Flemish

Official languages of Belgium: Dutch (yellow), French (red) and German (blue). Brussels is a bilingual area where both Dutch and French have an official status.

Flemish (Vlaams),[1][2][3] also called Flemish Dutch (Vlaams-Nederlands), Belgian Dutch (Belgisch-Nederlands [ˈbɛlɣis ˈneːdərlɑnts] ( listen)), or Southern Dutch (Zuid-Nederlands), is any of the varieties of the Dutch language dialects spoken in Flanders, the northern part of Belgium,[4][5][6][7] as well as French Flanders and the Dutch Zeelandic Flanders by approximately 6.5 million people.[8][9][10]

There are four principal Dutch dialects in the Flemish region (Flanders): Brabantian, East Flemish, West Flemish and Limburgish.[11] The latter two are sometimes considered separate (regional) languages.[12] Despite its name, Brabantian is the dominant contributor to the Flemish Dutch tussentaal. The combined region, culture, and people of Dutch-speaking Belgium (which consists of the provinces of West Flanders, East Flanders, Flemish Brabant, Antwerp, and Limburg, and historically of Brussels) has come to be known as "Flemish".[13] "Flemish" is also used to refer to one of the historical languages spoken in the former County of Flanders.[14]

Linguistically and formally, "Flemish" refers to the region, culture and people of (North) Belgium or Flanders. Flemish people speak (Belgian) Dutch in Flanders, the Flemish part of Belgium.

Characteristics

Map showing the dialects spoken in the Benelux: many people in Flanders speak a dialect and the common Flemish, and understand spoken Dutch; in writing, the dialects are hardly used, while Flemish and Dutch are nearly identical in this regard

Dutch is the majority language in northern Belgium, being spoken natively by three-fifths of the population of Belgium. It is one of the three national languages of Belgium, together with French and German, and is the only official language of the Flemish Region.

The various Dutch dialects spoken in Belgium contain a number of lexical and a few grammatical features which distinguish them from the standard Dutch.[15] As in the Netherlands, the pronunciation of Standard Dutch is affected by the native dialect of the speaker.

All Dutch dialect groups spoken in Belgium are spoken in adjacent areas of the Netherlands as well. East Flemish forms a continuum with both Brabantic and West Flemish. Standard Dutch is primarily based on the Hollandic dialect [16] (spoken in the Western provinces of the Netherlands) and to a lesser extent on Brabantian, which is the dominant dialect in Flanders, as well as in the south of the Netherlands.

Tussentaal

The supra-regional, semi-standardized colloquial form (mesolect) of Dutch spoken in Belgium uses the vocabulary and the sound inventory of the Brabantic dialects. It is often called Tussentaal ("in-between-language" or "intermediate language", intermediate between dialects and standard Dutch).[17]

It is a rather informal variety of speech, which occupies an intermediate position between regional dialects and the standard language. It incorporates phonetic, lexical and grammatical elements not part of the standard language but drawn from local dialects.

It is a relatively new phenomenon that has been gaining popularity during the past decades. Some linguists note that it seems to be undergoing a process of (limited) standardisation[18][19] or that it is evolving into a Koiné language.[20]

Tussentaal is slowly gaining popularity in Flanders because it is used a lot in television dramas and comedies. Often, middle-class characters in a television series will be speaking tussentaal, lower-class characters use the dialect of the location where the show is set, and upper-class characters will speak Standard Dutch.[21] That has given tussentaal the status of normalcy in Flanders. It is slowly being accepted by the general population, but it has met with objections from writers and academics who argue that it dilutes the usage of Standard Dutch.[22] Tussentaal is used in entertainment television but rarely in informative programmes (like the news), which normally use Standard Dutch.

