{{Infobox Language
|name=Dutch
|nativename=Nederlands
|pronunciation=ˈneːdərlɑnts
|states=Netherlands, Belgium (Flanders, Brussels Capital Region and Walloon muncipalities with facilities), Suriname, Aruba, Netherlands Antilles. In France (French Flanders) and Germany (Low Rhine Country) as minority language and as colonial language in South Africa and Indonesia. Dutch is an immigrant language in Australia, Brazil, Canada, and New Zealand and U.S.A. Dutch is also an unofficial language in Sweden.
|speakers = 30 million : 23 million Dutch speakers, and 7 million Afrikaans speakers (2006) ''Hoeveel mensen spreken Nederlands als moedertaal?'' (How many people speak Dutch as mother tongue?), Nederlandse Taalunie, 2005.
|rank=37
|familycolor=Indo-European
|fam2=Germanic
|fam3=West Germanic
|fam4=Low Franconian
|script=Latin alphabet (Dutch variant)
|nation=

|agency=Nederlandse Taalunie
(Dutch Language Union)
|iso1=nl|iso2b=dut|iso2t=nld|iso3=nld|map=
Dutch-speaking world
}}
Dutch () is a West Germanic language spoken by around 23 million people, mainly in the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname, but also by smaller groups of speakers in parts of France, Germany and several former Dutch colonies. It is closely related to other West Germanic languages (ie. English, Frisian and German) and somewhat more remote to the North Germanic languages. Dutch is a descendant of Old Frankish and is the parent language of Afrikaans, one of the official languages of South Africa and the most widely understood in Namibia. Dutch and Afrikaans are to a large extent mutually intelligible, although they have separate spelling standards and dictionaries and have separate language regulators. Standard Dutch (''Standaard Nederlands'') is the standard language of the major Dutch speaking-areas and is regulated by the Nederlandse Taalunie ("Dutch Language Union").

Dutch grammar also shares many traits with German, but has a less complicated morphology caused by deflexion, which puts it closer to English. Dutch has officially three genders, masculine, feminine, and neuter, however, according to some interpretations these are reduced to only two, common and neuter, which is similar to the gender systems of most Continental Scandinavian languages.

The consonant system of Dutch did not undergo the High German consonant shift and has more in common with English and the Scandinavian languages. Like most Germanic languages it has a syllable structure that allows fairly complex consonant clusters. Dutch is often noted for the prominent use of velar fricatives (ch and g, pronounced at the back of the mouth), often picked up on as a source of amusement or even satire.

Dutch vocabulary is predominantly Germanic in origin, considerably more so than English. This is to a large part due to the heavy influence of Norman French on English, and to Dutch patterns of word formation, such as the tendency to form long and sometimes very complicated compound nouns, being more similar to those of German and the Scandinavian languages.

One of the major dialect groups of Dutch, Flemish, is spoken in the northwestern part of Belgium. The whole of Dutch variants spoken in Belgium is also often called "Flemish" or Southern vernacular, although it is no separate language. Officially, both Belgium and the Netherlands adhere to Standard Dutch. The difference between Belgian and Netherlandic Dutch is roughly comparable to the difference between American and British English, though only pronunciation-wise as both countries use the same written standard. However, most Flemings, if asked what their mother-tongue is, will answer Dutch and use the word Flemish to refer to their dialect.

History

The history of the Dutch language begins around AD 450–500, after Old Frankish, one of the many West Germanic tribal languages, was split by the Second Germanic consonant shift while at more or less the same time the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law led to the development of the direct ancestors of modern Dutch Low Saxon, Frisian and English.

The northern dialects of Old Frankish generally did not participate in either of these two shifts, except for a small amount of phonetic changes, and are hence known now as Old Low Franconian; the "Low" refers to dialects not influenced by the consonant shift. The most south-eastern dialects of the Franconian languages became part of High, though not Upper, German even though a dialect continuum remained. The fact that Dutch did not undergo the sound changes may be the reason why some people say that Dutch is like a bridge between English and German. Within Old Low Franconian there were two subgroups: Old East Low Franconian and Old West Low Franconian, which is better known as Old Dutch. East Low Franconian was eventually absorbed by Dutch as it became the dominant form of Low Franconian, although it remains a noticeable substrate within the southern Limburgish dialects of Dutch. Because the two groups were so similar it is often very hard to determine whether a text is Old Dutch or Old East Low Franconian, hence most linguists will generally use Old Dutch synonymously with Old Low Franconian and most of the time do not differentiate.

