Language Centre Resources - Dutch

An Indo-European language and a member of the West Germanic group, spoken by over 14 million speakers in the Netherlands, where it is the official language, with further 5 million speakers in Belgium, where is has official status (together with French); it is also the language of administration in Surinam and the Dutch Antilles. Dutch spoken in Belgium is also known as Flemish.

The region of today's Netherlands was colonized by Frankish Germanic tribes from the 3rd century onwards and that was also the time when Old Dutch was crystallized. The earliest written documents date from the 10th century.

Modern Standard Dutch is based on Amsterdam (northern) usage and there is a marked difference between the literary standard and the colloquial usage. The language is spelt in the Roman alphabet. The standardized orthography was revised and simplified in 1947.

CLASSIFICATION = Indo-European family     SCRIPT = Roman