# Belgium languages



## delf06

Good evening everybody,

I was wondering if people from Flemish Belgium and Wallon Belgium understood each other: I mean I know there is no official language but do they both understand German, French and Dutch?


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## Hakro

No, they don't.


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## Sepia

delf06 said:


> Good evening everybody,
> 
> I was wondering if people from Flemish Belgium and Wallon Belgium understood each other: I mean I know there is no official language but do they both understand German, French and Dutch?


 
What do you mean with "no official language"? They have! The three ones you mentioned. No guarantee, that everyone speaks all three of them.
However, I am positively surprised by people in and around Bruxelles/Brussels: Many people - sometimes even children as young as around 9 or 10 speak French and Dutch. Or maybe expecially children!!!???


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## JeanDeSponde

_Flemish_ is what is spoken in Belgium, not _Dutch_.
And I'm surprised to hear that German would be an official language in Belgium. Are you sure of this, Sepia?


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## Antpax

JeanDeSponde said:


> _Flemish_ is what is spoken in Belgium, not _Dutch_.
> And I'm surprised to hear that German would be an official language in Belgium. Are you sure of this, Sepia?


 
Hi,

My French teacher, who is from Belgium, told me so. There is a small region on the East where German is the official language. Regarding, the original question, she told me that in the past, more or less they could understand each other, I mean, everybody knew at least a bit of the other language, but now it doesn´t seem to happen, but in Brussels which is bilingual region.

Cheers.

Ant


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## JeanDeSponde

Antpax said:


> My French teacher, who is from Belgium, told me so. There is a small region on the East where German is the official language.


Every day's a learning day! Thanks for teaching me this.


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## Antpax

JeanDeSponde said:


> Every day's a learning day! Thanks for teaching me this.


 
My pleasure. Il n´y a pas de quoi. 

Ant


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## federicoft

JeanDeSponde said:


> _Flemish_ is what is spoken in Belgium, not _Dutch_.



No. It's Dutch language.

Check http://taalunieversum.org/taal/vragen/antwoord/4/


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## JeanDeSponde

federicoft said:


> JeanDeSponde said:
> 
> 
> 
> _Flemish_ is what is spoken in Belgium, not _Dutch_.
> 
> 
> 
> No. It's Dutch language.
Click to expand...

Bad day for me, I guess. Apologies...


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## federicoft

Antpax said:


> I don´t agree with federicoft, and WR dictionary doesn´t too. In Spanish Flemish (flamenco) is spoken in Belgium and Dutch (Neerlandés) in Netherlands, but actually they are almost the same language.



It's not something which varies according to your native language. 

Dutch is the official language of Flanders, as it is stated by Belgian and Flemish laws. Its norm is the usage as in the Netherlands, and it is regulated by the same institution.

Flemish is just the name of the local, non-official, dialect of Dutch. Claiming it is a separate language compared to Dutch is highly offensive.


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## Frank06

Hi,

Various opinions on Dutch (Nederlands) and Flemish (Vlaams) can be found here on WR:
- Dutch and Flemish revisted
- Flemish versus French
- Vlaams en Nederlands
- Flemish/Dutch
- and many many more.

PS:


> In Spanish Flemish (flamenco) is spoken in Belgium and Dutch (Neerlandés) in Netherlands, but actually they are almost the same language.


And it doesn't occur to you that the Spanish usage could be -- to put it mildly -- slightly imprecise?


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## Antpax

Frank06 said:


> Hi,
> 
> Various opinions on Dutch (Nederlands) and Flemish (Vlaams) can be found here on WR:
> - Dutch and Flemish revisted
> - Flemish versus French
> - Vlaams en Nederlands
> - Flemish/Dutch
> - and many many more.
> 
> PS:
> 
> And it doesn't occur to you that the Spanish usage could be -- to put it mildly -- slightly imprecise?


 
Certainly it is. You are right, have I offend anyone I do apology. I´ll delete it.

Cheers.

Ant


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## Frank06

Hi,


federicoft said:


> Dutch is the official language of Flanders, as it is stated by Belgian and Flemish laws. Its norm is the usage as in the Netherlands, and it is regulated by the same institution.


Agreed!
But only the spelling is really regulated. Grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary is not regulated by any instance. 



> Flemish is just the name of the local, non-official, dialect of Dutch. Claiming it is a separate language compared to Dutch is highly offensive.


I don't think a lot of people would be offended... 

Groetjes,

Frank


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## delf06

Well, thank you guys for all your answers. Such a difficult and confusing point to discuss! To answer Sepia (post 3), I wanted to say that there is not one language spoken all over the country, like in France for example where we have local dialects but one official language which is French. I mean I knew that the 3 languages are set on an equal footing.


