Dutch, a language that inspires images of tulips and friendly people, is mainly spoken in Holland; It has branched out to further regions of the dark continent and even parts of South America. Here is a list where Dutch is spoken officially and unofficially:
| Country | Languages (%) |
|---|---|
| Aruba | Papiamento (a Spanish-Portuguese-Dutch-English dialect) 66.3%, Spanish 12.6%, English (widely spoken) 7.7%, Dutch (official) 5.8%, other 2.2%, unspecified or unknown 5.3% (2000 census) |
| Belgium | Dutch (official) 60%, French (official) 40%, German (official) less than 1%, legally bilingual (Dutch and French) |
| European Union | Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Gaelic, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish
note: only official languages are listed; German, the major language of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, is the most widely spoken mother tongue - over 19% of the EU population; English is the most widely spoken language - about 49% of the EU population is conversant with it (2007) |
| Indonesia | Bahasa Indonesia (official, modified form of Malay), English, Dutch, local dialects (the most widely spoken of which is Javanese) |
| Netherlands | Dutch (official), Frisian (official) |
| Netherlands Antilles | Papiamento 65.4% (a Spanish-Portuguese-Dutch-English dialect), English 15.9% (widely spoken), Dutch 7.3% (official), Spanish 6.1%, Creole 1.6%, other 1.9%, unspecified 1.8% (2001 census) |
| Saint Martin | French (official language), English, Dutch, French Patois, Spanish, Papiamento (dialect of Netherlands Antilles) |
| Suriname | Dutch (official), English (widely spoken), Sranang Tongo (Surinamese, sometimes called Taki-Taki, is native language of Creoles and much of the younger population and is lingua franca among others), Caribbean Hindustani (a dialect of Hindi), Javanese |
Source: CIA – The World Factbook