LL-L "Language politics" 2008.06.23 (05) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  - 23 June 2008 - Volume 05
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From: Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc. <roger.thijs at euro-support.be>
Subject: LL-L Language politics

> From: Helge Tietz <helgetietz at yahoo.com>
> Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2008.06.22 (06) [E/LS]
> He has got a point just as much as Wenker and Frings have a point. I
indeed believe to divide the northern Rhineland and Limburg into German and
Dutch is almost as impossible as it is to divide Brussels and surroundings
into Wallon and Flemish, both exist next to each other and among each other.

Brussels is about 90 perc. French speaking, when including immigrants maybe
95 perc. Company headquartes are internally bilingual or English *during the
week*. The Grand-Place is linguistically international, other area's are
virtually *French-only in the week-end*.

I do my shopping often downtown in the week-end, and while the official
administative indications are bilingual, it is very difficult to find
someone who understands 5 words of Dutch in the smaller shops. This
indicates also something about the quality of language education in the
French system.
Six border municipalities are Flemish "with facilities", but these switched
to French and one often finds quite often monolingual French speakers in the
shops over there. Some examples from my own recent experience, all in *
Kraainem*:
In the "Lunch Garden" they didn't know what "dagschotel" (day's menu) meant,
even when it is advertised bilingually in large capitals "dagschotel - plat
du jour" over the head of the servant,
In the "Brico" they could not explain me where I could find a
"plint" (baseboard) even when it is "plinthe" (with a nazalized "in" though)
in French.
In the "Carrefour" a lady promoting the use of self-scanners (for scanning
one-self while shopping) could not produce a single word of Dutch, even not
for excusing herself for that.
This all in the *Flemish* community with facilities, actually in "Kraainem".

It is a law that once French gets in, it pushes away all other languages.
The French speaking people are very kind though, most of them just speak
French and French only. Activities by Flemish municipalities for protecting
the local culture at the outskirts (Steenokkerzeel, Zaventem, Overijse) are
represented as facistic in the French-language press.

Switching to France:
A couple of weeks ago it was reported in this list that the French
parliament (the Assemblée Générale) had a sympathetic discussion about
regional languages in Paris. This exceptional cultural laxness has been
condemned and overruled by the French Senat and by the the Académie
française:
"Le 22 mai, lors de l'examen du projet de révision de la Constitution, les *
députés* adoptent un amendement selon lequel *« les langues régionales
appartiennent au patrimoine de **la République** »*. Le 18 juin, les *
sénateurs* suppriment cette disposition, jugée par les deux tiers d'entre
eux, et de tous bords, attentatoire à l'identité nationale et à l'unité de la
République. Ils refusent d'ajouter cette phrase à l'article 1 de la
Constitution. Seuls le PS, les Verts et quelques UMP ont voté contre.

Entre temps, les gérontes de *l'Académie française* avaient préparé le
terrain pour les Sénateurs : « *L'unité de **la Nation** est en jeu »* avait
mis en garde* *Max GALLO !"

quoted from a "communiqué du Bureau de l'Alliance Régionale Flandre Artois
Hainaut" dated june 21.

Back to Belgium.

Actually in Belgium one has two layers, the dialects (or regional
languages?) and the administrative languages (Dutch, French and German).

*As for the dialects:*
I'm not aware of municipalities switching recently from Walloon/Picard
to Flemish/Brabantish/Limburgish/Ripuarisch/Moselle-Franconian
incl. Luxembourgish or v.v.
There may be some exceptions, as e.g. Herstappe (*40 *inhabitants, mostly
farmers) in the very South of Belgian Limburg (switched from French to Dutch
as administrative language in 1930).
The only dialectically bilingual/trilingual municipality I'm aware of is*Aubel
*: Walloon in the South, Voeren-Limburgish in the West; Moresnet-Limburgish
in the East (so not really mixed but combining different hamlets); It became
administratively French-only after WWII.
Toponomy indicates some switches happened quite a long time ago, maybe even
before Dutch or French became written languages, as indicate e.g. the names
of Waterloo, Neerheylissem, Dongelberg, Clabecq etc in Walloon Brabant and
Walshoutem, Walsbets etc in Flemish Brabant.
What is happening though nowadays is *loss of dialect*, combined with
*switching
to an administrative language*. That switch may be from a Germanic dialect
to French.