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## Kevin Beach

I remember reading in one of the war museums in Flanders that in 1914 the officers spoke Walloon while the ranks spoke Flemish. Because the languages were mutually unintelligible, the troops couldn't understand their officers' orders, which resulted in chaos and the quick defeat of the Belgian army.


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## Joannes

(this is going to be a long post for such a small country )



Sepia said:


> Or maybe expecially children!!!???


Yes. As you probably know, most people in Brussels speak French. That is why virtually all Dutch speaking citizens also know French and will normally use that language when they address someone they don't know. The last few years more and more French speaking citizens send their children to schools in which Dutch is the language of instruction. There are many reasons for this, the most important one of which is probably the fact that Flemish schools in Brussels have a better reputation than the _francophone_ ones (that are not fully 'booked'), mainly because of the larger amount of pupils from lower social backgrounds (often immigrants with linguistic problems as well). This turning to Dutch speaking schools of young _bruxellois_ is not a good thing for the French speaking schools and their pupils, their level declines even more, and the level in the Flemish schools declines as well because they have pupil that don't fully master the language of instruction. But anyway, we're talking about languages here, and in that respect the described evolution _does_ have an advantage of course: many many originally French speaking boys and girls end up being bilingual (many continue higher education in Dutch, although the level of Flemish universities isn't supposed to be better than the level of the _francophone_ ones).



delf06 said:


> I wanted to say that there is not one language spoken all over the country, like in France for example where we have local dialects but one official language which is French. I mean I knew that the 3 languages are set on an equal footing.


As have been mentioned before, Belgium has three official languages: Dutch, French and German. The equal footing is relative. Let me try to explain the completely insane structure of our very little federal state and its too many governments . (What follows will be a explanation of the first four articles of the Belgian Constitution.)

The Kingdom of Belgium is a federal state consisting of subnational states (Dutch *deelstaat*, French *état fédéré*) _on two levels_. On one level there are regions (Dutch *gewesten*, French *régions*) that are responsible for the traditional administrative, governmental stuff like economy, environment, road networks and the like. There are three Belgian regions: the Flemish Region (*het Vlaams Gewest*), the Walloon Region (*la Région walonne*) and the Brussels-Capital Region (*het Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest* / *la Région de Bruxelles-Capital*). These regions (as the name suggests) are bound in territory. Here is a map.

On another level of subnational states, there are communities (Dutch *gemeenschappen*, French *communautés*). Their responsabilities concern 'cultural' stuff: a.o. culture (duh), education, and.. language. There are three communities (please note that their names are not at all equivalents!): there's the _Flemish_ Community (*de* *Vlaamse Gemeenschap*), the _French_ Community (*la Communauté Française*) and the _German speaking_ Community (*die Deutschsprachige Gemeinschaft*). The communities themselves don't really have boundaries, but they do in the sense that there are official language areas that define their power scope so to say. Here is a map; as you can see Brussels is a bilingual language area so both the Flemish and French Communities have responsabilities and 'overlap' in the territory that is ruled by the government of the Brussels-Capital Region on another level.

Of course there is also a federal government and parliament that rules the entire territory and decides on national matters (strangely enough, it is pretty well described what are the responsabilities of which administration -- which matter _should_ be the responsability of which administration obviously remains a controversial issue though.)

Did you count well? Theoretically, Belgium should have seven parliaments and seven governments! We have six: the Flemish Region and the Flemish Community have merged (and there are plans to do the same with the Walloon Region and the French Community). (Six!!! for 10 million Belgians and 30000 km². )

Some strange aspects of this situation:
- The Brussels government isn't responsable for education, the communities are. Education in Flanders is in Dutch, in Wallonia it is in French. In Brussels, people can choose between one of those, but there are no bilingual 'Brussels' schools.
- Dutch is an official language in Brussels although there are more families where the home language is Arabic or English. These are not official. To get a good job in the capital, you should be able to speak Dutch!
- Over the country, Arabic is spoken way more (geographically distributed) than German. German has the status of official language, Arabic has not.
- With a government of 4 ministers and a parliament of 25 representatives, the German speaking Community of Belgium is probably the best protected minority in the world. They're less than 100 000. As such, they don't quarrel when it comes to reforms of the federal state - rightly so.



delf06 said:


> I was wondering if people from Flemish Belgium and Wallon Belgium understood each other: I mean I know there is no official language but do they both understand German, French and Dutch?


