Introduction and Question

[TomGreenUK]

Hello, I'm Tom Green. I live in Grimsby in the United Kingdom.

Can those that speak Flemmish in Belgium understand those that speak Dutch in the Netherlands?

[fleming]

Sure.

In fact Dutch is the official language of Flanders.

Flemmish is Dutch but with a somewhat different accent. It is not an offcicial language as such.

[TomGreenUK]

Thanks, I'm studying language ditribution.

[InfraRed]

its Flemish*

"member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. Generally regarded as the Belgian variant of Dutch rather than as a separate tongue, Flemish is spoken by approximately 5.5 million people in Belgium, where it is one of the official languages, and by a few thousand persons in France. So closely are Flemish and Dutch related that the difference between them has been compared to the difference between American and British English; however, some scholars hold that they have diverged sufficiently since the 16th cent. to be described as separate languages."

[fleming]

I don't think you can regard it as a language as such.

Officially it is not a different language. The tree official languages in Belgium are Dutch (spoken by 6 million people) and French (spoken by 4 million)and German (spoken by 70.000 people...this german-speaken region in Belgium is a little piece of Germany we took from them as a war trophy after World War I).

I think you can compare Dutch vs. Flemish quite well with American English vs. British English or German German vs. Austrian German.