Dutch, coincidentally like other Germanic languages, is conventionally divided into three phases. In the development of Dutch these phases were:

450/500–1150 Old Dutch (''First attested in the Salic Law'')

1150–1500 Middle Dutch (''Also called "Diets" in popular use, though not by linguists'')

1500–present Modern Dutch (''Saw the creation of the Dutch standard language and includes contemporary Dutch'')

The transition between these languages was very gradual and one of the few moments linguists can detect somewhat of a revolution is when the Dutch standard language emerged and quickly established itself. It should be noted that Standard Dutch is very similar to most Dutch dialects.

The development of the Dutch language is illustrated by the following sentence in Old, Middle and Modern Dutch.

:"''Irlôsin sol an frithe sêla mîna fan thên thia ginâcont mi, wanda under managon he was mit mi''" (''Old Dutch'')

:"''Erlossen sal hi in vrede siele mine van dien die genaken mi, want onder menegen hi was met mi''" (''Middle Dutch'')

(Using same word order)
:"''Verlossen zal hij in vrede ziel mijn van degenen die te na komen mij, want onder velen hij was met mij''" (''Modern Dutch'')
(Using correct contemporary Dutch word order)
:"''Hij zal mijn ziel in vrede verlossen van degenen die mij te na komen, want onder velen was hij met mij''" (''Modern Dutch'') (see Psalm 55:19 )

:"''He will deliver my soul in peace from those who attack me, because, amongst many, he was with me''" (''English translation'') (see Psalm 55:18 )

A process of standardization started in the Middle ages, especially under the influence of the Burgundian Ducal Court in Dijon (Brussels after 1477). The dialects of Flanders and Brabant were the most influential around this time. The process of standardization became much stronger at the start of the 16th century, mainly based on the urban dialect of Antwerp. In 1585 Antwerp fell to the Spanish army: many fled to the Northern Netherlands, especially the province of Holland, where they influenced the urban dialects of that province. In 1637, a further important step was made towards a unified language, when the first major Dutch Bible translation was created that people from all over the United Provinces could understand. It used elements from various, even Dutch Low Saxon, dialects but was predominantly based on the urban dialects of Holland.

Classification

Dutch is a Germanic language, and within this family it is a West Germanic language. Dutch did not experience the High German consonant shift (apart from the transition from /θ/ to /d/), and is a Low Franconian language. There was at one time a dialect continuum that blurred the boundary between Dutch and Low Saxon. In some small areas, there are still dialect continuums, but they are gradually becoming extinct.

Dutch is grammatically similar to German, such as in syntax and verb morphology (for a comparison of verb morphology in English, Dutch and German, see Germanic weak verb and Germanic strong verb).

Dutch has grammatical cases, but these are now mostly limited to pronouns and set phrases. Dutch has three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter although masculine and feminine have merged to form the common gender (de), whilst the neuter (het) remains distinct as before. The inflectional grammar of Dutch, for instance in adjective and noun endings, has been simplified over time.

For many English speakers, basic Dutch, when written, looks recognizable, but the pronunciation may be markedly different. This is true especially of the diphthongs and of the letter , which is pronounced as a velar continuant. The rhotic pronunciation of causes some English-speakers to believe Dutch sounds similar to a West Country accent; this is the reason for Bill Bryson's famous remark that when one hears Dutch one feels one ought to be able to understand it. Dutch pronunciation is, however, difficult to master for English speakers, its diphthongs and gutturals being the greatest obstacles.

Geographic distribution

national | official (administrative) | secondary, non-official | minority

Dutch is spoken by almost all inhabitants of the Netherlands and Flanders (the northern half of Belgium); in Flanders, it is often referred to by the dialect name ''Vlaams'' (Flemish). It is also spoken in the bilingual region of Brussels, together with French and other languages. In the northernmost part of France, the Dunkirk arrondissement in the Nord département, Dutch is still spoken as a minority language, also often called ''Vlaams''. On the Caribbean islands of Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles, Dutch is used, but is less common than Papiamento (Aruba, Curaçao, Bonaire) and English (Sint Maarten, Sint Eustatius, Saba). Dutch is spoken as a mother tongue by about 60% of the population in Suriname, most of whom are bilingual with Sranan Tongo or other ethnic languages (2005, Nederlandse Taalunie: http://taalunieversum.org/, in Dutch). There are also some speakers of Dutch in countries with many Dutch and Flemish immigrants, such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. In South Africa and Namibia the closely-related language Afrikaans is spoken. There are also a number of Dutch speakers in Indonesia.

