LL-L "Language politics" 2009.05.11 (05) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 11 May 2009 - Volume 05
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From: Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc. <roger.thijs at euro-support.be>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2009.05.11 (03) [AF-EN]

I'm a bit reluctant to continue this thread, since the subject may lead to
emotional discussions. I guess the 10.000.000 Belgians each have their own
view on this matter. So my view is just one of 10.000.000.

1 - Historical considerations

I don't think the seperation Belgium-Netherlands in 1648, after the 80-years
war, is relevant for the actual language issues North-South inside Belgium.
Hovever he result is that when Belgium would be broken up some day, most
probably the Flemish would not unite with the Netherlands. This has not so
much to do with religion, only very few people still go to church, but more
with compatibility of mentalities.

The Roman Catholic church in the South was resistant to Dutch supremacy in
the period of unification 1815-1830. From that side there was even
reluctance to get the Southern dialects unified with the Dutch of the
protestant North.This changed though in the beginning of the 20th century
since the industrialized Wallonia became socialistic and atheistic, and the
Flemish movement, with symbols as "Onze Lieve Vrouw van Vlaanderen" (Our
Lady of the Flanders") etc was seen by the lower clerus as an opportunity
for keeping the North (languagewise) cut off from the atheistic South.

The administration was already partially French under Austrian regime (as
this was felt cute in the 18th century). This clearly was reïnforced by the
occupation by the French (1795-1815). When the Dutch king got Belgium in
1815 he was faced with a French-minded administration and Church. At that
time only the rich had votting right (based on the taxes they paid) while
the people in the villages continued talking their dialects as well as they
remained relatively illiterate (when one looks to signatures of the time,
some could only mark with a cross, most could write their name though, but
written with a very unsecure hand)..

The problems started when Willem I started issuing decrees about the use of
language. The still French-minded aristocracy in Belgium (as well in the
North as in the South) was very resistatant to this ruling.
Litterature:
- A. Se Jonghe, De taalpolitiek van koning Willem I in de Zuidelijke
Nederlanden (1814-1830), 1967, St-Andries-Brugge, Darthet, 383 pp.
- Guy Janssens & Kris Styeyaert, Het onderwijs van het Nederlands in de
Waalse provincies en Luxembueg onder koning Willem I (1814-1830). 2008,
Brussels, VUB Press, ISBN 978-90-5487-456-0, 463 pp.

Although the Belgian Constitution guarantees freedom of use of language,
this applies to private life. For administration the parliament sets the
rules. Initially with a French upper class and administration, French was
setting the tone. Though practically one sees that registers of birth etc
started being done in Dutch on places where the adlinistration knew
sufficient Dutch and was willing to use it.

The Flemish movement, developped mainly in the romantic period at the end of
the 19th century, first focussed on a bilingual status. Wallonia (already
had to do with French and Walloon, further still remembering Willems former
language policy), refused to have a bilingual administration French-Dutch.
So actually the whole process developped only in the North, via a bilingual
administration, to a Dutch-only administration. The line between North and
South was at first reviewed every 10 years, based on language censi, but
frozen in 1962-1963.

An important factor is that since about 1930 kids massively started
continuing primary school education at middle schools. These were basically,
in the period 1910-1925, already turned into Dutch as teaching language. So
we got a new administrative upperclass, that was formed in Dutch.
Universities switched language later, Ghent in 1930, Leuven stepwise via a
mixed regime later, but the students were politically shaped in middle
school and were a major political force in getting French sweeped out at
Northern High Schools and Universities.

In the period of my youth French continued to be defended as a very
important second language, because of it being used in Belgian and French
colonies, and as such an asset in career development.

Since before 1960 the "administrative languagewise split", or "language
border", was reviewed every 10 years, the freezing of this border created
regions, which gradually claimed more power. The North focussed on cultural
autonomy, the South on economical autonomy, since the Socialist party,
strong in the South, wanted to use government money massively for
subsidizing the ailing heavy industry in Wallonia. This finally has been
leading to a double split into regions and into cultural area's.

This all worked stabilizing.
What is left is mainly:
- the expansion of the officially bilingual (but mainly French speaking)
Brussels into the Flemish border municipalities
- some issues in the enclaves (Voeren and Komen)
What I see here in Steenokkerzeel is that French-speaking immigrants hardly
speak a few words of Dutch, but most of them send their kids to the local
Flemish schools (creating some problems there). Same holds for the Japanese
restaurant here in the street, the kids of an age of 10 take the orders (in
Dutch).

In the Belgian system almost all schools (as well state schools as Roman
Catholic etc.) are strongly subsidized. The money is coming from the
cultural region the municipality belongs to. As a result only a few do the
effort for traveling to an other language area or bear the full cost of a
private school. So the school system is regularizing knowledge of languages,
just for immigrants it takes a generation for seeing the result.

2 - Practical behaviour.

When one looks at the Makro warehouse chain from the Netherlands one sees a
clear illustration of practical behaviour:
- the Makro in Alleur North of Liége, a few miles from the administratavely
South of Limburg, has all indications in French only (even when about 40
percent of the customers come from the South of Limburg)
- the Makro in Machelen, 15 miles North of the Walloon area, but just about
a mile from the bilingual Brussels area does everything bilingually.
Firstly this is a matter of freedom guaranteed by the constitution.
In the South there is clearly a *mood against bilinguism*
(There is a slow progress though. Since about 2000 Walloon federal ministers
learn some Dutch and dare using it)
In the North one is clearly more *customer-focussed.*
Curiously the North of France also has a more open commercial behaviour: I
get the magazine from the French warehouse Auchan of Roncq, a suburb of
Lille, mailed in Dutch. Lille/Rijsel calls itself the "capital of the
Flanders".

3 - Minority languages and the treaty.

I remember from the conference last week, there are three states with a
pure territorial language split legislation: Belgium, Switserland and one of
the Baltic Countries, I thought is was Estland. Swiss court cases in this
context are interesting stuff for Belgian lawyers.
When Belgium eventually signs the Treaty, people eventually could claim a
school system in an other language. As to the treaty the Flemish government
must allow it, but it cannot be forced to subsidize these school systems.
I don't know whether it eventually can prevent this kind of schools being
subsidized from outside the region.

4 - How to defend minority languages.

I think the school system is a very important factor. Unless one finds a
very rich sponson, the only way in our kind of politics is through political
parties. The Belgian experience learned that language parties play a major
role. Transfering the idea to Low Saxony: If you can start with a political
party defending "Low Saxon" you are influential if you can get just a few
percentages. If, simplifying, CDU and SPD have both close to 50 percent,
they will try to get the votes of the "Low Saxon" party by promissing "Low
Saxon" friendly legislation. So a quite low percentage of voters may have a
very important leverage effect. It takes time to get results, since the big
parties will start with just some "window dressing", but, if so, they will
pay the price at the next election.
I think it will be helpfull to make progress to get a kind of standard (We
could not manage that with Flemish locally in the period 1840-1865, and
opted for Dutch in 1865). A standard though may be a threat to local
variants, and be rejected by some of the defendants of Low Saxon (This
happened with Limburgish in Netherlands Limburg)

Just my thoughts,
Regards,
Roger

•

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