Past, Present and Future of a Language Border: Germanic-Romance Encounters in the Low Countries 9781614514152, 9781614515838

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Catharina Peersman, Gijsbert Rutten, Rik Vosters (Eds.) Past, Present and Future of a Language Border

Language and Social Life

Editors David Britain Crispin Thurlow Founding Editor Richard J. Watts

Volume 1

Past, Present and Future of a Language Border Germanic-Romance Encounters in the Low Countries

Edited by Catharina Peersman Gijsbert Rutten Rik Vosters

ISBN 978-1-61451-583-8 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-1-61451-415-2 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-1-5015-0106-7 ISSN 2364-4303 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2015 Walter de Gruyter, Inc., Berlin/Boston Typesetting: PTP-Berlin, Protago-TEX-Production GmbH, Berlin Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Contents Preface | vii Author information | viii Catharina Peersman, Gijsbert Rutten and Rik Vosters Chapter 1 Romance–Germanic encounters along the language border: past, present and future | 1

Part I:

Theoretical and historical overview

Jeroen Darquennes Chapter 2 The dimensions of language conflict: an exploration | 19 Roland Willemyns Chapter 3 Trilingual tug-o’-war: language border fluctuations in the Low Countries | 39 Ulrike Vogl Chapter 4 Standard language ideology and the history of Romance–Germanic encounters | 61

Part II: The Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period Catharina Peersman Chapter 5 Constructing identity: language and identity in the narration of the FrancoFlemish conflict (1297–1305) | 91 Willem Frijhoff Chapter 6 Multilingualism and the challenge of frenchification in the early modern Dutch Republic | 115

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Part III: The 18th and 19th centuries Gijsbert Rutten, Rik Vosters and Marijke van der Wal Chapter 7 Frenchification in discourse and practice: loan morphology in Dutch private letters of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries | 143 M. C. A. Kessels-van der Heijde Chapter 8 The use of languages in Maastricht in the nineteenth century: the press and family archives | 171

Part IV: The 20th and 21st centuries Magali Boemer and Jeroen Darquennes Chapter 9 Language conflict in the educational realm: Eupen-Malmedy in the interbellum period (1920–1940) | 207 Kristine Horner and Jean-Jacques Weber Chapter 10 Multilingual education and the politics of language in Luxembourg | 233 Rudi Janssens and Joost Vaesen Chapter 11 In contact and/or in conflict? Ethno-cultural markers, language and schooling in post-war Brussels | 255

Epilogue Richard J. Watts Chapter 12 Conceptualising “language borders”, “language contact” and “language conflict” | 277 Index | 297

Preface We would like to thank the authors of the individual chapters, who produced the excellent pieces of scholarship which make thematic volumes such as this one possible. Some of the contributions in this book were first presented as conference papers at the 2012 Sociolinguistics Symposium in Berlin, where we hosted a thematic panel on Conflicts in the city, cities in conflict? Romance-Germanic encounters in the Low Countries. Thanks to all the presenters at that panel who reworked their contribution into a chapter for this book, and thanks to the other scholars who were not present in Berlin, but kindly agreed to submit a chapter for the present volume anyway. We would also like to express our appreciation to the numerous colleagues who participated in the double-blind peer review process, and to Bettina Müller and Helen Bilton who helped in the prepation of the final manuscipt. Special thanks are likewise extended to the staff of De Gruyter Mouton, for their excellent advice and support throughout the publication process. Finally, we were also privileged to work with the series editors, and Richard Watts in particular, who not only welcomed our book into the series, patiently guiding us through every step of the publication process, but also agreed to write the concluding chapter of the book. Thanks are also in order to Tomasz Kamusella for offering us some of his thoughts on the chapters at an earlier stage. Catharina Peersman, Gijsbert Rutten & Rik Vosters – October 2014