Official status

Dutch is an official language of the Netherlands, Belgium, Suriname, Aruba, and the Netherlands Antilles. The Dutch, Flemish and Surinamese governments coordinate their language activities in the ''Nederlandse Taalunie'' ('Dutch Language Union'). Dutch was an official language in South Africa up until 1961 (it had fallen into disuse after Afrikaans became an official language in 1925). A noticeable minority of the inhabitants of New Zealand, 16,347 (0.4%) are sufficiently fluent in Dutch to carry on an everyday conversation.Statistics New Zealand - Concerning Language 2004 - Profile of First Language Retention

''Standaardnederlands'' or ''Algemeen Nederlands'' ('Common Dutch', abbreviated to AN) is the standard language as taught in schools and used by authorities in the Netherlands, Flanders, Suriname, Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles. The Dutch Language Union defines what is AN and what is not.

Since efforts to ''uplift'' people came to be considered rather presumptuous, the earlier name ''Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands'' ('Common Civilized Dutch') and its abbreviation ABN have been replaced with ''Algemeen Nederlands'' and thus AN.

Dialects

In Flanders, there are 4 main dialect groups: West Flemish (West-Vlaams), East Flemish (Oost-Vlaams), Brabantian (Brabants), which includes several main dialect branches, including Antwerpian, and Limburgish (Limburgs). Some of these dialects, especially West and East Flemish, have incorporated some French loanwords in everyday language. An example is ''fourchette'' in various forms (originally a French word meaning fork), instead of ''vork''. Brussels is especially heavily influenced by French because roughly 85% of the inhabitants of Brussels speak French. The Limburgish in Belgium is closely related to Dutch Limburgish. An oddity of West Flemings (and to a lesser extent, East Flemings) is that, when they speak AN, their pronunciation of the "soft g" sound (the voiced velar fricative) is almost identical to that of the "h" sound (the voiced glottal fricative), thus, the words ''held'' (hero) and ''geld'' (money) sound nearly the same, except that the latter word has a 'y' /j/ sound embedded into the "soft g". When they speak their local dialect, however, their "g" is almost the "h" of the Algemeen Nederlands, and they do not pronounce the "h". Some Flemish dialects are so distinct that they might be considered as separate language variants, although the strong significance of language in Belgian politics would prevent the government from classifying them as such. West Flemish in particular has sometimes been considered a distinct variety. Dialect borders of these dialects do not correspond to present political boundaries, but reflect older, medieval divisions. The Brabantian dialect group, for instance, also extends to much of the south of the Netherlands, and so does Limburgish. West Flemish is also spoken in part of the Dutch province of Zeeland, and even in a small area near Dunkirk, France that borders Belgium.

The Netherlands also have different dialect regions. In the east there is an extensive Dutch Low Saxon dialect area: the provinces of Groningen (Gronings), Drenthe and Overijssel are almost exclusively Low Saxon. Zuid-Gelders is a dialect also spoken in the German land of North Rhine-Westphalia. Brabantian (Noord-Brabant) fades into the dialects spoken in the adjoining provinces of Belgium. The same applies to Limburgish (Limburg (Netherlands)), but this variant also has the status of official regional language in the Netherlands (but not in Belgium). It receives protection by chapter 2 of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Limburgish has been influenced by the Rhinelandic dialects like the Cologne dialect: Kölsch, and has had a somewhat different development since the late Middle Ages.

Zealandic of most of Zeeland is a transitional regional language between West Flemish and Hollandic, with the exception of the eastern part of Zealandic Flanders where East Flemish is spoken. In Holland proper, Hollandic is spoken, though the original forms of this dialect, heavily influenced by a Frisian substratum, 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 or Utrecht.

In some rural Hollandic areas more authentic Hollandic dialects are still being used, especially north of Amsterdam. Limburgish and Dutch Low Saxon have been elevated by the Netherlands (and by Germany) to the legal status of ''streektaal'' (regional language) according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which causes some native speakers to consider them separate languages.

