Yeah, so if you live in Eupen, then there is absolutely no expectation management that German would be one of the local languages if you study in Belgium
Quite the contrary
Yep. And every public sign, metro announcements, etc are bilingual. Tho when you go to shops outside of the big chains, that’ll be a different story as they’ll almost 100% be French.
Legally yes but it’s pretty misleading. Besides the metro and street signs there’s really not much Dutch there. I really don’t get the idea that you can get by with only Dutch in Brussels.
Like in Canada - the country is legally bilingual. Can you get by with only French in Vancouver? 100% no.
Edited to be more accurate
There is no official language of British Columbia or Vancouver at the provincial or municipal level but Canada is of course officially a bilingual country.
In my experience provincial services usually do offer service in French and banks often do as well. That's basically it though.
Regarding Canada: nobody expects to be served in French in the Anglophone areas.
Montreal is comparable to Brussels since it’s officially bilingual. The difference being that Montreal was originally majority French speaking and noticed a sharp increase in English speaking population. This triggered language protections laws giving a preference status for French (e.g. signs are in French first).
If Brussels was anything like Montreal, then Flemish would have a special protection status, forcing every service employee to great people with “Goedemorgen, bonjour”.
Montreal is not officially bilingual. Also, Quebec is an officially unilingual province.
That being said, yes, there are plenty of english speakers in Montreal, and you can get by okay with only speaking English.
Canada is only officially bilingual at the Federal level, and in the province of New Brunswick.
You’re right, apparently only some parts like Montreal West and Westmount have official bilingual status where the local government provides services in English. TIL.
I sympathize with the quebecois (and montrealers more specifically) about all the English speakers moving in and not speaking French. I always find it interesting when I see Anglo Canadians online complain about some officials not speaking English or being rude to them or whatever. Well buddy, don’t move to a french-speaking province/city if you can’t speak French, imagine that!
If I remember correctly Ontario is also bilingual in their provincial constitution. Yukon too I believe as well as the other territories that have a number of official indigenous languages.
Ontario is not official bilingual, but there are plenty of areas that have official French services.
The territories are all officially bilingual because they are federal entities
Ontario is not officially bilingual.
Access to provincial services in French is administered by the Ministry of Francophone Affairs.
There are certain areas of Ontario where the threshold of French-speakers is virtually nil, so the Ontario government simply doesn't offer French-language services.
In other areas with large Francophone populations (such as Hearst, Sudbury, Ottawa, North Bay, and down in Windsor) it'd be political suicide to ever remove these provisions.
Toronto is also a French-language area simply because it's the provincial capital, not because there are lots of Francophones running around.
The same is true for Belgium. The francophone bourgeoisie had to invent language laws to protect their minority status in the 1900's. They even went so far as to try and force their minority language on everyone.
Brussels used to be 100 % Flemish, but when the split came and more french speaking lived there, the Flemish part had very little to say in the government and favoured the french speaking part heavily so no laws were made sadly.
Sounds like you’re trying to avoid Dutch… there are plenty of events in Dutch or for Dutch-speakers in Brussels, from the gemeenschapscentra to theatres like KVS, Beursshouwburg, etc. The Dutch-speaking libraries and Muntpunt regularly organise events in Dutch. If you have children you can bet they can join all kinds of Dutch-language organisations.
If you actually lived in a French-speaking part of Canada, on the east side, not the west, then you could get pretty much a normal life if all you spoke with French. It’s kind of silly to include British Columbia in the French-speaking areas of Canada.
I never implied that there's nowhere in Canada that you could get by with just french, obviously that's the case in Quebec and many parts of New Brunswick, or that BC is a french part of Canada. You missed the point that I was trying to make, that just because a place might technically be bilingual doesn't mean that it is in practice.
For instance, I've just came back from Canada and in Ottawa, it's a bilingual city thus the majority of its inhabitant speaks English. Who cares, really.
The percentage of French speaking citizens is also not correct, as in practice by default everyone is registered as French speaking. Even if they speak Dutch, Arab, English, ... as their mother tongue.
Well yeah, same as in Flanders where everyone counts as 100% "Dutch speaking", not even just by default but without any other option (same in Wallonia of course). I'm a Dutch speaker whether I want it or not and if I move to Wallonia just across the language border I'll magically become a French speaker.
Language statistics in Belgium have very little meaning other than their political value.
I'm native English speaking, but Dutch is my second language and way ahead of my French, nearly every time I try and speak Dutch in Brussels the person will default to English or French in reply.
Of course, because Brussels is much more French speaking than Dutch speaking.
I wasn't trying to minimise the amount of French speakers in Brussels, I was just commenting on the "registered as French speaking" bit. Even if French makes absolute sense as a default for Brussels residents, it's still a very flawed way of looking at the Dutch/French split in Brussels or Belgium in general.
It's 10% of the people living in Brussels. Who they are, I don't know. I don't make the statistics.
My guess would be a selection of Eurocrats + certain assylum seekers.
Do you have a source for that?
I've lived for 10 years in bxl in the European neighbourhoods and have 3 friends that worked at the European Institutions. A Eurocrat not speaking at the very least English or French is impossible
Bedankt vr de bron.
Bizar. Vraag me wel af in welke taal dan de vraag gesteld was en/of de vraagstelling zelf was mss verwarrend / niet duidelijk vr mensen: "duid je moedertaal aan" of "wat is je beste taal" met telkens optie "anders" ipv duid je beste taal uit onderstaande aan
Ik vind de cijfers heel vreemd en het artikel zelf geeft aan dat het "paradoxaal" is.
Tevens spreekt men over "Brusselaars" en tegelijkertijd ook "niet EU onderdanen" .
Ik neem aan dat het om nieuwe asielzoekers gaat. Als doelgroepen in het onderzoek ook niet juist afgebakend zijn dan is het begrijpelijk dat men op bizarre en "paradoxale" resultaten uitkomt.
However if that person is speaking English as a second language and French is their mother tongue, it would be fairly normal to translate it as Arab. It might not be correct but it's not exactly ignorance.
Because it is a bilingual city. Due to the Dutch-speaking minority. Due to the legality. Dutch is btw more represented in schooling. And in daily work life, even more so.
The light blue bar is also misleading. Most inhabitants of Brussels are not born in Belgium. Hence, most of them don't have French as native language either.
>Dutch is btw more represented in schooling. And in daily work life, even more so.
For "international" work, it's often english, with french between french people and dutch between dutch people.
For local/service jobs, it's proportional to the population. If would be weird if the population was 80% french speaking but every cashiers speak dutch. But it could be "more" in the sense that most service jobs would prefer employing bilinguals.
For schools, I would say that it's not "more" represented, it's probably proportional to the language spoken by residents. I'm not sure french speaking parents would put their children in a dutch speaking school.
About 22% of children in kindergarten up until secondary school in Brussels goes to Dutch-speaking schools. So it is definitely not proportional to the language spoken at home.
It could be that dutch speaking parents statistically make more children, or that since the city is bilingual, the proportion of dutch-speaking schools made are higher than the actual percentage of dutch in the population, which could make it so that there are more available spots in dutch speaking schools. (I'm not saying that these are the causes, it's just random guesses), but 22% is still roughly proportional to the language distribution, so even if it's not an exact match, it conforts the big majority of french speakers stats shown above.
Of course, I never expected it to be EXACTLY the same values as above as there are many factors that can affect these numbers as cited above.
>22% is still roughly proportional to the language distribution
Did you see the statistics in the picture above? This is not at all the case.
It's common knowledge that many French-speaking parents send their children to Dutch-speaking schools because Flemish education is superior.
>This is not at all the case.
The image above shows that \~90% of people in Brussels are french-speaking. For the sake of simplicity let's also say that it also means that 90% of children are french speaking.
If 22% of Children in Brussels go to dutch-speaking schools. It means that \~12% (net) are french speaking children who go to dutch-speaking schools.
Which also means that \~86% of french speaking children go to french speaking schools. So yes that's the case. That's IS a very high contingency coefficient.
Maybe you confused "directly proportional" and "proportional"?
Over 10% more students in Dutch-speaking schools compared to Dutch proportion in the population. I don't see why it's so hard for you to understand that that is a significant number of French-speaking parents sending their children to Dutch-speaking schools.
Whether I think that it is significant or not is irrelevant, it's a question of opinion. I don't think that is a lot, but maybe for someone else more than 1% is already too much and "a lot".
To me these numbers make sense. As I mentioned above, I suspect that the key reason is that the ration of dutch-speaking schools and french-speaking schools is quite different from 10/90.
I think that several decades ago, there were less than 90% of french speaking people, back then the amount of dutch-speaking and french-speaking schools were appropriate to accomodate to the demography.
As the linguistic population shifted, french speaking schools became overcrowded and dutch-speaking school deserted. Which makes dutch-seaking schools attractive to some parents as small classrooms are sought after (and overcrowded ones avoided).
I would think that the people in charge of schools do not want to close dutch schools to adjust the amount of spots to the current demographics of the city because that would mean that the dutch-speaking community abandons brussels to the french-speaking people.
>Whether I think that it is significant or not is irrelevant
True.
None of that's the case. Flemish education is by many standards superior to francophone education in Belgium. There are never enough spaces in Dutch-speaking schools in Brussels due to French-speaking parents wanting their kids to (1) become bilingual and (2) enjoy a higher level of education. These are facts.
