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L O W L A N D S - L - 25 August 2011 - Volume 01<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:10pt" lang="DE">From: </span><span class="gI"><span class="gD" style="color:#00681c">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><span style="font-size:10pt" lang="DE"><br>
Subject: </span><span class="gI">LL-L Language politics</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">In the
press today: <strong>Hardly 60% of native Dutch speaking kids
in Dutch language primary schools around Brussels</strong>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Maybe just
a little introduction for new members in the list.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Belgium has
3 national administrative languages: Dutch, French and German. The German
speakers are a small group of about 50.000, the Dutch speakers are roughly
6.000.000, the French speakers are roughly 4.000.000.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Outside
Belgium one hardly knows there are Dutch speaking Belgians. When taking the US
Airways flight from Brussels to Philadelphia, taking off at the airport in the
Flemish Zaventem, I get safety instructions and other services in English
and French only. For “credit card” (necessary for buying a beer on the plane
nowadays) they translate into “carte blue” which is part of the banking system
in France.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">At local
level there exist regional languages, variants or dialects, these are not
thaught in school, and (except for Luxembourgish) have no unified standard
grammar, though there exists several dictionaries (with grammatical comments) at
town or village level.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Major
subdivisions are:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">In the
Dutch area: Flemish, Brabantish and Limburgish (The word “Flemish” is also used
for designing the totality of the Northern Dutch speaking
area/region)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">In the
French area: Picard, Walloon, Champenois-Ardennais and Gaumais-Lorrain. (The
word “Walloon” is also used for designing the totality of the Southern, mainly
French speaking area/region)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">In the
German area: Ripuarisch, Northern Moselle-Franconian and
Luxembourgish</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Politically
the regional languages are hardly supported and in court, army, school,
administration only Dutch, French and German count.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">French was
the official administrative language in Belgium in the 19<sup>th</sup> century.
The Flemish movement fought for a place for Dutch, getting stepwise
improvements, and finally leading to territorial administrative language
boundaries since 1962-1963, complemented with a progressing administrative
decentralization, along these sacred boundaries.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">See maps on
url:<span>
</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgium" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgium</a></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Since
French got a majority position in Brussels (actually a block of 19
municipalities including Brussels), this area got a bilingual French-Dutch
administrative and political structure. The Brussels region is territorial wise
an island in Flemish territory (but at its South just a few miles distant from
the Walloon region)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Some
municipalities at the borderlines got protection for their language minorities.
These municipalities are generally called “municipalities with facilities (for
the language minority)”. At the borderline of Brussels, in the Flemish region,
there are six of those, where actually afterwards the French speaking minority
became a large political majority. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Due to the
expansion of the Brussels population to the outskirts, schools in Flemish
territory (other than the six municipalities with facilities) have to deal with
an increasing number of not native Dutch speakers. While the system of
facilities for the “six” municipalities at the borderline allows those to set-up
a French language scholar system for primary schools, the other Flemish
municipalities have only Flemish (i.e. Dutch language) schools.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">In Belgium
the scholar networks are completely funded by the government (including the
Roman Catholic network), and so it is extremely expensive to offer education in
a non-recognized system (this not being funded). So the French immigrants have
to do with Flemish schools, and the Flemish schools have to do with large
numbers of nonnative Dutch speakers.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Here is the
article:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">** quote
(in Dutch)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Vier op de tien
leerlingen in de Rand spreken thuis geen Nederlands </i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>donderdag 25 augustus
2011, 03u00</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>-Veertig procent van
de leerlingen die in de Vlaamse Rand naar een Vlaamse katholieke basisschool
gaan, spreekt thuis geen Nederlands. Dat blijkt uit een telling van het Vlaams
Verbond van het Katholiek Basisonderwijs. Het gaat vooral om Franstalige
leerlingen. De koepel haalt de cijfers uit een bevraging bij 46 basisscholen in
32 gemeenten. Bij de telling is een onderscheid gemaakt tussen Franstalige
leerlingen en leerlingen die thuis Frans noch Nederlands praten. Uit de enquête
blijkt dat er beduidend meer leerlingen met thuistaal niet-Nederlands in de
kleuterklassen en de lagere leerjaren zitten, dan in de hogere jaren van de
lagere school. Op basis daarvan besluit het Verbond dat de instroom de laatste
jaren gestegen is.</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Het is niet duidelijk
of het om leerlingen gaat die vanuit Brussel of Wallonië naar een Vlaamse school
komen of dat de randgemeenten verfransen. Afhankelijk van het antwoord moet een
gepast beleid komen, meent het Vlaams Verbond. </i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">** end quote</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="FR-BE">Source:
<a href="http://www.standaard.be/artikel/detail.aspx?artikelid=J23EF4MS" target="_blank">http://www.standaard.be/artikel/detail.aspx?artikelid=J23EF4MS</a></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Be aware
that the sampling was done in the Roman Catholic network, and included a limited
number of municipalities.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Get the complete report (41 pages in
Dutch in pdf format) from URL:</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://ond.vsko.be/pls/portal/url/ITEM/DD098196DB8D4C69AC4C2C975D6DEF03" target="_blank">http://ond.vsko.be/pls/portal/url/ITEM/DD098196DB8D4C69AC4C2C975D6DEF03</a></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"></span> </p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Or if that does not work, click on
the link:</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0pt" class="MsoNormal">“2011-08-24 Instroom van Frans- en
anderstalige leerlingen in de Brusselse randgemeenten”</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">on page:</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://ond.vsko.be/portal/page?_pageid=1514,1&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL" target="_blank">http://ond.vsko.be/portal/page?_pageid=1514,1&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL</a></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"></span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Regards,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Roger</span></p><p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br></span></p><div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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