Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0034/00349.txt

Text File | 1991-06-24 | 37KB | 562 lines

$Unique_ID{COW00349}
$Pretitle{370}
$Title{Belgium
Chapter 2B.   Language}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Jenny Masur}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{percent
french
dutch
language
belgian
flemish
flanders
brussels
standard
belgium}
$Date{1984}
$Log{Figure 7.*0034901.scf
}
Country:     Belgium
Book:        Belgium, A Country Study
Author:      Jenny Masur
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1984

Chapter 2B.   Language

     Demographic and geographic divisions in Belgium only partially coincide
with social ones. Belgium is marked by particularistic compartmentalization,
well illustrated by its complex educational system. It is therefore necessary
to understand those loyalties that create the compartments-language and
religion. The languages spoken in contemporary Belgium are Dutch, French, and
German. Linguistic and political borders do not coincide. German is spoken in
the eastern area of the country bordering West Germany, Dutch in the northern
area bordering the Netherlands, and French in the western and southern area
bordering France. Early Germanic invasions laid the basis for the current
linguistic divide (see Roman Period, 57 B.C.-A.D. 431, ch. 1). The provinces
of West-Vlaanderen, Oost-Vlaanderen, Antwerpen, Limburg, and northern Brabant
became Dutch-speaking Flanders, while those of Liege, Luxembourg, Hainaut,
Namur, and southern Brabant became French-speaking Wallonia. The German
speakers, using Low German and Franco-Mosellan dialects, live in the eastern
cantons of Eupen and Malmedy, but they account for less than 1 percent of the
total population. Only in certain areas do linguistic minorities receive
protection (see fig. 1). Brussels is a special case, being treated as an
officially bilingual region.

     Technically, there are residents of Wallonia who speak any of the
Romance-language dialects-not necessarily mutually intelligible-called Picard,
Gaumais, and Walloon (split into central, western, and eastern dialects).
There are residents of Flanders who speak any of the Germanic dialects-also
not necessarily mutually intelligible-called Brabant, Limburg, and West
Flemish (see fig. 7). For convenience, all the former dialects have been
combined in the category of Walloon (waal; wallon) and all of the latter into
Flemish (vlaams; flamande). Historical circumstance and the point of view of
the writer, as well as objective criteria, have determined what constituted a
"dialect" and when it became the basis for a supraregional language.

     Because of the history of the French nation, the development of French
literature, and the role of French as an international language of prestige,
Parisian French came to set the standard for Walloon speakers. In contrast,
Flemish and Brabant dialects played an important role from the thirteenth to
the sixteenth century in Flanders, after which the dialects in the
Netherlands-influenced by immigrants from southern Flanders and Brabant-began
to dominate. The Flemish speakers in Flanders were cut off from the
Netherlands by politics and only decided to adopt Amsterdam Dutch as their
written and spoken standard in the mid-nineteenth century. In English, some
authors prefer to call the standard spoken by Flemings and residents of the
Netherlands Netherlandic, reserving Dutch or Hollandic for what is spoken
exclusively in the Netherlands. To complicate matters further, there are about
100,000 people of Flemish descent living across the border in France, although
the schools there do not teach Dutch.

     A poll conducted by the French and Dutch sections of the Catholic
University of Louvain (KUL/UCL) in the early 1980s investigated the secondary
languages used in Belgium. Dutch was used frequently in at least one-half of
the public utilities and private enterprises in Wallonia; English and German
were also used to a lesser extent. In Brussels, French was most common,
followed by Dutch, English, German, Spanish, Italian, and Arabic. In Flanders,
French was employed in almost all private enterprises and public utilities,
and English and German in about 60 percent of private enterprises and 50
percent of public utilities. The frequent use of English was partly explained
by its importance in research, academic publications, and computer operations.
Apparently, French-speaking university students were weaker at Dutch (75
percent admitted to serious difficulties) than Dutch-speaking students were at
French (50 percent admitted serious difficulties). Only 30 percent of the
enterprises located in Wallonia considered the linguistic qualifications of
applicants when hiring, compared with 60 percent in Flanders. In both regions
an average of 20 percent of the jobs in public services required dual language
proficiency. These rates contrasted with 90 percent of private enterprises and
75 percent of the public services in Brussels. Outside Brussels students could
choose which second language to study. In Wallonia some 58 percent of the
students chose to learn Dutch, and 36 percent chose English; in Flanders about
91 percent opted to learn French, and 9 percent selected English. At the same
time, if given the choice, the majority of 18-year-olds surveyed in Wallonia
said they would like to study English; 18-year-olds in Flanders were equally
divided between French and English.

[See Figure 7.: Location of Speakers of Romance-Language and Flemish Dialects,
1984.]

     Although language plays an important part in individual, group, or
communal identity in Belgium as well as in Belgian politics, it has not always
done so. It was a conscious policy in the nineteenth century to make first
French and then Dutch political tools, aimed at political unification and
French or Dutch cultural domination. At the time of Belgian independence, for
example, emphasis lay on differences of religion and politics between Belgium
and the Netherlands or France and not on languages or regions within the
Belgian state (see The Revolution of 1830, ch. 1).

     The term "Wallonia" was reputed to be coined in 1844 by the poet Joseph
Grandgagnage and was applied to the French-speaking region only after 1850.
"Flanders" has referred to the county of Flanders, the Low Countries, or the
provinces of West-Vlaanderen and Oost-Vlaanderen. Those who came to be called
Flemings had earlier been variously called Brabanters, Belgians, or "Belgian
speakers of the Flemish idiom"; their language had been referred to as Low
German, as well as Flemish, and was held to be distinct from Dutch by some
scholars as late as 1946. Local dialects split each region into smaller units,
to which the residents felt the most loyalty. The most significant cleavages
that showed up in Belgian public life during the country's first century were
religiosity and socioeconomic status; language did not dominate politics until
the late 1950s.

     Like French and English in Canada, Dutch and French in Belgium have not
held symmetric roles. French was the language of the elite during the Spanish,
Austrian, and French regimes and of the ruling bourgeoisie for many years
after independence. It was the language used by the royal courts and the upper
classes and thus was essential for political or social success. French was the
language of public administration, judicial proceedings, church hierarchy
and, after Latin became obsolete, education. The members of the bourgeois
elite in Flanders were French speaking, said to know only sufficient Flemish
to speak to their servants. Walloon and Flemish dialects were used only at the
municipal level of government and by the local clergy. During World War I
Flemish soldiers could not understand their French officers, and in 1866 two
Flemings were executed for a crime they probably did not commit because they
did not understand the French trial proceedings. Three popular sayings of the
time told the story of the position of the Flemish language:

French in the parlor, Flemish in the kitchen.
You speak the language of the man whose bread you eat.
It is necessary to cease