language, some of them remain diverse and are found in the
Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
and in the
Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...
and Flemish regions of
Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
. The areas in which they are spoken often correspond with former medieval counties and duchies. The Netherlands (but not Belgium) distinguishes between a dialect and a ("regional language"). 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, which is considered a variety of the
Dutch Low Saxon Dutch Low Saxon ( or ''Nederlaands Nedersaksies''; ) are Low Saxon dialects from the Low German language that are spoken in the northeastern Netherlands and are mostly, but not exclusively, written with local, unstandardised orthographies base ...
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 (standard language, standardised) West Frisian language. It is spoken alongside Dutch in the province of Friesland. 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 four percent. Of the officially recognised 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 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 has very distinct "g", "e" and "r" sounds that greatly differ from its surrounding villages. The
Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...
dialect combines Brabantian with words adopted from Walloon language, Walloon and French language, 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 spoken in Groningen (province), Groningen as well as the closely related varieties in adjacent East Frisia (Germany). Kleverlandish is a dialect spoken in southern Gelderland, the northern tip of Limburg (Netherlands), Limburg, and northeast of North Brabant (Netherlands), but also in adjacent parts of North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany).
Limburgish Limburgish ( or ; ; also Limburgian, Limburgic or Limburgan) refers to a group of South Low Franconian Variety (linguistics), varieties spoken in Belgium and the Netherlands, characterized by their distance to, and limited participation ...
() is spoken in Limburg (Belgium) as well as in the remaining part of Limburg (Netherlands) and extends across the German border. West Flemish () is spoken in West Flanders, the western part of Zeelandic Flanders and also in French Flanders, where it virtually became extinct to make way for French.


Dialect groups

The '' West Flemish'' group of dialects, spoken in West Flanders and Zeeland, 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 (written as "g" in Dutch) shifts to a voiced glottal fricative (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 "" (hero) and "" (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 and is listed as a French minority language. However, only a very small and aging minority of the French-Flemish population still speaks and understands West Flemish. '' Hollandic'' is spoken in Holland and Utrecht, though the original forms of this dialect (which were heavily influenced by a West Frisian Stratum (linguistics)#Substratum, substratum and, from the 16th century on, by Brabantian dialects) are now relatively rare. The urban dialects of the Randstad, which are Hollandic dialects, do not diverge from standard Dutch very much, but there is a clear difference between the city dialects of Rotterdam, The Hague, Amsterdam and Utrecht. 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, where it partially displaced West Frisian language, West Frisian in the 16th century and is known as ("Urban Frisian"). Hollandic together with inter alia Kleverlandish and North Brabantian, but without Stadsfries, are the Central Dutch dialects. ''Brabantian language, Brabantian'' is named after the historical
Duchy of Brabant The Duchy of Brabant, a Imperial State, state of the Holy Roman Empire, was established in 1183. It developed from the Landgraviate of Brabant of 1085–1183, and formed the heart of the historic Low Countries. The Duchy comprised part of the Bu ...
, which corresponded mainly to the provinces of North Brabant and southern Gelderland, the Belgian provinces of Antwerp (province), Antwerp and Flemish Brabant, as well as Brussels (where its native speakers have become a minority) and the province of Walloon Brabant. Brabantian expands into small parts in the west of Limburg (Belgium), Limburg while its strong influence on the East Flemish of East Flanders and eastern Zeelandic Flanders weakens towards the west. In a small area in the northwest of North Brabant (Willemstad (North Brabant), Willemstad), Hollandic is spoken. Conventionally, the Kleverlandish 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 ( or ; ; also Limburgian, Limburgic or Limburgan) refers to a group of South Low Franconian Variety (linguistics), varieties spoken in Belgium and the Netherlands, characterized by their distance to, and limited participation ...
'', spoken in both Belgian Limburg and Limburg (Netherlands), 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 language, Ripuarian varieties like the Colognian dialect, 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 (or ) 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 (province), Groningen, Drenthe and Overijssel, as well as parts of the provinces of Gelderland, Flevoland, Friesland and Utrecht. 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 (regional language) according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. It is regarded as Dutch for a number of reasons. From the 14th to 15th century onward, its urban centers (Deventer, Zwolle, Kampen, Overijssel, Kampen, Zutphen and Doesburg) 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.


