Dutch to be ‘main language’ in constitution

Dutch will be officially named as the Netherland’s main language in the constitution, the Volkskrant writes on Friday.


It will also stipulate that the authorities must stimulate the use of Dutch among the country’s citizens.
Dutch is the common language of all Dutch people, the caretaker cabinet states. ‘The proposed change to the constitution has to guarantee that Dutch can be used at all times in communication with the authorities’.
Friesian and Papiamento, the language of Bonaire which is an autonomous part of the Netherlands, will have a protected status in the constitution.
Law professor Tijm Kortmann told the paper the move ‘ incomprehensible, unreasonable and counterproductive. The constitution is not a place for sudden impulses that depend on what is happening at that moment in society. I don’t like it at all’.

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