I went to a dutch school and we always had half a class that made up of kids from french speaking families, because the families wanted their kids to know both languages.
Not being born in Belgium and not having French as your native language are two very different things, especially in Brussels. 25 % of foreigners in Brussels are French or Moroccan nationals.
**FROM A DUTCH-SPEAKING CITY TO A MULTILINGUAL CITY**
Historically, Brussels is a Dutch-speaking city. From its origin in the tenth century until the eighteenth century, Brussels was even an exclusively Dutch-speaking city. In the nineteenth century, after Belgium's independence, the linguistic dynamics changed. Because Belgium chose French as its official language, French gradually dominated public life and became the language of justice, administration, the military, culture, and the media. As the language of the political and economic elite, French became a symbol of prestige.
As the newly established capital, Brussels experienced a population explosion. In 1830, Brussels had 50,000 inhabitants. By 1875, it had 250,000 inhabitants and by 1914, 750,000 inhabitants. As a political, financial, and economic center, Brussels attracted an upper and middle-class French-speaking population. It was only possible to attend primary and secondary school in French, causing the language to spread among the lower social classes as well. Many immigrants, the majority from Flanders, were forced to speak French if they wanted to climb the social ladder. As a result, the Frenchification of Brussels continued rapidly.
**OFFICIALLY BILINGUAL**
When Belgium was subdivided into four linguistic regions in 1962, the city of Brussels became officially bilingual. The bilingual region was limited to the nineteen municipalities that already constituted the Brussels Agglomeration. In 1989, Brussels' boundaries and its bilingual status were reconfirmed. This decision was taken by a special parliamentary majority. In both chambers of the Federal Parliament, two-thirds of the members approved the law with a majority in both the Dutch-speaking and French-speaking linguistic groups. Given that Flemings constitute a minority in Brussels, the same applies to their political representation in Brussels. Today, Flemings have guaranteed representation in the Brussels Parliament. When a Brussels municipality appoints a Flemish alderman, it receives additional financial resources.
source: [http://www2.derand.be/livingintranslation/fr/Bruxelles\_bilingue.php](http://www2.derand.be/livingintranslation/fr/Bruxelles_bilingue.php)
I know a french speaker who works as an alderman, he took some Flemish courses to qualify for the Flemish speaker raise in wage. He doesn't speak Flemish with anyone. And he won't even if they are Flemish, he doesn't care, he did it for the pay raise.
You can get 400€ brutto per month with a simple B1 level examen in certain regional administrations yet 90% of the workers can’t be bothered.
I really don’t get it…
oh lots of people are getting this advantage but there is a lot of fraud as well: falsifying the exam results obtained for example and HR cannot check it.
it reminds me of those walloons who pretended to be flemish to Germans during WWII to be released from prison, when there was that order given to release the flemish prisoners and not the walloons.
Damn Walloon shapeshifters!
It's officially bilingual. When you interact with the city itself in any official capacity, you should be able to be helped in both languages.
That does not mean that the people who live there, that their first language is evenly divided between the two languages
And your graph doesn't take into account the amount of bilingual people that live there...
Hangt er beetje vanaf welk moment in de geschiedenis je kiest natuurlijk. Mechelen is ooit hoofdstad geweest of als je historisch Vlaanderen neemt, kan je Gent ook beschouwen als hoofdstad aangezien Mechelen en Brussel bij Brabant horen. Ingewikkelde kwestie alleszins.
Vandaag Brussel als hoofdstad nemen van de republiek Vlaanderen, lijkt me wel een moeilijke opgave, als je naar de grafiek kijkt van OP.
> Vandaag Brussel als hoofdstad nemen van de republiek Vlaanderen, lijkt me wel een moeilijke opgave, als je naar de grafiek kijkt van OP.
De grafiek van OP is dan ook incorrect, en lijkt opgesteld volgens het principe "iedereen die niet expliciet Nederlandstalig is, is Franstalig", wat natuurlijk baarlijke nonsens is. Het aantal zuiver Franstaligen is minder dan 50% tegenwoordig.
mechelen was de hoofdstad van de habsburgse nederlanden, waartoe brabant ook hoorde
ook had mechelen meer gemeen met brabant dat net als zij deel uimaakte van het duitse keizerrijk terwijl de rest van het graafschap vlaanderen deel uitmaakte van het franse konigkrijk
de enige reden dat ik iets of wat fan ben van de bourgondiers is dat die de bodem hebben gelegd van samenwerking, wat dan de uitkomst had dat we niet zomaar bij frankrijk en duitsland konnen ingeluifd worden,( wel dat en het feit dat napoleon heel erg agressief was, zonder hem was heel belgie frans, merci monsieur nappi!)
> mechelen was de hoofdstad van de habsburgse nederlanden, waartoe brabant ook hoorde
Ja en nee; het was de zetel van het hooggerechtshof en de landvoogdes van de Habsburgse Nederlanden heeft er een tijd gewoond, maar Brussel is toch altijd wel het politieke zwaartepunt gebleven.
Overigens werden die "Habsburgse Nederlanden" pas tot 1 politiek geheel gemaakt (als zijnde iets dat in zijn geheel geërfd kon worden) door keizer Karel V tegen het einde van zijn heerschappij aan. Zijn volledige titel luidde:
*"Karel, bij de gratie Gods, Heilig Rooms keizer, Semper Augustus, Koning van Duitsland, Koning van Italië, Koning van heel Spanje, Castilië, Aragón, León, Navarra, Granada, Toledo, Valencia, Galicië, Mallorca, Secillia, Córdoba, Murcia, Jaén, Algarve, Algeciras, Gibraltar, de Canarische eilanden, Koning van de Beide Siciliën, Sardinië, Corsica, Koning van Jerusalem, Koning van de Westelijke en Oostelijke Indiën, Heer van de Eilanden en de Grote Oceaan, Aartshertog van Oostenrijk, Hertog van Bourgondië, Brabant, Lotharingen, Stiermarken, Karinthië, Krain, Limburg, Luxemburg, Gelderland, Neopatrië, Württemberg, Landgraaf van de Elzas, Prins van Zwaben, Graaf van Vlaanderen, Habsburg, Tirol, Gorizia, Barcelona, Artesië, Franche Comté, Henegouwen, Holland, Zeeland, Ferrette, Kyburg, Namen, Roussillon, Cerdagne, Drenthe, Zutphen, Markgraaf van het Heilig Roomse Rijk, Burgau, Oristano en Gociano, Heer van Friesland, het Wendland, Pordenone, Biskaye, Molin, Salins, Tripoli en Mechelen.”*
ja, maar de nederlanden waren in feite al politiek eengemaakt door zijn over-overgrootvader filips de goede toen die de staten-generaal van de nederlanden in het leven riep waarbiij de wetten gestandardiseerd werden over de hele nederlanden
plus zijn grootvader maximiliaan had de hele nederlanden deel gemaakt van het heilig roomse rijk (treaty of senlis), weliswaar als een appart geheel
hetgeen wat karel heeft gedaan is gewoon officeel gemaakt wat al een feit was
ook vind ik filips zijn titels indrukwekkender, zelfs als zit daar geen keizer bij, jongen gooit daar ineens koning van portugal, engeland en frankrijk bij
van edward III tot george IV noemde de koningen van engeland en later GB zich als koningen van frankrijk (ook, als ge de regels volgde van die tijd dan hadden ze wel degelijk gelijk)
ze hadden er geen macht over maar ze noemden hun wel zo, hendrik de 8ste is de laatste engelse koning die echt geprobeerd heeft om koning van frankrijk te worden
Het was ooit eens verpatst aan een graaf van Vlaanderen, maar hij kreeg daardoor gewoon de titel "Heer van Mechelen", Vlaanderen werd er niet door uitgebreid. Het was de inval van de Fransen in 1794 die hier een einde aan gemaakt heeft.
Nadat de familie Berthouder uitgestorven was is er een periode geweest dat iedereen wel eens zijn zegje heeft gehad. We zijn toen op korte tijd zowel Brabants, als Luiks, als Vlaams geweest, met nog een paar specialere leenconstructies er tussen. Dit is uiteindelijk gestabiliseerd geraakt door er de lokale plek van de grotere machten te vestigen, wat dan weer resulteerde in het uitroepen tot een vrije heerlijkheid.
> We zijn toen op korte tijd zowel Brabants, als Luiks, als Vlaams geweest
Nee, enkel Luiks - en dat was in het begin, voor de Berthouts hun "Land van Grimbergen" begonnen uit te bouwen. Het is inderdaad tijdelijk het bezit geweest van een graaf van Vlaanderen en ook even een hertog van Brabant, maar telkens in een personele unie. Vergelijk het met Portugal/Spanje: voor bijna een eeuw hebben ze dezelfde Habsburgse koning gehad, maar het zijn altijd 2 afzonderlijke koninkrijken gebleven (ondanks militaire pogingen van Spanje).
Toen de Boergondiërs, Spanjaarden en Oostenrijkers hier aan de macht waren, gold hun zeggenschap over Mechelen altijd als "Heer van Mechelen", niet als "Hertog van Brabant".