Limburgish

While a somewhat heterogeneous group of Low Franconian languages, Low Franconian dialects, Limburgish has received official status as a regional language in the
Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
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.


Daughter and sister languages

Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
, although to a significant degree mutually intelligible with Dutch, is usually not considered a dialect but instead a separate standard language, standardised language. It is spoken in South Africa and Namibia. As a daughter language of 17th-century Dutch dialects, Afrikaans evolved in parallel with modern Dutch, but was influenced by various Afrikaans#History, other languages in South Africa. ''West Frisian language, West Frisian'' (), along with Saterland Frisian language, Saterland Frisian and North Frisian language, North Frisian, evolved from the same branch of the West Germanic languages as
Old English Old English ( or , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
(i.e. Anglo-Frisian languages, Anglo-Frisian) 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 languages that are descended from a common ancestral language. Every language in a language family that descends from the same language as the others is a sister to them. A commonly given example is ...
of Dutch, like English and German.


Geographic distribution

Dutch is an official language of the Netherlands proper (not enshrined in the Constitution of the Netherlands, constitution but in administrative law), Belgium, Suriname, the Dutch Caribbean municipalities (St. Eustatius, Saba and Bonaire),
Aruba Aruba, officially the Country of Aruba, is a constituent island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in the southern Caribbean Sea north of the Venezuelan peninsula of Paraguaná Peninsula, Paraguaná and northwest of Curaçao. In 19 ...
,
Curaçao Curaçao, officially the Country of Curaçao, is a constituent island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located in the southern Caribbean Sea (specifically the Dutch Caribbean region), about north of Venezuela. Curaçao includ ...
and
Sint Maarten Sint Maarten () is a Countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands located in the Caribbean region of North America. With a population of 58,477 as of June 2023 on an area of , it encompasses ...
. Dutch is also an official language of several international organisations, such as the European Union, Union of South American Nations and the Caribbean Community. 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. Though Belgium as a whole is multilingual, three of the four Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium, language areas into which the country is divided (
Flanders Flanders ( or ; ) is the Dutch language, Dutch-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, la ...
, francophone Wallonia, and the German-speaking Community of Belgium, German-speaking Community) are largely monolingual, with
Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...
being bilingual. The Netherlands and Belgium produce the vast majority of music, films, books and other media written or spoken in Dutch. Dutch is a Pluricentric language, monocentric language, at least what concerns its written form, with all speakers using the same standardization, standard form (authorised by the
Dutch Language Union The Dutch Language Union ( , 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 Word list of th ...
) based on a Dutch orthography defined in the so-called "Green Booklet" authoritative dictionary and employing the Latin alphabet when writing; however, pronunciation varies between dialects. Indeed, in stark contrast to its written uniformity, Dutch lacks a unique Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige dialect 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 dominates in national broadcast media while in Flanders Brabantian dialect dominates in that capacity, making them in turn unofficial prestige dialects in their respective countries. Outside the Netherlands and Belgium, the dialect spoken in and around the German town of Kleve (Kleverlandish) is historically and genetically a Low Franconian variety. In North-Western France, the area around Calais was historically Dutch-speaking (West Flemish), of which an estimated 20,000 are daily speakers. The cities of Dunkirk, Gravelines and Bourbourg only became predominantly French-speaking by the end of the 19th century. In the countryside, until World War I, many elementary schools continued to teach in Dutch, and the Catholic Church continued to preach and teach the catechism in Dutch in many parishes. During the second half of the 19th century, Dutch was banned from all levels of education by both Prussia 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, Dutch is mainly taught in primary and secondary schools in areas adjacent to the Netherlands and
Flanders Flanders ( or ; ) is the Dutch language, Dutch-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, la ...
. In French Community of Belgium, French-speaking Belgium, over 300,000 pupils are enrolled in Dutch courses, followed by over 23,000 in the States of Germany, German states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia, and about 7,000 in the Regions of France, French region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais (of which 4,550 are in primary school). At an academic level, the largest number of faculties of can be found in Germany (30 universities), followed by France (20 universities) and the United Kingdom (5 universities).


