Dutch Dialects - Sister and Daughter Languages

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.

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Famous quotes containing the words sister and, sister, daughter and/or languages:

    “Evelyn Mulwray: She’s my daughter.
    J.J. Gittes: I said I want the truth!
    Evelyn Mulwray: She’s my sister. She’s my daughter. My sister, my daughter.
    J.J. Gittes: I said I want the truth!
    Evelyn Mulwray: She’s my sister and my daughter!”
    —Robert Towne (b. 1936)

    “Surely a gentle sister is the second best gift to a man; and it is first in point of occurrence; for the wife comes after.”
    —Herman Melville (1819–1891)

    “Having children can smooth the relationship, too. Mother and daughter are now equals. That is hard to imagine, even harder to accept, for among other things, it means realizing that your own mother felt this way, too—unsure of herself, weak in the knees, terrified about what in the world to do with you. It means accepting that she was tired, inept, sometimes stupid; that she, too, sat in the dark at 2:00 A.M. with a child shrieking across the hall and no clue to the child’s trouble.”
    —Anna Quindlen (20th century)

    “The less sophisticated of my forbears avoided foreigners at all costs, for the very good reason that, in their circles, speaking in tongues was commonly a prelude to snake handling. The more tolerant among us regarded foreign languages as a kind of speech impediment that could be overcome by willpower.”
    —Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)