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Explore the complex language situation in Belgium, where Dutch and French are the major languages. Discover the historical, social, and cultural factors that have shaped this linguistic division.
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Belgium is known for • ‘Belgian’ chocolate: http://users.skynet.be/chocolat/uk/index.html • ‘Belgian’ beers: http://www.dma.be/p/bier/beer.htm • ‘Belgian’ fries: http://www.belgianfries.com/ • ‘Belgian’ waffles http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/2830/bbwaff.html • Tin Tin: http://www.tintin.com/ • Jacques Brel http://www.jacquesbrel.be/ • ‘Marieke’: is there anyhting like a ‘Belgian’ language? Or Belgians?
What’s in a name? • the name of a country ~ the name of a language • French is the language of France, English that of England, German that of Germany. • reflects a rather simplisic view of the relation between the languages and nations of Europe: the name of a country ≠ the name of the language or languages spoken in that country • there is no such thing as a Belgian language, nor does Swiss exist.
“Do they speak any Swiss there?” • what do they speak? • Belgium and Switzerland have no language of their own, French is spoken in both countries BUT in Belgium the Dutch-speakers and in Switzerland the German-speakers constitute the majority of the population (i.e. 60% or more of the population). • what do tems like majority and minority language mean in a European context? • there is no majority language in Europe: max. 15% of native speakers. • a language which is a minority language in one country may well be the language of the majority across the border. • French in Belgium and in Switzerland, or German in Belgium and Italy
In dealing with the languages of Europe one crucial point should never be overlooked “national frontiers and language frontiers do not always coincide”
Outline • The situation in Belgium • Dutch vs French (vs German) • The situation in the Low Countries • Dutch vs Dutch (vs Dialect) • The situation in the rest of the world • Dutch vs (non) European languages
Belgium • Belgium has • +/- 10 000 000 inhabitants • 30 000 km² (one fourth of North Carolina) • 3 official languages: Dutch (+/- 60%), French (+/- 40%), German (70 000 speakers)
How did this come to be? • a language border divides Belgium in two major language regions: a Dutch speaking and a French speaking. • it is assumed that the border has been there for over 1500 years (since the collapse of the Roman Empire) and has barely moved over that period of time. ! This language border is no ethnical border: it is not the case that speakers of Dutch descend from Germanic tribes whereas speaker of French are related to Romance or Celtic tribes.
Latin vs Vernacular • For centuries this border barely played any role. • Middle Ages: Latin was used in church, in (inter)national administrative affairs and in science. ! The people used their own language: Walloon-French dialects in the South and Flemish-Dutch dialects in the North. • language for everyday communication • also used for ruling (Flemish) cities: from the 13th century onwards the economical and political importance of Ypres, Ghent and Bruges made these northern Flemish dialects leading dialects. ~ the silting up of the Zwin: the role of Bruges and Ghent was taken over by Central Flemish cities such as Antwerp, Brussels and Louvain and their dialects.
‘Netherlandic’ • 1549: Habsburg emperor Charles V forms the 17 provinces of the Netherlands into a single territorial entity = the entire Dutch-speaking area, a substantial part of what is now Northern France and some French speaking parts of what is now Belgium. • they had their own legal and judicial system. • stress the differences between them and the rest of the empire by referring to their language as “Lower” or “Nether” Dutch or “Netherlandic” (‘Low-Landic’) as opposed to the ‘High-landic’ or German (Dutch ~ Deutsch).
The Rise of French • Religious upheavels of the 16th century: consequences for the Low Countries and their language: • 1566: the Calvinist inspired Iconoclastic Fury broke out in Steenvoorde the revolt fanned out across the Netherlands. • Philip II dispatched the Duke of Alva to the Low Countries: Alva’s repression of the Protestants fled • elite troops reconquered the South but the Northern provinces held out. • they blocked the Scheldt and Antwerp (and the south) fell into Spanish hands in 1585. • 1648 (Treaty of Munster): Spain recognized the independence of the (northern) Dutch republic. • Austrian rule (1713-1792)
= foreign dominations: the role of Latin as the official national and supra-national language gradually taken over by French. the Flemish-speaking population had to acquire excellent skills in French in order to be able to function in official bureaucracies, the educational system, non-local commerce and various other public domains. ° social gap or language barrier between the higher and the lower strata of the population. French = power and prestige Flemish = poverty, underdevelopment amalgam of purely local forms.
