Flemish is the collective term used for the Dutch dialects spoken in Belgium. It is not a separate language, though the term is often used to distinguish the Dutch spoken in Flanders from that of the Netherlands. The standard form of Netherlandic Dutch differs somewhat from Belgium Dutch or Flemish: Flemish favours older words and is also perceived as "softer" in pronunciation and discourse than Netherlandic Dutch, and some Netherlanders find it quaint. In contrast, Netherlandic Dutch is perceived as harsh and guttural to Belgians, and some Belgians perceive it as overly assertive, hostile and even somewhat arrogant.
In Flanders, there are roughly five different main dialects: West-Vlaams, Oost-Vlaams, Antwerps, Brabants/Brussels, and Limburgs. They have all incorporated French loanwords in everyday language. An example is fourchette in various forms (originally a French word meaning fork), instead of vork. Brussels, especially, is heavily influenced by French because roughly 75% of the inhabitants of Brussels speak French. Limburgs is closely related to Dutch Limburgs. An oddity of West-Vlaams (and to a lesser extent, Oost-Vlaams) is that the pronunciation of the "soft g" sound (the voiced velar fricative) is almost identical to that of the "h" sound (the voiced glottal fricative). Some Flemish dialects are so distinct that they might be considered as separate language variants. West Flemish in particular has sometimes been considered as such. It should also be noted that the dialect borders of these dialects do not neatly correspond to geopolitical boundaries. The Antwerp-Brabant dialect group, for instance, also extends to much of the south of the Netherlands and even into Germany, and so do the dialects of Limburg. West-Flemish is even spoken in a small part of northern France bordering on Belgium.
The Netherlands itself also has different regions and within these regions other dialects can also be found. In the east there is an extensive Low Saxon dialect area: e.g. in the Groningen region, standard Dutch is spoken as well as Gronings, Drents is spoken in Drenthe and both have local varieties. Limburgs (Limburg) and Brabants (Brabant) are quite similar to the dialects spoken in the adjoining provinces of Belgium. The Zeeuws of most of Zeeland is closer to Flemish dialects than to standard Dutch, and the similar Zeeuws of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen is a form of West Flemish. Some dialects such as Limburgs and several Low Saxon dialects are sometimes elevated to the status of streektaal (area language), and then discussed as separate languages. Some dialects are unintelligible to some speakers of Standard Dutch.
Dutch dialects are not spoken as often as they used to be. Nowadays only older people speak these dialects in the smaller villages, with the exception of the streektalen, which are actively promoted by some provinces. Most towns and cities stick to standard Dutch - although many cities have their own city dialect, which continues to prosper. In both the Netherlands and Belgium, many cities also have distinct smaller dialects.
By many native speakers of Dutch, both in Belgium and the Netherlands, Afrikaans and Frisian are often assumed to be very deviant dialects of Dutch. In fact, they are two different languages, Afrikaans having evolved mainly from Dutch. There is no dialect continuum between the Frisian and adjoining Low Saxon dialects.
Until the early 20th century, variants of Dutch were still spoken by some decendants of Dutch colonies in the United States. New Jersey in particular had an active Dutch community with a highly divergent dialect that was spoken as recently as the 1950s. See Jersey Dutch for more on this dialect.
