Dutch

Germanic language which developed from West Low Franconian and has two historical dialect variants: Flemish (south) and Dutch (north). Dutch is the official language (approx. 20 million speakers) of the Netherlands and its overseas territories and is the second official language of Belgium next to French. Afrikaans, which developed from seventeenth-century dialects, is now an independent language. The oldest literary attestations (Middle Dutch) date from 1150 in the area of Limburg-Brabant (Henric van Feldeke). Since the seventeenth century the dialect of Amsterdam has been considered the written norm (e.g. the official Bible translation of the Statenbijebel, 1626-37), while Dutch is spoken in the south only as the dialect variant ‘Flemish.’ With the signing of the Nederlandse Taalunie (Netherlandic Language Union, 1980) century-long attempts at unifying the Netherlands and Belgium were officially recognized.