Another group of dialects based on Hollandic is that spoken in the cities and larger towns of Friesland, where it displaced Frisian in the 16th century and is known as Stadsfries ("Urban Frisian").

Dutch dialects are not spoken as often as they used to be. Nowadays in The Netherlands only older people speak these dialects in the smaller villages, with the exception of the Low Saxon and Limburgish ''streektalen'', which are actively promoted by some provinces and still in common use. Most towns and cities stick to standard Dutch - although many cities have their own ''city dialect'', which continues to prosper. In Belgium, however, dialects are very much alive; many senior citizens there are unable to speak standard Dutch. In both the Netherlands and Belgium, many larger cities also have several distinct smaller dialects.

Many native speakers of Dutch, both in Belgium and the Netherlands, assume that Afrikaans and Frisian are 'deviant' dialects of Dutch. In fact, they are different languages, though Afrikaans has evolved mainly from Dutch. In fact, a (West) Frisian standard language has been developed.

Until the early 20th century, variants of Dutch were still spoken by some descendants of Dutch colonies in the United States. New Jersey in particular had an active Dutch community with a highly divergent dialect that was spoken as recently as the 1950s. See Jersey Dutch for more on this dialect. Russia also has some people today who speak Dutch-based dialects.

Derived languages

One of the 11 official languages of South Africa, Afrikaans is derived from Dutch and is the mother tongue of about 15% of South Africa's population. It is also spoken or understood by many more. It has official status in Namibia as well. Afrikaans originated from modern Dutch (16th century-present).

Before the United Kingdom took control of South Africa from the Netherlands in 1814, the Afrikaans language (which wasn't called or considered ''Afrikaans'' at that time) was exposed to a steady stream of Dutch language influence, and the two languages were therefore almost identical. The differentiation and major changes from Dutch started when the Dutch settlers moved deep inland (Trek Boers). In addition, when the UK seized South Africa, the Dutch language spoken in South Africa was practically cut off from other Dutch-speaking areas, allowing the language to differentiate and evolve further. In 1922 the Afrikaans language was recognized as one of South Africa's official languages, alongside Dutch and English. Dutch was formally derecognized in South Africa only in 1984 (since 1961 it had merited only a mention in the legislation). By that time, however, it had no longer been in everyday official use for a long time.

The distinction of Afrikaans from the Dutch language looked perhaps briefly in danger just after the Second World War when a great number of Dutch immigrants chose South Africa as their new homeland. However, the Afrikaans language survived the new influx of Dutch speakers, which might otherwise have turned Afrikaans into a mixed language. Almost all of the Dutch immigrants and their descendants now speak Afrikaans instead of Dutch, be it (in the case of the Dutch-born parents) with a slight accent. A great deal of mutual intelligibility still exists. The differences between the two languages are considerably more than e.g. between European Portuguese and Brazilian or European and Latin-American Spanish.
However, someone who is able to speak Dutch usually can read Afrikaans easily, and to a lower degree also orally understand it, especially when one's native dialect is Hollandic, Zealandic, Flemish or Brabantic.

There are also Dutch-based creole languages.

Sounds

Dutch devoices all consonants at the ends of words (e.g. a final becomes ; to become 'ents of worts'), which presents a problem for Dutch speakers when learning English. This is partly reflected in the spelling, the singular ''huis'' has the plural ''huizen'' (house(s)) and ''duif'' becomes ''duiven'' (dove). The other cases, viz. ‘p’/‘b’ and ‘d’/‘t’ are always written with the voiced consonant, although a devoiced one is actually pronounced, e.g. sg. ''baard'' (beard), pronounced as ''baart'', has plural ''baarden'' and sg. ''rib'' (rib), pronounced as ''rip'' has plural ''ribben''.

Because of assimilation, often the initial consonant of the next word is also devoiced, e.g. ''het vee'' (the cattle) is . This process of devoicing is taken to an extreme in some regions (Amsterdam, Friesland) with almost complete loss of ,and . Further south these phonemes are certainly present in the middle of a word. Compare e.g. ''logen'' and ''loochen'' vs. . In the South (i.e. Zeeland, Brabant and Limburg) and in Flanders the contrast is even greater because the g becomes a palatal. ('soft g').

The final 'n' of the plural ending -en is often not pronounced (as in Afrikaans where it is also dropped in the written language), except in the North East (Low Saxon) and the South West (West Flemish) where the ending becomes a syllabic n sound.

