Language Use and Language Contact in Brussels
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Language Use and Language Contact in Brussels Jeanine Treffers-Daller Faculty of Languages and European Studies, University of the West of England, Frenchay Campus, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK Brusselsoccupies a veryspecial position on theLinguistic Frontier, because the 19 communitiesthat form Brussels-Capital are anautonomous region within theFederal Stateof Belgium.The articlefirst gives a shortoverview of thehistorical development of variousaspects of thesituation of theRegion, asthese are essential for an under- standing of theinstitutional and constitutionalframework within which Brussels functionscurrently. The mainfocus of thearticle is on knowledge and useof thevari- etiesof Frenchand Dutch inBrussels-Capital,and on theeducational system, which receiveda lotof attentionin recentresearch. Finally, some attention is given toattitudes towardsthe languages and languagevarieties and to linguisticaspects of language contact. Introduction Brusselsoccupies a very special,if notunique positionon the Linguistic Frontier,because the 19municipalitieswhich formthe Brusselsmetropolis are an autonomousregion in whatis now the federal stateof Belgium. Becauseof its specialstatus, in thisspecial issue aseparatepaper isreserved forthe description of the historicalbackground, the educationalsystem, the language varieties used, the attitudesof the speakerstowards these language varieties,and linguistic aspects of language contact in Brussels. Language Knowledge and Language Use: Historical Perspectives Brusselsis situated on the Germanicside ofthe LinguisticFrontier, in aterri- torythat used tobe entirely Dutch-speaking. 1 All observersagree thatBrussels is originallya Dutch-speaking city,but the emphasisneeds tobe onthe word‘ origi- nally’(Deprez et al.,1981:94). Until the middle ofthe 18thcentury itwas still almosthomogeneously Dutch-speaking, except fora smallFrench-speaking elite (Van Velthoven, 1987:21). After Belgium became independent in 1830,Dutch continuouslylost ground in Brussels,as a resultof a processof language shift towardsFrench, generally knownunder the termFrenchification. Many factors areresponsible forthis phenomenon. Firstof all, it is important to realisethat French wasthe only officiallanguage ofthe countryuntil 1898(McRae,1986: 25). In the secondplace, the internationalprestige ofFrench alsoplayed arolein the processof Frenchification.The prestige ofFrench asaninternationallanguage contrastedsharply with the lackof prestige attachedto the localvariety of Dutch spoken by the majorityof the inhabitantsof Brussels(De Vriendt &Willemyns, 1987:202). The shortperiod during which the Northernand Southern provinces were united under King WilliamI (1814–1830) was insufficient tostrengthen the positionof StandardDutch. This is not only due tothe factthat Dutch rule was 0143-4632/02/01 0050-15 $20.00/0 © 2002 J. Treffers-Daller JOURNAL OFMULTILINGUAL AND MULTICULTURALDEVELOPMENT Vol. 23, Nos. 1&2, 2002 50 Brussels 51 preceded by aperiod of20yearsof French rule (1795–1814) in which Dutch was excluded fromofficial use. The causesof the delay in the development and spreadof StandardDutch in Flandersgo back to the politicalsplit of the Dutch-speaking territoryin the 16thcentury, when the Northernpart of the Low Countriesrevolted against the Roman-CatholicHabsburg monarchy,but the Southern partremained under Habsburg domination(Van de Craen& Willemyns, 1988).The South lostmany members ofitsintellectual elite tothe North.Although the southernelite contributedto the standardisationof Dutch, the speakersin the South were cutoff fromthis process. As a result,standardisa- tionstagnated in the South andFrench tookon mostof the functionsStandard Dutch obtained in the North. After Belgian Independence, the Flemish provinceswere onceagain cut off fromthe Netherlands.Knowledge ofStandardDutch wasfarless widespread in Flandersthan in the Netherlandsat thattime. According to Willemyns (1984;in De Vriendt &Willemyns, 1987:224), ‘ StandardDutch ishowever used consider- ably morein Brusselsand surroundings than in the remaining partof Flanders’. Apartfrom the factorsmentioned above,the schoolsystem contributed to language shift,as until the end of the 19thcentury, the language of primary educationin Brusselswas French. 