The Dutch language

Dutch is the mother tongue of more than 22 million people in the Netherlands and Belgium. In north-western France, around 60,000 people speak a Dutch dialect. Dutch is used widely in government and education in the former colony of Suriname and in Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles, which are part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. In Indonesia, many lawyers and historians speak Dutch owing to historical ties. Afrikaans, which is spoken in South Africa, is an offshoot of Dutch. Dutch has also influenced other languages, especially in shipping, waterworks and agriculture.

Dutch is taught at around 250 universities around the world. In French-speaking Belgium, northern France and Germany, many pupils choose Dutch as their second language. In 1980, the Netherlands and Flanders founded the Nederlandse Taalunie (Dutch Language Union), which promotes Dutch world-wide and draws up rules for spelling and grammar. In the province of Friesland, they speak a separate language: Frisian. This officially recognised language is the mother tongue of around 400,000 people. It is similar in some ways to English and the Scandinavian languages. Dutch is used in schools throughout the country, including Friesland.