<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">L O W L A N D S - L - 13 October 2007 - Volume 04</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Song Contest: <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/contest/">lowlands-l.net/contest/</a> (- 31 Dec. 2007)</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
=========================================================================</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">From: </span>
<span id="_user_sandy@scotstext.org" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28); font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Sandy Fleming</span><span style="font-weight: normal; font-family: arial,sans-serif;" class="lg"> <<a href="mailto:sandy@scotstext.org">
sandy@scotstext.org</a>></span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2007.10.12 (05) [E]</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">> From: Luc Hellinckx <</span><a style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:luc.hellinckx@gmail.com">
luc.hellinckx@gmail.com</a><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">></span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">> Subject: LL-L "Language politics"</span>
<br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">></span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">> Lol. Reminds me of one of my dad's uncles, who was a missionary in
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">> Congo. When I was 10 or so, he once visited our house, and was eager</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
> to</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">> test my language skills. First said he believed that the number of</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">> languages man is able to speak, equals the number of men he's worth.</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">> Then he taught me how to count till 5 in Swahili (told me that some
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">> tribes didn't have words for numbers higher than five!)...and finally</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">> stated (sic): "Die Deutsche Sprache ist eine Pferdesprache". Up till</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
> this day I wonder where he got that from as it sounded like a quote,</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">> but</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">> he didn't explain. Guess he was referring to German aspiration, being</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
I remember a quote:</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">"I speak French to men, Italian to women, German to horses, and English
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">to the birds."</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Apparently English has more tonality than the other languages, and so</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">has a sing-song sound to speakers of the other languages.
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">I don't remember who said it, but I'm sure it's probably on the Web,</span>
<br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">like everything else :)</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" class="sg"><br>
Sandy Fleming<br><a href="http://scotstext.org/">http://scotstext.org/</a></span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">----------
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">From: </span><span id="_user_sandy@scotstext.org" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28); font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Sandy Fleming</span><span style="font-weight: normal; font-family: arial,sans-serif;" class="lg"> <<a href="mailto:sandy@scotstext.org">sandy@scotstext.org</a>></span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2007.10.13 (02) [E]</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><div style="direction: ltr; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">> From: "<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:heatherrendall@tiscali.co.uk">
heatherrendall@tiscali.co.uk</a>" <<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:heatherrendall@tiscali.co.uk">heatherrendall@tiscali.co.uk</a>><br>> Subject: LL-L "Language politics"
2007.10.12 (03) [E]<br>><br>> Ron wrote:<br>><br>> Regarding French, I think you support my argument; despite being one<br>> of the "worst" European languages for matching sounds with spelling,<br>
> it has a wide currency - because France was powerful.<br>><br>> Wasn't it more that French was used as the language of diplomacy<br>> because it is the language least likely to produce ambiguities? I had
<br>> understood that English produced too many or needed copious<br>> circumlocutions to avoid them but French has a precision not least<br>> because of its lack of synonyms - something one could NOT say about<br>
> English.<br>> And didn't it adopt the role from Latin once that lost out as a lingua<br>> franca?<br>> Heather [Randall]<br><br>It's easy to think of theories like that after the fact, but I don't
<br>think anyone in a position to influence language choice has ever said,<br>"Let's compare the features of a number of languages and choose the one<br>linguistically best-suited to our purposes."<br><br>Rather, in the European courtly traditions (or fads) of the 17th/18th
<br>centuries the watchword was, "Don't speak vulgar, speak Versailles," or<br>as we say in Scots, "There's nae fowk like Falkland fowk." :)<br><br>Then with French having become fashionable in high-up places all over
<br>Europe, it made sense that diplomats learn and use it.<br><br>French being a smaller language than English supposedly makes it easier<br>to write, but I think this idea has come from the famous dictum, "What<br>is not clear is not French." I don't think the conclusion that French is
<br>an inherently clear language follows from this. You could just as easily<br>say that "What is not clear is not English" (or any language).<br></div><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" class="sg"><br>
Sandy Fleming<br>
<a href="http://scotstext.org/">http://scotstext.org/</a></span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">----------</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">From: </span><span id="_user_wolf_thunder51@yahoo.co.uk" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28); font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Paul Finlow-Bates <
<a href="mailto:wolf_thunder51@yahoo.co.uk">wolf_thunder51@yahoo.co.uk</a>></span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </span><span id="_user_sandy@scotstext.org" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28); font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-weight: normal; font-family: arial,sans-serif;" class="lg"></span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2007.10.13 (02) [E]</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28); font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
"M.-L. Lessing"</span><span style="font-weight: normal; font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> <<a href="mailto:marless@gmx.de" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
marless@gmx.de</a>></span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Subject: LL-L "Language politics"</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<div>Hello,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>as to the success of English and French in spite of their weird spelling: I found this recently: <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,510913,00.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,510913,00.html </a> (German)</div>
<div> </div>
<div>In short it says that words survive the better the more they are
used. They "prove" is with irregular verbs. Can the same be valid for
queer spelling? The more it is used, the more natural it may seem.