Author information Magali Boemer is a member of the research group on plurilingualism (Pluri-LL) at the University of Namur, Belgium. She is currently working on her PhD project entitled Language, Education and Power – A sociolinguistic study of languagein-education policy in the German-speaking Community of Belgium (1919–2012). She specializes in research on multilingualism and language-in-education policy (LEP) in language contact settings. Address for correspondence: UNamur, Rue de Bruxelles 61, B-5000 Namur, Belgium. [email protected] Jeroen Darquennes is professor of German and general linguistics at the University of Namur, visiting professor at the Université Saint-Louis (Brussels) and affiliated researcher at the Mercator Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning (Leeuwarden, The Netherlands). He is one of the general editors of Sociolinguistica. The international yearbook of European sociolinguistics (de Gruyter) and associate editor of Language, Culture and Curriculum (Routledge). In his research he mainly focuses on issues of language contact, language conflict and language policy and planning in European indigenous language minority settings. Address for correspondence: UNamur, Rue de Bruxelles 61, B-5000 Namur. [email protected] Willem Frijhoff (°1942) studied and worked many years as a research fellow in history of mentalities and history of education at different scholarly institutions in France. At present he is emeritus professor in early modern history at the VUUniversity, Amsterdam, and holds the G.Ph. Verhagen chair in cultural history at Erasmus University, Rotterdam. His publications are about the history of education, culture and religion in Western Europe and the Atlantic area, in particular in the early modern Netherlands and France. Address: Jan van Ghestellaan 25, NL-3054CE Rotterdam. [email protected] Kristine Horner is Reader in Luxembourg Studies and Multilingualism at the University of Sheffield, where she is also Director of the Centre for Luxembourg Studies. She has published widely on language politics, language ideologies and multilingualism, including special issues of Language Problems and Language Planning (2009) and the Journal of Germanic Linguistics (2011), Introducing Multilingualism: A Social Approach (with J-J. Weber, Routledge 2012) and Multilingualism and Mobility in Europe: Policies and Practices (with I. de Saint-Georges and J-J. Weber, Peter Lang 2014). Address for correspondence: School of Languages and Cultures, University of Sheffield, Jessop West, S3 7RA Sheffield, United Kingdom. [email protected]

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Rudi Janssens is sociologist and senior researcher at the Brussels Information, Documentation and Research Centre (BRIO) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel where he is in charge of the language-sociological research segment. He has published on language use in multilingual and multicultural cities and regions, language and identity and the impact of language policies. He is a member of the international consortium ‘Mobilities and Integration in a Multilingual Europe (FP7). Address for correspondence: Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2 1050 Brussel. [email protected] Marina Kessels-van der Heijde is a retired English teacher and independent scholar. She studied cultural studies at the Open University and graduated in 1997. The subject of her research was the press in nineteenth-century Maastricht. In 2002, she published her dissertation Maastricht, Maestricht, Mestreech, the language proportions of Dutch, French and the Maastricht dialect in the nineteenth century (Maaslandse Monografieën 65, Hilversum 2002). She previously published on language choice in the press in Maastricht (Verslagen en Mededelingen 2004: 1) and gives lectures about the subject of her dissertation. Address for correspondence: Dorpstraat 47 6438 JS Oirsbeek, The Netherlands. jmkessels@ gmail.com Catharina Peersman is Lecturer in French and Sociolinguistics, at the University of Sheffield, UK. Her research focus being Old French, she has published on the rise of the written vernaculars in Western Europe (Hernandez-Campoy & Conde-Silvestre 2012, Blackwell) and in medieval Flanders (L’essor des langues vernaculaires dans l’abbaye de Ninove 2012, PAF). She is one of the editors of the new Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics (De Gruyter, 2015). Address for correspondence: Blaarstraat 160, 3700 Tongeren, Belgium. catharina.peersman@ gmail.com. Gijsbert Rutten is a senior researcher Historical sociolinguistics of Dutch and an assistant professor Dutch historical linguistics at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL). He leads the VIDI research project Going Dutch. The Construction of Dutch in Policy, Practice and Discourse, 1750–1850, funded by the Netherlands Organisation of Scientific Research (NWO). He has published widely on variation and change in Dutch. Recent books include Touching the Past. Studies in the historical sociolinguistics of ego-documents (co-edited with Marijke van der Wal, Benjamins 2013), Letters as Loot. A sociolinguistic approach to seventeenth and eighteenth-century Dutch (with Marijke van der Wal, Benjamins 2014) and Norms and usage in language history, 1600–1900. A sociolinguistic and comparative perspective (co-edited with Rik Vosters and Wim

