sentence-transformers/squad huggingface dataset:
Passage: The term Nederduits, however introduced new confusion, since the non standardised dialects spoken in the north of Germany came to be known as Niederdeutsch as well, and thus the Duits reference in the name was dropped, leading to Nederlands as designation to refer to the Dutch language. The repeated use of Neder (or "low") to refer to the Dutch language is a reference to the Netherlands' downriver location at the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta near the North Sea, harking back to Latin nomenclature, e.g. Germania Inferior. See also: Netherlands (toponymy).

Question: What was the new word for Dutch that still caused some confusion with the language spoken in Germany?

Question: What does the word "Neder" translate to in English?

Question: The Netherlands are "low" because of their placement near what delta by the North Sea?

Question: What language started the trend of referring to the Netherlands as "Germania Inferior"?

Question: "Nederduits" often caused people to mix up the language of the Netherlands with that spoken in what directional area of Germany?
Passage: Three Germanic dialects were originally spoken in the Low Countries: Frisian in the north and along the western coast; Saxon in the east (contiguous with the Low German area); and Franconian in the centre and south. It is the Franconian dialects that is designated as Old Dutch, and that would develop in Middle Dutch and later Modern Dutch. The division in these development phases is mostly conventional, since the transition between them was very gradual. One of the few moments linguists can detect somewhat of a revolution is when the Dutch standard language emerged and quickly established itself. The development of the Dutch language is illustrated by the following sentence in Old, Middle and Modern Dutch:

Question: How many different versions of a Germanic language were spoken in the Low Countries?

Question: Which Germanic dialect was spoken in the eastern region?

Question: Which dialects are referred to as "Old Dutch"?

Question: Was the transition from Old Dutch to Modern Dutch gradual, or did it happen quickly?

Question: Which Germanic dialect was spoken in the north and west of the Low Countries?
Passage: Within the Indo-European language tree, Dutch is grouped within the Germanic languages, which means it shares a common ancestor with languages such as English, German, and Scandinavian languages. All Germanic languages are united by subjection to the sound shifts of Grimm's law and Verner's law which originated in the Proto-Germanic language and define the basic differentiating features from other Indo-European languages. This assumed to have originated in approximately the mid-first millennium BCE in Iron Age northern Europe.

Question: Which language tree groups Dutch with English?

Question: What group of languages have to comply with Grimm's law?

Question: In what age did the sound patterns that distinguish Germanic languages develop?

Question: Along with Grimm's law, what's the other rule for Germanic-sounding speech called?

Question: What does a language need to share with the group in order to be classified as Germanic?
Passage: The Germanic languages are traditionally divided into three groups: West, East and North Germanic. They remained mutually intelligible throughout the Migration Period. Dutch is together with English and German part of the West Germanic group, that is characterized by a number of phonological and morphological innovations not found in North and East Germanic. The West Germanic varieties of the time are generally split into three dialect groups: Ingvaeonic (North Sea Germanic), Istvaeonic (Weser-Rhine Germanic) and Irminonic (Elbe Germanic). It appears that the Frankish tribes fit primarily into the Istvaeonic dialect group with certain Ingvaeonic influences towards the northwest, still seen in modern Dutch.

Question: Into how many groups are Germanic languages usually split?

Question: In what historical period did the different types of Germanic languages stop being collectively understood?

Question: What group of Germanic languages includes Dutch, English, and German?

Question: What's the West Germanic dialect spoken in the North Sea region called?

Question: Which dialect group included most Frankish tribes?
Passage: A Frankish identity emerged and so did their Frankish or Franconian language. The language itself is poorly attested. A notable exception is the Bergakker inscription, found near the Dutch city of Tiel, which may represent a primary record of 5th-century Frankish. Although some placenames recorded in Roman texts could arguably be considered as the oldest "Dutch" single words, like vadam (modern Dutch: wad, English: "mudflat"), the Bergakker inscription yields the oldest evidence of Dutch morphology, but there is no consensus on the interpretation of the rest of the text.

