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The Dutch government subsequently instituted a large-scale programme, the "Delta Works", to protect the country against future flooding, which was completed over a period of more than 40 years. [121] Map illustrating areas of the Netherlands below sea level. The impact of disasters was, to an extent, increased through human activity.
Dutch is a monocentric language, at least what concerns its written form, with all speakers using the same standard form (authorised by the Dutch Language Union) based on a Dutch orthography defined in the so-called "Green Booklet" authoritative dictionary and employing the Latin alphabet when writing; however, pronunciation varies between ...
It includes countries, which have Afrikaans and/or Dutch as (one of) their nationwide official language(s), as well as dependent territories with Afrikaans and/or Dutch as a co-official language. Worldwide, Afrikaans and Dutch as native or second language are spoken by approximately 46 million people.
While the Dutch of the Netherlands remained the official language, the new dialect, often known as Cape Dutch, African Dutch, kitchen Dutch, or taal (meaning "language" in Afrikaans) developed into a separate language by the 19th century, with much work done by the Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners and writers such as Cornelis Jacobus Langenhoven.
Since World War II, Dutch emigrants have mainly departed the Netherlands for Canada, the Federal Republic of Germany, the United States, Belgium, Australia, and South Africa, in that order. Today, large Dutch communities also exist in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Turkey, and New Zealand. [31]
Dutch humanists, started to use "Duytsch" in a sense which would today be called "Germanic". Beginning in the second half of the 16th century, the nomenclature gradually became more fixed, with "Nederlandsch" and "Nederduytsch" becoming the preferred terms for Dutch and with "Hooghduytsch" referring to the language today called German.
Today this refers specifically to people from the current provinces of North Holland and South Holland. Strictly speaking, the term "Hollanders" does not refer to people from the other provinces in the Netherlands, but colloquially "Hollanders" is sometimes used in this wider sense. In Dutch, the word Hollands is the adjectival form for Holland.
Dutch interest in South Africa was based chiefly on the strategically located VOC port. Yet in the 17th and 18th centuries the Dutch created the foundation of the modern state of South Africa. The Dutch legacy in South Africa is evident everywhere, but particularly in the Afrikaner people and the Afrikaans language.