Short answers, pulled from the story.
The word Dutch originated in the 8th century as a label meaning 'of the people' to distinguish common vernacular from Latin. The Bishop of Ostia used the term theodiscus to describe the common tongue recorded at a synod in Corbridge, England.
The oldest physical evidence of the Dutch language is the 5th-century Bergakker inscription found near the city of Tiel. This artifact may represent the oldest record of Dutch morphology and dates to the time of the Salian Franks.
The term Nederlands began to replace the older endonym by the 15th century to reflect growing regional consciousness. This change marked a shift toward a geographical name referencing the 'low lands' of the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta.
The publication of the Statenvertaling in 1637 triggered the standardization of the Dutch language. This Bible translation was created by order of the States General and used elements from various dialects to establish a unified language.
Dutch exists as a vast dialect continuum with at least 600 distinguishable varieties across the Netherlands and Belgium. Hollandic dominates national broadcast media in the Netherlands while Brabantian holds that role in Flanders.
Afrikaans replaced Dutch as an official language in South Africa in 1925. This daughter language evolved from 17th-century Cape Dutch dialects and is now spoken by at least 16 million people.