Dutch language

Dutch (Nederlands) is a West Germanic language spoken by over 22 million people as a native language, and over 5 million people as a second language. Most native speakers live in the Netherlands, Belgium (where it is informally called Flemish), and Suriname, with smaller groups of speakers in France, Germany, and former Dutch colonies. It is closely related to other West Germanic languages and more remotely to the North Germanic languages.

Dutch is an official language of the Netherlands, Belgium, Suriname, Aruba, and the Netherlands Antilles. Dutch is also an official language of several international organisations, such as the European Union and the Union of South American Nations. It is used unofficially in the Caribbean Community.

Dutch is the parent language of several creole languages and also of Afrikaans. Dutch and Afrikaans are to a very large extent mutually intelligible, though they have different spelling standards and dictionaries.

Dutch is a descendant of several Frankish dialects spoken in the High Middle Ages and Early Modern Times, and to a lesser extent of Frisian spoken by the original inhabitants of Netherlands. It did not undergo the High German consonant shift (apart from the transition from /θ/ to /d/), and is a Low Franconian language.

Dutch dialects can be classified into six main groups: the south-eastern dialects (Belgian and Dutch Limburg and some villages in north Brabant), the north-eastern dialects (Groningen, Drente, some northern border regions by Friesland, Overijssel and eastern Gelderland), rhe south-western dialects (West Flanders, French-Flanders, Zeeland and the islands of Goeree and Overflakkee in the province of South Holland), the south central dialects (Brabant, Antwerp, East Flanders, North Brabant and southern Gelderland), the north-western dialects (North Holland above the IJsselmeer, the non-Frisian Wadden islands, the coastal stretch of Holland province and the South Holland islands apart from Goeree and Overflakkee), and the north central dialects (the larger part of Utrecht and the provinces of North and South Holland between the IJsselmeer to the north and the Meuse and Lek to the south).

Dutch is divided into three development phases: Old Dutch (450(500)–1150), Middle Dutch (1150–1500), and Modern Dutch (1500–present). The transition between these languages was gradual and one of the few moments linguists can detect of a revolution is when the standard Dutch language emerged and quickly established itself. Standard Dutch is very similar to most Dutch dialects.

The Dutch vocabulary is one of the richest in the world and comprises at least 268,826 headwords. However, Dutch vocabulary is predominantly Germanic in origin. Like English, Dutch includes words of Greek and Latin origin. Most loanwords from French have entered into Dutch vocabulary via the Netherlands. There is also a steady increase of English loanwords thanks to mass media and the Internet.

Dutch is written using the Latin alphabet. Arguably the Dutch have one additional character beyond the standard alphabet, the digraph IJ. It has a relatively high proportion of doubled letters, both vowels and consonants. The diaeresis (trema) is used to mark vowels that are pronounced separately. In the most recent spelling reform, a hyphen has replaced the diaeresis in compound words (if the vowels originate from separate words).

The acute accent occurs mainly on loanwords like café, but can also be used for emphasis or to differentiate between two forms. The grave accent is used in loanwords and to clarify pronunciation. In the recent spelling reform, the grave accent was dropped as stress sign on short vowels in favour of the acute accent. Other diacritical marks such as the circumflex only occur on a few words, most of them loanwords from French.

Dutch is grammatically similar to German. It has grammatical cases, but they are now mostly limited to pronouns and set phrases. Dutch has three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter, though masculine and feminine have merged to form the common gender.

The Dutch written grammar has simplified over the past 100 years: cases are now mainly used for the pronouns. Nouns and adjectives are not case inflected (except for the genitive of proper nouns). In the spoken language cases and case inflections had already gradually disappeared much earlier (probably the 15th century) as in all continental West Germanic dialects.

Because Dutch resembles German syntax and vocabulary, English speakers who study German extensively can often understand written Dutch fairly well.

Information: Wikipedia & Dutch Studies, University of Vienna