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Dutch Language
Dutch ( ) is a West Germanic languages, 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 List of languages by total number of speakers, third most spoken Germanic language. In Europe, Dutch is the native language of most of the population of the Netherlands and Flanders (which includes 60% of the population of Belgium). "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 until 1925, when it was replaced by Afrikaans, a separate but partially Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible daughter language of Dutch. Afrikaans, depending on the definition used, may be considered a sister language, spoken, to some degree, by at least 16 million people, mainly in South Africa and Namibia, and evolving from Cape Dutch dialects. In South America, Dutch is the native l ...
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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 Netherlands. The Netherlands consists of Provinces of the Netherlands, twelve provinces; it borders Germany to the east and Belgium to the south, with a North Sea coastline to the north and west. It shares Maritime boundary, maritime borders with the United Kingdom, Germany, and Belgium. The official language is Dutch language, Dutch, with West Frisian language, West Frisian as a secondary official language in the province of Friesland. Dutch, English_language, English, and Papiamento are official in the Caribbean Netherlands, Caribbean territories. The people who are from the Netherlands is often referred to as Dutch people, Dutch Ethnicity, Ethnicity group, not to be confused by the language. ''Netherlands'' literally means "lower countries" i ...
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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 spoken Germanic language, English language, English, is also the world's most List of languages by total number of speakers, widely spoken language with an estimated 2 billion speakers. All Germanic languages are derived from Proto-Germanic language, Proto-Germanic, spoken in Iron Age Scandinavia, History of Germany#Iron Age, Iron Age Northern Germany and along the North Sea and Baltic coasts. The West Germanic languages include the three most widely spoken Germanic languages: English language, English with around 360–400 million native speakers; German language, German, with over 100 million native speakers; and Dutch language, Dutch, with 24 million native speakers. Other West Germanic languages include Afrikaans, an offshoot of Dutch origi ...
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Dutch Alphabet
Dutch orthography uses the Latin alphabet. The spelling system is issued by government decree and is compulsory for all government documentation and educational establishments. Legal basis In the Netherlands, the official spelling is regulated by the Spelling Act of 15 September 2005. This came into force on 22 February 2006, replacing the Act on the Spelling of the Dutch Language of 14 February 1947. 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 of 2005–2006 contains the annexed spelling rules decided by the Committee of ...
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Latin Script
The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Greek alphabet was altered by the Etruscan civilization, Etruscans, and subsequently their alphabet was altered by the Ancient Romans. Several Latin-script alphabets exist, which differ in graphemes, collation and phonetic values from the classical Latin alphabet. The Latin script is the basis of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), and the 26 most widespread letters are the letters contained in the ISO basic Latin alphabet, which are the same letters as the English alphabet. Latin script is the basis for the largest number of alphabets of any writing system and is the List of writing systems by adoption, most widely adopted writing system in the world. Latin script is used as the standard method of writing the languages of Western and ...
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Modern Dutch
Modern Dutch ( ) is the term for variety of Dutch spoken and written since around the 1500s, this is to distinguish it from the previous phases of the languages, Middle Dutch and Old Dutch. The term Early Modern Dutch has been applied to the Dutch spoken in the 16th and 17th centuries. Lexicography The vocabulary of Modern Dutch up to 1920 is best documented in the book on the shelf '' Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal''. In short, WNT is a project that began in the 19th century and was only completed in the early 21st century. This dictionary is the largest dictionary in the world. Besides lemmas (word entries) it also contains the sources (first use) of words. 16th century Modern Dutch differs from Middle Dutch in its gradual standardization, grammatical simplification, and different sound developments. In the 16th century, economic and political power shifted forever from the first and second estates to the third estate, the bourgeoisie. This shift and some other socio-po ...
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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 standard language, but all dialects were mutually intelligible. During that period, a rich Medieval Dutch literature developed, which had not yet existed during Old Dutch. The various literary works of the time are often very readable for speakers of Modern Dutch since Dutch is a rather conservative language. Phonology Differences with Old Dutch Several phonological changes occurred leading up to the Middle Dutch period. * Earlier Old Dutch , , merge into already in Old Dutch. * Voiceless fricatives become voiced syllable-initially: > , > (merging with from Proto-Germanic ), > . (10th or 11th century) * > * > or . The outcome is dialect-specific, with found in more western dialects and further east. This results in later pairs ...
