National Cultures And Ethnic Groups Codexery

Dutch people

Ethnic group native to the Netherlands, with global diaspora.

Last updated

Dutch people and their descendants live in migrant communities worldwide, including in Argentina, Australia, Canada, Indonesia, South Africa, and the United States.[1] Native to the Netherlands, the Dutch are an ethnic group who share a common ancestry, culture, and language.[1] Christianity, including both Latin Catholicism and Calvinist Protestantism, is the main religion among the Dutch, but currently most do not follow any specific Christian denomination.[2]

Last updated 2026-10-07 from the source article.

Quick Facts

Group
Dutch

Facts from the source article.

Key facts and history

Linguistically, Old Frankish gradually evolved into Old Dutch, first attested in the 6th century, while the Franks converted to Christianity from around 500 to 700.[3] By the middle of the 16th century, a 'national' identity seemed in development in the Habsburg Netherlands, though language barriers and provincial particularism impeded unification.[4] Following excessive taxation and religious oppression, the Dutch revolted in the Eighty Years' War and established their independence from foreign rule.[4][5] By the 13th century, the various territories of the Low Countries, located near the border of France and the Holy Roman Empire, had become largely autonomous.[1]

The Northern Netherlands, organized as a single administrative unit under the Habsburgs, achieved independence from Spain as the Dutch Republic during the 16th and 17th centuries.[1] During the 11th and 12th centuries, medieval cities in Flanders, Brabant, and Holland grew significantly and helped dismantle the already relatively loose local feudalism in the Low Countries.[6] In the early 14th century, inspired by the County of Flanders, cities across the Low Countries achieved extensive autonomy and typically dominated or greatly influenced the political affairs of their fiefs, including matters of marriage succession.[6] A common Dutch standard language started to develop in Flanders, Brabant, and Holland.[7]

What the cited sources add

The word Dutch originates from Proto-Germanic *theudo, meaning "national/popular", akin to Old Dutch dietsc and Old English þeodisc.[8] Around 29 million people speak Dutch, a West Germanic language.[9] Old Frankish, which preceded the Dutch standard language, first appears in the written record around 500 in the Frankish legal text Lex salica, giving it a documented history of over 1500 years, though material before 1200 is fragmentary.[9] From the arrival of the first permanent Dutch settlers in 1615, Dutch was spoken as a native language by some in the United States, continuing in isolated ethnic pockets until about 1900, after which only first-generation immigrants spoke it.[10]

Martin Van Buren, a U.S. president, had Dutch as his first language.[10]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Dutch people" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "2001CPAncestryDetailed (Final)"; Based on Statistics Canada, Canada 2001 Census.Link to Canadian statistics.; Nicholaas, "Dutch-born 2001, Figure 3 in DEMOS, 21, 4. Nederlanders over de grens", Nidi.knaw.nl; According to Factfinder.census.gov; I (1977), p. 150; I.H. Gosses, I (1974 [1959]), 84 ff.; The actual independence was accepted by in the 1648 treaty of Munster, in practice the Dutch Republic had been independent since the last decade of the 16th cen; D.J. Noordam, " ", in H.A. Diederiks e.a., (Leiden 1993), 35–64, esp. 40 (original en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Dutch people" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "CBS statline Church membership", Statline.cbs.nl, 15 December 2009; Religion in the Netherlands .; "Wat maakt Nederland tot Nederland? Over identiteit blijken we verrassend eensgezind", trouw.nl, 26 June 2019 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Dutch people" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Encyclopædia Britannica Online; entry 'Dutch language' 10 May. 2009 ; "It derives from Low Franconian, the speech of the Western Franks, which was restructured ; Encyclopædia Britannica Online; entry 'West Germanic languages'. 10 May. 2009 ;restructured Frankish—i.e., Dutch;; W. Pijnenburg, A. Quak, T. Schoonheim & D. Wortel, Oudnederlands Woordenboek. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Dutch people" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Cf. G. Parker, The Dutch Revolt (1985), 33–36, and Knippenberg & De Pater, (1988), 17 ff. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Dutch people" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Source, the aforementioned 3rd chapter (p3), together with the initial paragraphs of chapter 4, on the establishment of the Dutch Republic. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Dutch people" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Encyclopædia Britannica Online (use fee site); entry 'History of the Low Countries'. 10 May. 2009 ;Thus, the town in the Low Countries became a (sometimes calle; Encyclopædia Britannica Online; entry 'History of the Low Countries'. 10 May. 2009 ;The development of a town's autonomy sometimes advanced somewhat spasmodical; Encyclopædia Britannica Online; entry 'History of the Low Countries'. 10 May. 2009 ;All the towns formed a new, non-feudal element in the existing social struct; Encyclopædia Britannica Online; entry 'History of the Low C en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Dutch people" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: , entry "Diets". (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Dutch people" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Until World War II, was used synonym with . However the similarity to resulted in its disuse when the German occupiers and Dutch fascists extensively used that (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Dutch people" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: " " is the oldest attested (Old) Dutch sentence, found in the Salic Law, a legal text written around 500. (Source: the Old Dutch dictionary ) (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  10. Wikipedia, "Dutch people" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Nicoline Sijs van der, "Cookies, Coleslaw, and Stoops: The Influence of Dutch on the North American Languages", Amsterdam University Press, 2009, p. 50; Edward L. Widmer, "Martin Van Buren", Times Books, 2005, p. 6–7 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Dutch people (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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