People have a very poor grasp and understanding of what a "language" is. A language is what evolved over centuries from the collective observations, thoughts, feelings, and insights of our ancestors. Each language is its own little "Garden of Eden", this entire planet is a blank canvas, the elements, the directions, the sense of time, the wildlife, the flora and fauna, the sun, the moon, the sky, the stars, air, the wind, the temperature, all of it was codified and defined in a very unique and peculiar way in every language.
This is why some languages have no words for north, south, east, or west. Direction was absolutely relative to wherever these people were at the time. If you were by a river while you were hunting and your prey got away, you wouldn't say "It went up north", you would say "It went upriver" since you were the river.
This is why some languages have no tense because they have no sense of time. The abstract idea of time was codified or defined in these languages.
This is also why we speak our OWN languages in often confusing and nonsensical ways. For example, we say something is "under" water. In reality, it's "surrounded" by water. We say we "a head full of hair" and when it begins to thin, we start referring to them as "hairs" when it should be the reverse.
Dutch is no exception. It has its own special and unique words and phrases which cannot be conveyed or translated accurately into any other language. When you lose the language of your people, your nation, and your ancestors, you are losing a compendium of knowledge unique and special to your people, this is how YOUR people interpreted and explained the world around them, this is how YOUR people decided to convey and express their feelings and emotions. These are special and can never be replaced with any other language because no other language is exactly like your's.
You lose your language and you lose yourself.
