Dutch descends from Old Frankish dialects spoken in the Low Countries during the early medieval period and began to emerge as a distinct written language in the 12th and 13th centuries. The Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century spread the language across a vast colonial empire, giving rise to daughter varieties including Afrikaans in southern Africa and Papiamentu in the Caribbean. Dutch replaced Latin as the official administrative language of the Netherlands following the Reformation, and standardisation accelerated through Bible translation and printing. West Frisian, spoken in the province of Friesland, is recognised as a co-official regional language. Today, the Netherlands has one of the highest rates of English proficiency of any non-native-English-speaking country in the world.
