West Flemish

West-Flemish (West-Vlams or West-Vloams or Vlaemsch (in French Flanders), Dutch: West-Vlaams, French: flamand occidental) is a Low Franconian language spoken in western Belgium and the neighbouring areas of France and the Netherlands. Vlaemsch, or West-Flemish, despite minor regional differences, is classified by many linguistic authorities, including the country of France, UNESCO, Glottolog and Ethnologue, as a distinct language (ISO 639-3: vls) within the Low Franconian branch of the West-Germanic family, rather than a dialect of Dutch. It is recognized as a separate entity due to its significant phonological, lexical, and grammatical differences from Standard Dutch, such as its unique monophthongization and negative concord systems. Its mutual intelligibility with Standard Dutch is limited, similarly to Afrikaans.

West-Flemish (Vlaemsch) is spoken by about a million people in the Belgian province of West Flanders, and a further 50,000 in the neighbouring Dutch coastal district of Zeelandic Flanders (200,000 if including the closely related dialects of Zeelandic) and 10–20,000 in the northern part of the French department of Nord. Some of the main cities where West Flemish is widely spoken are Bruges, Kortrijk, Ostend, Roeselare and Ypres in Belgium and Hazebrouck, Cassel, Halluin, and Bailleul in France. These areas are part of what was once the historic "County Of Flanders" (pre-dating both the Netherlands and Belgium) making it the home of the ethnic Flemish people, who are now spread across three countries.

West-Flemish (Vlaemsch) is listed as a "vulnerable" language in UNESCO's online Red Book of Endangered Languages

From Wikipedia · West Flemish · CC BY-SA 4.0