Dutch translation
Language world offers translations from Dutch into English and from English into Dutch. Our professional Dutch translators work in many kinds of texts and subjects, such as medical, business, legal, automation and many others.
We translate in two steps: the first of them being the translation of the text into or from Dutch and the second of them the checking of the writing.
While translating, the Dutch native, professional, translator works only into his own mother tongue and always the kind of texts in which he has a high expertise. Thanks to translation technologies, such as translation memories, lexica management tools and many others, used in the Dutch translation work, we can guarantee the best product.
The proofreading and checking step will ensure a total fluency and best linguistic perfection of the finished Dutch work. Language world always checks and proofreads all translation works from and into the Dutch language by a native translator.
Of course, we take care of anything around the publishing of writings and texts and can provide you with desktop publishing services for your Dutch translations.
Should you need an Dutch translator, please, contact us, we will try everything to supply you with a good done work.
Information about Dutch
Official status of the Dutch language
Dutch is an official language of the following countries: Netherlands, Belgium, Suriname, Aruba, and the Netherlands Antilles. The Dutch, Flemish and Surinamese governments synchronize their language activities in the Nederlandse Taalunie ('Dutch Language Union'). Dutch was an official language in South Africa up until 1961 (it had fallen into disuse in 1925, after Afrikaans became an official language). A noticeable minority of the inhabitants of New Zealand (0.4%) are sufficiently fluent in Dutch to have an everyday conversation.
Standaardnederlands or Algemeen Nederlands (Common Dutch; abbreviated to AN) is the standard language as used by authorities in the Netherlands and taught in schools. The Dutch Language Union defines what we can consider as AN and what we can not.
Since efforts to uplift people came to be considered rather arrogant, the first name Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands (Common Civilized Dutch) and its abbreviation ABN was replaced with Algemeen Nederlands and consequently AN.
The main Dutch dialectal groups.
In Flanders, there are 4 important dialect groups: West Flemish (West-Vlaams), East Flemish (Oost-Vlaams), Brabantian (Brabants), which includes several main dialect subgroups, including Antwerpian, and Limburgish (Limburgs). Some of these dialects, particularly West and East Flemish, have incorporated in everyday language some French loan words. For example, fourchette in various forms (originally a French word meaning fork), instead of vork. Brussels is especially influenced by French since roughly 85% of the inhabitants of Brussels can speak French. The Limburgish in Belgium is related to Dutch Limburgish. A peculiarity of West Flemings (and to a lesser extent, East Flemings) is that, when they speak AN, their pronunciation of the "soft g" sound (the voiced velar fricative) is almost the same pronunciation as that of the "h" sound (the voiced glottal fricative), therefore, the words held (hero) and geld (money) sound very similar, except that the latter word has a 'y' /j/ sound embedded into the "soft g".
When they speak their local dialect, nevertheless, their "g" is almost the "h" of the Algemeen Nederlands, and they do not pronounce the "h". Some Flemish dialects are so different that they might be considered as different language, although the strong significance of language in Belgian politics would prevent the government from classifying them as such. West Flemish in particular has sometimes been considered a different variety. Dialect borders of these dialects do not correspond to present political boundaries, but reflect older divisions. The Brabantian dialect group, for example, also extends to much of the south of the Netherlands, and Limburgish too. In part of the Dutch province of Zeeland, people can speak West Flemish, and even in a small area near Dunkirk, France that borders Belgium.
The Netherlands also have different dialect areas. There is an extensive Low Saxon dialect area in the east: the provinces of Groningen, Drenthe and Overijssel are almost exclusively Low Saxon. Zuid-Gelders is a dialect also spoken in the German territory of North Rhine-Westphalia. Brabantian fades into the dialects spoken in the adjacent provinces of Belgium. The same applies to Limburgish, but this variant is also official language in the Netherlands, but not in Belgium. It is protected by chapter 2 of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Limburgish has been influenced by the Rhinelandic dialects, like the Cologne dialect: Kölsch Platt, and has had a separate development since the late Middle Ages.
Zealandic of most of Zeeland is a transitional regional language between West Flemish and Hollandic, with the exception of the eastern part of Zealandic Flanders where people speak East Flemish. In Holland proper, Hollandic is spoken, though the original forms of this dialect, deeply influenced by a Frisian substratum, are now relatively rare; the urban dialects of the Randstad, which are Hollandic dialects, do not diverge from standard Dutch very much, but there is a noticeable difference between the city dialects of Rotterdam, The Hague, Amsterdam or Utrecht.
In some rural Hollandic areas more authentic Hollandic dialects are still being used, mainly north of Amsterdam. Limburgish and Low Saxon have been elevated by the Netherlands (and by Germany) to the official status of regional language according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which causes some native speakers to consider them different languages.
Stadsfries is another group of dialects based on Hollandic and spoken in the cities and larger towns of Friesland, where it displaced Frisian in the 16th century.
Dutch dialects are not spoken as frequently as they used to be. Nowadays in The Netherlands, in the smaller villages, only older people can speak these dialects, with the exception of the Low Saxon and Limburgish streektalen, which are enthusiastically promoted by some provinces and still in common use. Most towns and cities stick to standard Dutch - although many cities have their own city dialect, which continues to grow. In Belgium, however, dialects are very much active; many senior citizens there can not speak standard Dutch. In both the Netherlands and Belgium, many larger cities also have several different smaller dialects.
Many native speakers of Dutch, both in Belgium and the Netherlands, think that Afrikaans and Frisian are “deviant” dialects of Dutch. In fact, they are different languages, though Afrikaans has evolved principally from Dutch. In fact, a (West) Frisian language has been developed.
Variants of Dutch were still spoken by some descendants of Dutch colonies in the United States until the early 20th century. New Jersey in particular had an active Dutch community with a highly different dialect that was spoken as recently as the 1950s. See Jersey Dutch for more on this dialect.
Derived languages
Afrikaans, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, is derived from Dutch and is the mother tongue of about 15% of South Africa's population. It is also understood or spoken by many more. Afrikaans was originated from modern Dutch (16th century-present).
Before the United Kingdom took control of South Africa from the Netherlands in 1814, the Afrikaans language (which was not called or thought as Afrikaans at that time) was exposed to a steady stream of Dutch language influence, and the two languages were therefore almost the same. The differentiation and most important changes from Dutch happened when the Dutch settlers moved deep inland (Trek Boers). Moreover, when the UK seized South Africa, Dutch in South Africa was practically cut off from other Dutch-speaking areas, allowing the language to differentiate and evolve further. In 1922 the Afrikaans was recognized as one of the official languages in South Africa, alongside Dutch and English. Dutch was officially derecognized in South Africa in 1984 (since 1961 it had merited only a mention in the legislation). By that time, nevertheless, it had no longer been in everyday official use for a long time.
The distinction of the Afrikaans language from Dutch was perhaps temporarily in danger just after the Second World War when many Dutch immigrants chose South Africa as their new home. However,
Afrikaans survived the new arrival of Dutch speakers, which might otherwise have turned Afrikaans into a mixed language. Almost all of the Dutch immigrants and their descendants now speak the Afrikaans language instead of Dutch, be it (in the case of the Dutch-born parents) with a slight accent. It still exists a great deal of mutual intelligibility.
Someone who can speak Dutch usually is able to read and understand Afrikaans (especially when the native dialect is Hollandic, Zealandic, Flemish or Brabantic). We can find also Dutch-based creole languages.