Language Research

2. Background: Background notes

In Roman times, the area of Belgium was a part of Gaul and was inhabited by romanized Celts. Gradually the land was infiltrated by groups of Gothic Germans, until finally in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, a new wave of Germans, the Salic Franks, began pressing down from the northeast. Eventually they pushed back the Romans and took up a line generally corresponding to the present north-south division between Flemings and Walloons, a natural barrier of dense forests at that time. Only later, in the 5th century, after the withdrawal of the Roman frontier garrisons, did many Franks push on southward and settle much of Gaul proper. The northern Franks retained their Germanic language (which became modern Dutch), whereas the Franks moving south rapidly adopted the language of the culturally dominant romanized Gauls that would eventually become French. The language frontier between northern Flemings and southern Walloons has remained virtually unchanged ever since.

In 1831, the Constituent Assembly created a single state; however, because of the diversity of regions and a certain degree of decentralization, the State was divided into nine provinces and each province into local authorities. The provincial and local authorities were under the control of the state, so the Belgian State of 1831 was centralized. This unitary and centralized State continued for 140 years (1831 to 1970). In response to public pressures for reform the Constitution was amended four times, in 1970-1971, 1980, 1988, and 1993. The last revision confirmed the new federal structure of the Belgian State. The former bilingual province of Brabant was split into two provinces: "Vlaams-Brabant" (Dutch-speaking) and "Brabant-Wallon" (French-speaking). "Brussels", the national capital and also the geographical center of the former province of Brabant, no longer belonged to a province. This resulted in its special status as a bilingual Region being reinforced.

Much of the history of modern Belgium consists of the struggle of the country's Flemish-speaking community. In a society that was dominated largely by Walloons after the country achieved independence in 1830, the Flemish community wished to gain equal status for its language and to acquire its fair share of political influence and economic opportunity. In the 20th century they have been successful in obtaining legislation to further these aims, but their linguistic and other differences with the Walloons remains a source of occasional social friction.

The linguistic boundary is minutely demarcated by law and passes roughly east west across north-central Belgium on a line just south of the capital city, Brussels. North of the line, all public signs and government publications must be in Flemish, which has official status; the same situation prevails for French south of the line. In Brussels, which is officially bilingual, all signs and publications must be in both languages.

GERMAN (100,000 speakers):

Since its creation in 1830, Belgium has always had a German-speaking minority settled down in Arel (Arlon) and Montzen (which is called "Alt-Belgien"). After the First World War, The Treaty of Versailles gave Belgium new territories known as "Neu-Belgien", which includes the areas around Malmedy, Eupen and St. Vith. The latter two territories form what is today the official German-speaking region, while in the other cantons (Arlon, Montzen and Malmedy), German is not the official language.

Oîl

As the other Romance languages, the Oîl languages resulted from the fragmentation of Latin after the fall of the Roman Empire. For historical reasons, the Oîl dialect of Île-de-France (Francian, which was to become French) was imposed as an official language in the French State. This resulted in it being installed as the official language in other exclusively or partially French-speaking countries, such as the former French colonies and, in Europe, the French-speaking parts of Belgium and Switzerland. Since the 15th century, the language became unified and took the Parisian variant as its sole model, a tendency that would be accentuated during the following centuries. As a result, the other Oîl languages are vanishing and they are often in a situation of diglossia (a socio-linguistic situation in which complementary social functions are distributed between two different varieties of a language, a prestigious, formal, or high variety and a common, colloquial, or low variety) with regard to French.

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