Dutch (
Nederlands (help·info)) is a
West Germanic language spoken by over 22 million people as a
native language,
[1][2] and over 5 million people as a
second language.
[3] Most native speakers live in the
Netherlands,
Belgium, and
Suriname, with smaller groups of speakers in parts of
France,
Germany and several former
Dutch colonies. It is closely related to other
West Germanic languages (e.g.,
English,
West Frisian and
German) and somewhat more remotely to the
North Germanic languages.
Dutch is the parent language of several creole languages as well as of Afrikaans, one of the official languages of South Africa and the most widely understood in Namibia. Dutch and Afrikaans are to a very large extent mutually intelligible, although they have separate spelling standards and dictionaries and have separate language regulators. The Dutch Language Union coordinates actions of the Dutch, Flemish and Surinamese authorities in linguistic issues, language policy, language teaching and literature.[7]
In English the language of the people of the Netherlands and Flanders is referred to as Dutch; or rarely as Netherlandic.[8]&_160;; Flemish is a popular informal term to refer to Belgian Dutch, Dutch as spoken in Belgium.
The origins of the word Dutch go back to Proto-Germanic, the ancestor of all Germanic languages, *þeudiskaz (meaning "national/popular"); akin to Old Dutch diets, Old High German duitsch, Old English þeodisc and Gothic þiuda all meaning "(of) the common (Germanic) people". As the tribes among the Germanic peoples began to differentiate its meaning began to change. The Anglo-Saxons of England for example gradually stopped referring to themselves as þeodisc and instead started to use Englisc, after their tribe. On the continent *theudo evolved into two meanings Diets (meaning "Dutch (people)" <archaic>[9]) and Deutsch (German, meaning "German (people)"). At first the English language used (the contemporary form of) Dutch to refer to any or all of the Germanic speakers on the European mainland (e.g. the Dutch, the Flemings and the Germans). For example, in Gulliver's Travels, German is called "High Dutch", whereas what we call Dutch today is called "Low Dutch". Gradually its meaning shifted to the Germanic people they had most contact with, both because their geographical proximity, but also because of the rivalry in trade and overseas territories the people from the Dutch Republic, the Dutch.[10]
