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From: stevens@maths.warwick.ac.uk (Jan Stevens)
Subject: Re: Flemish and Dutch
Message-ID: <1995Apr27.141200.4826@dcs.warwick.ac.uk>
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References: <3nh9mo$kgi@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <3nhmmq$89r@giga.bga.com> <Pine.SUN.3.91.950425103949.3673F-100000@professor.hu.mtu.edu>
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 1995 14:12:00 GMT
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In article <Pine.SUN.3.91.950425103949.3673F-100000@professor.hu.mtu.edu> Marc  Deneire <mdeneire> writes:
[...]
and makes some interesting points.

There is some confusion of language here, so I will state the terms I use:
The Netherlands - the european part of the Kingdom
Belgium         - the Dutch speaking part (including Brussels)
Low Countries   - The Netherlands and Belgium
Holland         - most of the provinces of North and South Holland, with 
                  Utrecht (I really mean the randstad)
Dutch           - language spoken in the Low Countries

The Dutch/Flemish discussion comes up here regularly and is spiced by 
Holland-Belgium tensions (BTW has anybody an explanation for the fact
that before the war there were Holland-Belgie matches, whereas nowadays
it is Nederland-Belgie).
Understandably people in Belgium (or with a Belgian background) 
are very sensitive about their language, and they feel not always supported 
by official Netherlands policy made in Holland. 

>situations where I was "translating" northern Dutch to people from 
>Eindhoven who did not understand their countrymen! I believe however that 

I suppose you really mean here Dutch from Holland.
People in the north of the Netherlands generally try to speak the
standard language instead of their dialects (or their language), and they
have their own grudges against Holland.
(Fryslan boppe, Holland in de groppe ! ;btw, I am not Frisian, and
I do not know if I've got the spelling right).

>in all western countries languages are converging, mainly because people 
>spend their time watching TV instead of talking to their neighbors. 

This is very true.
[...]
>                                                         It is also well 
>documented (see Trudgill's Sociolinguistics) that the Dutch Fries and the 
>German Fries understand each other better than do the people from the 
>north and the south of the Netherlands, even though the former speak 
>different languages and the latter the same language.  The difference 

The German Frisians (Ostfriesen)
do not speak Frisian but a Saxon dialect, which is very close to
the one in Groningen. As to understanding, in the sense of "begrijpen",
the religious tradition should not be overlooked (I mean: what used to
be catholics against what used to be protestants).
I doubt the stament made about Frisians. I can believe it for Groningers,
Tukkers, or Achterhoekers or Limburgers in relation to Ostfriesen,
Westfalen (2x) or Rheinl"ander.

>here is definitely not linguistic (be it from a phonological, syntactic, 
>rhetorical, or cultural point of view), but purely political! 

I do think "political" is the wrong word.
[...]
>
>Yes, the question of linguistic identity is mainly an individual and 
>local/cultural question (see definitions of language community by 
>Goffman, Labov, and Goodenough). It is therefore not foolish, nor a wish 
>to consider Dutch and Flemish as one OR two languages, it just expresses 
>different perspectives. You can do one of two things: either respect 
>these points of view, or impose your own. As a sociolinguist, I tend to 
>adopt the first perspective.

The question of language is a very practical one: if the language of 
Belgium is not Dutch, then it should be recognised as one of the
languages of the European Union. I have never heard of such a proposal.
In the same vain, is there anybody denying that the official language 
in Scotland is English?

In the Netherlands there are two languages (the Frisian have even the
Ora Linda book to prove it, although that is a falsification from the
last century) and there are several dialects, including Drents,
Hagenees and Limburgs.
In Belgium the language is Dutch, and there are several dialects,
including Flemish (in the narrow sense, referring to the provinces with
the name of Vlaanderen) and Limburgs.


Jan Stevens.
-- 
email: stevens@maths.warwick.ac.uk

Mathematics Institute
University of Warwick
