From Namespedia - Names Meaning and Origins Dutch is a West
Germanic Language, spoken by a total of 24 million people, most
of them ( 15 million )living in Netherlands and the rest living
in Belgium,France, Germany,Surinam ( South America),Netherlands
Antilles in the Carribean Sea and many other places. Afrikaans,
one of the official languages of South Afrika, also most widely
understood in Namibia, evolved from Dutch. The name Dutch is
derived from the word Dietsc , or Duutsc, which means “language
of the people”. The history of Dutch language begins around
500-700 AD, as a descendant of Old Frankish ( a west Germanic
tribal language) and the Frisian language, spoken by the
original inhabitants of Holland.Old Low Franconian represents
the northern dialects of Old Frankish, and its divided into two
groups:Old East Low Franconian and Old West Low Franconian, also
called Old Dutch.These two groups are so similar that is very
hard to say if whether a text is closer to Old Dutch or to OLD
East Low Franconian. In