About Belgians' knowledge of languages:
People are generally not bilingually raised so it often comes down to education. I explained the current situation for Brussels with many French speaking people getting perfectly bilingual. In Flanders, starting from the age of 10, children have French as their first second language, four years later they also get English and depending on the pupil's choices, he or she can be taught German (or sometimes Spanish) too. (This is all before going to college, obviously..) But in Brussels, children in Dutch speaking schools are taught French right from the start (at the age of 6)!

In Wallonia (corrigez-moi si je me trompe..), there is no obligatory second language learning in primary school. In secondary school, from the age of 12, children should choose a first second language (options English and Dutch), later they can choose a second.

The last few years more and more _francophone_ parents want their children to learn Dutch and this works: Dutch proficiency in the South _is_ getting better. In the North, the French proficiency of the pupils (and especially of people that are out of school..) seems to get worse.

As for the German speaking Community: I don't know about their educational system, but most are bilingual German-French and although I'm not sure whether many do speak Dutch, learning it shouldn't be really difficult for them anyway. (I know that the minister-president of the German speaking Community, Karl-Heinz Lambertz, is very proficient in all three of the official languages..)

Astemblief..


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## Frank06

Hi,


Kevin Beach said:


> I remember reading in one of the war museums in Flanders that in 1914 the officers spoke Walloon while the ranks spoke Flemish.


You mean probably mean French and Dutch? The officers where high classed people, so they certainly didn't speak one of the Walloon tongues.
By the way, the 'average' Walloon soldiers _also_ had a lot of problems understanding the 'standard' French. And they weren't treated that much better than the 'average' Flemish soldiers. I don't know who originally came up with that myth, but it must have been somebody who thinks that the Flemish soldiers were a buch of complete morons, for not understanding a handful basic orders in French. 



> Because the languages were mutually unintelligible, the troops couldn't understand their officers' orders, which resulted in chaos and the quick defeat of the Belgian army.


Wow, is this myth still kept alive in the War Museums?
The works of Sophie De Schaepdrijver are quite clarifying what this myth is concerned. She's did quite some research on the "Great War" and published quite some books and articles on it. Since she currently works for the Pennsylvania State University, I'll search for something to illustrate her claims (in English).

Groetjes,

Frank


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## Kevin Beach

Frank, I accept what you say. I was merely reporting what I read and, being a careful kind of chappy, I made a point of quoting my source!

Casting my mind back, I'm sure it was the official museum at Ypres. I visited it in about 2004.


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## Frank06

Kevin,



Kevin Beach said:


> Frank, I accept what you say. I was merely reporting what I read and, being a careful kind of chappy, I made a point of quoting my source! Casting my mind back, I'm sure it was the official museum at Ypres. I visited it in about 2004.


I hope you didn't take it personally! In no way did I intend to tackle _you_ on this issue. But yes, I am genuinely surprised that this kind of myths is still told _in the War Museum_.
In mean time, I found an article here which refers to the works of De Schaepdrijver (from a Flemish newspaper, not the study itself). I am not sure in how far you read Dutch or French, but I'll try to find something that illustrates her claims in English.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## delf06

Waou, you're amazing you people! Thank you so much for sheding light on this strange but fascinating country


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## Frank06

Hi,

So far we've talking mainly about the official languages. 
In the Dutch Forum there is quite a lot to be found back about the dialects spoken in Flanders. 
Equally interesting, at least in my not always humble opinion, is the situation in Wallonia. These pages give quite a good overview of the different Romance languages/dialects spoken in Wallonia (pages in French, Dutch, English, Standard Walloon -- "*Cisse pådje egzistêye è walon eto"*).
Please have a look at the Germanic language (which is (close to) Luxemburgish) spoken in Wallonia.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## Hulalessar

Just to make sure I've understood this correctly: there is no "standard" language called Flemish. A (non-French) newspaper published in Brissels is in the same language as a newspaper published in The Hague.

I have the following questions:

1. Do the majority of Belgians who speak a Germanic language other than German (which for convenience only I shall call "Belgian Dutch") refer to the language they speak as Dutch or Flemish?

2. How significant are the differences between spoken Belgian Dutch and spoken Netherlands Dutch?

3. Was there ever a time when there was a written language called Flemish that was in some way considered to be different from Dutch?

4. What was the discussion between the integrationists and the particularists all about?

5. How important is all this to the Dutch?


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## Frank06

Hi Hulaleser,

Your questions are interesting, but off topic. 
Besides, most of it has been dealt with in the Dutch Forum.
For example: Dutch and Flemish revisted, Flemish versus French, Vlaams en Nederlands, Flemish/Dutch, and many many more...

I suggest that you follow the links, search the archives and if you still have questions, ask the people in the DF.

Groetjes,

Frank
CD poster, DF moderator


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