DefederateLemmyMl

So this is a huge pet peeve of mine: Flemish is not a separate language. It refers to a region inside of Belgium where Dutch is the official language. The Dutch and the Flemish share the same standard language.

I know dialects exist, and those can be considered a language on their own, but there is no unified Flemish dialect. West-Flemish for example is distinctly different from other dialects spoken in Flanders like Brabandic or Limburgish, and variants of Limburgish and Brabandic dialects are spoken in large areas of the Netherlands as well. So it doesn’t make sense to create a distinction between “Dutch” and “Flemish”.

The differences are on the level of American English vs. Australian English vs. British English. Or Austrian German vs. Swiss German vs. Bavarian German vs. North German … So if those are not singled out, it doesn’t make sense to separate Flemish from Dutch.