To use a basketball analogy, the British were definitely the Michael Jordan of colonizers. But on that same scale, while the Dutch may not have been the GOAT (greatest of all time if you’re acronymically challenged), they definitely would have had a long and productive NBA career. Their respectable level of success is evidenced by the geographic spread of the Dutch language and its offspring. Here are 7 facts about the language that will serve you well on trivia night.
1
Dutch is spoken by about 24 million people as a first language and another 5 million people as a second language. As such, it is somewhere in the range of the 50th to 60th most-spoken language in the world.
2
Dutch is an official language in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands and the Caribbean countries of Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten. (The Caribbean islands of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba are considered special municipalities of the Netherlands.)
Dutch is also an official language in Belgium (where it is spoken in the northern region of Flanders and known as Flemish) and Suriname.
The language can also be heard in French Flanders (a small piece of France adjacent to the aforementioned Flanders), a tiny portion of Germany, and the former colony of Indonesia to a rather limited extent.
3
Dutch is one of about 445 living languages in the Indo-European family. It is in the Germanic branch of that family and more specifically the West Germanic subdivision. The same subdivision also consists of English and German. In fact, Dutch is occasionally described as being somewhere between the two languages, which based on a quick look at this map is not that surprising.
4
The Germanic languages are felt to have derived from Proto-Germanic, a language (reconstructed by linguists) that was spoken in Northern Europe around 500 BCE. It began diverging into regional dialects around 200 CE. The Western dialects remained mutually intelligible until about the 8th century, ultimately giving way to our current set of circumstances.
5
Given the close relationship of Dutch with English, many English words have their roots in Dutch. Examples include boss (baas), booze (busen), cookie (koekje), cruise (kruisen), and yacht (jacht). Here is a more thorough list.
6
Dutch gave birth to the youngest Germanic language, namely Afrikaans, which is spoken in South Africa and Namibia (and other surrounding countries to a lesser extent). After a Dutch settlement took hold at the Cape of Good Hope in the 17th century, the Dutch language in the region evolved over time into its own language, though some degree of mutual intelligibility exists.
7
The Dutch Language Union, formed in 1980, was an agreement between the Netherlands and Belgium to ensure that Dutch/Flemish language policy was coordinated, particularly in regards to spelling. The regulatory body has included Suriname as an associate member since 2004.
As a reminder, if you’re asked about Pennsylvania Dutch, it’s actually a German dialect. And don’t worry, you won’t be asked to make any NBA references.
