The Netherlands and the United Kingdom have a strong political and economic partnership. Over forty Dutch towns and cities are twinned with British towns and cities. Linguistic ties include the fact that both English and Dutch are West Germanic languages, with Frisian, a minority language in the Netherlands being the closest relative of the English Language if one excludes Scots, which is sometimes considered a dialect of English. In addition, between 90% and 93% of people in the Netherlands claim to speak English while a negligible percentage of British people can speak Dutch.