French tendency reinforced in 1795: Belgium was annexed by the French Republic. French = the only official language administration, education, press, etc. were used to promote this. ! 1815: Napoleon defeated by Waterloo Congress of Vienna: assigns Belgium to the Netherlands = the northern and southern Netherlands united under Dutch king Willem the first.
1823: radical language policy introduced in the Flemish speaking areas of Belgium = Dutch the one official language of administration, education and the legal system. ! resistance: the northern Dutch variant had developed for over two centuries (1585) with virtually no input form the southern vernaculars. there were important social and religious differences between the Protestant North and the Catholic South. Apparently, the social and religious differences between the North and South proved to be more important than the awareness of a linguistic bond.
Open revolt in the South repartition of the Netherlands in 1830 creation of the kingdom of Belgium with it’s capital Brussels ! de jure freedom of speech - the official language of the state and of the political and economical elite = French status symbol. + Flanders: economic decline (famine!) during the 19th century no money for culture, education Flemish became socially associated with poverty, analphabetism and underdevelopment.
° the Flemish movement = the struggle of the Flemish people as a whole for recognition of their language and cultural aspirations. by the end of the 19th century it had acquired a social and economic dimension foreshadowed the major role that language policy would play in shaping modern Belgium. The ‘Equality Law’ of 1898 recognized Dutch as one of the two official languages of Belgium, on a par with French. Flanders became bilingual French and Dutch ! Wallonia as well as the army and the diplomacy remained monolingual French.
gradual socio-economic and political emancipation of the Flemings far-reaching legislation, granting the Dutch language in the Flemish provinces exclusive rights in the judicial, administrative and educational sphere and in the army. ! Important was WWI: massive losses suffered by Flemish units commanded by French speaking officers “Et pour les flamands la même chose” (‘and for the Flemish the same thing’) introduction of the principle: ‘one man one vote’ in 1919: no more way to stop laws that promoted the use of Flemish as an official language.
reaction to the growing Flemish nationalism: Wallonian Movement demands official monolingualism for the provinces of Wallonia. • goals in line with those of the Flemish speakers, i.e. territorially based monolingualism for Wallonia and Flanders. • 1921: Belgium divided in two monolingual areas, a French and a Flemish one, and bilingual Brussels.
!The rights of French minorities in Flanders were protected and the demarcation line could be moved every tenth year, depending on the results of the so-called ‘language counts’. 1930: state university of Ghent adopted Dutch as its language of instruction (! University of Leuven: 1968) 1932 primary and secondary education in Flanders became exclusively Dutch speaking. the administrative and education laws of the beginning of the century set the stage for the eventual tripartite federalism.
WWII: Flanders translates its demographical predominance into political power • 1962: language border definitively established • 3 monolingual regions: a Flemish one, a French one and a German one plus bilingual Brussels. ! the rights of French-speaking minorities in certain parts of Flanders and Flemish speaking minorities in specific parts of Wallonia are protected.
This did not solve all the problems: the ‘one state’ principle was not able to satisfy the different needs of the four regions. between 1970 and 1993 the ‘one state’ was federalized and divided into 3 Regions: Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels. each Region has the power to take decisions concerning economy employment, infrastructure, environment etc.
3 (language) Communities: Flemish, French and German • the Communities are responsible for language, culture, education etc. ! Only in the Flemish part, the government and parliament of community and region coincide.
