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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