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 (; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, declared independence on 17 Au ...
, 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 codes 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. 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 Language proficiency, 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 Indonesian language, Indonesian, but this does not mean that Dutch has completely disappeared in Indonesia: Indonesian Dutch, a regional variety of the Dutch, was still spoken by about 500,000 half-blood in Indonesia in 1985. 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 , "towel" in Indonesian is , or "bus stop" in Indonesian is . 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 ...
s of Dutch; for example, "hospital" is calqued on the Dutch (literally "sickhouse"), "zoo" on (literally "animal garden"), "constitution" from (literally "ground law"). These account for some of the Differences between Malay and Indonesian#Vocabulary differences, differences in vocabulary between Indonesian and Malay. Some languages of Indonesia, regional languages in Indonesia have some Dutch loanwords as well; for example, Sundanese language, Sundanese word or "frying pan" origin in Dutch is "". The Javanese language, Javanese word for "bike/bicycle" "" can be traced back to its origin in Dutch "". The Malacca state of Malaysia was also colonized by the Dutch in its longest period that Malacca was under foreign control. In the 19th century, the Dutch East Indies, East Indies trade started to dwindle, and with it the importance of Malacca as a trading post. The Dutch state officially ceded Malacca to the British in 1825. It took until 1957 for Malaya to gain its independence. Despite this, the Dutch language is rarely spoken in Malacca or Malaysia and only limited to foreign nationals able to speak the language.