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Vandenbussche, Benjamins 2014). Address for correspondence: Universiteit Leiden, Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL), PO Box 9515, NL – 2300 RA Leiden. [email protected] Joost Vaesen is director of the Brussels Studies Institute, an interuniversity research platform building and sustaining multi-actor and multidisciplinary research on Brussels, and assistant professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He has published on urban politics and the governance of Brussels and on urban education. Address for correspondence: Vrije Universiteit Brussel / IDLO, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels (BE). [email protected] Marijke van der Wal is Professor in the History of Dutch at Leiden University, The Netherlands. Her publications cover the fields of both historical linguistics and the historiography of linguistics. Her current research focusses on egodocuments and the language history from below. She directed the research programme Letters as Loot. Towards a non-standard view on the history of Dutch, which explored the extraordinary source of Dutch 17th- and 18th-century private letters, kept in the National Archives (Kew, UK). Recent sociohistorical linguistic highlights are Letters as Loot (2014) and Touching the Past (edited, 2013), both publications with Gijsbert Rutten. Address for correspondence: Universiteit Leiden, Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL), PO Box 9515, NL – 2300 RA Leiden. [email protected] Ulrike Vogl is Assistant Professor in Dutch linguistics at the University of Vienna. Her research interests focus on language ideology, on language variation and language learning and on the language history and historiography of Dutch. She teaches courses on sociolinguistics and multilingualism at the Dutch Department of the University of Vienna. She published the edited volume Standard languages and multilingualism in European history (with Matthias Hüning & Olivier Moliner, Benjamins 2012). Address for correspondence: Universität Wien, Institut für EVSL, Abteilung Nederlandistik, Universitätsring 1, 1010 Vienna. ulrike.vogl@ univie.ac.at Rik Vosters is an assistant professor at the Center for Linguistics of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and a postdoctoral researcher at the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO). He is currently working an on a project about orality and literacy in eighteenth-century Southern Dutch. He is also the co-editor of the new Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics (Mouton De Gruyter, 2015), and has published extensively on the historical sociolinguistics of Dutch, with a particular focus on language variation and change, as well as language planning and language policy.

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His recent work includes Norms and usage in language history, 1600–1900. A sociolinguistic and comparative perspective (co-edited with Gijsbert Rutten and Wim Vandenbussche, 2014) and Sur la langue nationale. Taal en taalpolitiek in het Verenigd Koninkrijk der Nederlanden en het jonge België (with Guy Janssens, 2014). Address for correspondence: Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Centrum voor Linguïstiek, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussel (BE). [email protected]. Richard J. Watts is emeritus professor of Modern English Linguistics, retired from the chair in that discipline at the University of Berne since 2008. He was editor of the international journal Multilingua from 1986 till the end of 2013 and co-editor of the book series Language and Social Processes till the end of 2014, both produced by Mouton De Gruyter. He is the author of 5 books (including Politeness, 2003, CUP and Language Myths and the History of English, 2011, OUP) and the co-editor of 9 further books (including Politeness in Language, 1992, Mouton [with Sachiko Ide and Konrad Ehlich], Standard English: The Widening Debate, 1999, Routledge [with Tony Bex], Alternative Histories of English, 2002, Routledge [with Peter Trudgill] and Letter Writing and Language Change, in press, CUP [with Anita Auer and Daniel Schreier]). Jean-Jacques Weber is Professor of English and Education at the University of Luxembourg. He was educated at the University of Lancaster (UK) and the University of Leuven (Belgium), where he was awarded a PhD in 1991. He has published widely in the areas of discourse analysis, multilingualism and education, including Flexible Multilingual Education: Putting Children’s Needs First (Multilingual Matters, 2014), Introducing Multilingualism: A Social Approach (co-authored with K. Horner; Routledge, 2012) and Multilingualism and Multimodality (co-edited with I. de Saint-Georges; Sense Publishers, 2013). Address for correspondence: University of Luxembourg, Campus Walferdange, BP 2, L-7201 Walferdange, Luxembourg. [email protected] Roland Willemyns is emeritus professor of Dutch linguistics at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He has published extensively about historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, dialectology, Middle Dutch, language history and language planning. His most recent works include Het verhaal van het Nederlands. Een geschiedenis van twaalf eeuwen (with Nicoline van der Sijs, 2009, Bert Bakker) and Dutch. Biography of a language (2013, OUP). In 2014, he was awarded the prestigious Prijs voor Meesterschap by the Dutch Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde for his complete scientific career. Address for correspondence: Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Centrum voor Linguïstiek, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussel (BE). willemyns@ skynet.be.