Humans seem to see widely used words as given wholes and do not
question their spelling. The power of habit :-)</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Hartlich Gröten!</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Marlou</div></div><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">----------</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" size="2">
From: <span style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28);">"<a href="mailto:heatherrendall@tiscali.co.uk" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">heatherrendall@tiscali.co.uk</a>"</span>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> <<a href="mailto:heatherrendall@tiscali.co.uk" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"> heatherrendall@tiscali.co.uk</a>></span><br>Subject: LL-L "Language politics"
2007.10.12 (03) [E]<br><br>Ron wrote: </font>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2"> </font></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Regarding
French, I think you support my argument; despite being one of the
"worst" European languages for matching sounds with spelling, it has a
wide currency - because France was powerful.<br></font></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Wasn't it
more that French was used as the language of diplomacy because it is
the language least likely to produce ambiguities? I had understood that
English produced too many or needed copious circumlocutions to avoid
them but French has a precision not least because of its lack of
synonyms - something one could NOT say about English.</font></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">And didn't it adopt the role from Latin once that lost out as a lingua franca?</font></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Heather [Randall]<br></font></div><font style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" size="2"><br></font>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">From Marlou:</font></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2"> "The
more (odd spelling) is used, the more natural it may seem. Humans seem
to see widely used words as given wholes and do not question their
spelling. "
</font><div><font size="2"> </font></div>
<div><font size="2">I agree. After all, although Chinese characters or Egyptian
heiroglyphs have a phonetic element, they are basically read as words.
And "words" have been around for tens of thousands of years, alphabetic
spelling for just few thousand.</font></div></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2"> </font></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Heather wrote:</font></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2"><br></font>
<div style="font-size: 12pt;"><font size="2">"Wasn't it
more that French was used as the language of diplomacy because it is
the language least likely to produce ambiguities? I had understood that
English produced too many or needed copious circumlocutions to avoid
them but French has a precision not least because of its lack of
synonyms - something one could NOT say about English.
</font><div style="font-size: 12pt;"><font size="2">And didn't it adopt the role from Latin once that lost out as a lingua franca?"</font></div></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt;"><font size="2"> </font></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt;"><font size="2">If that
were the case, it would still be used internationally. Try saying "A
cette heure" (at this time) and "A sept heures" (at seven o'clock).</font></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt;"><font size="2"> </font></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt;"><font size="2">There is no evidence that English causes any more ambiguity than anything else.</font></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt;"><font size="2"> </font></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt;"><font size="2">I still
maintain that language influence follows political or social
influence. France was the most populous, powerful country in Western
Europe; if Germany had unified politically at an earlier time, I
believe a very different picture would have emerged. Arabic is spoken
across a vast area because of Islamic expansion, not because it has any
special merits as a communication medium. Any "dialect" or language in
the Chinese group is presumably as good as any other, but
Putonghua (Mandarin) has the political and historical muscle.</font></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt;"><font size="2"> </font></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt;"><font size="2">Paul Finlow-Bates</font></div></div><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" class="ad"><br></span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">----------</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" size="2">From: <span style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28);"></span></font><span id="_user_roger.thijs@euro-support.be" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25); font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
"Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc." <<a href="mailto:roger.thijs@euro-support.be">roger.thijs@euro-support.be</a>></span><font style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" size="2"><span style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28);">
</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span><br>
Subject: </font><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">LL-L "Language politics" 2007.10.13 (07) [E]</span><font style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" size="2"><br><br>
</font><div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2"><span class="q">> From: R. F. Hahn <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">sassisch@yahoo.com
</a>> <br>>
Subject: Language politics<br></span>.... <span class="q"><br>> You commented:<br>> The language
censi allowed only choices between Dutch, French and German. The linguisically
Limburgish speaking Sippenaeken became suddenly French as result of the 1930
census since Limburgish speakers were divided between Dutch an German, allowing
French to win)<br>Which leaves out Walloon (and I mean real Walloon, not Belgian
French). Sure, most Walloons use French in writing all or most of the
time.<br>> From where I stand, Walloon looks like a separate langue d'oïl
language that has poor or little mutual intelligibility with French, except that
all Walloons know French as well and thus think the two are more closely related
than they are from the point of view of a French speaker with no prior Walloon
exposure. <br>>(Most Walloon speakers live in Southern Belgium, a minority in
adjacent parts of France ( botte de Givet in the Northern Ardennes) and also in
two communities ( Doncols and Sonlez) in Luxemburg and in Door County,
Wisconsin, USA.)<br>>So how does Walloon fit in here?</span></font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">1. <strong>Decennial language censi</strong> started in the
19th century. Their results started being used for fixing the
administrative language of municipalities in the beginning of the 20th centuty.