Etymology

The English adjective Flemish (first attested as flemmysshe, c. 1325;[23] cf. Flæming, c. 1150),[24] meaning "from Flanders", was probably borrowed from Old Frisian.[25] The name Vlaanderen was probably formed from a stem flām-, meaning "flooded area", with a suffix -ðr- attached.[26] The Old Dutch form is flāmisk, which becomes vlamesc, vlaemsch in Middle Dutch and Vlaams in Modern Dutch.[27]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Flemish, Vlaams". BBC. 14 October 2014. Retrieved 26 November 2016.
  2. ↑ "Flemish language policy in an era of globalisation by Barbara De Cock" (PDF). Gencat.cat. 2006. Retrieved 3 May 2017.
  3. ↑ "Flemish language, alphabet and pronunciation". Omniglot. Retrieved 26 November 2016.
  4. ↑ "Belgium: A nation divided". The Independent. 18 December 2007. Retrieved 3 May 2017.
  5. ↑ Leidraad van de Taaltelefoon. Dienst Taaladvies van de Vlaamse Overheid (Department for Language advice of the Flemish government).
  6. ↑ Harbert, The Germanic Languages, CUP, 2007
  7. ↑ Jan Kooij, "Dutch", in Comrie, ed., The World's Major Languages, 2nd ed. 2009
  8. ↑ "ATLAS - Dutch: Who speaks it?". UCL. Retrieved 26 November 2016.
  9. ↑ "Belgium Bickering Over French and Dutch, Its Dual Languages". Los Angeles Times. 20 February 2005. Retrieved 26 November 2016.
  10. ↑ "About Belgium - Language Matters". Beer Tourism. Retrieved 26 November 2016.
  11. ↑ Ethnologue (1999-02-19). "Linguistic map of Benelux". Ethnologue.com. Retrieved 2013-10-17.
  12. ↑ Their ISO 639-3 codes are vls and lim, respectively.
  13. ↑ "Vlaams". Ethnologue. Retrieved 20 February 2013.
  14. ↑ König & Auwera, eds, The Germanic Languages, Routledge, 1994
  15. ↑ G. Janssens and A. Marynissen, Het Nederlands vroeger en nu (Leuven/Voorburg 2005), 155 ff.
  16. ↑ "De gesproken standaardtaal: het Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands". Structuur en geschiedenis van het Nederlands Een inleiding tot de taalkunde van het Nederlands (in Dutch). Niederländische Philologie, Freie Universität Berlin. 2014-06-10. Retrieved 2015-08-10.
  17. ↑ "Geeraerts, Dirk. 2001. "Een zondagspak? Het Nederlands in Vlaanderen: gedrag, beleid, attitudes". Ons Erfdeel 44: 337-344" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-01-19.
  18. ↑ G. Janssens and A. Marynissen, Het Nederlands vroeger en nu (Leuven/Voorburg 2005), 196.
  19. ↑ "Algemeen Vlaams". VlaamseTaal.be. Retrieved 2013-04-14.
  20. ↑ Rys, K. & J. Taeldeman (2007). Fonologische ingrediënten van Vlaamse tussentaal. In: D. Sandra, R. Rymenans, P. Cuvelier et al. (red.), Tussen taal, spelling en onderwijs. Essays bij het emeritaat van Frans Daems. Gent: Academia Press, 1-9, p.2.
  21. ↑ "Standaardtaal of tussentaal op televisie" (PDF). Universiteit Gent. Retrieved 2014-08-28.
  22. ↑ "Actie tegen onverstaanbare Vlaamse 'tussentaal' op televisie". volkskrant.nl. Retrieved 2014-08-28.
  23. ↑ "entry Flēmish". Middle English Dictionary (MED).
  24. ↑ "MED, entry "Flēming"". Quod.lib.umich.edu. Retrieved 2013-10-17.
  25. ↑ "entry Flemish". Online Etymological Dictionary. Etymonline.com. which cites Flemische as an Old Frisian form; but cf. "entry FLĀMISK, which gives flēmisk". Oudnederlands Woordenboek (ONW). Gtb.inl.nl.
  26. ↑ "Entry VLAENDREN; ONW, entry FLĀMINK; Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal (WNT), entry VLAMING". Vroeg Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek (VMNW). Gtb.inl.nl.
  27. ↑ ONW, entry FLĀMISK.
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