History of Dutch orthography History of Dutch orthography The history of Dutch orthography covers the changes in spelling of Dutch both in the Netherlands itself and in the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in Belgium. The Dutch spoken between 1150 and 1500 is referred to as Middle Dutch. During this period there was no standardization of grammar. Authors generally wrote in their own dialects. Very often it is possible to tell from the language whether a text comes from Limburg, Brabant, or Holland. There was a lot of variation in the spelling. Words were often written as they were pronounced: "lant" (land), "hi vint" (he
Swedish-speaking population of Finland with a significant Swedish-speaking population such as Helsinki and Turku, most of them are fluent in both Swedish and Finnish. Although in some municipalities Swedish is the only official language, Finnish is the dominant language in most towns and at most employers in Finland. In areas with a Finnish-speaking majority, Finnish is most often used when interacting with strangers and known Finnish speakers. However, 50% of all Swedish speakers live in areas in which Swedish is the majority language and in which they can use Swedish in all or most contexts (see demographics below). Of the Swedish-speaking population of Finland: