>>18197321>"Dutch" itself comes from the same root word for "Tribe" and literally just means Tribe (or clan).Dutch comes from the low frankish word “Duits”, which would be translated as “German” and more literally “those who speak precisely”.
The fact that the Hollanders are called Dutch in English stems from the fact that the idea that the Hollanders were supposedly a distinct nation from the German nation had not been invented yet at the time modern English was developed.
It is true though, that the Franks are completely unrelated to the French, and the Germans are (very obviously to anyone with bare literacy in history) the true inheritors of the Frankish legacy.
The Netherlands are a Belgium that is only limited to german-speaking areas, and thus the illusion that it is not like Belgium an artificial country with artificial borders comes up.