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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 eeuw dateren de oudst bekende geschreven woorden en tekstjes in de Lage Landen, waarmee de periode van het oud-Nederlands begint.''" rom the 6th century date the oldest known text from the Low Countries, with which the period of Old Dutch begins./ref> 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. 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 who occupied what is now the southern Netherlands, northern Belgium, part of northern France, and parts of the Lower Rhine regions of Germany. It evolved into Middle Dutch around the 12th ce ...
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Frankish Language
Frankish (language reconstruction, reconstructed endonym: *), also known as Old Franconian or Old Frankish, was the West Germanic language spoken by the Franks from the 5th to 10th centuries. Franks under king Chlodio settled in Roman Gaul in the 5th century. One of his successors, named Clovis I, took over the Roman province of Gallia Lugdunensis (in modern day France). Outnumbered by the local populace, the ruling Franks there adapted to its language which was a Vulgar Latin, Proto-Romance dialect. However, many modern French language, French words and place names are still of Frankish origin. Between the 5th and 10th centuries, Frankish spoken in Northeastern France, present-day Belgium, and the Netherlands is subsequently referred to as Old Dutch, whereas the Frankish varieties spoken in the Rhineland were heavily influenced by Elbe Germanic, Elbe Germanic dialects and the Second Germanic consonant shift and formed part of the modern Central Franconian and Rhine Franco ...
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West Frisian Dutch
The West Frisian dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ... () is a Dutch dialect spoken in the contemporary West Friesland region, Wieringen, Wieringermeer, the coastal area from Den Helder to Castricum, and the island of Texel. It is a Hollandic Dutch dialect but is influenced by West Frisian (Dutch: ''Westerlauwers Fries'', a language of Friesland Province distinct from Dutch), which is related. The dialect in itself is not a fixed one, as there is a diverse number of subdialects (sometimes referred to as the West Frisian dialect group) that consists of some widely spoken regional dialects, namely Wierings in Wieringen, Tessels or Texels in Texel and the dialect of Vlieland known as Vlielands, which has fallen into disuse. The smaller regi ...
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Stadsfries Dialects
Stadsfries or Town Frisian (Dutch: , ; , ) is a set of dialects spoken in certain cities in the province of Friesland in the northern Netherlands, namely Leeuwarden, Sneek, Bolsward, Franeker, Dokkum, Harlingen, Stavoren, and to some extent in Heerenveen. For linguistic reasons, the outlying and insular dialects of Midsland (Terschelling), Ameland, Het Bildt, and Kollum are also sometimes tied to Stadsfries. The vocabulary of Stadsfries is derived primarily from Dutch. The dialects began in the late 15th century, when Frisia lost its political independence to the Netherlands. For many living in Frisia, learning Dutch became a necessity. The result was a mixture of Hollandic dialect vocabulary and West Frisian grammar and other language principles. Since this process began, the West Frisian language itself has evolved, such that Stadsfries is further away from modern Frisian than it is from Old Frisian. Norval Smith states that Stadsfries is a Frisian–Dutch mi ...
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Flemish Dialects
Flemish ( ) is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to the region known as Flanders in northern Belgium; it is spoken by Flemings, the dominant ethnic group of the region. Outside of Belgium Flanders, it is also spoken to some extent in French Flanders and the Dutch Zeelandic Flanders. Terminology The term ''Flemish'' itself has become ambiguous. Nowadays, it is used in at least five ways, depending on the context. These include: # An indication of Dutch written and spoken in Flanders including the Dutch standard language as well as the non-standardized dialects, including intermediate forms between vernacular dialects and the standard. Some linguists avoid the term ''Flemish'' in this context and prefer the designation ''Belgian-Dutch'' or ''South-Dutch'' # A synonym for the so-called intermediate language in Flanders region, the # An indica ...
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Central Dutch Dialects
Central Dutch dialects are a group of dialects of the Dutch language from the Netherlands.Wilbert (Jan) Heeringa, ''Chapter 9: Measuring Dutch dialect distances'', of the doctor's thesis: ''Measuring Dialect Pronunciation Differences using Levenshtein Distance'', 2004thesischapter 9 (PDF)
They are spoken in , Utrecht Province, south-western , North Brabant and few parts of
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