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Dutch While most people in the Netherlands speak Dutch, there are also some recognized provincial languages and regional dialects.  The official language of the Netherlands is Dutch. It is spoken by almost all people in the Netherlands. Dutch is also spoken in Flanders and Suriname. It is a West Germanic, Low Franconian language that originated in the Early Middle Ages (c. 470) and was standardized in the 16th century.  * Frisian is a co-official language in the province of Friesland. Frisian is spoken by 453,000 speakers * Several dialects of Dutch Low Saxon (Nedersaksisch in Dutch) are spoken in much of the north-east of the country and are recognised by the Netherlands as regional languages according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Low Saxon is spoken by 1,798,000 speakers. * Another Dutch dialect granted the status of regional language is Limburgish, which is spoken in the south-eastern province of Limburg. Limburgish is spoken by 825,000 speakers.  However, both Low Saxon and Limburgish spread across the Dutch-German border and belong to a common Dutch-Low German dialect continuum. The Netherlands also has its separate Dutch Sign Language. This Nederlandse Gebarentaal (NGT) is still waiting for recognition. It is used by 17,500 users There is a tradition of learning foreign languages in the Netherlands: about 70% of the total population have good knowledge of English, 55– 59% of German and 19% of French. The Netherlands en-us-Netherlands.ogg [ˈnɛđɚləndz] (help·info) (Dutch: Nl-Nederland.ogg Nederland (help·info), IPA: [ˈne:dərlɑnt]) is country located in northwestern Europe. A parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarch, the kingdom includes the six former island colonies of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba. The capital is Amsterdam and the seat of government The Hague.  The Netherlands is often called Holland, which is formally incorrect as North and South Holland are merely two of its twelve provinces (see terminology of "the Netherlands"). The word Dutch is used to refer to the people, the language, and anything appertaining to the Netherlands. Being one of the first parliamentary democracies, the Netherlands was a modern country at the moment of its very foundation, and it has always been open to the world. Today, the country has an international outlook. Among other affiliations the country is a founding member of the European Union (EU), NATO, the OECD, and has signed the Kyoto protocol. With Belgium and Luxembourg it forms the Benelux economic union. The country is host to five international courts: the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Court and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. The former four are situated in The Hague as is the EU's criminal intelligence agency Europol. This has led to the city being dubbed "the world's legal capital."  Religion One of the characteristic aspects of modern Dutch society began to evolve in this period—the vertical separation of society into “pillars” (zuilen) identified with the different Dutch religions. Calvinist Protestantism became the officially recognized religion of the country, politically favoured and economically supported by government. But the Reformed preachers were thwarted in their efforts to oppress or drive out other religions, to which a far-reaching toleration was extended. Mass conversion to Calvinism had been confined mainly to the earlier decades of the Eighty Years’ War, when Roman Catholics still frequently bore the burden of their preference for the rule of the Catholic monarchs in the southern Netherlands. Sizable islands of Roman Catholicism remained in most of the United Provinces, while Gelderland and the northern parts of Brabant and Flanders conquered by the States General were overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, as they remain today. Although public practice of Catholicism was forbidden, interference with private worship was rare, even if Catholics sometimes bought their security with bribes to local Protestant authorities.  The Hooglandse kerk (Church) in Leiden Catholics lost the traditional form of church government by bishops, whose place was taken by a papal vicar directly dependent upon Rome and supervising what was in effect a mission; the political authorities were generally tolerant of secular priests but not of Jesuits, who were vigorous proselytizers and were linked to Spanish interests. Protestants included, along with the predominant Calvinists of the Reformed Church, both Lutherans in small numbers and Mennonites (Anabaptists), who were politically passive but often prospered in business. In addition, the Remonstrants, who were driven out of the Reformed Church after the Synod of Dort (Dordrecht; 1618–19), continued as a small sect with considerable influence among the regents. There were also other sects emphasizing mystical experiences or rationalist theologies, notably the Collegiants among the latter. Jews settled in the Netherlands to escape persecution; the Sephardic Jews from Spain and Portugal were more influential in economic, social, and intellectual life, while the Ashkenazim from eastern Europe formed a stratum of impoverished workers, especially in Amsterdam. Despite unusually open contacts with the Christian society around them, Dutch Jews continued to live in their own communities under their own laws and rabbinic leadership. Successful though some Jews were in business, they were by no means the central force in the rise and expansion of Dutch capitalism. Indeed, no clear pattern can be detected of religious affiliation affecting the growth of the Dutch business community; if anything, it was the official Dutch Reformed Church that fulminated most angrily against capitalist attitudes and practices, while the merely tolerated faiths often saw their adherents, to whom economic but not political careers were open, prospering and even amassing fortunes. Dictionary: (modern) Christianity in Holland coming soon! Dutch Bibe: This IBS translation of the entire Bible is for the Dutch language, which is primarily used in Netherlands. An estimated 20 million people speak Dutch as their mother tongue. This translation uses an informal language style and applies a meaning-based translation philosophy. It was translated from the biblical languages and was completed in 1988. http://www.biblegateway.com/ |
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