Dutch vs Dutch (vs Dialect) • “The fact that one particular dialect becomes the basis of the standard language has nothing to do with the linguistic merits of that dialect, but is simply a consequence of its happening to be the medium of the centralizing power or of the region which calls the tune in political and economic matters. The rulers and, more generally, the inhabitants of the dominant region are imitated, and the imitation extends to their speech. The other dialects consequently lose prestige, and are able to contribute little more than some words and turns of phrase to the emerging standard language.”
Standardization in the North • standardization process in Dutch is, to an extent, independent of the development of a national consciousness • can be seen to be crucially dependent on economic and demographic factors: urbanization, i.e. the growth of interdependent cities, and the emergence of large, relatively literate, politically and economically powerful urban middle and upper classes provided the impetus for the development of a super-regional standard. • the mobility of the population and the intensifying commercial and cultural interaction between cities heightened awareness of different dialectal variants and underlined the need for a more universally accessible written language.
the Dutch linguistic area has not had a permanent center of cultural and economic influence such as Paris in France and London in England. the centre of Dutch culture passes from Bruges in North Flanders in the late 14th century to Antwerp in the Central part of Flanders to Amsterdam in the province of Holland. this shift of the economic and cultural center of gravity in the Low Countries has meant that all of these dialectically diverse areas have made a major contribution to the development of Dutch.
after the southern part had been conquered by the Spanish in 1585 the economic and cultural center of gravity and with it tens of thousands of southerners fled to the North = to the province of Holland where Amsterdam had already emerged as a leading city in Amsterdam modern Standard Dutch, the official language of the newly created independent state, took its final shape. ! economic and cultural influence of the South during the previous centuries and the presence of the southerners in and around Amsterdam at the time of standardization standardization includes southern linguistic features in the standard language of the northern Netherlands, especially in its written form. made the eventual adoption of the northern Dutch standard in Belgium more feasible.
Standardization in the South • In Belgium, the standardization of the language of the north had to wait until the 19th century. • Flemish radicals did not agree on exactly what idiom was eventually to be the official language of Flanders, side by side or in the place of French. • The so-called localists advocated a specifically Flemish standard language (oa Guide Gezelle). • Others (like Jan Frans willems) took a different view: the short-lived union of Belgium and the Netherlands under Willem the first had left them acutely aware of the (distant) common past and the close linguistic affinity between Flanders and the Netherlands. After years of debate, the integrationist view finally prevailed.
How Dutch is Dutch? • From 1849 onwards linguists from the Netherlands and Flanders • held joint conferences. • planned the publication of a monumental Dictionary of the Dutch Language. required a uniform spelling and the system designed by Dutchmen was officially adopted in Belgium in 1864 and in the Netherlands in 1883. The simplifications of 1946 and 1995 were the result of joint consultation. • Since 1946: the cultural integration of the Netherlands and Flanders has been actively promoted by various official and private initiatives • September 9th 1980: the Netherlands and Flanders signed the articles of the “Dutch Language Union”, which is founded on the unity of the language spoken and written in the Netherlands and Flanders. the publication of the Algemene Nederlandse Spraakkunst (1984), an extensive reference grammar written jointly by Flemish and Dutch linguists.
Two Standards • official recognition that Dutch is the common language of the Netherlands and Flanders ≠ all linguistic differences within the Dutch language area have been completely erased. ! Even standard Dutch as it is spoken in the Netherlands does not sound quite the same as the standard Dutch spoke in Flanders. • 3 centuries of political and cultural separation have inevitably left their mark. • In the North, standard Dutch has enjoyed a steady development from the 17th century onwards, in close relation with the local dialects. • In Flanders, until well into the 20th century the Dutch dialects led a fragmented and isolated existence while the standard language was a foreign tongue, French. the dialects of Flanders borrowed liberally from that foreign tongue, and even today standard Dutch spoken and written in Flanders has not yet entirely shaken off the effects of inference from French: 2 varieties of the same language
And a Substandard • ‘Belgian’ substandard of standard Dutch ≠ an informal variant of standard Dutch, as there exists in the Netherlands: although it is relatively homogeneous, it is too different from standard Dutch (in pronunciation, lexicon, morphology and syntax) to be considered its informal variant. • This substandard is mainly used in everyday informal communication, whereas the standard language is reserved for official situations and written language. • ‘news’-Dutch compared to ‘soap’-Dutch: Flemish news is not subtitled in the Netherlands, soaps are! • This substandard is the topic of much discussion nowadays: people say things they would never write. Tolerate this or try to eradicate it?