Question: What's another term for "Frankish"?

Question: What city is closest to the Bergakker inscription?

Question: To which century do some researchers attribute the Bergakker inscription?

Question: What word found in Roman writings became "wad" in modern Dutch?

Question: What does the Dutch word "wad" mean in English?
Passage: Old Low Franconian or Old Dutch is regarded as the primary stage in the development of a separate Dutch language. The "Low" in Old Low Franconian refers to the Frankish spoken in the Low Countries where it was not influenced by the High German consonant shift, as opposed to Central and high Franconian in Germany. The latter would as a consequence evolve with Allemanic into Old High German. At more or less the same time the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law led to the development of Old Saxon, Old Frisian (Anglo-Frisian) and Old English (Anglo-Saxon). Hardly influenced by either development, Old Dutch remained close to the original language of the Franks, the people that would rule Europe for centuries. The language however, did experienced developments on its own, like final-obstruent devoicing in a very early stage. In fact, by judging from the find at Bergakker, it would seem that the language already experienced this characteristic during the Old Frankish period.

Question: What's another name for Old Frisian?

Question: What's another name for Old English?

Question: What language stayed very similar to the language spoken by Franks?

Question: What period is the Bergakker inscription from that shows characteristics of the Old Dutch language?

Question: What's another name for Old Dutch that demonstrates its difference from German Franconian?
Passage: Attestations of Old Dutch sentences are extremely rare. The oldest one first recorded has been found in the Salic law. From this Frankish document written around 510 the oldest sentence has been identified as Dutch: Maltho thi afrio lito (I say to you, I free you, serf) used to free a serf. Another old fragment of Dutch is Visc flot aftar themo uuatare (A fish was swimming in the water). The oldest conserved larger Dutch text is the Utrecht baptismal vow (776-800) starting with Forsachistu diobolae [...] ec forsacho diabolae (Do you forsake the devil? [...] I forsake the devil). Probably the most famous sentence Hebban olla vogala nestas hagunnan, hinase hic enda tu, wat unbidan we nu (All birds have started making nests, except me and you, what are we waiting for), is dated around the year 1100, written by a Flemish monk in a convent in Rochester, England.

Question: Are written records of Old Dutch rare or common?

Question: What Frankish document contains the oldest recorded instance of Dutch?

Question: What creature is swimming in the Dutch phrase "Visc flot aftar themo uuatare"?

Question: Where did the monk who wrote the most famous Old Dutch sentence live?

Question: What historically significant Dutch document begins with the phrase "Forsachistu diobolae"?
Passage: Old Dutch naturally evolved into Middle Dutch. The year 1150 is often cited as the time of the discontinuity, but it actually marks a time of profuse Dutch writing and during this period a rich Medieval Dutch literature developed. There was at that time no overarching standard language; Middle Dutch is rather a collective name for a number of closely related dialects whose ancestor was Old Dutch. But they were all mutually intelligible. In fact, since Dutch is a rather conservative language, the various literary works of that time today are often very readable for modern-day speakers.

Question: What language did Middle Dutch come from?

Question: What year do some researchers say marked the point when Old Dutch morphed?

Question: Rather than a single language, what group sharing origins in Old Dutch does the term "Middle Dutch" refer to?

Question: Would a text written in Middle Dutch be readable or unintelligible for a Dutch speaker today?
Passage: A process of standardisation started in the Middle Ages, especially under the influence of the Burgundian Ducal Court in Dijon (Brussels after 1477). The dialects of Flanders and Brabant were the most influential around this time. The process of standardisation became much stronger at the start of the 16th century, mainly based on the urban dialect of Antwerp. In 1585 Antwerp fell to the Spanish army: many fled to the Northern Netherlands, where the Dutch Republic declared its independence from Spain. They particularly influenced the urban dialects of the province of Holland. In 1637, a further important step was made towards a unified language, when the Statenvertaling, the first major Bible translation into Dutch, was created that people from all over the new republic could understand. It used elements from various, even Dutch Low Saxon, dialects but was predominantly based on the urban dialects of Holland of post 16th century.