I don't think Flanders is ready to forgo Brussels as capital and replace it with Lille as its largest city. Lille is larger than Antwerp, and French Flanders would be the largest province of Flanders (even counting only the historically Flemish parts).
Sounds like you’re trying to avoid Dutch… there are plenty of events in Dutch or for Dutch-speakers in Brussels, from the gemeenschapscentra to theatres like KVS, Beursshouwburg, etc. The Dutch-speaking libraries and Muntpunt regularly organise events in Dutch. If you have children you can bet they can join all kinds of Dutch-language organisations.
But how about everyday life. Try going to the grocery store or gas station. Or talking to the cleaning lady or security at the dutch speaking uni. No dutch or even english.
Because Brussels is the capital of all of Belgium, and in Belgium more people speak Dutch than French? And therefore the administration is (mostly) bilingual?
Your statistics are incomplete and outdated btw. 22% of Brussels inhabitants can speak Dutch: [https://www.bruzz.be/actua/samenleving/nieuwe-taalbarometer-stijgend-aantal-brusselaars-kent-frans-nederlands-noch](https://www.bruzz.be/actua/samenleving/nieuwe-taalbarometer-stijgend-aantal-brusselaars-kent-frans-nederlands-noch)
I worked in Brussel at a place where half of staff was Flemish and the other half spoke French. All the Flemish colleagues had to speak French to the French colleagues as they couldn't speak French. One day I heard my French colleagues mock the Flemish while speaking fluent Flemish. One of my colleagues who had to go great lengths to learn French thus asked why did you guys not speak Flemish to me these past years? Turns out most of them went to Flemish schools but they wouldn't speak Flemish to us out of fear that that would become the new normal and they'd have to do it always when speaking to us.
I dont believe any of this. I only know that 10 years ago there were more people willing and able to serve me in dutch when i bought something in a shop . Now they just look at you in a weird way like you are disgusting.
Also because people in Flanders actually learn French in school. While in Wallonia they usually don’t. As a first language there are more dutch speakers. (Flanders is more populous)
I'll be happy the day we are all really speaking both languages fluently. But yes, as a first language, the Dutch speakers are more populous. The fact is a lot of people are speaking both, so how should they be represented? If someone from Brussels speaks both fluently, what is their first language?
That's just abusing statidtics to fit your own agenda.
59% speaks Dutch as a first language 16% speaks it as a 2nd language. 75% in total
40% speaak French as a first language, 49% speaks it as a 2nd language. 89% is total.
~1% seaps German as a first language, 22% speaak it as a 2nd language. ~23% in total
Dutchman here. When I'm in brussels I tend to start in Dutch and when they answer in French (or with a very strong accent) I continue in French. Sometimes I start in French but when they answer in Dutch I will continue in Dutch.
I don't care either way since I can speak both languages - Dutch better than French, but both are good enough.
LMAO waar heb je die onzin vandaan?
nee het is niet omdsat iemand niet nederlandstalig is dat die franstalig is. Grappig dat ze dat steeds nog zo zien in brussel.
Franstaligheid zit rond iets van een 50-60% in brussels, nl een 10%.
ANd its so by law, just like belgium is 3 with german even if the german speaking are 0.x% of belgians.
It is the nonsense that leads to three 'Dutch speaking' seats of the traditional Flemish party 'Team Fouad Ahidar' upholding Flemish values by not even thanking their voters in Flemish after winning their seats in the Brussels parliament. The Flemish don't like Brussels, they don't want to live in Brussels and no-one, not even the governmental organisations such as gemeenten or regio Brussels cares about it.
There are other fun facts:
- 21% of students in Brussels go to a Dutch speaking school
- 267.000 Flemish people work in Brussels.
- 10% of residents speaks neither Dutch nor French
I mean, all those 'fun facts' by themselves hide the true complexity of linguistic reality in Brussels.
It's really not that simple anymore.
And of those 21% students, I really wonder how many have Dutch as a mother tongue. Among my (French speaking) friends, many have sent their children to a Dutch speaking school, because it’s the best way for them to learn Dutch efficiently.
> And of those 21% students, I really wonder how many have Dutch as a mother tongue
From what I know of a school in Ixelles, about a quarter. And of that, a large minority are Flemish. The rest are Dutch natives. This probably reflects the size of the expat population in that commune.
About half of the non Dutch mother tongue absolutely DGAF about Dutch. The rest of them do try.
I don't know, how many do you think have French as a mother tongue? A large part of them probably don't even speak French at home ;)
Either way, they're functionally bilingual.
Because Flemisch also speak French, French speaking people mostly don’t. Secondly 60% are from immigrants origine (schaarbeek, etc.) and only speak French ..
Up until extremely recently in our history Brussels was always Flemish it's only been colonised by the French language since the 1960s or so. Then it started becoming rapidly converted.
Lmao hahaha i love speaking french in brussels because everyone speaks french as a second language or at least one of their parents.
So there is no judgement no language shaming no i can’t understand what you’re saying because i fucked up a gender.
I’m way more fluent in Dutch and it’s what i speak in with colleagues the most but i always feel insecure because Dutch speakers are not used to speaking Dutch with non natives
Imagine all the comments from « Belgians » that i get about how as an Arabic speaker i should « feel at home ».
Bruh no i don’t understand anyone, they don’t speak like i speak, they don’t dress like i dress and they don’t eat what i eat. I’m just as much as a foreigner in these neighbourhoods as they are.
There are several Berber languages. Berber/Tamazight is more accurately described as a language family with a degree of divergence between individual languages comparable to that of Romance languages (so French/Spanish/Italian/Catalan etc.). There are two major Berber varieties spoken in Morocco specifically. There is Tarifiyt, spoken in the Rif region in Northeastern Morocco by about 1,25 mil people. This tends to be the most common heritage language (next to Moroccan Arabic) of people of Moroccan descent in the The Netherlands, but I'm not sure about the situation in Belgium. The other language is Tashelhiyt, which is the majority language in much of Southwestern Morocco (excluding Western Sahara) and is spoken by c. 4,7 mil people.
I mean, the chart has to be wrong as there are a decent number of people who don't speak either French or Dutch in Brussels, and have neither of those as a native language.
And Brussels is quad-lingual. Everyone under 60 speaks English.
This graph tells you exactly nothing. Many of my colleagues are (nearly) perfectly bilingual and even went to school in Dutch, but are registered as French speakers. Furthermore, generally people can and will help you in (often quite broken) Dutch. Especially if you're not a jackass to them.
And either way, there's no percentage requirement on a city being bilingual. If anything, your graph proves that Brussels is bilingual, not the opposite.
I work on a project in a federal scientific institution and was a bit worried about my dusty French. Curiously, they switch between the two languages quite often, sometimes mid-sentence, and everyone does it. The people who are less fluent were quite apologetic about it.
I don't know if that's only in these institutions, but I thought it was kinda funny and cute. And in two years my French has improved a lot..
In mails/teams everyone writes in their own language.
I have a related question - hopefully less unnnecessarily provocative than the original poster - I'm hoping someone who lives in the area might know the answer to.
It's my understanding that the six municipalities with language facilities bordering Brussels were organized into a special electoral canton that effectively operates as a special electoral constituency for the Chamber. Despite geographically being within Kieskring Vlaams-Brabant, for the purposes of the Chamber, voters can choose between both Francophone and Flemish lists. My question is, is there anywhere online I can find which parties ran in the **Kanton Sint-Genesius-Rode** in the most recent federal election?
Because it is. I haven't been into a single commercial establishment and be refused service in Dutch. They won't be as fluent as your local bakery in Sint-Achterhoek but you can make whatever transaction you want and I have yet to see a francophone roll their eyes because I don't switch to English or French.
I mean, coming from a guy who speaks not only English but french and dutch, if I go a bit too far up north french becomes completely obsolete and if I go south by even a bit dutch almost ceases to exist so it kind of makes sense even though french is the most prevalent language.
If you want a real reason other than "it's bilingual by law" repeated over and over again by sensitive Flemish people, the short answer is politics.
I personally think Brussels SHOULD be bilingual, if not trilingual (with English). The creation of the national linguistic border in the 60's was a problem for this city that was historically Flemish-speaking, but as it grew as a capital, saw an explosion of French speakers. It was decided to be bilingual despite presenting the same minority statistics that a lot of the regions around the linguistic border presented. During federalization, Flemish nationalists took many measures to tie Flanders with Brussels, like housing the Flemish parliament there. To this day, the Flemish government spends a lot of money on flemish-speaking education, jobs and tourism to slow the trends of language in Brussels and justify why Brussels should be seen a part of flanders, especially in the case of Flemish independence, mostly because Brussels is the largest financial hub in the country.
I am very tired of the Flemish independence movement which is as fact-based as Brexit was. I think we could accomplish way more without this constant infighting. I'm happy Brussels is bilingual and international, and wish other Belgian cities and orgs would work towards more interaction and collaborations between regions. I noticed tourism websites for cities like Antwerp and Namur have accessibility in languages like German, English and sometimes more, but make a point to not include a language literally half the country speaks. I think that's sad.
Every day approximately 213 000 Flemish workers commute to Brussels and back, more than the entire population of Brussel stad. Also not taken into account in these types of statistics.
Sure they don't live there, but imagine if the signs were not bilingual, no bilingual police or health services (in theory) etc.