Oceania

After the declaration of independence of Indonesia, Western New Guinea, the "wild east" of the
Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies (; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, declared independence on 17 Au ...
, remained a Dutch colony until 1962, known as Netherlands New Guinea. 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 Census in Australia, 2011 Australian census showed 37,248 people speaking Dutch at home. At the 2006 New Zealand census, 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 Dutch East Indies, East Indies, from the second half of the 19th century onwards, the Netherlands envisaged the expansion of Dutch in its colonies in the Caribbean, West Indies. Until 1863, when slavery was abolished in the West Indies, slaves were forbidden to speak Dutch, with the effect that local creoles such as Papiamento and Sranan Tongo 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 Surinam (Dutch colony), Colony of Surinam (now
Suriname Suriname, officially the Republic of Suriname, is a country in northern South America, also considered as part of the Caribbean and the West Indies. It is a developing country with a Human Development Index, high level of human development; i ...
) worked on Dutch plantations, this reinforced the use of Dutch as a means for direct communication. In
Suriname Suriname, officially the Republic of Suriname, is a country in northern South America, also considered as part of the Caribbean and the West Indies. It is a developing country with a Human Development Index, high level of human development; i ...
today, Dutch is the sole official language, and over 60 percent of the population speaks it as a First language, mother tongue. 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. Suriname gained its independence from the Netherlands in 1975 and has been an associate member of the
Dutch Language Union The Dutch Language Union ( , 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 Word list of th ...
since 2004. The lingua franca of Suriname, however, is Sranan Tongo, spoken natively by about a fifth of the population. Dutch is official on all 6
Dutch Caribbean The Dutch Caribbean (historically known as the Dutch West Indies) are the New World territories, colonies, and countries (former and current) of the Dutch Empire and the Kingdom of the Netherlands located in the Caribbean Sea, mainly the norther ...
islands (
Aruba Aruba, officially the Country of Aruba, is a constituent island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in the southern Caribbean Sea north of the Venezuelan peninsula of Paraguaná Peninsula, Paraguaná and northwest of Curaçao. In 19 ...
,
Bonaire Bonaire is a Caribbean island in the Leeward Antilles, and is a Caribbean Netherlands, special municipality (officially Public body (Netherlands), "public body") of the Netherlands. Its capital is the port of Kralendijk, on the west (Windward an ...
,
Curaçao Curaçao, officially the Country of Curaçao, is a constituent island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located in the southern Caribbean Sea (specifically the Dutch Caribbean region), about north of Venezuela. Curaçao includ ...
,
Sint Maarten Sint Maarten () is a Countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands located in the Caribbean region of North America. With a population of 58,477 as of June 2023 on an area of , it encompasses ...
,
Saba Saba may refer to: Places * Saba (island), an island of the Netherlands located in the Caribbean Sea * Sabá, a municipality in the department of Colón, Honduras * Șaba or Șaba-Târg, the Romanian name for Shabo, a village in Ukraine * Saba, ...
and Sint Eustatius), but is not commonly spoken on any of the islands. Dutch is spoken as a first language by only 7% to 8% of the population, although most people on the Dutch Caribbean islands can speak Dutch to varying degrees of fluency as the education system is in Dutch at some or all levels. Now-extinct Dutch-based creole languages were formerly spoken in the Virgin Islands and Guyana (Negerhollands, Berbice Creole Dutch, Berbice Dutch creole, Skepi Creole Dutch, Skepi Dutch creole). In the United States, a now extinct dialect of Dutch, Jersey Dutch, 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 once spoken in the Americas include Mohawk Dutch (in Albany, New York), Berbice Creole Dutch, Berbice (in Guyana), Skepi Creole Dutch, Skepi (in Essequibo (colony), Essequibo, Guyana) and Negerhollands (in the United States Virgin Islands). Pennsylvania Dutch is not a member of the set of Dutch dialects and is less misleadingly called Pennsylvania German language, Pennsylvania German. Martin Van Buren, the eighth President of the United States, 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 (state), New York along the Hudson River. Another famous American born in this region who spoke Dutch as a first language was Sojourner Truth. According to the 2000 United States Census, 2000 United States census, 150,396 people spoke Dutch at home, while according to the Canada 2006 Census, 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'') 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'' was published in the Cape Colony. European Dutch remained the literary language until the start of the 1920s, when under pressure of Afrikaner nationalism 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 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% and 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. becomes ("bird") and becomes ("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 and 42.4% White South Africans, Whites. 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 in Namibia, where it is spoken natively in 11 percent of households. In total, Afrikaans is the first language in South Africa alone of about 7.1 million people and is estimated to be a second language 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, was too ephemeral not to be wiped out by prevailing colonising European successors. Likewise, the Belgian colonial presence in the Belgian Congo, Congo and Ruanda-Urundi (Rwanda and Burundi held under a League of Nations 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.


