<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">===========================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 11 May 2009 - Volume 05<br style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">Encoding: Unicode (UTF-08)</span><br style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">
<span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">Language Codes: <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/codes.php">lowlands-l.net/codes.php</a></span><br>===========================================<br></div><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI"><span class="gD" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc.</span> <span class="go"><<a href="mailto:roger.thijs@euro-support.be">roger.thijs@euro-support.be</a>></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI">LL-L "Language politics" 2009.05.11 (03) [AF-EN]<br><br></span><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<font size="2">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.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">1 - Historical considerations</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">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.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">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.</font><font size="2">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.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">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)..</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">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.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Litterature:</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- A. Se Jonghe, De taalpolitiek van koning Willem I in de
Zuidelijke Nederlanden (1814-1830), 1967, St-Andries-Brugge, Darthet, 383
pp.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- 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.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">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.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">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.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">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.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">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.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">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.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">This all worked stabilizing.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">What is left is mainly:</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- the expansion of the officially bilingual (but mainly French
speaking) Brussels into the Flemish border municipalities</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- some issues in the enclaves (Voeren and Komen)</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">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).</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">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.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">2 - Practical behaviour.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">When one looks at the Makro warehouse chain from the
Netherlands one sees a clear illustration of practical behaviour:</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- 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)</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">- the Makro in Machelen, 15 miles North of the Walloon area,
but just about a mile from the bilingual Brussels area does everything
bilingually.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Firstly this is a matter of freedom guaranteed by the
constitution.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">In the South there is clearly a <strong>mood against
bilinguism</strong></font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">(There is a slow progress though. Since about 2000 Walloon
federal ministers learn some Dutch and dare using it)</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">In the North one is clearly more
<strong>customer-focussed.</strong></font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">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".</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">3 - Minority languages and the treaty.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">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.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">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.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">I don't know whether it eventually can prevent this kind of
schools being subsidized from outside the region.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">4 - How to defend minority languages.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">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.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">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)</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Just my thoughts,</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Regards,</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Roger</font></div><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
•
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