*As for the administrative languages:*
Belgium started virtually with *French only* in 1830 (with unofficial
translations of the law gazetteer). The Flemish movement acquired a position
for Dutch. The South refused to become bilingual, the North passed gradually
over a *bilingual *situation into *monolingual Dutch*.
Criterium for the administrative language of a municipality were the
language censi. Because of these implications, the censi were politically
inflluenced and turned into referenda, with several municipalities turning
from Dutch into French every 10 years. The WWII heritage was used for
feeding anti-germanic feelings at the occasion of the census of 1947 and as
a result some municalities with 10-15 percent of French speaking people in
1930 switched to 80-90 percent French in 1947.
This was particularily true for Northern (Bleyberg-Moresnet) and Central
Altbelgien (Bocholz = Beho), since these areas were (together with
Eupen-Malmedy-Sankt-Vith) annnexed by the Reich in 1940. Inhabitants were
forced to serve in the German army and punished afterwards by the
Belgians for collaboration with the ennemy.
In 1962 a *fixed* borderline for administrative use was imposed.
Northern people adjust (= switch to French) easily to the local language
when moving to the South,
Southern people generally keep their culture when moving to the North and
use all kind of national and international  legal procedures for getting
switches of the local administrative language into French. This is
especially true in municipalities with "facilities", i.e. special provisions
for serving administratively in the other language.
It is like giving the Indians some territory, let the Anglo-Saxons
immigrate, et let them get right in the Supreme court that they have an
equal opportunity right to impose their culture over Indian land.
 Since the international press (including the Germans) mainly reads French
newspapers in Brussels, the Northern people are often internationally
classified as facistic and intolerant.

Additionally to the political pressure, there was a *difficulty of
definition*. The Limburgish speaking *Sippenaken* got alternatively German
and Dutch language parish priests, depending on availability of resources in
the Bishopric of Liège.
The 1930 census gave: French 42.77 perc., German 33.85 perc., Dutch 18.15
perc. What they really were speaking was a *Limburgish-Ripuarian* transition
dialect. So they got *French *administrative ruling as democacy requires.
(data quoted from Remouchamps, Carte systématique de la Wallonie, p. 211-269
+ large map, in Bulletin de la Commission Royale de Toponymie &
Dialectologie, vol. IX, 1935)

Actually it is *or *French* or* Dutch. History has proven that *mixed
situations leads to French only* after less than 2 generations.

The positive thing. Walloon politicians started acquiring some Dutch since
10-15 years and are becoming able to say a few things in Dutch on Flemish
TV. The effect is that Dutch is no longer dealt with as a farmer's language.
Quite some French-language speakers regret that they cannot speak the first
language of this country. The most frustrating thing for me is seeing on
TV interviews of teachers of Dutch in the French system. It's often
difficult to understand what language they are speaking. So quite some
non-Dutch speakers are sending their kids to schools of the Flemish network
in Brussels, pushing Flemish kids often into a minority position in their
own school.

Btw there is a large German school in Wezembeek-Oppem, a Flemish outskirt
municipality with facilities, momentarily with virtually French-only in the
streets:
http://www.dsbruessel.be/

Regards,
Roger

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com
Subject: Language varieties

Thanks for all that, Roger.

Not much of a surprise in the French news, I'm afraid.

As for Belgium, aren't French and Dutch mandatory school subjects all over
the country and, if not, ought they not be? While this may not make much of
a difference among those that are adults now, it would make a difference in
the future.

The situation would then be as in Norway, where schooling in (majority)
Dano-Norwegian and (minority) Neo-Norwegian is mandatory for all, so that
there's one non-native national language to be learned by everyone.
Similarly, unless it has changed lately, all Fins have some schooling in
Finnish and Swedish, the two national languages.

In the case of the German-speaking area of Belgium this would mean
*two*national languages to be learned non-natively, just as Sami
people of Norway
and Finland have to learn Finnish and Swedish non-natively. In these cases I
would hope to see a regional educational requirement that makes German
mandatory for everyone in that part of Belgium and Sami mandatory for
everyone living in regions in which Sami is official. Similarly, both
Frisian and Dutch ought to be required of everyone living in *Fryslân and in
officially Frisian-speaking areas of Groningen.

At the same time, people ought to be educated away from seeing this as a
burden toward seeing it as a privilege and a useful extra skill. This could
be enhanced by paying workers a language bonus if they are conversant in
another national language, and another one for English if this is relevant.
(This is done for instance in California where you go up one rung on the pay
scale if you can use Spanish in working with the public, in relevant places
also for predominant immigrant languages such as Mandarin, Cantonese, Khmer,
Lao, Russian, Somali, Amharic or Tigrinya.)

Of course, then there is the legal element. Businesses that advertise
themselves as offering bilingual French and Dutch (or trilingual with
English added) service could be reported, sued and/or fined for false
advertising if they don't deliver what they advertise. It can be argued that
this advertising entices certain customers who then discover that the
advertised service is not available, as was the case in a couple of your
experiences.

If Brussels is officially French and Dutch speaking there has to be some
sort of reenforcement and incentive, or else you might as well bite the
bullet and make it officially French speaking

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron*
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