Consonants

Unlike other Germanic languages, Dutch has no phonological Aspirated consonants, aspiration of consonants. Like most other Germanic languages, the Dutch consonant system did not undergo the
High German consonant shift In historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift is a phonological development (sound change) that took place in the southern parts of the West Germanic languages, West Germanic dialect continuum. The ...
and has a syllable structure that allows fairly-complex consonant clusters. Dutch also retains full use of the velar consonant, velar fricatives of
Proto-Germanic 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 ...
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, Quebec French, Breton, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Turkish, and Wolof. In such languages, voic ...
. 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, Quebec French, Breton, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Turkish, and Wolof. In such languages, voic ...
with German (the Dutch noun is pronounced , the adjective is pronounced , like the German noun , pronounced , adjective , pronounced vs English ''gold'' and ''golden'', both pronounced with .) Voicing of pre-vocalic initial voiceless alveolar fricatives occurs in standard Dutch like in German (Dutch , German with versus English ''seven'', Low Saxon 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 realisation of phoneme varies considerably from dialect to dialect and even between speakers in the same dialect area. Common realisations are an alveolar trill , alveolar tap , uvular trill , voiced uvular fricative , and alveolar approximant . * The realisation of also varies somewhat by area and speaker. The main realisation is a labiodental approximant , but some speakers, particularly in the south, use a Voiced bilabial fricative, bilabial approximant or a Voiced labio-velar approximant, labiovelar approximant . * The lateral is slightly velarised 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 as a morphological marker and shares with most other Germanic languages the lengthening of short vowels in stress (linguistics), stressed open syllables, which has led to contrastive vowel length being used as a morphological marker. Dutch has an extensive vowel inventory. Vowels can be grouped as back rounded, front unrounded and front rounded. They are also traditionally distinguished by length or tenseness. Vowel length is not always considered a distinctive feature in Dutch phonology because it normally occurs with changes in vowel formant, quality. One feature or the other may be considered redundant, and some phonemic analyses prefer to treat it as an opposition of tenseness. 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 ("suns") versus ("zone") versus ("sons"), or ("mug") versus ("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 consonant, dental into ''ol'' + dental, followed by vocalisation of pre-consonantal /l/ and after a short vowel. That created the diphthong : Dutch , and corresponds with Low German , , ; German , , 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 of Dutch is (C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C). Many words, as in English, begin with three consonants: (street). There are words that end in four consonants: (autumn), (worst), (most interesting), (strongest), the last three of which are superlative adjectives. The highest number of consonants in a single cluster is found in the word (writing worst), with seven consonant phonemes. (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 (province), Utrecht, North Holland, North and South Holland, 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 , , and respectively, making the change an example of a chain shift. 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 and the diphthongisation of long high vowels in Modern German language, High German, which had centuries earlier reached the state now found in Polder Dutch. Stroop theorises 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. Among Languages of Belgium, Belgian and Surinamese people, 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 grammar, German, such as in syntax 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 and Germanic strong verb). Grammatical cases have largely become limited to pronouns and many set phrases. Inflected forms of the articles are often grace surnames and toponyms. Standard Dutch uses three Gender in Dutch grammar, genders across natural and grammatical genders but for most non-Belgian speakers, masculine and feminine have merged to form the common gender (with for "the"). The neuter (which uses ) remains distinct. This is similar to those of most North Germanic languages#Classification, 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: Germanic weak verb, weak verbs, Germanic strong verb, strong verbs, irregular verbs 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 * Weak verbs with past in 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 "" (to experience) used to be strictly a class 6 strong verb, having the past tense "" and participle "", but the weak form "" for both past tense and participle is currently also in use. Some other verbs that were originally strong such as "" (to guess) and "" (to bump), have past tense forms "" and "" that are at present far less common than their weakened forms; "" and "". 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 have largely fallen out of use, and the system has generalised the dative over the accusative case (linguistics), case for certain pronouns (NL: , ; EN: ''me'', ''you''; LI: , vs. DE: , ). While standard Dutch has three
grammatical genders In linguistics, a grammatical gender system is a specific form of a noun class system, where nouns are assigned to gender categories that are often not related to the real-world qualities of the entities denoted by those nouns. In languages wit ...
, 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 definite article has just two forms, and , more complex than English, which has only ''the''. The use of the older inflected form in the dative and accusative, as well as use of in the dative, is restricted to numerous set phrases, surnames and toponyms. But some dialects still use both, particularly "" is often used instead of "" (her). In modern Dutch, the genitive articles and in the bottom line are commonly used in idioms. 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 , the middle line, is instead used, followed by the normal article or , 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: "" (''lit'': "of the devil") (common proverbial meaning: Seething with rage) * Feminine singular: "" ("the dictionary of the Frisian language") * Neuter singular: "" ("the lady of the house") * Plural: de voortgang "" ("the progress of (public) works") In contemporary usage, the genitive case still occurs a little more often with plurals than with singulars, as the plural article is for all genders and no special noun inflection must be taken account of. is commonly used in order to avoid reduplication of , e.g. instead of ("the bulk of the author's poems"). There is also a genitive form for the pronoun ("that [one], those [ones]"), namely for masculine and neuter singulars (occurrences of 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: * – He spoke about his son and his (own) wife. * – He spoke about his son and the latter's wife. Analogically, the relative and interrogative pronoun ("who") has the genitive forms and (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 "" (with as abbreviation of ; "in the morning") and (lit: "of the need", translated: "if necessary"). The Dutch written grammar has simplified over the past 100 years: grammatical case, cases are now mainly used for the pronouns, such as (I), (me), (my), (who), (whose: masculine or neuter singular), (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 'a/an'), and in all other cases. (This was also the case in Middle English, as in "a goode man".) belongs to the masculine/feminine category, while and are neuter. An adjective has no e if it is in the Predicative (adjectival or nominal), predicative: More complex inflection is still found in certain lexicalised expressions like (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. ) and other inflections no longer in general use today. In such lexicalised expressions remnants of strong and weak nouns can be found too, e.g. (Anno Domini), where is actually the genitive ending of the weak noun. Similarly in some place names: , etc. (with weak genitives of "count", "duke"). Also in this case, German German grammar#Irregular declensions, retains this feature.