Dutch is a stress language; the stress position of words matters. Stress can occur on any syllable position in a word. There is a tendency for stress to be at the beginning of words. In composite words, secondary stress is often present. There are some cases where stress is the only difference between words. For example ''vóórkomen'' (occur) and ''voorkómen'' (prevent). Marking the stress in written Dutch is optional, never obligatory, but sometimes recommended.

The syllable structure of Dutch is (C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C). Many words, like in English, begin with three consonants - e.g. straat ''(street)''. There are words that end in four consonants - e.g. herfst ''(autumn)'', ergst ''(worst)'', interessantst (normally: interessant(''interesting'')) instead of ''(most interesting)'', sterkst ''(strongest)'' - most of them being adjectives in the superlative form.

The greatest number of consonants in a single cluster can be found in the word slechtstschrijvend ''(worst writing)'' with 9 consonants (though there are only 7 phonemes since 'ch' represents a single phoneme).

\|+ Dutch Vowels with Example Words !align=center\|Symbol !colspan=3 align=center\|Example \|- !IPA !IPA !orthography !English translation \|- \|\|\|''bit'' \|'bit' \|- \|\|\|''biet'' \|'beetroot' \|- \|\|\|''hut'' \|'cabin' \|- \|\|\|''fuut'' \|'grebe' \|- \|\|\|''bed'' \|'bed' \|- \|\|\|''beet'' \|'bite' \|- \|\|\|'' de'' \|'the' \|- \|\|\|''neus'' \|'nose' \|- \|\|\|''bad'' \|'bath' \|- \|\|\|''zaad'' \|'seed' \|- \|\|\|''bot'' \|'bone' \|- \|\|\|''boot'' \|'boat' \|- \|\|\|''hoed'' \|'hat' \|- \|\|\|''ei'', ''wijn'' \|'egg', 'wine' \|- \|\|\|''ui'' \|'onion' \|- \|\|\|''zout'', ''faun'' \|'salt', 'faun'

Consonants

\|+ IPA chart Dutch consonants \|- \| \|Bilabial \|Labio- dental \|Alveolar \|Post- alveolar \|Palatal \|Velar \|Uvular \|Glottal \|- \|Plosive \| \| \| \| \| \| ¹ \| \| ² \|- \|Nasal \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \|- \|Fricative \| \| ³ \| ³ \| ⁴ \| \| ³ \| ⁵ \| \|- \|Approximant \| \| ⁶ \| \| \| \| \| \| \|- \|Lateral \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \|

Where symbols for consonants occur in pairs, the left represents the voiceless consonant and the right represents the voiced consonant.

Notes:

1) is not a native phoneme of Dutch and only occurs in borrowed words, like ''goal''.

2) 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.

3) In some dialects, notably that of Amsterdam, the voiced fricatives have almost completely merged with the voiceless ones, and is usually realized as , is usually realized as , and is usually realized as .

4) and are not native phonemes of Dutch, and usually occur in borrowed words, like ''show'' and ''bagage'' (baggage). And even then they are usually realized as and respectively. However, + phoneme sequences in Dutch are often realized as , like in the word ''huisje'' (='little house'). In dialects that merge s and z often is realized as .

5) The realization of the phoneme varies considerably from dialect to dialect. In "standard" Dutch, is realized as . In many dialects it is realized as the voiced uvular fricative or even as the uvular trill .

6) The realization of the varies considerably from the Northern to the Southern and Belgium dialects of the Dutch language. In the South, including Belgium, it is sometimes realized as . Some, mainly Hollandic, dialects nearly pronounce it like .