Question: What court in Dijon prior to 1477 had a hand in standardizing Dutch?

Question: Which two Dutch dialects had the greatest influence in the Middle Ages?

Question: Which century marked great progress in Dutch standardization brought on by Antwerp?

Question: What year did the Spanish conquer Antwerp?

Question: What was the first Dutch Bible translation called?
Passage: In the Southern Netherlands (now Belgium and Luxembourg) developments were different. Under Spanish, then Austrian, and then French rule standardisation of Dutch language came to a standstill. The state, law, and increasingly education used French, yet more than half the Belgian population were speaking a Dutch dialect. In the course of the nineteenth century the Flemish movement stood up for the rights of Dutch, mostly called Flemish. But in competing with the French language the variation in dialects was a serious disadvantage. Since standardisation is a lengthy process, Dutch-speaking Belgium associated itself with the standard language that had already developed in the Netherlands over the centuries. Therefore, the situation in Belgium is essentially no different from that in the Netherlands, although there are recognisable differences in pronunciation, comparable to the pronunciation differences between standard British and standard American English. In 1980 the Netherlands and Belgium concluded the Language Union Treaty. This treaty lays down the principle that the two countries must gear their language policy to each other, among other things, for a common system of spelling.

Question: What was the old name for the geographical region that's now Belgium and Luxembourg?

Question: What people ruled the Southern Netherlands after the Austrians?

Question: What year did the Netherlands and Belgium agree on a treaty to accommodate each other's language?

Question: What was the name of the treaty that brought the dialects of Belgium and the Netherlands together?

Question: The commonality between Dutch spoken by people in the Netherlands and Dutch-speaking Belgium can be compared to the relationship between British English and what language?
Passage: Dutch belongs to its own West Germanic sub-group, West Low Franconian, paired with its sister language Limburgish, or East Low Franconian. Closest relative is the mutual intelligible daughter language Afrikaans. Other West Germanic languages related to Dutch are German, English and the Frisian languages, and the non standardised languages Low German and Yiddish. Dutch stands out in combining a small degree of Ingvaeonic characteristics (occurring consistently in English and Frisian and reduced in intensity from 'west to east' over the continental West Germanic plane) with mostly Istvaeonic characteristics, of which some of them are also incorporated in German. Unlike German, Dutch (apart from Limburgish) has not been influenced at all by the 'south to north' movement of the High German sound shift, and had some changes of its own. The cumulation of these changes resulted over time in separate, but related standard languages with various degrees of similarities and differences between them. For a comparison between the West Germanic languages, see the sections Morphology, Grammar and Vocabulary.

Question: What's the "cheesy" name for East Low Franconian?

Question: What language has the most in common with the East Low Franconian dialect of Dutch?

Question: Along with German and English, what standardized West Germanic language is similar to Dutch?

Question: Non-standardized languages similar to Dutch include Yiddish and what other West Germanic language?

Question: As opposed to Dutch, what language was influenced by the High German sound shift?
Passage: In the east there is a Dutch Low Saxon dialect area, comprising the provinces of Groningen, Drenthe and Overijssel, and parts of the province of Gelderland as well. The IJssel river roughly forms the linguistic watershed here. This group, though not being Low Franconian and being close to the neighbouring Low German, is regarded as Dutch, because of a number of reasons. From the 14th to 15th century onward, its urban centers (Deventer, Zwolle and Kampen as well as Zutphen and Doesburg) have been increasingly influenced by the western written Dutch and became a linguistically mixed area. From the 17th century onward, it was gradually integrated into the Dutch language area. In other words, this group is Dutch synchronically but not diachronically.[citation needed]

Question: What dialect of Dutch is spoken in Drenthe?

