Sister and Daughter Languages
Many native speakers of Dutch, both in Belgium and the Netherlands, assume that Afrikaans and West Frisian are 'deviant' dialects of Dutch. In fact, they are separate and different languages, a daughter language and a sister language, respectively. Afrikaans evolved mainly from Dutch, but had influences from various other languages in South Africa. However, it is still largely mutually intelligible with Dutch. (West) Frisian evolved from the same West Germanic branch as Anglo-Saxon and is less akin to Dutch.
Read more about this topic: Dutch Dialects
Famous quotes containing the words sister, daughter and/or languages:
“I should fear the infinite power and inflexible justice of the almighty mortal hardly as yet apotheosized, so wholly masculine, with no sister Juno, no Apollo, no Venus, nor Minerva, to intercede for me, thumoi phileousa te, kedomene te.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What the daughter does, the mother did.”
—Jewish Proverb.
“The very natural tendency to use terms derived from traditional grammar like verb, noun, adjective, passive voice, in describing languages outside of Indo-European is fraught with grave possibilities of misunderstanding.”
—Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1934)