Minority Languages
Limburgish has the status of official regional language in the Netherlands (but not in Belgium). It receives protection 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, and has had a somewhat different development since the late Middle Ages.
Limburgish and Dutch Low Saxon have been elevated by the Netherlands (and by Germany) to the legal status of streektaal (regional language) according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which causes some native speakers to consider them separate languages.
Gronings is very much alive in the province of Groningen, although it is not so popular in the city of the same name.
Read more about this topic: Dutch Dialects
Famous quotes containing the words minority and/or languages:
“What characterizes a member of a minority group is that he is forced to see himself as both exceptional and insignificant, marvelous and awful, good and evil.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“Wealth is so much the greatest good that Fortune has to bestow that in the Latin and English languages it has usurped her name.”
—William Lamb Melbourne, 2nd Viscount (1779–1848)