Rapidly the censi turned into <strong>referenda about the choice of the
municipal administrative language</strong>, strongly influenced by upper-class
people <em>(In our Western concept of democracy, "funding" power is an important
factor).</em><br>Because of WWII the 1940 census was delayed till 1947.
Publication of the 1947 results was delayed for several years. Post-war
anti-Germanic feelings had made quite some municipalities along the language
border and around Brussels flipping to French.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">2. The position of<strong> French.</strong></font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">a - In the 18th century French got a dominant cultural
position (cf. "Sans Souci" in Germany etc.). Even the Austrian administration of
the Southern Netherlands in Brussels preferred to use French. Before the
Burgondian rulers were French-speaking by themselves, and I guess French was
more accessible for the Spanish rulers.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">This explains the presence of a French upper-class in
Brussels, with influence towards lower classes. Verlooy wrote an "alarming"
little book about the situation of language recession at the end of the Austrian
period.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">b - Belgium was integrated into France from 1795 till
1814.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Although publications in Dutch were allowed (even including a
"Flemish" bilingual version of the law gazetteer, cf <a href="http://home.scarlet.be/%7Etpm09245/dutch/bullois/bullois.htm" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://home.scarlet.be/~tpm09245/dutch/bullois/bullois.htm
</a>),
the Jacobinan view was that the universal knowledge and use of French guaranteed
the equality of all citizen.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">c - Belgium was part of the Netherlands from 1815 till 1830
(Limburg being only divided in 1839). Anti-Hollandic feelings were present all
over the South. This gave French an opportunity for becoming one of the
"fetish-standards" for underlining the difference with the Northern
Netherlands.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">d - After 1830 there was resistance against Hollandic Dutch.
The Dutch Siegenbeek spelling was replaced with the old Des Roches spelling for
Southern Dutch. After the emotions cooled down, a step towards the Northern
Dutch spelling was done in 1844 with the Commission spelling. In 1865 the
spelling was unified again (De Vries spelling)</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">e - Different views on local languages in Belgium
(simplifying):</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">e1: French as <strong>national umbrella language</strong> for
all (19th century).</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Some <strong>downwards sympathy</strong> for the variety of
dialects (whether Germanic or Romance).</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">At the end of the 19th century: increased literature in both
Walloon and Southern Dutch.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">For Southern Dutch <strong>not</strong> everybody wanted to
standardize with <strong>Hollandic Dutch</strong> (cf. Gezelle, Streuvels
writing in a strongly <strong>West-Flemish Dutch</strong>)</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">e2: The "Flemish movement" fighting for getting "Dutch"
recognized in education, administration, law etc.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- It got a very strong push among youngsters in the
<strong>"romantic"</strong> period at the end of the 19th century, especially in
middle schools and universities. Quite some events from medieval times were
turned into fetish-symbols for coloring the movement.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">These young fellows got influential positions in the beginning
of the 20th century. They did not loose all the ideals of their youth and used
their influence to push for change.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- In the mean time the voting system was changed (from voting
rights based on taxed income to <strong>universal voting rights</strong>) which
gave a strong presence of lower class representatives in parliament. Many of
them were leftists (socialists, communists), detested nationalistic feelings,
but supported the position of the "<strong>language of the
people</strong>".</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">e3: The perception of Walloon supporters v/ Flemish
supporters:</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Walloon view (19-mid 20th century):</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- <strong>French</strong> as <u>national umbrella
language</u></font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- Reinforced <u>local support</u> for <u>regional &
municipal</u> languages, basically focussed on "Walloon" and "Flemish" (with
confusion between Dutch, Flemish and Northern Germanic dialects)</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- In the Walloon area a reflex <u>against </u>Dutch as
"<u>national"</u> umbrella language raised during the Hollandic ruling
(1815-1830) and never disappeared.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Flemish view (19th - beginning of the 20th
century):</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- <strong>Dutch <u>AND</u> French</strong> as
<strong><u>national</u> </strong>umbrella languages (later: both <u>at least in
the North,</u> and not just French alone)</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">For this an internal issue had to be solved:
<strong>standardizing Dutch</strong> for making it possible not-Dutch speakers
could learn it. This created a strong support for ABN (Algemeen Beschaafd
Nederlands) at the expense of the position of the dialects. Belgian Dutch
authors wanted to get also read in the Netherlands, which was only possible with
strong language cleaning by the publishers.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Flemish view (since mid of the 20th century):</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- Dutch as <strong><u>sole</u></strong> administrative
language in the <strong><u>North</u></strong></font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- Dutch and French as administrative languages in
Brussels</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">e4: Actual tensions in Belgium.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2"><u>Political:</u></font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">When fixing the language border in 1962-1963, minority
protection was guaranteed in some municipalities at the border and around
Brussels.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">The Flemish accepted this for a transition period,