Word order

Dutch shares much of its word order with German. Dutch exhibits subject–object–verb word order, but in main clauses the Dutch conjugation, conjugated verb is moved into the second position in what is known as verb second or V2 word order. 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 , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
. An example sentence used in some Dutch language courses and textbooks 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: "" Verb infinitives are placed in final position, but the finite, conjugated verb, in this case "" (can), is made the second element of the clause. In subordinate clauses: "", the verb or verbs always go in the final position. In an interrogative main clause the usual word order is: conjugated verb followed by subject; other verbs in final position: *"" (literally "''Can you your pen not find?''") "''Can't you find your pen?''" In the Dutch equivalent of a wh-question the word order is: interrogative pronoun (or expression) + conjugated verb + subject; other verbs in final position: *"" ("''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: *"" ("''You can your pen not find?''") "''You can't find your pen?''" A subordinate clause does not change its word order: *"" ("''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 affix, suffixes to the noun in question, depending on the latter's phonological ending: * for ending in -b, -c, -d, -t, -f, -g, -ch, -k, -p, -v, -x, -z or -s: → (''male cousin'', ''nephew'') * for ending in -m: (''tree'') → * for ending in -ing if the preceding syllable carries the stress: () → (the 'ng'-sound transforms into 'nk'); but → (''ring''), and → (''foundling'') without this stress pattern * for ending in -h, -j, -l, -n, -r, -w, or a vowel other than -y: → (''kiss''). A single open vowel is doubled when adding "" would change the pronunciation: → (''car''). * for ending in -y and for abbreviations: → , → , → * for ending in -b, -l, -n, -ng or -r preceded by a "short" (lax) vowel: → (''ball''). Final consonant is doubled (except for -ng) to preserve the vowel's shortness. The diminutive suffixes (from which has derived by palatalization (sound change), palatalisation), , , (only for words ending -ch, -k, -p, or -s), (instead of ), and (instead of ) 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 , from = ''ease''). The noun (''young boy'') has, exceptionally, only the diminutive form , 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 numeral (linguistics), numerals (, "the two of us"), pronouns (, "tête-à-tête"), verb, verbal particles (, "shotgun marriage"), and even prepositions (, "dessert"). Adjectives and adverbs 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 appended, e.g. adjective: ("green") → noun: ("rookie"); adverb: ("a while") → adverb: ("a little while"). Some nouns have two different diminutives, each with a different meaning: (''flower'') → (), but (lit. also "small flower", meaning ''flower bouquet, bouquet''). A few nouns exist solely in a diminutive form, e.g. (''seahorse''), while many, e.g. (''girl''), originally a diminutive of (''maid''), have acquired a meaning :nl:wikt:Categorie:Zelfstandig verkleinwoord, independent of their non-diminutive forms. A diminutive can sometimes be added to an uncountable noun to refer to a single portion: (''ice'', ''ice cream'') → (''ice cream treat'', ''cone of ice cream''), (''beer'') → . Some diminutive forms only exist in the plural, e.g. (''clothing''). When used to refer to time, the Dutch diminutive form can indicate whether the person in question found it pleasant or not: tje (''chatting for a "little" hour.'') The diminutive can, however, also be used pejoratively: . (''He acted as if he was the "little" man.'') All diminutives (even lexicalised ones like "" ''(girl)'') have neuter gender and take neuter concords: " ", not " ".


