Languages of Belgium

[Dandelion]

It has come to it. The video has been made.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwjhfxFyhxk

45% of us (Dutch-speakers) speaking French as their second language? Don't believe that. It's crappy French at best. I wish mine was better lol. We have mandatory French at school, but to excel at it you need to use it, but that's the nature of statistics. We all know how reliable they can be when they are difficult to test.

Otherwise, a good video. Never expected Paul to ever make a video about Belgium. It even starts off with my home city. ;)

[Maintenance]

Arabic

[Dandelion]

Arabic

I'm still about to finish the video but maybe he mentions immigrant communities somewhere. That would make a video like that complete of course. It's an often overlooked aspect in such videos as those languages are meant to fade out overtime due to assimilation.

EDIT: Here (https://youtu.be/dwjhfxFyhxk?t=13m17s) is is. He doesn't go into detail, though but the picture is clearly taken in Brussels. ;)

[Rethel]

It has come to it. The video has been made.

45% of us (Dutch-speakers) speaking French as their second language? Don't believe that. It's crappy French at best. I wish mine was better lol. We have mandatory French at school, but to excel at it you need to use it, but that's the nature of statistics. We all know how reliable they can be when they are difficult to test.

Otherwise, a good video. Never expected Paul to ever make a video about Belgium. It even starts off with my home city. ;)

So why French became an official langaue in Belgian Kongo?

[Dandelion]

So why French became an official langaue in Belgian Kongo?

French used to be very dominant in Belgium, the language of the elite. Also in the Flanders many of the bourgeoisie spoke French because it was the language of education here. Shouldn't have been like that, as in the Netherlands Dutch always were the lingua franca of the elite (it's not as if Dutch was underdeveloped). No explanations for the historical phenomenon of a Francophone bourgeoisie in Flanders (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franskiljons) that is ethnically Flemish.

I read about plans to make both Dutch as French official in the Congo, but French was the only European language that successfully get introduced there even if many colonials were Dutch-speakers, they also were secondary French-speakers.

The older the generation the better Flemish tend to speak French, but that depends on the social class and level of education. I am working class and we live far from the linguistic border. I actually speak better French than my parents and all of my grandparents, but it's neither something to write home about. I just am better educated. I lack immersion with French to be truly good at it. I still find it useful to fluently understand most French and to be able to read it well, if not only to be a bridge between other Romance languages. Mandatory French isn't a bad thing in my opinion.

[Rethel]

Do you speak some dialect?

[Dandelion]

Do you speak some dialect?

My language leans closely to Standard Dutch, but it has features from Antwerpian which belongs to the Brabantian dialect group. I try not to speak in a vulgar way.

Same as with your Polish I guess.

[Rethel]

MAKE THE BELGIUM DOYCH AGAIN! :)

[Dandelion]

In recent history Dutch has gained prestige in Belgium and the unequal status between French and Dutch isn't that strong anymore. Some annoyances at the periphery of Brussels with French-speakers moving to Dutch-speaking municipalities and becoming the majority, barely needing to speak Dutch to function in society. That's the main source of linguistic strife in Belgium today. Otherwise, it's a thing of the past.

It's only very difficult to govern Belgium on a federal level due to the fact there's little contact between Dutch and French speakers. We function like different countries at different paces. When Belgium was a unitarian state it was worse though. :p

We had a thing mockingly called 'wafelijzerpolitiek' (waffle iron politics). For every large project in one part, another one had to be made in the other part due to jealousy. A big failure which led to many useless projects in Belgium.

Sadly no English article about it.

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wafelijzerpolitiek

Only Russian, Spanish and Dutch; not even French for some reason. It was probably more of a Flemish grievance historically.

EDIT: The article about the useless projects has a French article, however.
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grote_nutteloze_werken

[Dandelion]

Here is an interesting play from 1910 with humour centered around the use of the Brussels dialect of French with many idioms from Dutch (specifically Brabantian dialect). Many idioms are idioms we use ourselves.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiYCNIfgV6w

A bit old-fashioned humour, but it's were we have the term 'verbeulemansing' from: 'to replace one's own culture for money and prestige and bastardise it in the process'. No my definition, but from Ria van Alboom, in case somebody reads 'butthurt' in it. lol

Interestingly, when I was doing my state exam for my secondary education (it's how I got mine because I wanted better base of education) there was one Francophone guy who also did his exam there (he went to a Dutch-speaking private school). One examinator also happened to be a French-speaker from Brussels and they both spoke their dialect. Younger people still speak their own regional varieties of French it appears, despite people telling me Francophones all speak perfect standard language.

It's still a very alien world to me, French-speaking Brussels.

[Drusilla]

Who tells you that Francophones all speak perfect standard language? :confused:

[Dandelion]

Who tells you that Francophones all speak perfect standard language? :confused:

Some people told me, but Dutch speakers mainly. They believe French to be one of the most standardised languages in daily speech. I bet they have never heard Russian, which is far more standardised (except for among sociolect perhaps). :p

But most French people understand one another in the way they speak without having to adapt their register, but they are wise to do and not speak verlan in formal occasions, or at all arguably lol. Next to sociolectical differences, dialectical differences aren't that big in French as in Dutch and German perhaps but they exist regardless (called 'accents' rather).

[Drusilla]

Some people told me, but Dutch speakers mainly. They believe French to be one of the most standardised languages in daily speech. I bet they have never heard Russian, which is far more standardised (except for among sociolect perhaps). :p

But most French people understand one another in the way they speak without having to adapt their register, but they are wise to do and not speak verlan in formal occasions, or at all arguably lol.

Definitely. :thumb001:

But you're right. I can make myself understood and French-speaking Belgians understand me perfectly whenever I go over there.

[Tchek]

Here is an interesting play from 1910 with humour centered around the use of the Brussels dialect of French with many idioms from Dutch (specifically Brabantian dialect). Many idioms are idioms we use ourselves.

Mme Beulemans was a direct inspiration, if not admitted rip-off, for Marcel Pagnol's classic "trilogie marseillaise", but the French don't know it : )
Pagnol admitted he just replaced Brussels with Marseille.

[Tchek]

It's still a very alien world to me, French-speaking Brussels.

it's alien to me too

[Rethel]

I am now drinking Heineken.
Poles read it in Hochdeutsch, and majority probably thinks that it is FRG's beer.
But how it is pronouced in original slang? Also Hayneken?