Маъсул муҳаррир: Филология фанлари доктори, профессор: Г. Х. Боқиева Тақризчилар

Geographic distribution
Dutch is spoken in the Netherlands, the northern half of Belgium (Flanders), Belgium's capital Brussels, the northernmost part of France, the Netherlands Antilles, Aruba, Suriname and amongst certain groups in Indonesia. The last four are former Dutch colonies.
Official status
Dutch is an official language of the Netherlands, Belgium, Suriname, Aruba, and the Netherlands Antilles. The Dutch, Flemish and Surinamese governments coordinate their language activities in the Dutch Language Union (Nederlandse Taalunie).
Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands (meaning 'general civilized Dutch', abbreviated to ABN) is the official Dutch language, the standard language as taught in schools and used by authorities in the Netherlands, Flanders (Belgium), Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles. The Taalunie (Language Union), an association established by Dutch government and the government of Flanders, defines what is ABN and what is not, e.g. in terms of orthography and spelling.
For reasons of political correctness, the terms Algemeen Nederlands (general Dutch, abbreviated to AN) and Standaardnederlands (standard Dutch) are also used; Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands could be interpreted as 'the Dutch that is spoken by civilized people', which would suggest that people speaking variants of the standard language are not civilized.
Dialects
Flemish is the collective term used for the Dutch dialects spoken in Belgium. It is not a separate language, though the term is often used to distinguish the Dutch spoken in Flanders from that of the Netherlands. The standard form of Netherlandic Dutch differs somewhat from Belgium Dutch or Flemish: Flemish favours older words and has preserved the grammatical gender in most cases. It is also perceived as "softer" than Netherlandic Dutch, and some Netherlanders find it quaint. In contrast, Netherlandic Dutch is perceived as harsh and guttural to Belgians, and some Belgians perceive it as hostile.
Flemish should not be confused with West Flemish, which is a separate, although related language also spoken in parts of Flanders and in northern France. The Netherlands has different regions and within these regions other dialects can also be found. In the region "Groningen", they speak standard dutch as well as Gronings. Drents in spoken in Drenthe. Limburgs(Limburg) and Brabants (Brabant) are quite similar to the Flemish dialects. The Zeeuws of most of Zeeland is closer to Flemish dialects than to standard Dutch, and the similar Zeeuws of Zeeuws- Vlaanderen is not Dutch at all but rather a form of West Flemish. Some dialects such as Limburgs and several Low Saxon-influeced dialects are sometimes elevated to the status of streektaal (area language), and then discussed as separate languages. Some dialects are unintelligible to some speakers of Standard Dutch.
Dutch dialects aren't spoken as much as they used to do, nowadays only older people speak these dialects in the smaller villages, with the exception of the streektalen, which are actively promoted by some provinces. Most towns and cities stick to standard Dutch - although many cities have their own city dialect, which continues to prosper.
Accents
In addition to the many dialects of the Dutch language many provinces and larger cities have their own accents, which sometimes are also called dialects. Naturalized migrants also tend to have similar accents: for example many people from the Dutch AntilIEs or Suriname (regardLess of race) speak with a thick "Surinaams" accent, and the Moroccan and Turkish youth have also developed their own accents, which in some cases are enhanced by a debased Dutch slang with Arabic or Turkish words thrown in, which serves in making their speech nearly unintelligible to the Dutch people.