Question: What's the name of the river that marks a dialect divide in the Netherlands?

Question: Although Dutch Low Saxon is similar to Low German, it's synchronically included with which language?

Question: Which Dutch province is only partially comprised of speakers of Dutch low Saxon?

Question: When did cities like Diventer and Zutphen start becoming more linguistically diverse?
Passage: Dutch dialects and regional languages are not spoken as often as they used to be. Recent research by Geert Driessen shows that the use of dialects and regional languages among both Dutch adults and youth is in heavy decline. In 1995, 27 percent of the Dutch adult population spoke a dialect or regional language on a regular basis, while in 2011 this was no more than 11 percent. In 1995, 12 percent of the primary school aged children spoke a dialect or regional language, while in 2011 this had declined to 4 percent. Of the three officially recognized regional languages Limburgish is spoken most (in 2011 among adults 54%, among children 31%) and Dutch Low Saxon least (adults 15%, children 1%); Frisian occupies a middle position (adults 44%, children 22%).

Question: What organization researched the use of regional Dutch dialects and found their usage declining?

Question: What percentage of adults in the Netherlands spoke a dialect or regional language in 1995?

Question: How many primary school aged children were found to speak a dialect or regional language by 2011?

Question: What's the most commonly spoken regional language in the Netherlands?

Question: In 2011, what percentage of Dutch adults spoke Frisian?
Passage: The different dialects show many sound shifts in different vowels (even shifting between diphthongs and monophthongs), and in some cases consonants also shift pronunciation. For example, an oddity of West Flemings (and to a lesser extent, East Flemings) is that, the voiced velar fricative (written as "g" in Dutch) shifts to a voiced glottal fricative (written as "h" in Dutch), while the letter "h" in West Flemish becomes mute (just like in French). As a result, when West Flemish try to talk Standard Dutch, they're often unable to pronounce the g-sound, and pronounce it similar to the h-sound. This leaves f.e. no difference between "held" (hero) and "geld" (money). Or in some cases, they are aware of the problem, and hyper-correct the "h" into a voiced velar fricative or g-sound, again leaving no difference.

Question: What's the Dutch word for "money"?

Question: West Flemings pronounce the Dutch "g" as a voiced glottal frivative, which would be represented by what letter in standard Dutch?

Question: What other European language has a mute "h" like the West Flemings do?

Question: What word that means "hero" would a West Fleming speaker probably pronounce the same as "geld"?

Question: If a West Fleming speaker were being extra careful to avoid the silent "h," they might over-correct into what sound?
Passage: Next to sound shifts, there are ample examples of suffix differences. Often simple suffix shifts (like switching between -the, -ske, -ke, -je, ...), sometimes the suffixes even depend on quite specific grammar rules for a certain dialect. Again taking West Flemish as an example. In that language, the words "ja" (yes) and "nee" (no) are also conjugated to the (often implicit) subject of the sentence. These separate grammar rules are a lot more difficult to imitate correctly than simple sound shifts, making it easy to recognise people who didn't grow up in a certain region, even decades after they moved.

Question: What's the West Flemish word for "no"?

Question: How would you tell a West Flemish speaker "yes"?

Question: What piece of a sentence does West Flemish match the case of a "yes" or "no" to?

Question: Would linguistic differences make it difficult or easy to point out someone who moved from a different region of the Netherlands?

Question: Which is easier for a non-native speaker to imitate: grammar rules or sound shifts?
Passage: Some Flemish dialects are so distinct that they might be considered as separate language variants, although the strong significance of language in Belgian politics would prevent the government from classifying them as such. West Flemish in particular has sometimes been considered a distinct variety. Dialect borders of these dialects do not correspond to present political boundaries, but reflect older, medieval divisions. The Brabantian dialect group, for instance, also extends to much of the south of the Netherlands, and so does Limburgish. West Flemish is also spoken in Zeelandic Flanders (part of the Dutch province of Zeeland), and by older people in French Flanders (a small area that borders Belgium).

