Dutch

Also known as Dutch language, Netherlandic, Netherlandic language, Netherlandish, Netherlandish language

West Germanic language

AI overview

Dutch is a West Germanic language spoken primarily in the Netherlands and Belgium. It matters because it's the native language of millions of people and serves as an important medium for communication, culture, and commerce in its regions.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Wikidata facts

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number of speakers, writers, or signers: 23100000
native label: Hollands
Commons category: Dutch language
Commons gallery: Dutch
short name: холандски
Wikimedia language code: nl
exact match: publications.europa.eu/resource/authority/language/NLD
P10369: Denmark
P8168: Terdeghem
P11012: Toronto
entry in abbreviations table: нидерл.
P13311: Zwolle
Stack Exchange tag: tex.stackexchange.com/tags/dutch
female form of label: la langue néerlandaise

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Article

A young woman speaking Dutch (1:32)

Dutch (Endonym: Nederlands [ˈneːdərlɑnts] , Nederlandse taal) is a 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 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). Dutch was one of the official languages of South Africa until 1925, when it was replaced by Afrikaans, a separate but partially 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.