\|+ Dutch Consonants with Example Words !colspan=1 align=center\|Symbol !colspan=4 align=center\|Example \|- !IPA !IPA !orthography !English translation \|- \|\|\|''pen'' \|'pen' \|- \|\|\|''biet'' \|'beetroot' \|- \|\|\|''tak'' \|'branch' \|- \|\|\|''dak'' \|'roof' \|- \|\|\|''kat'' \|'cat' \|- \|\|\|''goal'' \|'goal' (sports) \|- \|\|\|''mens'' \|'human being' \|- \|\|\|''nek'' \|'neck' \|- \|\|\|''eng'' \|'scary' \|- \|\|\|''fiets'' \|'bicycle' \|- \|\|\|''oven'' \|'oven' \|- \|\|\|''sok'' \|'sock' \|- \|\|\|''zeep'' \|'soap' \|- \|\|\|''sjaal'' \|'shawl' \|- \|\|\|''jury'' \|'jury' \|- \|\|\|''acht'' \|'eight' \|- \|\|\|''gaan'' \|'to go' \|- \|\|\|''rat'' \|'rat' \|- \|\|\|''hoed'' \|'hat' \|- \|\|\|''wang'' \|'cheek' \|- \|\|\|''jas'' \|'coat' \|- \|\|\|''land'' \|'land / country' \|- \|\|\|''heel'' \|'whole' \|- \|\|\|''beamen'' \|'to confirm'

Grammar

Like all other continental West Germanic languages, Dutch has a word order that is markedly different from English, which presents a problem for some Anglophones learning Dutch. A simple example often used in Dutch language classes and text books is "Ik kan mijn pen niet vinden omdat het veel te donker is" which word-for-word translates to "I can my pen not find because it much too dark is" but actually translates to "I can't find my pen because it's much too dark". This can be explained by saying that the first (main) verb goes at the beginning of the sentence while all the remaining verbs go to the end. It must also be noted that Dutch (like German) often splits larger sentences into smaller ones, each of which can have distinctly different grammatical rules depending on what is actually being said and where the emphasis is placed.

The Dutch written grammar has simplified over the past 100 years: cases are now mainly used for the pronouns, such as ''ik'' (I), ''mij, me'' (me), ''mijn'' (my), ''wie'' (who), ''wiens'' (whose: masculine or feminine singular), ''wier'' (whose: masculine or feminine 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 all continental West Germanic dialects.

Inflection of adjectives is a little more complicated: nothing with indefinite neuter nouns in singular and -e in all other cases:
:''een mooi huis'' (a beautiful house)
:''het mooie huis'' (the beautiful house)
:''mooie huizen'' (beautiful houses)
:''de mooie huizen'' (the beautiful houses)
:''een mooie vrouw'' (a beautiful woman)

More complex inflection is still found in certain lexicalized expressions like ''de heer des huizes'' (literally, the man of the house), etc. These are usually remnants of cases (in this instance, the genitive case which is still used in German, cf. ''Der Herr des Hauses'') and other inflections no longer in general use today. In such lexicalized expressions remnants of strong and weak nouns can be found too, e.g. ''in het jaar des Heren'' (Anno Domini), where “-en” is actually the genitive ending of the weak noun. Also in this case, German retains this feature.

Dutch nouns can take endings for size: -je for singular diminutive and -jes for plural diminutive. Between these suffixes and the radical can come extra letters depending on the ending of the word:
:''boom'' (tree) - ''boompje''
:''ring'' (ring) - ''ringetje''
:''koning'' (king) - ''koninkje''
:''tien'' (ten) - ''tientje'' (a ten euro note)

Like most Germanic languages, Dutch forms noun compounds, where the first noun modifies the category given by the second, for example: ''hondenhok'' (doghouse). Unlike English, where newer compounds or combinations of longer nouns are often written in open form with separating spaces, Dutch (like the other Germanic languages) either uses the closed form without spaces, for example: boomhuis (Eng. tree house) or hyphenated: VVD-coryfee (outstanding member of the VVD, a political party). Like German, Dutch allows arbitrarily long compounds, but the longer they get, the less frequent they tend to be. The longest serious entry in the Van Dale dictionary is ''wapenstilstandsonderhandeling'' (ceasefire negotiation). Sometimes ''hottentottensoldatententententoonstellingsterreinen'' (hottentot soldiers tents exhibition terrains) is jocularly quoted as the longest Dutch word (note the four times consecutive ''ten''), but outside this usage it actually never occurs. Notwithstanding official spelling rules, many Dutch people nowadays tend to write the parts of a compound separately, which is sometimes dubbed “the English disease” or "''de Engelse ziekte''".SOS! - In het Nederlands moeten samengestelde woorden gewoon aan elkaar geschreven worden Engelse ziekte - Dutch language Wikipedia

Vocabulary

The Dutch vocabulary is one of the richest in the world and comprises at least 186,000 headwords.Van Dale Dutch-English-Dutch Dictionary , ''"The Van Dale Handwoordenboeken Engels is a bidirectional Dutch-English dictionary containing over 186,000 headwords"''