Catharina Peersman, Gijsbert Rutten and Rik Vosters

Chapter 1 Romance–Germanic encounters along the language border: past, present and future 1 Language borders as sites of contact and conflict For centuries, the Low Countries have been at the intersection of Germanic and Romance cultures and languages. The French–Dutch and French–German language borders, cutting through the present-day territories of France, Belgium and Luxembourg, have given rise to often intense situations of language contact and conflict, both in situations of every-day communication and in more stylised domains such as literature, diplomacy and science. This has led to various degrees of societal and individual multilingualism. Whether in peaceful coexistence or at the heart of heated conflicts, these Romance–Germanic encounters have made their mark on the sociolinguistic landscapes of the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) and have left a fascinating paper trail for (historical) sociolinguists to investigate. This volume brings together a range of state-of-the-art contributions, discussing sociolinguistic aspects of these Romance–Germanic encounters from the thirteenth century to the present. Societal multilingualism and linguistic conflicts in the Low Countries have been at the heart of research on language planning and language contact for a long time now, and seminal sociolinguistic studies such as Nelde (1987, 1989, 1997) offer recent scholarship a firm foundation upon which to build. The issue of Romance–Germanic contact and conflict has become particularly relevant again in recent years, not only with the recent resurgence of language planning efforts in Luxembourg (Horner 2009), but also with linguistic quarrels being perceived to be at the basis of the recent political crises in Belgium (De Keere and Elchardus 2011). In addition, linguistic encounters in the Low Countries have also sparked off a considerable amount of interest within a larger European language planning perspective (Darquennes 2010). Romance–Germanic language contact and conflict in the Low Countries has been explored in earlier thematic publications such as Wright and Kelly (1995, as a special issue of Current Issues in Language and Society) and Treffers-Daller and Willemyns (2002, as a special issue of Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development), and the work of Peter Nelde, although concerned with the notion of language conflict more generally, has

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often focused on the Belgian situation as a case in point (cf. also the contribution by Darquennes in the present volume). Many publications focus exclusively on the Romance–Germanic language border in Belgium (e.g. Lamarcq and Rogge’s 1996 study on its origin and oldest development), and the Belgian French and Dutch language conflict more specifically (e.g. Von Busekist’s 1998 discussion of linguistic conflicts and language planning efforts since the end of the ancien régime, especially within the framework of the emerging Belgian nation state). Furthermore, the recent stream and relative commercial success of popularising works on issues of language borders, language contact and linguistic conflicts in Belgium shows how these topics are not only of interest among linguists and historians, but also appeal to many individual language users in the areas concerned (e.g. Fonteyn 2009; Witte and Van Velthoven 2010; Raskin 2012; Devoldere 2013). Apart from earlier work focusing on language contact in the Low Countries specifically, recent studies on language choice and societal multilingualism within the emerging domain of historical sociolinguistics also make up the context for the present volume. More and more work is focusing on linguistic tensions within historical contexts of multilingualism, approaching societal and individual multilingualism from a distinctly sociohistorical perspective, often within a broader European context (e.g. the work of Rindler Schjerve 2003 on language conflicts and language planning in the nineteenth-century AustroHungarian Habsburg empire, but also various contributions in Braunmüller and Ferraresi 2003). This historical and sociolinguistic turn in the study of multilingualism and language contact adds to the already extensive body of research in contact linguistics, where most attention has traditionally been paid to intralinguistic mechanisms and explanations, for instance in the study of lexical and structural transfer, or contact-induced language change (e.g. Van Coetsem 1988; Thomason and Kaufman 1991).

