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Dutch is the most spoken primary language of Belgium and the official language of the Flemish Community and the Flemish Region (merged to Flanders). Along with French, it is an official language of the Brussels-Capital Region. The main Dutch dialects spoken in Belgium are Brabantian, West Flemish, East Flemish, and Limburgish.
It has a surface area of 13,626 km 2 (5,261 sq mi), or 44.4% of Belgium, and is divided into 5 provinces which contain a total of 300 municipalities. The official language is Dutch . French can be used for certain administrative purposes in a dozen particular " municipalities with language facilities " around the Brussels-Capital Region and at ...
The European Union is a supranational union composed of 27 member states. The total English-speaking population of the European Union and the United Kingdom combined (2012) is 256,876,220 [70] (out of a total population of 500,000,000, [71] i.e. 51%) including 65,478,252 native speakers and 191,397,968 non-native speakers, and would be ranked 2nd if it were included.
As of 2024, there are 57 sovereign states and 28 non-sovereign entities where English is an official language. Many administrative divisions have declared English an official language at the local or regional level. Most states where English is an official language are former territories of the British Empire.
The English-speaking world comprises the 88 countries and territories in which English is an official, administrative, or cultural language. In the early 2000s, between one and two billion people spoke English, [1] [2] making it the largest language by number of speakers, the third largest language by number of native speakers and the most widespread language geographically.
Belgium's three official languages are Dutch, spoken by about 60% of the population, French, spoken by about 40%, and German, spoken by less than 1%. The vast majority of Belgium's population, 99%, is literate as defined by the Belgian government, i.e. capable of reading and writing in an official language by the time a citizen has reached the ...
The various Dutch dialects spoken in Belgium contain a number of lexical and grammatical features that distinguish them from the standard Dutch. Standard Dutch words can have a completely different meaning in Flemish or imply different context, [ 15 ] comparable to the differences between the British and North American variants of English .
In the Low Countries, South Low Franconian varieties are predominantly spoken in Belgian Limburg and Dutch Limburg provinces. However, not all regional dialects of Limburg belong to the South Low Franconian group (especially in the northern part of Dutch Limburg north of Horst where Kleverlandish dialects are spoken, and also in Meijel with its local dialect that can be classified as ...