The official language of the Netherlands and the native language for most of the country's inhabitants is Dutch, which is also, formally, called Dutch. Dutch belongs to the West Germanic subgroup of languages. It is closely related to German and English and is somewhere in between.
Dutch or Dutch
In the Middle Ages, the language was called Dietsc or Duutsc, which is historically equivalent to German. The name had a meaning "the language of the common people", different from Latin, which was the language of religion and teaching. Today the official name of the language is Nederlands or Netherlandic.
The language is also called Hollands (Hollandish), because the literary language is largely based on the dialect of the old province of Holland. In 1840 this province was divided into two: North Holland and South Holland. Strictly speaking, Holland is just two of the twelve provinces of the Netherlands. Although they are the most famous outside the country. That is why the name Holland is applied to all the Netherlands. We have such a practice since the time of Peter the Great.
Dutch in standard and dialectal forms is the spoken language for most people in the Netherlands, northern Belgium and a relatively small part of France along the North Sea. In Belgium, the Dutch language, along with French and German, is one of the three official languages.
Dutch is used as a language of government in Suriname and on the islands of Curacao, Sint Maarten, Aruba, Bonaire, Saba, and Sint Eustatius, which together constitute a site called the Netherlands Antilles. Derived from Dutch, Afrikaans is the one official language in South Africa.
Dialects of Dutch and other languages of the country
In writing, the Dutch language is fairly homogeneous. In the Netherlands and Belgium, it differs no more than written English in the UK and the USA. There are a great many spoken forms. Standard Dutch (Standaardnederlands or Algemeen Nederlands) is used for government and official purposes, including teaching in schools and universities.
Local dialects are used in an informal setting. For example, with family and friends or with people from the same area. There are at least twenty-eight dialects in the relatively small Netherlands. Many linguists consider some of them to be hotel languages.
Thus, the West Frisian language is considered a separate language, which is spoken by about 450 thousand people. This language, along with Dutch, has official status in the province of Friesland. Until recently, several of the Lower Saxon dialects of the Netherlands, common in the north-east of the country, were attributed to the dialects of the Dutch language.
They have recently received the status of a regional language. These dialects are closer to the Low German language spoken in the north of Germany than to Dutch. The Lower Saxon dialects of the Netherlands are spoken by about 1,800 people. The Limburgish dialect, which is spoken by about 800 thousand people in the southeast of the Netherlands, also received the status of a regional language. It is also common in neighboring Belgium and Germany.
