The Dutch word for itself is Nederlands, which is similar to the English pronunciation of its native region, the Netherlands. Ironically, the English word Dutch is closer to the German word for the German language, Deutsch.

Dutch is a West Germanic language, so its two closest spoken language (major) relatives are English and German.

There are about 23 million native speakers of Dutch, most of whom live in the Netherlands. However, there is also a significant population of Dutch speakers in the Flanders region of Belgium.

It is also an official language in Suriname, Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten.

In South Africa and Namibia, Dutch was spoken in parts of the region during the 17th century. It eventually evolved into Afrikaans, a language that is extremely similar to Dutch.

The origins of the Dutch language emerging as its own distinct tongue date back to around the 6th century.

While its cousin language German has three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), Dutch has only two: common and neuter.

Some words that English inherited from Dutch include: Yankee, cookie, boss, yacht, skate, and coleslaw.

Most Dutch borrowed words came from French or Latin. However, due to colonization, some loanwords also came from Malay and Indonesian.

Many Dutch children begin learning English at a young age and often become fluent by their teenage years.

Several Creole languages in the Caribbean are based on Dutch.