And Dialects • even within one country, the language differs: the Bruges accent differs from Hasselt or Antwerp speech. > a natural consequence of the fact that various local dialects coexist within the language. • Dutch has a great many local dialects, but the can be subsumed under a few main groups : • 1. the West Flemish and Zeeland dialects, • 2. the Brabant or southern central dialects • 3. the Holland or northern dialects • 4. the Limburg or south eastern dialects • 5. the Saxon or north eastern dialects • 6. the Frisian dialects (no Dutch dialects: historically closer to English than to either Dutch or German.) • these local dialects are fading away and are being replaced by ‘regiolects’ that only preserve the main dialectal characteristics.
A Dutch dialect can be defined as a ‘natural language system’ (not standardized by means of writing/education) that is being passed on orally and is a continuation of Middle Dutch. These dialects are geographically marked. Every local dialect is a complete language, that has a ‘grammar’, but often it is not exhaustively studied. Every dialectal characteristics is spread out over a specific geographical area. In other words, a local dialect is a kind of cocktail of characteristics, each of which occupies a different geographical area. http://fuzzy.arts.kuleuven.ac.be/rewo/Sprek_kaart/Vlinder/vlinderned.htm
Dutch in the world • Dutch is spoken in • Belgium (6 000 000), the Netherlands (14 000 000) • it is also an official language of the Dutch Antilles (still part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands) and of Surinam (an independent country since 1975). In both coutries there is a literature in Dutch. • Dutch is related to Afrikaans • 1652: three ships belonging to the Dutch East India Company cast anchor near the Cape of Good Hope. • Task: the establishment and manning of a supply station for ships on their way to the Indies and back. • Their 17th century dialects formed the basis of he present Afrikaans language.
Dutch in the world • the Boers had very little contact with the spoken Dutch of the mother country: kept in touch with written Dutch only through the 17th century text of the States Bible. In the course of the 19th century the gap between the Boers’ everyday speech and the written Dutch coming to them from Europe had become unbridgeable. • recognition of the popular speech of the Boers as a written language: also the only way to resist the growing pressure of English. Afrikaans was recognized in 1925 as one of the two official languages of the country: today, Afrikaans is the native language of almost 6 million in a total population of about 30 million.
Dutch in the world • Dutch has influenced • Other European languages • French ~ Italian, Spanish • German • English • Non-European languages: trading and colonies (from the 17th century on) • Russian [Czar Peter the Great (Zaandam 1697)] • Japanese • Sinhalese (Sri Lanka) & Indonesian [Dutch colonies]
Dutch and English • to beleaguer ~ belegeren a landscape ~ een landschap • a boor ~ een boer a sketch ~ een schets • a boss ~ een baas a snack ~ snacken (old) • Brandy ~ brandewijn a splinter ~ een splinter • a bulwark ~ een bolwerk a spook ~ een spook • a bundle ~ een bundel a yacht ~ een jacht • a buoy ~ een boei a dock ~ een dok • (ca)boodle ~boedel to drill ~ drillen • to crimp ~ krimpen a freight ~ een vracht • Etc.
Links • History of the Dutch language http://www.ned.univie.ac.at/publicaties/taalgeschiedenis/en/ • Belgium: languages and dialects http://www.euro-support.be/langbel/langbel.htm http://home-13.tiscali-business.nl/%7Etpm09245/lang/langbel.htm
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