Cough* Flemish Cough*

Dutch the official language of Suriname

In a fierce foreign language debate we argued which language is the most endangered.  The center of the conversation was German.  I raised my voice, "If there is any language that is in danger of becoming extinct it would be Dutch," I said.  "Most Dutch people speak English, and the Netherlands is so small."  "German is spoken in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and in communities in the United States and around the world."  The conversation concluded and we all went back to our tasks at hand, but a lingering thought still circled around in my head.  Did I misspeak?  Are Dutch people themselves worried about the legacy of their language?  And where exactly is Dutch spoken?
Dutch people do speak English a lot and very well.  According to the 2005 Eurostat statistics the Netherlands has the highest percent of English speakers in Europe in the 80% zone; with Belgium, Germany and France taking the next places.  However although even some Dutch people might also think this way, Dutch is not an endangered language.  In fact there are about 30 million speakers of Dutch throughout the world.  So yes although Dutch people speak English their own language is not endangered.  Dutch is spoken in the Caribbean, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname (right next to French Guiana on the Northern coast of South America)  And dialects of it are spoken in the US and South Africa as well as Polynesia.  What is Flemish you might ask?  Flemish is the Dutch spoken in the north of Belgium.  One language however that is endangered that is older than Flemish but is also from the Netherlands is the Frisian language, but I'll save that for the next post. I'm back!