Growth and Development of Standard Dutch in Belgium

Roland Willemyns & Piet van de Craen Growth and Development of Standard Dutch in Belgium 0. Standardization is not a linguistic change affecting large areas of groups and peoples simultaneously and to the same extent, but an ongoing change affecting certain areas and certain groups of people in different ways. In this paper we intend to analyze the growth and the development of Dutch in Flanders, i. e. the part of Belgium (occupying 43 Vo of the national territory and compris- ing 57Vo of the population) where Dutch is the sole official language.l Dutchspeaking inhabitants of bilingual Brussels are also part of this community but there are no official figures as to the number of Dutch and French speakers in the capital (information concerning the complicated linguistic make up of Brussels is to be found in De Vriendt & Willemyns 1987). Flanders shares its official language with Belgium's northern neighbour, the Nether- lands. After a historical survey, this paper will focus on standardization after Belgium's independence (1830) and the present-day standardization processes; finallywe shall turn to the language situation of Brussels, since this city is considered to have a considerable impact on the linguistic evolution in Belgium. 1. Historical Survey 1.1. Unlike some other Germanic languages there are only a few written records of Dutch before the 12th century. Although there is no doubt that Dutch was used in writing earlier than then, we have to wait until the second half of the 13th century to see the beginning of an uninterrupted written tradition.2 What is clear from this early period is the contrast between an eastern and a western variety and since the overwhelming majority of all texts produced had western features it is certain that the language of the west prevailed. The written language of the Middle Dutch period was firmly Flemish (i. e. western) in its roots even in the non-Flemish parts of the Dutch language territory (cf. Goossens 1986). In the 16th century the economic and political centre of the Dutch language area moved to Brabant, the central area. During this period a standard form of the language r Since regional governments have (restricted) legislative power the frontiers of their jurisdiction, being language borders, are defined in the constitution. The language status ol each Belgian town or village is therefore easy to determine, as it is for every inhabitant outside Brussels, since one's official language is not a matter of personal choice, but of the territory one lives in (see also Baetens Beardsmore 1980). z Willemyns (1979a) lists the available texts before the 12th century. 118 Roland WillemynslPiet van de Craen was gradually taking shape (cf. Van den Branden 1956), with considerable influence of Flemish and Brabantic forms. The political split of the language area which occurred at the end of the 16th century as a result of the Revolt of the Netherlands against the Roman-Catholic Habsburg monarchy (Willemyns 1984), had a decisive impact on the evolution of Dutch. From the L7th century onwards the Low Countries were divided into two separate parts (more or less present-day Holland and Belgium) each with its specific political, cultural, religious and social development. These events had a dramatic impact on the evolution of the standard language. While the north went on to become one of the leading economic nations of the 17th century, the southern regions stagnated culturally, economically and intellectually. In the north, the standardization of Dutch, strongly influenced by the southern writing tradition and the numerous immigrants who had fled the South gathered momentum. In the South, on the other hand, where French became more prominent, the elaboration of the Dutch standard language decreased and eventually stopped. Therefore, the original west-east opposition was gradually replaced by a north-south opposition. Yet, from a purely linguistic point of view, the original opposition between west and east was decisive in shaping standard Dutch. As a result of the War of Spanish Succession (1702-1713) the <Belgian> territories were passed on from the Spanish to the Austrian Habsburgers. Throughout the 18th century the consolidation of French as the more socially acceptable tongue continued. Dutch had almost no official status, except at a local level and certainly did not have the functions of a standard language. The language situation deteriorated even more when in 1795 the <Belgian> territories were annexed by France. Its inhabitants were considered citizens of the newly created French Republic and for the first time in history there was a massive official attempt to change the linguistic habits of the masses by suppressing the Dutch language. As far as linguistic evolution is concerned, the short reunion of Belgium and Holland as one United Kingdom of the Netherlands (1814-1830) was a spectacular event. This union, although short-lived, was of the utmost importance to the Flemings who suddenly rediscovered their language for administration, politics, the courts and education, areas where it had not been used for almost two centuries. Yet, it has to be stressed that many Flemings had great difficulty in recognizing the language now used by the Dutch as their own, and for many people the linguistic situation was hardly affected by this new turn of events. However, a small group of cultural leaders and intellectuals were strongly influenced by both the Dutch standard language and the new linguistic opportunities. In this way the short period of reunion was decisive for the future foundation and success of the Flemish Movement. 