Dutch language

Dutch is a West-Germanic language spoken by roughly 20 million people in the Netherlands, Belgium, Suriname, and the Netherlands Antilles. The standard language Algemeen Nederlands (lit. "General Dutch"), formerly called Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands (ABN) (lit. "General Civilized Dutch"), is largely based on the Hollandic dialects spoken in the western Dutch provinces of North and South Holland, but with considerable influence from Flemish dialects spoken in Belgium.

Flemish is not a separate language, but rather the designation of the Dutch dialects spoken in Belgium. Frisian is a closely-related but separate West-Germanic language spoken in the Dutch province of Friesland (Fris. Fryslân) and in a few small areas in northern Germany. However, Stadsfries (lit. "City Frisian") dialect spoken in some larger towns and cities of Friesland, is really a Dutch dialect with Frisian admixtures. Afrikaans, a language spoken in South Africa and Namibia, is essentially a creolized dialect of Dutch, with a simplified morphology and many lexical influences from the indigenous languages of Africa and also from Indian and, to some extent, Indonesian.

Traditionally, the Dutch language is divided into five major dialect groups:

• Hollandic, which includes the dialects spoken in North and South Holland, Utrecht and the southwestern portion of Gelderland.
• Saxon, which refers to the dialects spoken in the northeastern provinces of the Netherlands and which are closely related to Low German.
• Brabantic (or Brabantian), spoken in the Dutch province of North Brabant and the Belgian provinces of Antwerp and Flemish Brabant.
• Limburgic (or Limburgish), spoken in the Dutch province of Limburg and the Belgian province of Belgian Limburg.
• Flemish, spoken in the Belgian provinces of East and West Flanders.

The dialects of the Dutch province of Zeeland are often included in the Flemish group, though in reality they are halfway between Flemish and Hollandic (with the exception of the area of Zeeland Flanders, where Flemish is spoken).

History of the Dutch Language

Dutch is a West-Germanic language, meaning it is closely related to English, Frisian, and German, and, slightly more distantly to the North-Germanic languages, and ultimately to the other Indo-European languages. It is usual to distinguish between four historical stages of the language:

1. Old Dutch. The exact origin of the Dutch language is unclear, as little is known about the place of the earliest stages of the Dutch dialects within West Germanic. The term Old Dutch is largely a term of convenience referring to a putative earliest stage of the language (ca. AD 600-1100). We have virtually no written records for this stage of the language apart from some fragments of a translation of the Psalms in an early Limburgic dialect that is usually designated as "Old East Low Franconian." Features of Dutch indicate that it was close to English and Frisian, because it participated, at least partly, in a number of sound changes peculiar to these languages (sometimes grouped together as Anglo-Frisian), such as the loss of n before alveolar consonants (cf. English mouth, Dutch IJmuiden [place name], Standard Dutch mond) in some dialects and the assibilation of velar consonants in some dialects, esp. the assibilated "tj" (from Gmc. *k) in Dutch diminutives and the confusion of Gmc. *g and *j.
2. Middle Dutch (ca. AD 1100-1500).
3. Early Modern Dutch (ca. AD 1500-1700).
4. Modern Dutch (ca. AD 1700-present).

References

Adolphe van Loey. Schönfelds historische grammatica van het Nederlands. Klankleer, vormleer, woordvorming. 8th edition. Zutphen: Thieme, 1970.