Flemish language member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages ). Generally regarded as the Belgian variant of Dutch (see Dutch language ) 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... Read more