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 and 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 form, but are used to emphasise 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 '', '', EN 'me', 'you', vs. DE ''/'' ''/''. There is one exception: the standard language prescribes that in the third person plural, is to be used for the direct object, and 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 and are interchangeable in normal usage, with being more common. The shared unstressed form 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 also shares with English the presence of h- pronouns, e.g. NL , , , , and EN ''he'', ''him'', ''her'' vs. DE , , , .


Compounds

Like most Germanic languages, Dutch forms noun compound (linguistics), compounds, where the first noun modifies the category given by the second ( = 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 ( = tree house) or inserts a hyphen ( = 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 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 (health insurance company) though the shorter (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 (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 has been French and (northern) Langues d'oïl, Oïl languages, accounting for an estimated 6.8% of all words, or more than a third of all loanwords. Latin, 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 unrecognisable 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 Calque, calques (''skyscraper'' became Dutch ) or Neologism, neologisms (''bucket list'' became ). Conversely, Dutch contributed many loanwords to English, accounting for 1.3% of its lexicon. The main Dutch dictionary is the ''Van Dale, Van Dale groot woordenboek der Nederlandse taal'', which contains some 268,826 headwords. In the field of linguistics, the 45,000-page 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 (historiography), Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th to the 10th century. They marked the start o ...
onward.


Spelling and writing system

Dutch is written using the Latin script. Dutch uses one additional character beyond the standard alphabet, the digraph (orthography), digraph . 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 (food storage container). The Diaeresis (diacritic), diaeresis (Dutch: ) is used to mark vowels that are pronounced separately when involving a pre- or suffix, and a hyphen is used when the problem occurs in compound words, e.g. (influenced), (the seas) but (scoter; lit. sea duck). Generally, other diacritic, diacritical marks occur only in loanwords. However, the acute accent can also be used for emphasis or to differentiate between two forms, and its most common use is to differentiate between the indefinite article (grammar), article "a, an" and the numeral "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. 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. 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. The , more commonly known as (i.e. "the green booklet", because of its colour), is the authoritative orthographic word list (without definitions) of the Dutch Language Union; a version with definitions can be had as ; both are published by Sdu (publishing company), Sdu.


Example text

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 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 * Dutch Braille * Dutch grammar *
Dutch Language Union The Dutch Language Union ( , 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 Word list of th ...
* Dutch literature * Dutch name * Dutch orthography * Dutch-based creole languages * Flemish * French Flemish * Grand Dictation of the Dutch Language *
Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...
* Istvaeones * List of English words of Dutch origin * List of countries and territories where Afrikaans or Dutch are official languages * Low Franconian * Meuse-Rhenish *
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 , there was no overarching sta ...
* Old Frankish * Surinamese Dutch


Notes


Citations


General references

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Friedrich Maurer (linguist), 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
K-Dutch CLARIN Knowledge Centre for Dutch
hosted by the Instituut voor de Nederlandse Taal (Dutch Language Institute) {{Authority control 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