Are the Dutch and Flemish ethnic Germans?

[TheForeigner]

I got this idea from a Dutch former member called Lawspeaker. He claimed the Dutch and Flemings are still just ethnic Germans and that he hoped for a creation of a Greater Germany which should include Austria, Lichtenstein, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg. All this he of course wanted to be achieved peacefully. So what do you think? Are Netherlandic people ethnic Germans?

[TheForeigner]

bump

[Ouistreham]

I got this idea from a Dutch former member called Lawspeaker. He claimed the Dutch and Flemings are still just ethnic Germans and that he hoped for a creation of a Greater Germany which should include Austria, Lichtenstein, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg. All this he of course wanted to be achieved peacefully. So what do you think? Are Netherlandic people ethnic Germans?

By and large, yes.
Dutch used to be part of the German culture and language continuum (the Westernmost part of the Low-German dialect family) that, for some reason, evolved as an independant literary language in the course of the Middle-Ages.

Possibly, if instead of Jean Calvin Dutch Protestants had supported Martin Luther, the Netherlands and Flanders would have been attracted back to Greater Germany — perhaps.

Still nowadays, the variety of Dutch used in the South-East of the Netherlands (Limburg, with the town of Maastricht) is virtually undistinguishable from the dialects spoken just beyond the border to Germany.

[catgeorge]

Of course they are

[Newman]

Of course, dutch is originally a Low German dialect.

[TheForeigner]

Dutch is a Franconian language.

[Newman]

Dutch is not a Low German dialect as previously thought.

Low franconian is low german..

[Antimage]

Is this only german propaganda? When did the dutch identity start to emerge?

[Hevo]

I wouldn't call it propaganda but it was rather an outdated view from 19th century German linguists about Dutch. They considered Dutch and other Lower Franconian language varieties as Low German dialects. This map is based on this view.

[Antimage]

I wouldn't call it propaganda but it was rather an outdated view from 19th century German linguists about Dutch. They considered Dutch and other Lower Franconian language varieties as Low German dialects. This map is based on this view.

Interesting that they equated language with ethnicity and split Germany in half

I mean, they considered someone from Eastern Prussia ethnically closer to a Dutch than to someone from Silesia?? Isn't that strange?