208 CASE STIIDY 5: Cultural Vitality and Creativity: The "Dutch Language Union" 1. One of the most recent and also strongest signs of cultural vitality and creativity in The Netherlands (in the largest sense of that name, viz. "The Low Countries") has been the installment of the "Nederlandse Taalunie" ["Dutch Language Union"], as a consequence of the "Verdrag tussen het Koninkrijk Belgie en het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden inzake de Nederlandse Taalunie" ["Treaty between the Kingdom of Belgium and the Kingdom of the Netherlands concerning the Dutch Language Union] which was signed in Brussels on 9 September 1980 and the instruments of ratification of which were exchanged in The Hague on27 January 198216. The text reads that "His Majesty the King of the Belgians and Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands ... have decided the installment of a union in the field of the Dutch language"17. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate why this has to be considered a very strong sign of cultural vitality and creativity in The Netherlands, by explaining the unique character of this treaty as far as international cultural and linguistic relations are concerned. In order to do so I will start with a short expose ofthe historic development of language planning in the Low Countries, then concentrate on the language planning mechanisms devised by the "Taalunie"18 and conclude with some ideas as to the future development and possible applications elsewhere. 2. Historical survey In order to fully understand the Treaty one needs to be informed about the nature of the relationship between Dutch speaking people on both sides of the Dutch-Belgian border. First of all it should be remembered that the Dutch language community was undivided until the 17th century. Although there was some political separation due to feudal division in the Middle Ages, when different parts were owned by different lords, the whole of the Dutch community nevertheless constituted a more or less homogeneous linguistic and cultural unity in which the dialect boundaries did not correspond to present-day national frontiers. As a consequence of the Burgundian unification policy all the Netherlands constituted a very strong politically, culturally and linguistically united country in the 16th century (Willemyns 1995). In the Middle Ages the Flemish provinces in the so-called Low Countries were prominent not only in the political and economic but also in the cultural field. Consequently, the language variety of these southern provinces was the prestige one and could have been expected to become the most important component of a growing supra-regional standard language. 16 The ofiicial text of the treaty is published in "De Nederlandse Taalunie" ('s-Gravenhage: Staatsuitgeverij 1980). p. 9-15. A French translation of the text is to be found in Govaert (1982), an English translation of the main clauses in Willemyns (1984). t7 "Zijne Majesteit de Koning der Belgen en Hare Majesteit de Koningin der Nederlanden ... hebben besloten tot de instelling van een unie op het gebied van de Nederlandse taal" 18 "Taalunie" will be used to refer to the institution created by the Treaty and "NTU" will be used as an abbreviation. 209 This evolution, however, was interrupted and the fate of Dutch has been directly influenced by the following three historical events (Willemyns 1992): -the splitting up of the Dutch language community in the early 17th century, politically separating present-day Holland and Belgium; -the fact that the latter part has been occupied and governed by foreign rulers (Spanish, Austrian and French successively) from the early 17th to the early 19th century; -the emergence of an independent Belgian state in 1830 . 2.1The period directly preceding the political split of the Dutch language territory (second half ofthe i6th century) was the period in which language standardization gradually took shape (Van den Branden 1956) and it could, therefore, be expected that the falling apart into two politically separated entities would have dramatic consequences, the more so since the direction of ongoing standardization also changed as a result of the political evolution. The center of gravity of standardization passed from the South to the North mainly because the North (more or less the present-day Netherlands) came out victoriously and as an independent nation from the war against the Spanish rulers. The South (present-day Belgium) remained under Spanish rule, underwent an economic and cultural decline and was soon ruled out as far as its influence on the evolution of Standard Dutch was concerned (De Vries, Willemyns & Burger 1993). An important part of the political and cultural elite having fled to the North, the Dutch community in the South was deprived of its leaders and its language variety could only survive on a dialectical level, the more so since the affairs of state were run, by the successive foreign governors, in French which definitely became the prestige language of the nation . Dutch remained the vehicular language of the majority of the population but only in its dialectical form and under a superstructure of French as the language of culture (Willemyns 1992). 2.2. I shall now highlight some ofthe efforts made in both parts ofthe Dutch language community to minimize the consequences of centrifugal tendencies. These efforts towards cultural integration can be exemplified by three interesting language planning developments (Willemyns le88). - The North having become a protestant state, was badly in need of an appropriate translation of the Bible. The commission appointed to this end was very carefully composed of members representing all dialect regions from the South as well as from the North. The language of the resulting Statenbijbel (Bible of the States, 1637), actually created for the purpose, carefully combined northern and southern characteristics and became the basis of the northern written language and writing tradition, thus preventing northern and southern varieties of the language of growing too far apart (De Vries, Willemyns & Burger 1993,82-87). - From the beginning of the 18th century onwards there appeared to be great need for a comprehensive dictionary of Dutch and here also we witness constant negotiations 2t0 between northem and southern scholars on how to start and accomplish this project. The real work only started some 100 years later, sponsored by the Linguistic and Literary Congress bringing together writers and scholars from the Netherlands and Belgium on a regular basis. Serious editing started in 1851 and the Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal can be considered the second major project aiming at closer cultural integration of both parts of the Dutch language community (Moerdijk 1994). - A third initiative very essential to language unity is the mutual concern for orthography. The Dutch speaking people have a tradition of regular orthographic reforms. From the beginning of the 19th century onwards it was acknowledged that reforms needed administrative approval and reinforcement and we witness governmental action to maintain orthographic uniformity in both countries. Three or four ofiicial reforms and almost as many attempts made it a difficult task to secure this uniformity which was nevertheless always maintained. This, by the way, was the first mutual language planning action taken by ofiicial bodies on both sides of the border (Couvreur 1975). These three examples show that there has been a constant desire for cooperation and integration in spite of political separation. Yet language planning from 1830 onwards was going to be of a completely different nature, viz. much more unilateral, a consequence of the fact that the integrational effort was always stronger in the South than in the North. 2.3.In 1830 Belgium became an independent constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system dominated by the bourgeois elite for which French was a natural choice. Although the constitution proclaimed that the use of language was to be free (Lorwin 1972), in reality French was the only language used in administration and indeed in public life in general in both the French and the Dutch-speaking parts of the country. Yet, this had been preceded by a short reunion of Belgium and Holland as one United Kingdom of the Netherlands. This union, although short-lived, was of the utmost importance to the Flemings who suddenly rediscovered their language for administration, politics, court and education, areas where it had not been used for almost two centuries. Especially a small group of Flemish cultural leaders and intellectuals was very much influenced by both the Dutch standard language and the new linguistic opportunities. After 1830 they were to form the hard nucleus of the so-called Flemish Movement, a cultural pressure group trying to secure linguistic and cultural rights for the Dutch language in the young Belgian state . Their views on language evolution and the way it could possibly be planned was entirely dominated by the political goals they wanted to achieve. Language planning indeed was not an aim in itself but only a means in a much broader plan. It appeared very soon that to obtain linguistic rights for Dutch-speakers was only possible by the means of a linguistic legislation which only could be brought about by enhancing the prestige of the language. At the same time increased linguistic rights for Dutch speakers was a necessary condition for the language planners mentioned to obtain a position in which they could at all hope to influence