1.2. In 1830 Belgium became an independent constitutional monarchy with a parliamen- tary system dominated by the bourgeois elite which secured its position by adopting the polling tax system. For the bourgeoisie, French was a natural choice as the language of the state and although the constitution proclaimed that the use of language was to be free, in reality French was the only language used in administration and indeed in public life in general (Lorwin 1972). Moreover, the government appointed only civil servants who spoke French (Witte & Craeybeckx 1981). Growth and Development of Standard Dutch in Belgium L19 1.2.1. After 1830 both the Flemish and the Walloon communities developed movements which started out as cultural pressure groups but eventually developed into strongpoliti- cal movements campaigning for the autonomy of their respective communities. The Walloon Movement is not dealt with here; the Flemish Movement will be discussed according to Lefdvre's (1979) analysis. He distinguished three periods which we shall discuss against the background of the standardization process. The first period is called the period of historical identification.In the years following Belgian independence, being pro-Dutch meant virtually the same as being anti-Belgian. This created an unfriendly climate for the Dutch language promotors leaving pro-Dutch intellectuals in a kind of stalemate position. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that these people were not politically inspired at all. They were mainly philologists, literary figures and artists, floating on the waves of the romantic ideas of their time looking for the roots of their own and the Flemish people's identity. In spite of this a-political attitude and the lack of interest on the part of the power elite towards Dutch, this period engendered a far-reaching decision with respect to the standardization of the langua ge. ln t844, after many polemical articles and heated debates,3 it was officially ratified that the Netherlands and Flanders would have one and the same orthography. From L860 onwards the Flemish Movement attempted to unite the Dutch-speaking forces in Flanders regardless of political differences. During this period ol structural idenffication the linguistic issue became increasingly political. Although the difference between catholics and liberals, the dominating political forces since independence, proved to be great, from 1873 onwards an impressive body of linguistic legislation was passed, affecting the use of Dutch in the courts, the administration, the education and the army. These laws, however, produced no fundamental change. Frenchification in Flan- ders continued and there were no guarantees that bilingualism would prevail, let alone that Dutch would become the only official language in Flanders. Rather than being a radical change of policy in favour of Dutch, passing these laws was much more the result of political compromise between different factions of the predominantly French speaking catholic and liberal parties, who were desperately looking for allies (Witte & Craeybeckx 1981). As a consequence enforcing linguistic legislation became a problem, albeit that the influence of the supporters of the Flemish Movement within the political parties in- creased steadily. Until the end of the 19th century few people were aware that the language situation had social repercussions. This changed drastically during the period of mobilizing identification. Linking social factors to linguistic ones created the conditions for a growing linguistic nationalism. Instead of bilingualism, the leaders of the Flemish Movement now advocated a monolingual Flanders with a new, proud Flemish elite whose eventual aim would be to surpass the traditional Francophone elite. The Dutchifi- cation of the educational system, especially of the University of Ghent, became the overriding demand at the beginning of the 20th century. The Compulsory Education Act g For an overview see Suffeleers (1979). For an overview in English of the history of the Flemish Movement see Clough (1968). 120 Roland WillemynslPiet van de Craen of l9t4 was already a major step in this direction, since it stipulated that in primary schools the mother tongue of the child was to be the language of instruction. For various reasons the Dutchification of the University of Ghent, a symbol for the Flemish Movement, was not achieved until 1930.

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