2 Language contact and conflict across time, space and disciplines The present volume focuses on language contact and conflict in one specific area, the Low Countries, which is studied from a variety of different perspectives. Diachronically, the volume ranges from the earliest records and reflections of language contact and conflict in the thirteenth century to the present-day situation in the early twenty-first century. With this diachronic perspective and the broad time-span covered we hope to offer a valuable contribution to the study of language contact and conflict, which often focuses on present-day situations. The

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same also applies to research on the Low Countries specifically: our understanding of present-day language contact and conflict has much to gain from historical depth, as the chapter by Peersman amply demonstrates. Focusing on the oldest period represented in this volume, the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, she uncovers the foundations of present-day identities constructed and debated in political and linguistic conflicts in Belgium. The geographical scope of the volume also extends beyond the traditional focus on Brussels or Belgium more generally. This volume incorporates language contact and conflict situations in the other geographical areas that were historically part of the Low Countries, such as the present-day Netherlands, Luxembourg and the German-speaking borderland in the east of Belgium. By widening the geographical scope to the whole of the Low Countries, the present volume aims to put the classic case of Belgian societal multilingualism into a broader perspective, thus capturing examples of historical Romance–Germanic language contact and conflict situations that would otherwise not receive sufficient attention or would not be studied in conjunction with each other. This wide geographic range ensures coverage of recent scholarship on French, Dutch, German and Luxembourgish. As language contact and conflict is a research topic that has appealed to scholars in different research traditions, the present volume is also characterised by multi-disciplinarity, bringing together empirical approaches to the subject from the angles of language variation and change, contact linguistics, discourse analysis, historical language sociology, language planning and policy, and language-in-education planning. Though many contributors work in the field of sociolinguistics in the broadest sense, the volume also comprises chapters by historians and sociologists. What binds all of the contributions together is the focus on language contact as a societal rather than just a linguistic phenomenon: as such, all of the contributions have roots in historical sociolinguistics, which is one of the most productive and innovative research paradigms focusing on the social history of language.

3 Theoretical and historical outline The present volume consists of two main parts: a first section offers three introductory, comparative and theoretical reflections on the object of study, and a second section comprises individual case studies in chronological order. Many of the themes implicitly or explicitly addressed in these sections are taken up in the Epilogue by Richard Watts, which offers a thorough re-thinking of the crucial con-

