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The Dutch are the native inhabitants of the Netherlands. From the 5th century this region was populated by Franks.In the far east and North of the country Frisians and Saxons lived, although they were subjected by the Franks. The Dutch therefore are regarded as a Germanic people.

Affiliation

The Dutch people are historically affiliated to all Germanic peoples, such as the English and Germans, Danes, and Swedes. The feeling of affiliation is strongest among West Germanic people, the closest being the Flemish and Frisian people and to a lesser degree the Afrikaners, English, Scots and Germans.

The Dutch, Flemings and Frisians

Ethnic affiliation is strongest between the Dutch people and the Flemings. The Dutch and the Flemish people share the same language as well as the same "blood" as both peoples are of almost entirely Frankish heritage, as is their language, Dutch which is the only modern successor of the Old Frankish language the language of the ancient Franks.

It could be said that the Dutch and Flemish people are in fact one single people, during the 19th and 20th century there was the idea in the Netherlands but especially in Belgium to form one single country called Dietsland or the Greater Netherlands Flemish, or southern Dutch, culture has in the past had a strong influence on Dutch culture in the Netherlands. Mainly because many Flemings fled to the safer and free North of the Low Countries during the Eighty Years' War. Dutch culture in turn has influenced Flemish culture ever since the 16th century.

The Frisian people, who speak their own language next to Dutch, and today live mainly in Friesland (a province of the Netherlands), have had relatively little influence on Dutch culture. After the discovery of the Americas and trade-routes to the East, the old trade-routes of the hanseatic league lost their importance and so did the Frisian and Dutch speaking cities in the East and North of the county.

Northern Germany

In the 15th century a clear cultural and linguistic split developed between the Dutch regions and the other Low German areas in, what is now, Northern Germany, this was because northern Germany at that time adopted High German as the standard language, an event that would mark the process of decline of the Low Saxon and East Low German language which today is reduced to a mere dialect of High German with some Low German vocabulary.

Until the mid 19th century a dialect continuum existed though. Dutch people in the far eastern part of the Netherlands still have a strong cultural connection with people living in the adjoining German regions: the Bundesland of Lower Saxony and the Frankish Rhineland and vice versa. In fact until World War II Dutch was the dominant language in the area around Cologne. Perhaps strangely the German language never gained a foothold on Dutch territory.

Religion

During and after the Dutch revolt against Spain, Protestantism became the dominant religion, a notable exception being the modern provinces of Noord-Brabant and Limburg as they remained mostly Catholic.

The Dutch population could be separated into three religious groups: Roman Catholics, Dutch Reformed (Calvinist) and members of the Christian Reformed Church

During the late 19th and early 20th century these three religious groups were living somewhat separate from each other in their own communities; communities had their own schools, their own shops and their own media and political parties, among other things. this was called verzuiling

This entire system of pillarisation started to collapse after the Second world war when the Dutch people were forced to work together to rebuilt their country, which was almost completely destroyed and without resources around mid 1945. In the early 60s the system was gone and nowadays, a large part of the Dutch population is atheist (Some 40%) or is an inactive member of a church and/or religion. There is also a small Jewish community, mostly confined to the larger cities.

Notes

1. Afrikaans, a language spoken in South Africa by about 16 million people, is a descendant of the Dutch language and therefore also of Old Frankish. However, this language has had considerable influx of non-Dutch, non-Germanic and even non-Indo-European vocabulary and could therefore be seen as not entirely of linguistic Frankish heritage.

See also

• Demographics of the Netherlands
• List of Dutch people

External links

• Dutch Immigrant Communities in Canada

• Dutch society
• Ethnic groups in Europe
• Germanic peoples