Dutch language

High school (ages 12+)
People & Society

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/dutch-language

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the estimated native speaker count?Approximately 24 million
2. What is the language family classification?West Germanic branch of the Indo-European family
3. What is the Dutch language and where is it spoken?Dutch is a West Germanic language spoken by about 24 million people, mainly in the Netherlands and Flanders in Belgium. It is also an official language in Suriname and the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten.
4. How did Dutch develop over time?Dutch began as Old Frankish, evolved into Middle Dutch from the 12th to 15th centuries, and became modern Dutch after the printing press and the 1637 Bible translation helped standardize it.

West Germanic Languages: A subgroup of the Indo-European language family, including English, German, Dutch, and Afrikaans.
Statenvertaling: The first official, standardized translation of the Bible into Dutch, crucial for linguistic unification.
Voiceless Velar Fricative: A consonant sound produced by forcing air through a narrow passage at the back of the tongue against the soft palate.
Lexical Borrowing: The process by which words from one language are adopted into another language.