Question: What Dutch dialect is so distinct that it's often considered a language variant?

Question: What kind of governmental boundary does dialect distribution transcend, reflecting medieval divisions?

Question: What province is Zeelandic Flanders in?

Question: What area that abuts Belgium still has some older people who speak West Flemish?

Question: Along with Limburgish, what other Dutch dialect is spoken down into a lot of the southern Netherlands?
Passage: Many native speakers of Dutch, both in Belgium and the Netherlands, assume that Afrikaans and West Frisian are dialects of Dutch but are considered separate and distinct from Dutch: a daughter language and a sister language, respectively. Afrikaans evolved mainly from 17th century Dutch dialects, but had influences from various other languages in South Africa. However, it is still largely mutually intelligible with Dutch. (West) Frisian evolved from the same West Germanic branch as Old English and is less akin to Dutch.

Question: What dialect is considered a sister language to Dutch?

Question: Which Dutch dialect is so distinct that it's often called a daughter language?

Question: Afrikaans is mostly derived from the Dutch spoken in what century?

Question: The Dutch influence on Afrikaans was seasoned with languages from what country?

Question: What two-word phrase describes the relationship whereby Dutch and Afrikaans speakers can understand each other?
Passage: In Europe, Dutch is the majority language in the Netherlands (96%) and Belgium (59%) as well as a minority language in Germany and northern France's French Flanders, where it is in the ultimate stage of language death. Though Belgium as a whole is multilingual, the two regions into which the country is divided (Flanders, francophone Wallonia, bilingual Brussels and small 'facility' zones) are largely monolingual. The Netherlands and Belgium produce the vast majority of music, films, books and other media written or spoken in Dutch. Dutch is a monocentric language, with all speakers using the same standard form (authorized by the Dutch Language Union) based on a Dutch orthography employing the Latin alphabet when writing. In stark contrast to its written uniformity, Dutch lacks a prestige dialect and has a large dialectal continuum consisting of 28 main dialects, which can themselves be further divided into at least 600 distinguishable varieties.

Question: What percentage of people in Belgium speak Dutch?

Question: What country in Europe has the highest percentage of Dutch speakers?

Question: What region in France is experiencing Dutch language death?

Question: What's the name of the institution that ensures Dutch is monocentric?

Question: How many different major dialects of Dutch are there?
Passage: Outside of the Netherlands and Belgium, the dialect around the German town of Kleve (South Guelderish) both historically and genetically belongs to the Dutch language. In Northeastern France, the area around Calais was historically Dutch-speaking (West Flemish) of which an estimated 20,000 daily speakers. The cities of Dunkirk, Gravelines and Bourbourg only became predominantly French-speaking by the end of the 19th century. In the countryside, until World War I, many elementary schools continued to teach in Dutch, and the Catholic Church continued to preach and teach the catechism in Flemish in many parishes.

Question: What town in Germany has always had mostly Dutch speakers?

Question: About how many people around Calais, France speak Dutch every day?

Question: It took until the end of what century for people in French cities like Gravelines to finally switch over to French from Dutch?

Question: Which church often preached in Flemish prior to World War I?

Question: In what area of France is Calais located?
Passage: During the second half of the 19th century Dutch was banned from all levels of education by both Prussia and France and lost most of its functions as a cultural language. In both Germany and France the Dutch standard language is largely absent and speakers of these Dutch dialects will use German or French in everyday speech. Dutch is not afforded legal status in France or Germany, either by the central or regional public authorities and knowledge of the language is declining among younger generations.

Question: In what country other than France did Dutch lose most of it usage in the 19th century?

Question: In France and Germany, what languages will often be substituted by native speakers of Dutch dialects?

Question: In what segment of the population is the decline in usage of Dutch most prominent?

Question: Other than France, what country does not give Dutch legal status as a language?

Question: What language did France and Prussia ban from use in education in the late 19th century?