Indo-European · ISO 639-3 nld · nl
Dutch Language Nederlands
Dutch is an Indo-European language spoken by about 24 million people in 9 countries. It is an official language of Netherlands, Belgium, Suriname, Aruba, Curacao and Sint Maarten. It is written in the Latin script.
Where Dutch is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Dutch
Language family
- Indo-European
- Classical Indo-European
- Germanic
- Northwest Germanic
- West Germanic
- Macro-Dutch
- Middle-Modern Dutch
- Modern Dutch
- Global Dutch
- Dutch
Writing system
Latin script
Related languages
About the Dutch language
Dutch (Nederlands) is spoken by about 24 million people, which makes it the 64th most spoken language in the world — just behind Romanian (24 million) and ahead of South Azerbaijani (24 million). It belongs to the Indo-European language family and, more precisely, to the Global Dutch group within the Germanic branch.
Where is Dutch spoken?
Dutch is used in 9 countries. The largest communities live in Netherlands (18 million), Germany (7.6 million), Belgium (6.6 million), Suriname (582,082) and Aruba (121,311). More than half of the population speaks it in Netherlands, Belgium, Suriname and Aruba — the places where travellers will hear it everywhere.
Share of the population that speaks Dutch: Netherlands 100% (18 million), Germany 9% (7.6 million), Belgium 55% (6.6 million), Suriname 90% (582,082), Aruba 97% (121,311) and Canada 0.3% (116,384).
Dutch is an official language in 6 countries: Netherlands, Belgium, Suriname, Aruba, Curacao and Sint Maarten.
Writing system and status
Dutch is written in the Latin script. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Afrikaans, Vlaams, English, German, Nigerian Pidgin, Bavarian and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 nl, ISO 639-3 nld.
Frequently asked questions about Dutch
How many people speak Dutch?
Where is Dutch spoken?
In which countries is Dutch an official language?
What language family does Dutch belong to?
What is Dutch called in Dutch?
Is Dutch an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.