ELL: Re: Re: Flemish vs. French in Brussels

[William J Poser]

Well, there are circumstances in which English is used as a neutral language.
For example, about 20 years ago, my father was invited to give a lecture at the
medical school in Antwerp, and the question arose as to what language he would
speak. My father is a francophone native of Antwerp, so he proposed to speak
in French. This proposal was rejected in horror: it would be politically unacceptable -
the organizers might even lose their jobs. They suggested that he speak in Flemish.
He was unwilling to do this. Although he did learn Flemish as a child, he had no
education in it beyond the mandatory Flemish classes in francophone schools and had
not used it much since, so he considers that he speaks "gutter Flemish" and oculd not
give a medical lecture in it. They finally agreed that he would speak in English, which
he did. The discussion afterward was in French.

There are, by the way, Flemings who do not speak French. I don't know what the
percentage is, but I have encountered some. My impression is that it was quite
common for people now over about 60 and belonging to the working class not to
speak French, or to learn it as young adults in the army or when they went to
work and found they needed it. My "uncle" Josef (who must have been born around
1890) , for example, grew up mono-lingual in Antwerp and joined the army in
part in order to learn French, which he thought would be useful to him. We
spoke French, as my Flemish is quite limited, except for the last time I saw him.
He was in hospital, for what turned out to be his final illness, and my uncle (who
had returned to Belgium and speaks Flemish well) and I went to see him. Uncle Josef
was there with his wife, like him a Fleming who had learned French, and an elderly
Flemish friend of theirs we did not know. Introductions were made in Flemish.
Uncle Josef turned out to have lost his ability to speak French. He could still
understand it, but could no longer speak it. So the conversation was in Flemish
except that when I spoke, I spoke in French. This bothered no one except for the
other lady, who glared at me angrily the whole time.

I have however encountered occasional young people who did not speak French.
I once encountered a staff person at the youth hostel in Antwerp who did not
speak French at all, just Flemish, and good English.



--
Bill Poser, Visiting Professor, University of Pennsylvania
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wjposer/
billposer at alum.mit.edu
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