Dutch

How many people are native Dutch speakers?

About 24 million people speak Dutch natively, mainly in the Netherlands and in Belgium, where it is one of the three official languages. It is also spoken natively in former Dutch colonies such as Suriname and Curaçao.

How many people speak Dutch in the world?

Around 30 million people speak Dutch worldwide. Many speakers reside in Germany, Indonesia and in the USA and Canada.

Origins of Dutch

Dutch is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European family and is related to German and English. Dutch is also the basis of its daughter language Afrikaans, spoken in South Africa, with which it is mutually intelligible.