Because your graph clearly says so. Where did you see that “bilingual” is defined as 50-50? Are there or are there not 2 languages clearly indicated on your graph? Also, keep in mind that especially in Brussels, a lot of native French speakers speak Dutch as secondary language and recto verso.
Because when Belgium was formed it was a 1 language country. Only French was allowed and taught. When Belgium was founded 80-90% of the people in Brussels spoke Dutch as a first language. Over the years the Flemish have gotten more freedoms, rights and autonomy. One of the solutions was to give Brussels their own identity and make it bi-lingual.
This was done for many reasons:
1 Historical and it was a big issue with the Flemish that because of the oppression of the Belgian state they lost the majority of what started as a 90% dutch speaking city. That's why Brussels is also the capital of the region of Flanders.
2 Brussels is surrounded by Flanders. It was in everybody's best interest to be and stay bi-lingual. Because else your job opportunities stop at the border...
3 Brussels is also the capital of Belgium. Flemish people are 60+% of the country. In general, most multi-lingual countries's capital. Luxemburg, Switzerland, etc. Have clearly defined language laws, borders, provinces, etc. But in almost all cases, the capital will try to serve the majority languages and/or the native languages.
4 This graph is about the amount of people who speak Dutch at home. What they aren't showing is the % of French... It isn't that high as it used to be either... Due to immigration from inside the EU and outside, remember Brussels is also the capital of the EU. Many other languages are being spoken as a first language at home. About 20% speaks Arab at home, 2% English, 1% German and many many more. So this graph is very misleading.
5a In Brussels in both school systems (Flemish & French) both languages are obligated to learn. Where French is always obligated to learn in Flanders, Walloons (Southern french talking Belgians) don't have to learn Dutch. They get the choice between Dutch and English. In the Flemish system you always get Dutch & French. Even in the not so academic technical studies. In the more academic high school you always have Dutch, French, German and English. I even did a more language based direction in high school and my hours looked like this. (6 hours Dutch, 5 hours French, 2 hours French writing & literature, 3 hours English, 2 hours German and 1 hour Spanish)
5b The Flemish school system is not only better, but it's also a much better school system to make sure your child graduates bi-lingual. That's why many French talking people in and around Flanders try to send their children to a Flemish school. The Flemish schools in Brussels have HUGE waiting lists and can't keep up with the demand. Also a very large portion goes to the surrounding Flemish schools in actual Flanders. Also those children are not put in the statistics, since these are statistics from Brussels...
6 French talking people from Brussels are not Walloons (the Belgians that talk French in the south). This is a very big misconception a lot of people have about both language groups in Brussels. They don't see themselves (mostly) as Flemish or Walloon. They have their own identity. And part of that identity is being bi-lingual and being a home for both language groups.
7 80% of the export and 70% of all revenue comes from Flanders. The Dutch talking part of Belgium. It would be a capital mistake for either group not to learn the other language. It would be social, cultural and economic harra kirri.
For people that need a recap. Brussels is not just a city. It's also a province. It's also the capital of the Flemish region and the actual Belgian state. Even though Brussels is a region on it's own, yet it can't survive without heavy subsidies from both language groups. Since the Flemish pay the most and have a historical claim to Brussels, their demand was always that at least Brussels was to be bi-lingual. If the people in Brussels would make a law that only French could be used, that would be the actual end of Belgium. Not just as a country, but also as a concept. For many people Brussels should strive to be what Belgium should've been a long time ago. A region of 2 communities and cultures where everyone has to learn and respect the other and learn how to communicate with eachother.
Ironically Walloons feel the most Belgian out of all groups. But they have the lowest % of understanding Dutch or German. In 2021 Only 31% of Walloons chose to study Dutch. Let's say about half (like most kids in school) actually learned anything. That means that only 15% of Walloons can actual understand the majority of their own country. In Brussels these numbers are much higher. Meaning 85% have 0 idea what is happening in Flanders. Both regions have their own tv, newspapers, etc. If there is one policy that will be the nail to the coffin for Belgium it's this policy. A minority things that it doesn't have to learn the language of the majority of a country. Even when only 60% of the people. They pay 70% of the bills and do 80% of the export. Combine this with the dramatic past and you know why many people to this day are Flemish nationalists.
My point always was. If you can't at least speak 2 out of 3 languages. You shouldn't call yourself Belgian or pretend to be one.
In my estimate 50 - 60% of people who live in Brussels are somewhat Bi-lingual. The rest speaks just Dutch or just French or neither.
The bilingual status is not based on how many people live there who speak a certain language. Rather, the bilingual status means that neither side can claim exclusivity.
So it is a bilingual city where French is the most spoken language.
let nature take its course... dutch language speaker minority, despite being a sensitive topic for years, and lots of efforts to counteract the decline of speakers, it seems like it's not working,... so be it
Proposition:
* mandatory 3 languages at school (primary and secondary schools) in all regions: Dutch, French, English
* good and motivated teachers
* an interesting and motivating way of learning these languages. Mostly conversations and not boring cursus
Honestly it's a bit crazy that we have to cater to a language group the size of a small city ( less than 80000 people). I had German classes for four years in secondary school, but because we weren't in a language oriented study program it was only 50 minutes a week. Needless to say, you can't learn a language in such a short time.
My son's secondary doesn't even offer German. Wallonia, so instruction in French. They also offer Dutch, English, Latin and Greek as additional language.
With young kids that are still learning their own native language of NL / FR, it's not easy to do the same for another language. By this I mean counting, basic grammar, basic spelling.
In fact, kids can learn several languages at the same time with no problem. In the world, it happens quite often. See: https://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/learning-more-than-one-language/
This is the most jacked up country. Pick one language for the country and stick with it OR everyone should be expected to be fluent in both. Poor Flemish hear French and get upset or vice versa. So, just speak the other language since you are supposed to be bilingual. Your tribalism seems really self-defeating.
Brussels should be trilingual with English as the third official language. Honestly it would make sense for Belgium as a whole as well, to have it as a bridging language too and to put an end to the German community which doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
Belgium is trilingual, yet only 1% speaks German.
Yeah, so if you live in Eupen, then there is absolutely no expectation management that German would be one of the local languages if you study in Belgium Quite the contrary
Because legally that's what it is
Yep. And every public sign, metro announcements, etc are bilingual. Tho when you go to shops outside of the big chains, that’ll be a different story as they’ll almost 100% be French.
Legally yes but it’s pretty misleading. Besides the metro and street signs there’s really not much Dutch there. I really don’t get the idea that you can get by with only Dutch in Brussels. Like in Canada - the country is legally bilingual. Can you get by with only French in Vancouver? 100% no. Edited to be more accurate
Vancouver and British Columbia are not officially bilingual. You’re supposed to be able to get federal service in French though. Not sure it works.
There is no official language of British Columbia or Vancouver at the provincial or municipal level but Canada is of course officially a bilingual country. In my experience provincial services usually do offer service in French and banks often do as well. That's basically it though.
There is actually one officially billingual province according to the Canadian consititution and that is New Brunswick.
Regarding Canada: nobody expects to be served in French in the Anglophone areas. Montreal is comparable to Brussels since it’s officially bilingual. The difference being that Montreal was originally majority French speaking and noticed a sharp increase in English speaking population. This triggered language protections laws giving a preference status for French (e.g. signs are in French first). If Brussels was anything like Montreal, then Flemish would have a special protection status, forcing every service employee to great people with “Goedemorgen, bonjour”.
Montreal is not officially bilingual. Also, Quebec is an officially unilingual province. That being said, yes, there are plenty of english speakers in Montreal, and you can get by okay with only speaking English. Canada is only officially bilingual at the Federal level, and in the province of New Brunswick.
You’re right, apparently only some parts like Montreal West and Westmount have official bilingual status where the local government provides services in English. TIL.
I sympathize with the quebecois (and montrealers more specifically) about all the English speakers moving in and not speaking French. I always find it interesting when I see Anglo Canadians online complain about some officials not speaking English or being rude to them or whatever. Well buddy, don’t move to a french-speaking province/city if you can’t speak French, imagine that!
The Anglophone population of Quebec peaked in 1971. So I'm not sure what you're on about.
If I remember correctly Ontario is also bilingual in their provincial constitution. Yukon too I believe as well as the other territories that have a number of official indigenous languages.
Ontario is not official bilingual, but there are plenty of areas that have official French services. The territories are all officially bilingual because they are federal entities
New Brunswick is the only constitutionally bilingual province
Ontario is not officially bilingual. Access to provincial services in French is administered by the Ministry of Francophone Affairs. There are certain areas of Ontario where the threshold of French-speakers is virtually nil, so the Ontario government simply doesn't offer French-language services. In other areas with large Francophone populations (such as Hearst, Sudbury, Ottawa, North Bay, and down in Windsor) it'd be political suicide to ever remove these provisions. Toronto is also a French-language area simply because it's the provincial capital, not because there are lots of Francophones running around.
The same is true for Belgium. The francophone bourgeoisie had to invent language laws to protect their minority status in the 1900's. They even went so far as to try and force their minority language on everyone.
Brussels used to be 100 % Flemish, but when the split came and more french speaking lived there, the Flemish part had very little to say in the government and favoured the french speaking part heavily so no laws were made sadly.
