ELL: Re: Re: Flemish vs. French in Brussels

[Eric Brunner-Williams in Portland Maine]

> In point of fact, as far as my knowledge goes, all Flemish speak French.

Milage varies. My co-workers at GET, a small (100 employees) technology
company were Flemmish, with two exotic exceptions - one from Holland, and
one from Bruxelles (uh, Brussel), and few had greater facility in French
than in English.

> By the way, it's quite incongruent to speak of Flemish on the one hand and
> French spoken Belgians on the other. It's either Dutch and French spoken
> Belgians, or Flemish and Walloons.

The family I married into was typical. Moved to Bruxelles from Flanders as
young adults post-WW2, acquired Bruxellois as adults, raised children who
were francophone. Atypical examples are the francophone bourgoise of Gand
(Ghent), Anvers (Antwerpen), and Brugges (Brugge). My cousins-in-law in Ghent
spoke a more familial french than did my parents-in-law in Bruxelles.

I only mention this to provide one data point, inconsistent with both the
first, and the second points made by a contributor.

However, neither ABN nor any construction of Flams is "endangered", and
most indigenous languages of the Americas are, so the point of all this is
lost on me.

Kitakitamatsinopowwaw,
Eric


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