Acquisition of Dutch phonology: an overview

This series consists of unpublished working- papers. They are not final versions and may be superseded by publication in journal or book form, which should be cited in preference. All rights remain with the author(s) at this stage, and circulation of a work in progress in this series does not prejudice its later publication. Comments to authors are welcome. This is a draft of a chapter that appears in Sharynne McLeod (Ed.) The International Guide to Speech Acquisition Thomson Delmar Publishing (ISBN 1-4180-5360-0) published in 2007. The International Guide to Speech Acquisition, Part II. Delmar Thomson, 327-339.Dutch speech acquisitionDutch is a West-Germanic language spoken by most inhabitants of the Netherlands(approximately 16 million speakers). It is the official language of the Netherlands, Belgium, Suriname, Aruba, and the Dutch Antilles. It is thought to be spoken by around 24 million people worldwide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_language). Dutch has many dialects which differ from Standard Dutch in their vocabulary, syntax,morphology and phonology. The Netherlands has a heterogeneous population with people from many different nationalities and as a consequence a wide variety of languages is spoken. The majority of the immigrant population is from Turkish descent, followed by Surinam, and Moroccan descent (source: Statistics Netherlands,www.cbs.nl).caslunpub152unpubWP-1