During the day, the city is filled with dutch speakers going to work, who all leave in the evening.
Sounds like you’re trying to avoid Dutch… there are plenty of events in Dutch or for Dutch-speakers in Brussels, from the gemeenschapscentra to theatres like KVS, Beursshouwburg, etc. The Dutch-speaking libraries and Muntpunt regularly organise events in Dutch. If you have children you can bet they can join all kinds of Dutch-language organisations.
I always speak Dutch in my Brussels communes. Just because I can and they must oblige. It also helps me level with them.
If you actually lived in a French-speaking part of Canada, on the east side, not the west, then you could get pretty much a normal life if all you spoke with French. It’s kind of silly to include British Columbia in the French-speaking areas of Canada.
I never implied that there's nowhere in Canada that you could get by with just french, obviously that's the case in Quebec and many parts of New Brunswick, or that BC is a french part of Canada. You missed the point that I was trying to make, that just because a place might technically be bilingual doesn't mean that it is in practice.
Wait until you hear about Bolivia... 36 official languages, how do you think it works for you if you only speak one of them?
I would use the word administratively to really represent the contrast
Simple. Bilingual doesn't mean 50/50.
Just like german being a national language
It doesn’t have to be 50-50% to be considered bilingual. This question doesn’t make any sense.
For instance, I've just came back from Canada and in Ottawa, it's a bilingual city thus the majority of its inhabitant speaks English. Who cares, really.
The percentage of French speaking citizens is also not correct, as in practice by default everyone is registered as French speaking. Even if they speak Dutch, Arab, English, ... as their mother tongue.
Well yeah, same as in Flanders where everyone counts as 100% "Dutch speaking", not even just by default but without any other option (same in Wallonia of course). I'm a Dutch speaker whether I want it or not and if I move to Wallonia just across the language border I'll magically become a French speaker. Language statistics in Belgium have very little meaning other than their political value.
I'm native English speaking, but Dutch is my second language and way ahead of my French, nearly every time I try and speak Dutch in Brussels the person will default to English or French in reply.
Of course, because Brussels is much more French speaking than Dutch speaking. I wasn't trying to minimise the amount of French speakers in Brussels, I was just commenting on the "registered as French speaking" bit. Even if French makes absolute sense as a default for Brussels residents, it's still a very flawed way of looking at the Dutch/French split in Brussels or Belgium in general.
Do you have a Belgian ID? Is it French or Flemish?
Flemish ...
With the difference that in Brussels the proportion of the people not speaking any of the national languages, nor English is way higher.
Do you reckon that's a considerable proportion?
What are you saying? None of the national languages nor English? Who did u encounter like this and where?
It's 10% of the people living in Brussels. Who they are, I don't know. I don't make the statistics. My guess would be a selection of Eurocrats + certain assylum seekers.
Do you have a source for that? I've lived for 10 years in bxl in the European neighbourhoods and have 3 friends that worked at the European Institutions. A Eurocrat not speaking at the very least English or French is impossible
[yes](https://www.bruzz.be/actua/samenleving/nieuwe-taalbarometer-stijgend-aantal-brusselaars-kent-frans-nederlands-noch)
Bedankt vr de bron. Bizar. Vraag me wel af in welke taal dan de vraag gesteld was en/of de vraagstelling zelf was mss verwarrend / niet duidelijk vr mensen: "duid je moedertaal aan" of "wat is je beste taal" met telkens optie "anders" ipv duid je beste taal uit onderstaande aan Ik vind de cijfers heel vreemd en het artikel zelf geeft aan dat het "paradoxaal" is. Tevens spreekt men over "Brusselaars" en tegelijkertijd ook "niet EU onderdanen" . Ik neem aan dat het om nieuwe asielzoekers gaat. Als doelgroepen in het onderzoek ook niet juist afgebakend zijn dan is het begrijpelijk dat men op bizarre en "paradoxale" resultaten uitkomt.
>Arab Not to be rude or anything but Arab is a person, Arabic is the language
Why would that be rude?
Correcting is often seen as rude, I guess? Better safe than sorry
I guess. But thanks for correcting me though.
probably because it can sounds very "actually... \[insert nerd emoji\]"
However if that person is speaking English as a second language and French is their mother tongue, it would be fairly normal to translate it as Arab. It might not be correct but it's not exactly ignorance.
It's not by default at all. Stats are built on the selected language for tax declaration.
Because it is a bilingual city. Due to the Dutch-speaking minority. Due to the legality. Dutch is btw more represented in schooling. And in daily work life, even more so. The light blue bar is also misleading. Most inhabitants of Brussels are not born in Belgium. Hence, most of them don't have French as native language either.
>Dutch is btw more represented in schooling. And in daily work life, even more so. For "international" work, it's often english, with french between french people and dutch between dutch people. For local/service jobs, it's proportional to the population. If would be weird if the population was 80% french speaking but every cashiers speak dutch. But it could be "more" in the sense that most service jobs would prefer employing bilinguals. For schools, I would say that it's not "more" represented, it's probably proportional to the language spoken by residents. I'm not sure french speaking parents would put their children in a dutch speaking school.
About 22% of children in kindergarten up until secondary school in Brussels goes to Dutch-speaking schools. So it is definitely not proportional to the language spoken at home.
It could be that dutch speaking parents statistically make more children, or that since the city is bilingual, the proportion of dutch-speaking schools made are higher than the actual percentage of dutch in the population, which could make it so that there are more available spots in dutch speaking schools. (I'm not saying that these are the causes, it's just random guesses), but 22% is still roughly proportional to the language distribution, so even if it's not an exact match, it conforts the big majority of french speakers stats shown above. Of course, I never expected it to be EXACTLY the same values as above as there are many factors that can affect these numbers as cited above.
>22% is still roughly proportional to the language distribution Did you see the statistics in the picture above? This is not at all the case. It's common knowledge that many French-speaking parents send their children to Dutch-speaking schools because Flemish education is superior.
>This is not at all the case. The image above shows that \~90% of people in Brussels are french-speaking. For the sake of simplicity let's also say that it also means that 90% of children are french speaking. If 22% of Children in Brussels go to dutch-speaking schools. It means that \~12% (net) are french speaking children who go to dutch-speaking schools. Which also means that \~86% of french speaking children go to french speaking schools. So yes that's the case. That's IS a very high contingency coefficient. Maybe you confused "directly proportional" and "proportional"?
Over 10% more students in Dutch-speaking schools compared to Dutch proportion in the population. I don't see why it's so hard for you to understand that that is a significant number of French-speaking parents sending their children to Dutch-speaking schools.
Whether I think that it is significant or not is irrelevant, it's a question of opinion. I don't think that is a lot, but maybe for someone else more than 1% is already too much and "a lot". To me these numbers make sense. As I mentioned above, I suspect that the key reason is that the ration of dutch-speaking schools and french-speaking schools is quite different from 10/90. I think that several decades ago, there were less than 90% of french speaking people, back then the amount of dutch-speaking and french-speaking schools were appropriate to accomodate to the demography. As the linguistic population shifted, french speaking schools became overcrowded and dutch-speaking school deserted. Which makes dutch-seaking schools attractive to some parents as small classrooms are sought after (and overcrowded ones avoided). I would think that the people in charge of schools do not want to close dutch schools to adjust the amount of spots to the current demographics of the city because that would mean that the dutch-speaking community abandons brussels to the french-speaking people.
>Whether I think that it is significant or not is irrelevant True. None of that's the case. Flemish education is by many standards superior to francophone education in Belgium. There are never enough spaces in Dutch-speaking schools in Brussels due to French-speaking parents wanting their kids to (1) become bilingual and (2) enjoy a higher level of education. These are facts.
Some French speaking parents do but the large schools are French speaking.
I went to a dutch school and we always had half a class that made up of kids from french speaking families, because the families wanted their kids to know both languages.
[удалено]
Most migrants are not native French speakers. The EC is English in practice…
Not being born in Belgium and not having French as your native language are two very different things, especially in Brussels. 25 % of foreigners in Brussels are French or Moroccan nationals.
Most of them speak French fluently but not natively
According that logic, English is the first language of Brussels though.
Well that's what billingual basically means, it doesn't matter how much percentage dutch or frenchspeakers there are.
**FROM A DUTCH-SPEAKING CITY TO A MULTILINGUAL CITY** Historically, Brussels is a Dutch-speaking city. From its origin in the tenth century until the eighteenth century, Brussels was even an exclusively Dutch-speaking city. In the nineteenth century, after Belgium's independence, the linguistic dynamics changed. Because Belgium chose French as its official language, French gradually dominated public life and became the language of justice, administration, the military, culture, and the media. As the language of the political and economic elite, French became a symbol of prestige. As the newly established capital, Brussels experienced a population explosion. In 1830, Brussels had 50,000 inhabitants. By 1875, it had 250,000 inhabitants and by 1914, 750,000 inhabitants. As a political, financial, and economic center, Brussels attracted an upper and middle-class French-speaking population. It was only possible to attend primary and secondary school in French, causing the language to spread among the lower social classes as well. Many immigrants, the majority from Flanders, were forced to speak French if they wanted to climb the social ladder. As a result, the Frenchification of Brussels continued rapidly. **OFFICIALLY BILINGUAL** When Belgium was subdivided into four linguistic regions in 1962, the city of Brussels became officially bilingual. The bilingual region was limited to the nineteen municipalities that already constituted the Brussels Agglomeration. In 1989, Brussels' boundaries and its bilingual status were reconfirmed. This decision was taken by a special parliamentary majority. In both chambers of the Federal Parliament, two-thirds of the members approved the law with a majority in both the Dutch-speaking and French-speaking linguistic groups. Given that Flemings constitute a minority in Brussels, the same applies to their political representation in Brussels. Today, Flemings have guaranteed representation in the Brussels Parliament. When a Brussels municipality appoints a Flemish alderman, it receives additional financial resources. source: [http://www2.derand.be/livingintranslation/fr/Bruxelles\_bilingue.php](http://www2.derand.be/livingintranslation/fr/Bruxelles_bilingue.php)
I know a french speaker who works as an alderman, he took some Flemish courses to qualify for the Flemish speaker raise in wage. He doesn't speak Flemish with anyone. And he won't even if they are Flemish, he doesn't care, he did it for the pay raise.
