Nick Maclaren wrote:
In article .com,
"a.c." writes:
|
| Belgians speak (at least) one of
| two languages, Flemish or French. Flemish is (if I understand
| correctly) essentially the same as Dutch.
|
| That too is essentially correct. In as far as I know, Flemish was
the
| original (& if you saw the programme on the English language,
you'd
| have heard how English originated from Friesland, NW Netherland

And it is debatable whether an English speaker or a Dutch speaker
will find it easier to understand Friesan.


Curiously enough, that seems to be the case, though I've no personal
experience.
It's curious because in spite of the origins of English, Geordie words
often compare more so with Dutch words, (Geordie might say "summet" for
"some", whereas the "Sommige" (NL)sounds more like summet) and a strong
Dublin accent would help in pronouncing quite a few too.(out: uit).
But whether Geordies could make more sense from the Dutch plant names I
couldn't say.