Like English, Dutch includes words of Greek and Latin origin. Its number of Romance-based loanwords is higher than in German, but much lower than in English. Even more than in English, a Romance alternative exists for many Germanic words, and the Romance word is primarily used in more formal contexts (e.g. "rechtvaardigheid" and "justitie", "verdediging" and "defensie"). Somewhat paradoxically, most loanwords from French have entered into Dutch vocabulary via the Netherlands and not via Belgium, in spite of the cultural and economic dominance exerted by French speakers in Belgium until the first half of the 20th century. This happened because the status French enjoyed as the language of refinement and high culture inspired the affluent upper and upper-middle classes in the Netherlands to adopt many French terms into the language. In Belgium no such phenomenon occurred, since members of the upper and upper-middle classes would have spoken French rather than Frenchify their Dutch. French terms heavily influenced Dutch dialects in Flanders, but Belgian speakers did (and do) tend to resist French loanwords when using standard Dutch. Nonetheless some French loanwords of relatively recent date have become accepted in standard Dutch, also in Belgium, albeit with a shift in meaning and not as straight synonyms for existing Dutch words. For example, "blesseren" (from French ''blesser'', to injure) is almost exclusively used to refer to sports injuries, while in other contexts the standard Dutch verbs "kwetsen" and "verwonden" continue to be used.

Especially on the streets and in many professions, there is a steady increase of English loanwords, rather often pronounced or applied in a different way (see Dutch pseudo-anglicisms). The influx of English words is maintained by the dominance of English in the mass media and on the Internet. Unlike some other languages, Dutch adopts these new English terms with little or no resistance. Efforts to develop Dutch alternatives for English loanwords have extremely little success and indeed are often met with derision.

High German had an important influence on Dutch vocabulary in the formation stage of the standard language in the 16th and 17th century. Except for the adverbs ''überhaupt'' and ''sowieso'', the few more recent German loanwords are relatively rarely used. However, even though few true loanwords are present, German has had a major effect in the 19th and 20th century upon the lexicon of the language, mainly by the adaptation and change of German words into words that seem Dutch (so-called ''germanisme''), a process probably to be ascribed to the likeness of the two languages. Some of these forms have become so integral to Dutch that few Dutch are aware of their origin; they include words like ''beduidend'' (from German ''bedeutend''), ''aanstalten'' (from ''Anstalten'').

Writing system

Dutch is written using the Latin alphabet. It has a relatively high proportion of doubled letters, both vowels and consonants. This is due to the formation of compound words and also to the spelling devices for distinguishing the many vowel sounds in the Dutch language. An example of five consecutive doubled letters is the word ''voorraaddoos'' (supply box).

The diaeresis (Dutch: ''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 (i.e., if the vowels originate from separate words, not from prefixes or suffixes), e.g. ''zeeëend'' (seaduck) is now spelled ''zee-eend''.

The acute accent occurs mainly on loanwords like ''café'', but can also be used for emphasis or to differentiate between two forms. Its most common use is to differentiate between the indefinite article 'een' (a, an) and the numeral 'één' (one); also 'hé' (hey, also written 'hee').

The grave accent is used to clarify pronunciation ('hè' (what?, what the ...?, tag question 'eh?'), 'bèta') and in loanwords ('caissière' (female cashier), 'après-ski'). In the recent spelling reform, the accent grave was dropped as stress sign on short vowels in favour of the accent aigu (e.g. 'wèl' was changed to 'wél').

Other diacritical marks such as the circumflex only occur on a few words, most of them loanwords from French.

The most important dictionary of the modern Dutch language is the ''Van Dale groot woordenboek der Nederlandse taal'',www.vandale.nl more commonly referred to as the ''Dikke van Dale'' ("dik" is Dutch for "fat" or "thick"). However, it is dwarfed by the 45,000-page "Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal", a scholarly endeavour that took 147 years from initial idea to first edition.