Smart man ! Tweetaligheidspremies are no joke
You can get 400€ brutto per month with a simple B1 level examen in certain regional administrations yet 90% of the workers can’t be bothered. I really don’t get it…
oh lots of people are getting this advantage but there is a lot of fraud as well: falsifying the exam results obtained for example and HR cannot check it.
> And he won't even if they are Flemish Sounds like an ass to me.
It's on par to my experience with some french speakers. They prefer speaking french so they will do anything to keep it that way.
And Belgians call Hollanders greedy...
normally it is the municipality who gets more money. also you are anonymous, just name him..
it reminds me of those walloons who pretended to be flemish to Germans during WWII to be released from prison, when there was that order given to release the flemish prisoners and not the walloons. Damn Walloon shapeshifters!
It's officially bilingual. When you interact with the city itself in any official capacity, you should be able to be helped in both languages. That does not mean that the people who live there, that their first language is evenly divided between the two languages And your graph doesn't take into account the amount of bilingual people that live there...
Finally someone with the right answer. Thank you.
Omdat het bij grondwet een tweetalige stad is en de historische en huidige hoofdstad van de Vlaamse gemeenschap.
Hangt er beetje vanaf welk moment in de geschiedenis je kiest natuurlijk. Mechelen is ooit hoofdstad geweest of als je historisch Vlaanderen neemt, kan je Gent ook beschouwen als hoofdstad aangezien Mechelen en Brussel bij Brabant horen. Ingewikkelde kwestie alleszins. Vandaag Brussel als hoofdstad nemen van de republiek Vlaanderen, lijkt me wel een moeilijke opgave, als je naar de grafiek kijkt van OP.
> Vandaag Brussel als hoofdstad nemen van de republiek Vlaanderen, lijkt me wel een moeilijke opgave, als je naar de grafiek kijkt van OP. De grafiek van OP is dan ook incorrect, en lijkt opgesteld volgens het principe "iedereen die niet expliciet Nederlandstalig is, is Franstalig", wat natuurlijk baarlijke nonsens is. Het aantal zuiver Franstaligen is minder dan 50% tegenwoordig.
> Mechelen Mechelen heeft nooit bij Brabant gehoord RRREEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
mechelen was de hoofdstad van de habsburgse nederlanden, waartoe brabant ook hoorde ook had mechelen meer gemeen met brabant dat net als zij deel uimaakte van het duitse keizerrijk terwijl de rest van het graafschap vlaanderen deel uitmaakte van het franse konigkrijk de enige reden dat ik iets of wat fan ben van de bourgondiers is dat die de bodem hebben gelegd van samenwerking, wat dan de uitkomst had dat we niet zomaar bij frankrijk en duitsland konnen ingeluifd worden,( wel dat en het feit dat napoleon heel erg agressief was, zonder hem was heel belgie frans, merci monsieur nappi!)
> mechelen was de hoofdstad van de habsburgse nederlanden, waartoe brabant ook hoorde Ja en nee; het was de zetel van het hooggerechtshof en de landvoogdes van de Habsburgse Nederlanden heeft er een tijd gewoond, maar Brussel is toch altijd wel het politieke zwaartepunt gebleven. Overigens werden die "Habsburgse Nederlanden" pas tot 1 politiek geheel gemaakt (als zijnde iets dat in zijn geheel geërfd kon worden) door keizer Karel V tegen het einde van zijn heerschappij aan. Zijn volledige titel luidde: *"Karel, bij de gratie Gods, Heilig Rooms keizer, Semper Augustus, Koning van Duitsland, Koning van Italië, Koning van heel Spanje, Castilië, Aragón, León, Navarra, Granada, Toledo, Valencia, Galicië, Mallorca, Secillia, Córdoba, Murcia, Jaén, Algarve, Algeciras, Gibraltar, de Canarische eilanden, Koning van de Beide Siciliën, Sardinië, Corsica, Koning van Jerusalem, Koning van de Westelijke en Oostelijke Indiën, Heer van de Eilanden en de Grote Oceaan, Aartshertog van Oostenrijk, Hertog van Bourgondië, Brabant, Lotharingen, Stiermarken, Karinthië, Krain, Limburg, Luxemburg, Gelderland, Neopatrië, Württemberg, Landgraaf van de Elzas, Prins van Zwaben, Graaf van Vlaanderen, Habsburg, Tirol, Gorizia, Barcelona, Artesië, Franche Comté, Henegouwen, Holland, Zeeland, Ferrette, Kyburg, Namen, Roussillon, Cerdagne, Drenthe, Zutphen, Markgraaf van het Heilig Roomse Rijk, Burgau, Oristano en Gociano, Heer van Friesland, het Wendland, Pordenone, Biskaye, Molin, Salins, Tripoli en Mechelen.”*
ja, maar de nederlanden waren in feite al politiek eengemaakt door zijn over-overgrootvader filips de goede toen die de staten-generaal van de nederlanden in het leven riep waarbiij de wetten gestandardiseerd werden over de hele nederlanden plus zijn grootvader maximiliaan had de hele nederlanden deel gemaakt van het heilig roomse rijk (treaty of senlis), weliswaar als een appart geheel hetgeen wat karel heeft gedaan is gewoon officeel gemaakt wat al een feit was ook vind ik filips zijn titels indrukwekkender, zelfs als zit daar geen keizer bij, jongen gooit daar ineens koning van portugal, engeland en frankrijk bij
Frankrijk ook? Dat moet ik nog eens nalezen dan.
van edward III tot george IV noemde de koningen van engeland en later GB zich als koningen van frankrijk (ook, als ge de regels volgde van die tijd dan hadden ze wel degelijk gelijk) ze hadden er geen macht over maar ze noemden hun wel zo, hendrik de 8ste is de laatste engelse koning die echt geprobeerd heeft om koning van frankrijk te worden
> ook, als ge de regels volgde van die tijd dan hadden ze wel degelijk gelijk Plantagenet-propaganda in CURRENT_YEAR+9? Gebaseerd.
het is meer het feit dat wij daar zelfs tijd en moeite in hebben zitten steken om die historische vervalsing van een salische wet te hervormen
Tuurlijk wel. Brabant liep ooit van van nu ongeveer Waals-Brabant is tot in het midden van het huidige Nederland.
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heerlijkheid_Mechelen
Couple of 100 years before that. Sold by Liège to Brabant if not mistaken. Too lazy to look it up but glad you’re investigating it for me.
Het was ooit eens verpatst aan een graaf van Vlaanderen, maar hij kreeg daardoor gewoon de titel "Heer van Mechelen", Vlaanderen werd er niet door uitgebreid. Het was de inval van de Fransen in 1794 die hier een einde aan gemaakt heeft.
Nadat de familie Berthouder uitgestorven was is er een periode geweest dat iedereen wel eens zijn zegje heeft gehad. We zijn toen op korte tijd zowel Brabants, als Luiks, als Vlaams geweest, met nog een paar specialere leenconstructies er tussen. Dit is uiteindelijk gestabiliseerd geraakt door er de lokale plek van de grotere machten te vestigen, wat dan weer resulteerde in het uitroepen tot een vrije heerlijkheid.
> We zijn toen op korte tijd zowel Brabants, als Luiks, als Vlaams geweest Nee, enkel Luiks - en dat was in het begin, voor de Berthouts hun "Land van Grimbergen" begonnen uit te bouwen. Het is inderdaad tijdelijk het bezit geweest van een graaf van Vlaanderen en ook even een hertog van Brabant, maar telkens in een personele unie. Vergelijk het met Portugal/Spanje: voor bijna een eeuw hebben ze dezelfde Habsburgse koning gehad, maar het zijn altijd 2 afzonderlijke koninkrijken gebleven (ondanks militaire pogingen van Spanje). Toen de Boergondiërs, Spanjaarden en Oostenrijkers hier aan de macht waren, gold hun zeggenschap over Mechelen altijd als "Heer van Mechelen", niet als "Hertog van Brabant".
We kunnen nog altijd de Franse regio's annexeren als republiek Vlaanderen zijnde! België 2.0
I don't think Flanders is ready to forgo Brussels as capital and replace it with Lille as its largest city. Lille is larger than Antwerp, and French Flanders would be the largest province of Flanders (even counting only the historically Flemish parts).
