"Language varieties" 2005.01.10 (01) [D/E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 10.JAN.2005 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: "Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc." <roger.thijs at euro-support.be>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.01.04 (02) [E]

> Onderwerp: Language varieties
> Van: "marco [evenhuiscommunicatie]"
> <marco at evenhuiscommunicatie.nl> A few remarks about what Denis wrote.
> Who says the French Flemish dialect will be extinct in the near
> future? I don't believe it will be. There are enough young speakers,
> either native speakers or young people that learnt the language
> through courses.

Some comments.

Aren't we mixing up Flemish with Dutch here.

I'm not a "Madame Soleil" and cannot predict the future. I'm regularly
in the North of France though (I have a little office downtown Lille)
and I can only share my personal experiences.

1. I guess quite some people are studying Dutch in one or another form
in the North of France. Most of those I know, are French speaking
people, who study Dutch as a foreign language for a variety of reasons.

2. I'm not an expert but I think Dutch and local Flemish are at least as
distant from each other as Dutch is from Frisian. Flemish speakers are
not used to listen to standard Dutch and Dutch speakers (except for West
Flanders) are not used to listen to Westhoek-Flemish. So for many, the
two languages, when spoken, are not mutually understandable.

3. I hardly know young people from the area who still speak Flemish.
They do not speak Flemish among each other, maybe(?) a little few still
speak some Flemish with one or both of their parents; or with some of
their grand-parents, or rather just "hear" Flemish spoken incidentally.

4. Where there is a cultural opening to Dutch culture, it is rather to
Dutch than to Flemish. In Lille I park my car generally in the Euralille
parking. I don't know, whether others visting the town, have also seen
that the welcome subtitle "willekome" in Flemish is replaced with
"welkom" in Dutch since about a year.

5. So while Flemish is dying out in the Flemish speaking Westhoek, Dutch
is emerging as a foreign language in the whole Nord-Pas-de-Calais area.
It cannot compete with English obviously, nor with Spanish or Italian,
but when you look in the Furet bookshop in Lille, it already gets some
space comparable with Russian and Chinese.

6. Teaching of local Flemish has been done by Marteel (dialect variant
of Bray-Dunes) and by somebody of the Steenvoorde area (I think Ternynck
is his name) in that dialect variant. When listening to theFlemish songs
sung by the Reuzekoor from Dunkirk (coached by Marteel), you can clearly
hear those kids are French speakers.

7. There is a raising profiling of regional identity in the area: -
officially the region "Nord-Pas-de-Calais" also called: - les "Pays-Bas
français" (since, except for Montreuil, the area belonged to the
Burgundian-Habsburgian Netherlands) sometimes also: - "Flandre - Artois
- Hainaut" (combining the 3 major old states, later provinces, of the
Netherlands, covering most of the territory) As part of that identity
symbols are blown up to "banners": historical events, wind mills, local
giants, the regional languages Flemish and Picard But getting a Flemish
(could as well be "Celtic" or "Latin") name, found in some dictionary,
on your house, or as street name subscript, may give a certain look, but
does not fundamentally change the situation of spoken languages. It is
possible that in the year 2200 some scholars will rediscover the Flemish
grammar of Marteel and will study and eventually speak the Flemish
dialect of Bray-Dunes again among each-other. This may than be blown up
as a regional symbol. But I do not think a reversal of local parents
talking French with their kids is still possible.

8. I do think we have to support survival of our regional languages. The
big work has to be done by motivating young parents. The environment has
to be supportive: it needs to become street language again for the kids.
How to realize that, I don't know. It basically has to come from inside,
and not initially from "foreign intervention". But just dreaming doesn't
help.

9. I quote Ryckeboer ("Frans Vlaams" in the series "Taal in stad and
land" p. 38). Half of the parents (in the formerly Flemish speaking
area) and a quarter of young people still claim they still have some
passive knowledge of Flemish, but when investigating for the young
people, this passive knowledge appears to be be very limited. "De
passieve kennis bleek nog aanzienlijk. de helft van de ouders beweerde
Vlaams te begrijpen en een kwart van de scholieren. Maar bij nader
onderzoek bleek die kennis bij de laatsten toch vrij gering te zijn".

10. It is frustrating reading from time to time glorifying articles
about the Flemish in France, while myself being completely unable,
visiting the area regularely, including shopping from local market
booths, to discover some spoken traces in public social life. Event at
events of the regionalistic "Michel de Swaenkring", I participated at
(I'm still member), French participants spoke French only.

Regards, Roger

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