allowing integration.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">The French speakers (Walloons + Brussels) considered it
froozen in concrete.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">The Flemish momentarily want a transborder election
circuit (Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde) brooken up along the borders of the Brussels
region, since the actual situation easies extension of French cultural
domination around Brussels.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">These battles easily become fetish battles with fights for
symbols.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2"><u>Sociological differences:</u></font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Dutch speakers in Walloon municipalities with facilities for
minorities along the language border integrate rapidly and do not insist on
getting services in Dutch.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">French speakers in Flemish municipalities with
facilities for minorities along the language border do not integrate and insist
on being served in French (though there is a slow evolution towards
bilinguism).</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">The resulting political issue: should one accept the
"sociolinguistical reality (of French expansion)" or defend by law the
"(Flemish) cultural territory"</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">3 - The regional languages.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- As to what I collected, Walloon publications became very
present on the market in the Liège area at the end of the 19th century (which
positioned the Feller Liège orthography as some kind of standard). I see fiction
books in other areas in the first half of the 20th century, and a strongly
increased variety of magazines in various versions of walloon in the 2d half of
the 20th century. Some of these are stapled photocopies of typewritten pages, so
I thing the audience may be small. Quite some CDs are available with songs in
Walloon.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- Publications in Northern regional language versions
(after Gezelle, Streuvels) had to give place to publications in ABN Dutch till
the eightees. In the last 3 decades quite some publications emerged in municipal
dialects (as well as local dictionaries, CDs with songs and conferences
etc.)</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Regional languages have been approached and classified by
linguists in the 20th century. Scientific language areas may be felt by some as
artificial (based often on a single isogloss) and are not always felt as a
borderline for a linguistical identity.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">When I was a kid one made distinction
between:</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- "Op de Letter" or "Gowd Vlams" ("as one writes" and "correct
Flemish")</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">and</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- "platt" ("dialect").</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Nowadays scientists would call</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">the first: "(Belgian) Dutch</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">the second: the Lonerland West-Limburgish of
Vliermaal.(recently it was even reclassified as Mid-Limburgish because of the
Panninger isogloss).</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">So actually, they classify as:</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Germanic</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- West Flemish (with subdivisions)</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- a transition area between West-Flemish and Brabantish
(East-Flanders)</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- Brabantish (with subdivisions)</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- Limburgish (with subdivisions)</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- Ripuarish (North East of Eupen)</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- Moselle-Franconish (St. Vith)</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- Moselle-Franconish-Letzebuergish (Arel)</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Romance:</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- Picard (West of Hainaut)</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- Walloon (with 3 major subdivisions)</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- Gaumais (Lorrain, in the South of Belgian
Luxemburg)</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- Champenois (Ardennais in the Sugny area, South East of the
province of Namur)</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">If one would include this in a <u>census</u> one should
<u>learn people to classify their dialect</u>, otherwise there may be confusion,
as e.g. "Flemish" may also mean just "dialect" and the same eventually holds for
"Walloon".</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">4 - The <strong>censi</strong> only asked for <strong>Dutch,
French and German</strong> (as well as for bilinguism and
tri-linguism).</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Quite some linguists (especially Walloon linguists) regret
there were no questions for other (regional or not) languages.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">I guess there may eventually have been <strong>resistance
</strong>from the Northern side since it may have turned a municipality
with:</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2"> 30% French</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2"> 70% Dutch</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">into</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2"> 30% French</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2"> 25% Dutch</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2"> 20% Brabantish</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2"> 25% Limburgish</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">with as a result a <strong>switch from a Dutch to a French
administration</strong>, because of that majority.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">After all, Dutch was a written language, not a spoken language
for many in the North before 1940. So when it would have been separated from
the Germanic dialects, it may have ended quite poorly in the censi,
all over the country.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">But considerations about the minds of the administration
when drafting the forms for the censi are speculation. Let's leave it to
historians to investigate.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Regards,</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Roger</font><br></div><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">