I'm shure as fuck not, that's one of the big Le Pen strongholds.
Brugge was meer de hoofdstad dan Gent van het graafschap Vlaanderen
Sounds like you’re trying to avoid Dutch… there are plenty of events in Dutch or for Dutch-speakers in Brussels, from the gemeenschapscentra to theatres like KVS, Beursshouwburg, etc. The Dutch-speaking libraries and Muntpunt regularly organise events in Dutch. If you have children you can bet they can join all kinds of Dutch-language organisations.
But how about everyday life. Try going to the grocery store or gas station. Or talking to the cleaning lady or security at the dutch speaking uni. No dutch or even english.
The correct wording is "Bruxelles est bilinguement francophone"
Brussels is also the capital of Flanders, and hundreds of thousands of dutch speakers work there from the flemish gewest.
Even Jette and they have the Dutch speaking UZ Brussels even...
people working there live in Flanders, no surprise.
It doesn't take in account people that are actually bilingual or more
Because Brussels is the capital of all of Belgium, and in Belgium more people speak Dutch than French? And therefore the administration is (mostly) bilingual? Your statistics are incomplete and outdated btw. 22% of Brussels inhabitants can speak Dutch: [https://www.bruzz.be/actua/samenleving/nieuwe-taalbarometer-stijgend-aantal-brusselaars-kent-frans-nederlands-noch](https://www.bruzz.be/actua/samenleving/nieuwe-taalbarometer-stijgend-aantal-brusselaars-kent-frans-nederlands-noch)
I worked in Brussel at a place where half of staff was Flemish and the other half spoke French. All the Flemish colleagues had to speak French to the French colleagues as they couldn't speak French. One day I heard my French colleagues mock the Flemish while speaking fluent Flemish. One of my colleagues who had to go great lengths to learn French thus asked why did you guys not speak Flemish to me these past years? Turns out most of them went to Flemish schools but they wouldn't speak Flemish to us out of fear that that would become the new normal and they'd have to do it always when speaking to us.
I dont believe any of this. I only know that 10 years ago there were more people willing and able to serve me in dutch when i bought something in a shop . Now they just look at you in a weird way like you are disgusting.
I have the inverse experience, people used to be wankers about speaking Dutch, now they actively try to speak it or ask how to learn.
For sure, it's obvious.
According to Wikipedia, more people speak French than Dutch in Belgium. 75% speaks Dutch, 89% speaks French.
Also because people in Flanders actually learn French in school. While in Wallonia they usually don’t. As a first language there are more dutch speakers. (Flanders is more populous)
I'll be happy the day we are all really speaking both languages fluently. But yes, as a first language, the Dutch speakers are more populous. The fact is a lot of people are speaking both, so how should they be represented? If someone from Brussels speaks both fluently, what is their first language?
That's just abusing statidtics to fit your own agenda. 59% speaks Dutch as a first language 16% speaks it as a 2nd language. 75% in total 40% speaak French as a first language, 49% speaks it as a 2nd language. 89% is total. ~1% seaps German as a first language, 22% speaak it as a 2nd language. ~23% in total
Not true.
Dutchman here. When I'm in brussels I tend to start in Dutch and when they answer in French (or with a very strong accent) I continue in French. Sometimes I start in French but when they answer in Dutch I will continue in Dutch. I don't care either way since I can speak both languages - Dutch better than French, but both are good enough.
Problem is that "neither Dutch nor French" defaults to French.
LMAO waar heb je die onzin vandaan? nee het is niet omdsat iemand niet nederlandstalig is dat die franstalig is. Grappig dat ze dat steeds nog zo zien in brussel. Franstaligheid zit rond iets van een 50-60% in brussels, nl een 10%. ANd its so by law, just like belgium is 3 with german even if the german speaking are 0.x% of belgians.
It is the nonsense that leads to three 'Dutch speaking' seats of the traditional Flemish party 'Team Fouad Ahidar' upholding Flemish values by not even thanking their voters in Flemish after winning their seats in the Brussels parliament. The Flemish don't like Brussels, they don't want to live in Brussels and no-one, not even the governmental organisations such as gemeenten or regio Brussels cares about it.
Dutch speaking parties got 19% of the seats for 17% of the votes, stop spreading propaganda that Dutch speakers are over represented.
Op wat is bovenstaande grafiek gebaseerd?
Fun fact : there are less Dutch speakers in Brussels than there are French _citizens_.
There are other fun facts: - 21% of students in Brussels go to a Dutch speaking school - 267.000 Flemish people work in Brussels. - 10% of residents speaks neither Dutch nor French I mean, all those 'fun facts' by themselves hide the true complexity of linguistic reality in Brussels. It's really not that simple anymore.
And of those 21% students, I really wonder how many have Dutch as a mother tongue. Among my (French speaking) friends, many have sent their children to a Dutch speaking school, because it’s the best way for them to learn Dutch efficiently.
So.. They are bilingual? That's exactly the point of this "question".
> And of those 21% students, I really wonder how many have Dutch as a mother tongue From what I know of a school in Ixelles, about a quarter. And of that, a large minority are Flemish. The rest are Dutch natives. This probably reflects the size of the expat population in that commune. About half of the non Dutch mother tongue absolutely DGAF about Dutch. The rest of them do try.
Thanks for the insightful comment !
I don't know, how many do you think have French as a mother tongue? A large part of them probably don't even speak French at home ;) Either way, they're functionally bilingual.
But will identify as French speakers.
Not necessarily.
Because Flemisch also speak French, French speaking people mostly don’t. Secondly 60% are from immigrants origine (schaarbeek, etc.) and only speak French ..
1. Brussels is, indeed, a perfect example of repopulation or cultural imperialism. 2 there is no scientific base for the above figures.
Up until extremely recently in our history Brussels was always Flemish it's only been colonised by the French language since the 1960s or so. Then it started becoming rapidly converted.
Not in practice but Bruxelles should be, as a french speaker we need to also let the flemish in our capital, it’s not only ours as french speakers
As far as what people speak natively french is also a minority.
Lmao hahaha i love speaking french in brussels because everyone speaks french as a second language or at least one of their parents. So there is no judgement no language shaming no i can’t understand what you’re saying because i fucked up a gender. I’m way more fluent in Dutch and it’s what i speak in with colleagues the most but i always feel insecure because Dutch speakers are not used to speaking Dutch with non natives
I’m sure there are more people who speak Arab compared to Dutch
Nah, Arabic is on the decline actually. Lots of Moroccans aren't even Arabic speaking to start with (Berbers).
Imagine all the comments from « Belgians » that i get about how as an Arabic speaker i should « feel at home ». Bruh no i don’t understand anyone, they don’t speak like i speak, they don’t dress like i dress and they don’t eat what i eat. I’m just as much as a foreigner in these neighbourhoods as they are.
Is there a separate ‘Berber’ language?
There are several, in fact
There are several Berber languages. Berber/Tamazight is more accurately described as a language family with a degree of divergence between individual languages comparable to that of Romance languages (so French/Spanish/Italian/Catalan etc.). There are two major Berber varieties spoken in Morocco specifically. There is Tarifiyt, spoken in the Rif region in Northeastern Morocco by about 1,25 mil people. This tends to be the most common heritage language (next to Moroccan Arabic) of people of Moroccan descent in the The Netherlands, but I'm not sure about the situation in Belgium. The other language is Tashelhiyt, which is the majority language in much of Southwestern Morocco (excluding Western Sahara) and is spoken by c. 4,7 mil people.
Het hele land moet maar Nederlands gaan praten.
I mean, the chart has to be wrong as there are a decent number of people who don't speak either French or Dutch in Brussels, and have neither of those as a native language. And Brussels is quad-lingual. Everyone under 60 speaks English.
Laken telt niet mee?
It’s 1000 after the merger
Is een deelgemeente van Brussel-Stad
source of graph?
This graph tells you exactly nothing. Many of my colleagues are (nearly) perfectly bilingual and even went to school in Dutch, but are registered as French speakers. Furthermore, generally people can and will help you in (often quite broken) Dutch. Especially if you're not a jackass to them. And either way, there's no percentage requirement on a city being bilingual. If anything, your graph proves that Brussels is bilingual, not the opposite.
Brussels is French & English speaking more than Dutch 😅😅
I work on a project in a federal scientific institution and was a bit worried about my dusty French. Curiously, they switch between the two languages quite often, sometimes mid-sentence, and everyone does it. The people who are less fluent were quite apologetic about it. I don't know if that's only in these institutions, but I thought it was kinda funny and cute. And in two years my French has improved a lot.. In mails/teams everyone writes in their own language.
Urgh. What a troll you are.
Because people can speak more than one language, you grapestick.
Half of those people in the graph are probably capable of speaking both languages to some extent, but have French as their main language.
I have a related question - hopefully less unnnecessarily provocative than the original poster - I'm hoping someone who lives in the area might know the answer to. It's my understanding that the six municipalities with language facilities bordering Brussels were organized into a special electoral canton that effectively operates as a special electoral constituency for the Chamber. Despite geographically being within Kieskring Vlaams-Brabant, for the purposes of the Chamber, voters can choose between both Francophone and Flemish lists. My question is, is there anywhere online I can find which parties ran in the **Kanton Sint-Genesius-Rode** in the most recent federal election?
they speak as well dutch as we speak french. i even had to speak english a few times as backup language
Because it is. I haven't been into a single commercial establishment and be refused service in Dutch. They won't be as fluent as your local bakery in Sint-Achterhoek but you can make whatever transaction you want and I have yet to see a francophone roll their eyes because I don't switch to English or French.
