Dutch is the mother tongue of more that 21 million Dutch and Belgian people. Around 60,000 people living in the northwestern part of France speak a Dutch dialect. The Netherlands forms part of the European Union, thus making the Dutch an official EU language. Dutch is also used among people in the Netherlands Antilles, Aruba and Surinam. Dutch has been used to write literature of these respective countries. In Indonesia, many lawyers and historians speak Dutch owing to historical ties.

Students in neighborhood countries such as Belgium, northern France and Germany choose Dutch as a second language. Dutch is also taught at around 250 universities around the world.

People from the province of Friesland speak Frisian. In this province, Frisian is officially considered to be the mother tongue language of around 400,000 inhabitants and has been officially recognized as the second language of The Netherlands. Frisian is a West Germanic language, closely related to English and Dutch.
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