The official spelling is set by the ''Wet schrijfwijze Nederlandsche taal'' (Law on the writing of the Dutch language; Belgium 1946, Netherlands 1947; based on a 1944 spelling revision; both amended in the 1990s after a 1995 spelling revision). The ''Woordenlijst Nederlandse taal'', more commonly known as "het groene boekje" (i.e. "the green booklet", because of its colour), is usually accepted as an informal explanation of the law. However, the official 2005 spelling revision, which reverted some of the 1995 changes and made new ones, has been welcomed with a distinct lack of enthusiasm in both the Netherlands and Belgium. As a result, the Genootschap Onze Taal (Our Language Society) decided to publish an alternative list, "het witte boekje" ("the white booklet"), which tries to simplify some complicated rules and offers several possible spellings for many contested words. This alternative orthography is followed by a number of major Dutch media organisations but mostly ignored in Belgium.

Dutch as a foreign language

The number of non-native speakers of Dutch who voluntarily learn the language is small. Dutch is not geographically widespread and in its home countries the Netherlands and Belgium, most of its speakers are proficient in other European languages. There are far fewer Francophone Belgians who speak Dutch than Flemings who speak French, alhough quite recently the number of the former is slightly on the rise.

Some non-native residents of the Netherlands and of Belgium have never learned to speak Dutch, probably because of a perception of its difficulties. Moreover, and especially in Belgium, the difference between the standard language and the language people speak (their local dialect or, more often, a version of the standard language heavily influenced by it) can be very important and cause difficulties. In addition, native Dutch speakers themselves are often so linguistically proficient that they will try to help a struggling Dutch learner by replying in his or her own (second) language – usually English, or in Belgium also French. Dutch or Flemish people in contact with foreigners often are eager to show their mastery of foreign languages, in particular English. However, those residents or visitors who do learn some Dutch will be rewarded, not only by the extra fillip this gives to their understanding of Dutch history and culture, but also because it will enable them to converse with people in areas away from the big cities where other languages are less commonly spoken and experience other aspects of the Dutch culture more deeply.

Native speakers of German usually have the biggest advantage of all people when learning Dutch from a grammar and vocabulary point of view but almost always struggle with the pronunciation.

Pronunciation

Pronunciation can be a challenge as many of the Dutch vowel sounds are difficult for non native speakers. Diphthongs such as the "ui" sound in such words as "zuid" (south) or "huis" (house), the "eu" in "keuze" (choice) or "sleutel" (key), and the "ij" sound in words like "mijt" (mite) or "wijn" (wine) present difficulties and even though some of these words are superficially like their English equivalents the correct sound is very different.

Another issue with pronunciation is the "ch"-sound, which Dutch native speakers pronounce as /x/. It has no counterpart in English. Particularly the voiced equivalent /ɣ/ is rare among other European languages. Anglo-saxons sometimes make fun of this feature of the Dutch language, and even speakers of Dutch who are well aware of this phonological speciality sometimes ironise it — for example Tom Meyer, a radio commentator, used to say on air that "Dutch isn't a language; it's a disease of the throat."

There is a well-known Second World War anecdote in which the name of Dutch town Scheveningen was used as a Shibboleth by the Dutch Resistance, as there is also no phonetic counterpart of this word-initial combination in German. Native German speakers will pronounce the consonant cluster ''sch'' in Scheveningen as // (as in the English word ''short''), while Dutch native speakers will pronounce it as /sx/. This linguistic difference provided an excellent thumb instrument to uncover German spies in the ranks of the Dutch resistance.

Dutch as a German dialect

The question of what is a language, and what is a dialect, is rather a political and not a linguistic one. Dutch cannot be defined as a German dialect. The Dutch standard language by definition cannot be a dialect of another standard language, in this case Standard German. The dialect group from which Dutch is largely derived, Low Franconian, belongs to the whole of the continental West Germanic dialect set. This whole is sometimes imprecisely indicated by the word "German", but it might as well be called "Dutch". Indeed the Low Franconian dialects and languages are morphologically closer to the original form of Western Germanic than the High German from which standard German is derived. It is quite appropriate to call modern Dutch and High German sister languages, only they are derived not from one and the same common variety, but from cognate mother vernaculars of Continental West Germanic.

No intrinsic quality of the whole of the component dialects favours one standard over the other: both were rivals and historical contingency decided the range of their use. The state border does not reflect dialectal subdivisions. Only since the dialect continuum of continental West Germanic was broken by the 19th century introduction of mass education have the respective ranges been fixed; in the 18th century standard Dutch was still used as the normal written standard in the Lower Rhine, the county of Bentheim and East Frisia, now all part of Germany. See also Meuse-Rhenish.