2 In particularwith the introductionof compul- soryprimary education in 1914,the schoolplayed amajorrole in the processof Frenchificationin Brussels.It was not until afterWorld War I thata Dutch-speaking schoolsystem was gradually built up (De Vriendt, 1984).As is well known,Dutch-speaking university educationwas not available anywhere in the countryuntil 1930,when the Universityof Gentbecame Dutch-speaking, as a result of pressure of the Flemish Movement. Finally, economicfactors contributed to enhancing the prestige ofFrench. In the 19thcentury, the economicposition of Walloniawas much strongerthan that of Flanders,due tolarge-scale capital investment in heavy industry(Van Velthoven, 1987:17).Flanders, on the contrary,sank into poverty, which made it even easierto associateDutch withpoverty and backwardness. After the World WarII, however,heavy industrywas confronted with a fundamentalcrisis throughoutEurope, andWallonia was no exception (Witte &Van Velthoven, 1999:200). Due toindustrial development in Flanders,the economicpower rela- tionswere reversed,with Flanders overtaking Wallonia for the firsttime in the 1960s. Language Censuses The processof language shiftin Brusselsis reflected in the language censuses, but their interpretationremains very difficult formany reasons, one of them being thateach time different questionswere asked.The firstofficial language censusof 1846showsthat the percentage ofthe populationthat used French most frequently wasmuch higher in Brussels(37%) than in Gent(5%) or in Antwerp (1.9%).Even if the Brusselsfigures maybe exaggerated, 3 they showthat Frenchificationwas much fasterin Brusselsthan elsewhere in the country.This wasin partdue toWalloonimmigrants, who formed the majorityof the immi- grantsin the firsthalf ofthe 19thcentury (De Metsenaere, 1987).Between the language censusof 1866and the lastlanguage censusin 1947,the number of 52 Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development Dutch monolingualsdropped sharply,from 46.2% to 9.5%, whereas the number ofFrench monolingualsrose from 19.3% to 37%. In 194724.4% of the Brussels populationwas registered asusing Dutch exclusively orprimarily,and 70.6%as using French only ormainly (McRae, 1986: 295). All these figures should howeverbe seen asindicatingtendencies ratherthan exact proportions, because the resultsof alllanguage censusesare heavily contestedfor methodological reasons.For the lastthree censuses,an additionalproblem wasthat the climate wasvery hostileto the Flemish, because of Flemish collaborationwith the Germanoccupant during the twoworldwars (see Gubin, 1978fora detailedcriti- cism of the census data). ForBrussels and its suburbs inparticular,the censusresults had direct polit- icalimplications. Since the language lawof 1932,municipalities in the area surroundingBrussels had to adopt external bilingualism (in contactswith the public) if they countedmore than 30% Francophones.As soon as thisfigure rose to50%,French alsobecame the internallanguage ofthe municipal administra- tion,in additionto Dutch.Clearly, the expansionof Brussels– which continued toannex moreand more Flemish municipalities– formeda majorthreat to the Flemish cause.In 1963,the boundariesof the Brusselsagglomeration were offi- ciallyestablished and confined to19municipalitiesthat formed part of itso far. Six municipalitieson the borderof the agglomeration,situated in the Dutch-speaking partof the province ofBrabant,obtained a specialstatus with so-calledfacilities for Francophones: Drogenbos, Kraainem, Linkebeek, Sint-Genesius-Rode, Wemmel andWezembeek-Oppem (Witte,1993: 12; see also Willemyns in thisissue). Fromthe Flemish perspective, the delimitationof Brusselswas avery importantmilestone, which limited the danger ofthe French ‘oilstain’(olievlek) spreading overthe Flemish country-side.From a Francophoneperspective, onthe otherhand, this delimitation meant the imposi- tion of an artificial ‘collar’ (carcan) on the natural growth of the capital. Itis impossible togive anyofficial figures of the numbers of speakersof each language group after1947, because language censuseshave been abolished,due tothe tensionsthey created.A number ofsurveysof language knowledge and use were carriedout from the 1960sonwards, each of which cameup witha different result.In these surveys,estimates of the percentage of speakersof Dutch range from14% to27%(see Treffers-Daller, 1994for a detaileddiscussion). Janssens(2001) shows how difficult itis to obtain reliable dataon knowledge and use ofDutch in Brussels.In asurvey of2500Brusselers, Janssens shows that 10% claimsto come from families in whichonly Dutch (ora varietyof Dutch) is spoken, but 70%of the samesample claims to havea reasonableknowledge of Dutch.One ofthe problems withthe survey is,of course,that data are basedon reportedlanguage behaviour,rather than observed language behaviour,and it remains unclear to what extent the data represent actual knowledge and use. Anotherproblem withmany surveys is that they implicitly orexplicitly assumespeakers are either Dutch-speaking orFrench-speaking, andexclude the possibilityfor speakers to be classifiedas being bilingual. Clearly,figures about the number ofbilinguals arevery difficult togive, because speakersmay have very different opinionsabout the meaning ofthe notion‘