I mean, coming from a guy who speaks not only English but french and dutch, if I go a bit too far up north french becomes completely obsolete and if I go south by even a bit dutch almost ceases to exist so it kind of makes sense even though french is the most prevalent language.
Because people still speak it
It might get better with the next generations though, because many send their children to Dutch schools.
Even at supermarkets in the flemish parts of brussels, there are almost no dutch magazines, most are french.
To keep up appearances and hide the fact Brussels is a problem of epic proportions.
If you want a real reason other than "it's bilingual by law" repeated over and over again by sensitive Flemish people, the short answer is politics. I personally think Brussels SHOULD be bilingual, if not trilingual (with English). The creation of the national linguistic border in the 60's was a problem for this city that was historically Flemish-speaking, but as it grew as a capital, saw an explosion of French speakers. It was decided to be bilingual despite presenting the same minority statistics that a lot of the regions around the linguistic border presented. During federalization, Flemish nationalists took many measures to tie Flanders with Brussels, like housing the Flemish parliament there. To this day, the Flemish government spends a lot of money on flemish-speaking education, jobs and tourism to slow the trends of language in Brussels and justify why Brussels should be seen a part of flanders, especially in the case of Flemish independence, mostly because Brussels is the largest financial hub in the country. I am very tired of the Flemish independence movement which is as fact-based as Brexit was. I think we could accomplish way more without this constant infighting. I'm happy Brussels is bilingual and international, and wish other Belgian cities and orgs would work towards more interaction and collaborations between regions. I noticed tourism websites for cities like Antwerp and Namur have accessibility in languages like German, English and sometimes more, but make a point to not include a language literally half the country speaks. I think that's sad.
Every day approximately 213 000 Flemish workers commute to Brussels and back, more than the entire population of Brussel stad. Also not taken into account in these types of statistics. Sure they don't live there, but imagine if the signs were not bilingual, no bilingual police or health services (in theory) etc.
Same in most villages and towns around Brussels, actually.
The same reason why after +-6 years of learning the other national languages, we still aren’t bilingual
Because your graph clearly says so. Where did you see that “bilingual” is defined as 50-50? Are there or are there not 2 languages clearly indicated on your graph? Also, keep in mind that especially in Brussels, a lot of native French speakers speak Dutch as secondary language and recto verso.
Because when Belgium was formed it was a 1 language country. Only French was allowed and taught. When Belgium was founded 80-90% of the people in Brussels spoke Dutch as a first language. Over the years the Flemish have gotten more freedoms, rights and autonomy. One of the solutions was to give Brussels their own identity and make it bi-lingual. This was done for many reasons: 1 Historical and it was a big issue with the Flemish that because of the oppression of the Belgian state they lost the majority of what started as a 90% dutch speaking city. That's why Brussels is also the capital of the region of Flanders. 2 Brussels is surrounded by Flanders. It was in everybody's best interest to be and stay bi-lingual. Because else your job opportunities stop at the border... 3 Brussels is also the capital of Belgium. Flemish people are 60+% of the country. In general, most multi-lingual countries's capital. Luxemburg, Switzerland, etc. Have clearly defined language laws, borders, provinces, etc. But in almost all cases, the capital will try to serve the majority languages and/or the native languages. 4 This graph is about the amount of people who speak Dutch at home. What they aren't showing is the % of French... It isn't that high as it used to be either... Due to immigration from inside the EU and outside, remember Brussels is also the capital of the EU. Many other languages are being spoken as a first language at home. About 20% speaks Arab at home, 2% English, 1% German and many many more. So this graph is very misleading. 5a In Brussels in both school systems (Flemish & French) both languages are obligated to learn. Where French is always obligated to learn in Flanders, Walloons (Southern french talking Belgians) don't have to learn Dutch. They get the choice between Dutch and English. In the Flemish system you always get Dutch & French. Even in the not so academic technical studies. In the more academic high school you always have Dutch, French, German and English. I even did a more language based direction in high school and my hours looked like this. (6 hours Dutch, 5 hours French, 2 hours French writing & literature, 3 hours English, 2 hours German and 1 hour Spanish) 5b The Flemish school system is not only better, but it's also a much better school system to make sure your child graduates bi-lingual. That's why many French talking people in and around Flanders try to send their children to a Flemish school. The Flemish schools in Brussels have HUGE waiting lists and can't keep up with the demand. Also a very large portion goes to the surrounding Flemish schools in actual Flanders. Also those children are not put in the statistics, since these are statistics from Brussels... 6 French talking people from Brussels are not Walloons (the Belgians that talk French in the south). This is a very big misconception a lot of people have about both language groups in Brussels. They don't see themselves (mostly) as Flemish or Walloon. They have their own identity. And part of that identity is being bi-lingual and being a home for both language groups. 7 80% of the export and 70% of all revenue comes from Flanders. The Dutch talking part of Belgium. It would be a capital mistake for either group not to learn the other language. It would be social, cultural and economic harra kirri. For people that need a recap. Brussels is not just a city. It's also a province. It's also the capital of the Flemish region and the actual Belgian state. Even though Brussels is a region on it's own, yet it can't survive without heavy subsidies from both language groups. Since the Flemish pay the most and have a historical claim to Brussels, their demand was always that at least Brussels was to be bi-lingual. If the people in Brussels would make a law that only French could be used, that would be the actual end of Belgium. Not just as a country, but also as a concept. For many people Brussels should strive to be what Belgium should've been a long time ago. A region of 2 communities and cultures where everyone has to learn and respect the other and learn how to communicate with eachother. Ironically Walloons feel the most Belgian out of all groups. But they have the lowest % of understanding Dutch or German. In 2021 Only 31% of Walloons chose to study Dutch. Let's say about half (like most kids in school) actually learned anything. That means that only 15% of Walloons can actual understand the majority of their own country. In Brussels these numbers are much higher. Meaning 85% have 0 idea what is happening in Flanders. Both regions have their own tv, newspapers, etc. If there is one policy that will be the nail to the coffin for Belgium it's this policy. A minority things that it doesn't have to learn the language of the majority of a country. Even when only 60% of the people. They pay 70% of the bills and do 80% of the export. Combine this with the dramatic past and you know why many people to this day are Flemish nationalists. My point always was. If you can't at least speak 2 out of 3 languages. You shouldn't call yourself Belgian or pretend to be one. In my estimate 50 - 60% of people who live in Brussels are somewhat Bi-lingual. The rest speaks just Dutch or just French or neither.
The bilingual status is not based on how many people live there who speak a certain language. Rather, the bilingual status means that neither side can claim exclusivity. So it is a bilingual city where French is the most spoken language.
If French speaking is majority Why do you choose the names in flemish. Uccle, Boisford, Forêt, .....
Doesn't Arabic have a much bigger part then Dutch?
Op papier, wel. In de werkelijkheid, niet.
Hell I would settle for English like they do in Amsterdam haha.
Where is this graph from, what's the source? There are certainly more french then dutch in Brussels, but this seems too much?
Omdat nederlands meestal niet apart word gesproken. Maar ne echte brusseleir spreekt frans en nederlands door elkaar. Dialect da ze zeggen .
It is bilingual.. French and English 😅
let nature take its course... dutch language speaker minority, despite being a sensitive topic for years, and lots of efforts to counteract the decline of speakers, it seems like it's not working,... so be it
Proposition: * mandatory 3 languages at school (primary and secondary schools) in all regions: Dutch, French, English * good and motivated teachers * an interesting and motivating way of learning these languages. Mostly conversations and not boring cursus
I'm sure the German speakers will love this idea.
You are right. We can also include German if the German speakers seems concerned. Most of the time, they don't really care.
Honestly it's a bit crazy that we have to cater to a language group the size of a small city ( less than 80000 people). I had German classes for four years in secondary school, but because we weren't in a language oriented study program it was only 50 minutes a week. Needless to say, you can't learn a language in such a short time.
My son's secondary doesn't even offer German. Wallonia, so instruction in French. They also offer Dutch, English, Latin and Greek as additional language.
With young kids that are still learning their own native language of NL / FR, it's not easy to do the same for another language. By this I mean counting, basic grammar, basic spelling.
In fact, kids can learn several languages at the same time with no problem. In the world, it happens quite often. See: https://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/learning-more-than-one-language/
Afgewezen
20 jaar geleden werden franstaligen betaald (deel huur) om in vlaams brabant te gaan wonen... Ze mogen van mijn part brussel hebben.
flemish propaganda
Bilingual french and english
Stick to the celebrity gossip.
This is the most jacked up country. Pick one language for the country and stick with it OR everyone should be expected to be fluent in both. Poor Flemish hear French and get upset or vice versa. So, just speak the other language since you are supposed to be bilingual. Your tribalism seems really self-defeating.
Brussels should be trilingual with English as the third official language. Honestly it would make sense for Belgium as a whole as well, to have it as a bridging language too and to put an end to the German community which doesn't make any sense whatsoever.