Dutch is a fascinating language with a colorful sound. The language is spoken by the 15 million people who live in the Netherlands, as well as the inhabitants of Surinam in South America and the Netherlands Antilles in the Caribbean Sea.
Dutch is also the native language of about 60% of the population of Belgium, where the language is referred to as Flemish.
The most interesting facts about the Dutch Language:
“Dutch” and “Deutsch” are not the same thing.
Dutch is the English word for the language native to the Netherlands, and Deutsch is the German word for the German Language. In fact, in the Netherlands, the language is called “Nederlands”. While Germans do not tend to easily understand Dutch, native Dutch speakers often understand a great deal of German, in no small part due to the fact that they encounter the German culture with frequency.
Dutch was heavily influenced by French.
This is largely because the French language was seen as “posh,” and so much of their vocabulary was adopted into Dutch lexicon. This was particularly true in the 19th and 20th century, but nowadays, the Dutch are adopting more and more English words. However, the Dutch have already contributed much to the English language. For instance, words like “yacht,” “cookie,” “freight,” and “easel” all come from Dutch. English is widely spoken in the Netherlands, however, it is not the second official language of the country.
Words have been written in Dutch as far back as the 12th century.
A simple love poem was scribbled on a scrap of paper, thought to test a writing utensil, sometime during the 12th century. And that piece of writing is the first known example of written Dutch.
The longest word in the Dutch language is 35 letters long.
Meervoudigepersoonlijkheidsstoornis is the word for multiple personality disorder, and while some specialists write it as two words, others argue that doing so changes its meaning.
Dutch is a beautiful language, spoken by over 24 million people across the globe.
It shares words with French, English, some German, and some Hebrew, and it continues to evolve each and every day.