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cepts underpinning the volume. The first part of the book brings together three overview chapters with a broader perspective, covering recent developments in language planning and language conflict research (Darquennes), a historical and typological outline of language border changes in the Low Countries (Willemyns) and a discussion of standard language ideologies in the linguistic historiography of the Low Countries (Vogl). In his chapter on “The dimensions of language conflict: an exploration”, Jeroen Darquennes seeks to provide an overview of the way in which language conflict has been discussed in European and North-American studies on language policy and planning in language contact settings since the early 1950s. Special attention is paid to the alleged inseparability of language contact and language conflict (“Nelde’s Law”), the theoretical and methodological underpinnings and challenges of language conflict research and diachronic as well as synchronic research perspectives. The chapter starts with a systematic sketch of the main areas of focus of language conflict research, i.e. language, the individual language user(s) and society. Zooming in on the third area of focus, Darquennes explores the dimensions of language conflict in society, discussing in succession possible causes of language conflict, its visibility and manifestation in societies, focal points such as the structural properties of a specific variety or language choice in different domains and finally language conflict management, including corpus, status and acquisition planning. After offering an overview of existing methods, he rounds off with a number of research desiderata, stressing that research on language conflict would, for example, greatly benefit from investigations into the actors and their motives in language conflict situations, as well as into the duration and intensity of language contact and conflict situations. After Darquennes’ more theoretical overview, Roland Willemyns focuses on the Dutch–French language border in his chapter “Trilingual tug-of-war: language border fluctuations in the Low Countries”. After a short summary of the historical background of the language contact and conflict in Alsace, Switzerland and South Tyrol, he discusses both historical (French Flanders) and actual language borders (Belgium, Luxembourg). As such, his chapter provides the backdrop against which many of the later contributions can be read. Particular attention is paid to how the territoriality principle has influenced the Dutch–French language border in Belgium to become not just a mere linguistic notion, but a legal, administrative and political reality. Willemyns examines the part played by linguistic legislation, language planning and other sociolinguistic developments in order to determine the Belgian problem areas, with special consideration for the highly complex nature of the capital, Brussels. He then moves on to contextualise trilingual contact in German-speaking Belgium and Luxembourg. The discussion of the different borders and contact situations finally builds up to a typology of lan-

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guage borders and patterns of change, with Willemyns discerning essentially two types of language border based on language shift (the first resulting in erosion, the second resulting in a change of location of the border) and two patterns of change (monolingualisation and bilingualisation). The third and final chapter in the theoretical overview “Standard language ideology and the history of Romance–Germanic encounters” covers the importance of standard language ideologies in the language historiography of the Low Countries. Ulrike Vogl provides evidence for the underlying standard language ideology in the historiography of the Romance–Germanic border region in Belgium. More specifically, she uses a discourse analytical approach on a corpus of four textbooks on the external history of Dutch, which share common ground regarding the content, target audience and professional background of the authors. In order to illustrate how a present-day standard language perspective has shaped common but biased views on language, she identifies two discourse models: the “decay of Dutch in the South in the shadow of French” and “monolingual Flanders”, linked respectively to the French annexation of the Southern Low Countries and to the federalisation process in Belgium. Both models represent ways of simplifying the complex history of Romance–Germanic encounters in the South of the Low Countries through the use of elements of standard language ideology, such as the “ideology of the hierarchisation of varieties”, the “ideology of correctness” and the “one-nation-one-language ideology” as their conceptual basis, which also means that practices deviating from this ideal tend to be hidden. Vogl nonetheless recognises that the books leave a little room for the alternative discourse model of a “super diverse Belgium”, which fits in with some characterisations of the linguistic situation in Brussels.

4 Case studies from past to present The three introductory chapters set the theoretical and methodological stage for the subsequent seven case studies. In the individual case studies, the authors deal with important sites of Romance–Germanic contact along the language border, such as Luxembourg (Horner and Weber), the Northern Netherlands (Frijhoff; Rutten, Vosters and Van der Wal), Flanders (Peersman; Rutten, Vosters and Van der Wal), the cities of Brussels (Janssens and Vaesen) and Maastricht (Kessels-van der Heijde), and the German-speaking community in Belgium (Boemer and Darquennes). Moreover, the volume is structured along a diachronic axis, showing how language contact and conflict operated in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period (Peersman; Frijhoff), the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-

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turies (Rutten, Vosters and Van der Wal; Kessels-van der Heijde) and throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (Boemer and Darquennes; Horner and Weber; Janssens and Vaesen). The chapters discuss a variety of topics and themes, many of which display a remarkable diachronic stability, such as the interplay of multilingualism and group identities, the educational practices and policies focused on the management of multilingualism, and the close connection between language contact and language conflict.

4.1 Multilingualism and nationhood Throughout the history of the Low Countries, language, or, more precisely, linguistic difference has been employed as a tool to create group identities, including national identities, feeding on what Watts calls the “essentialist hypostasisation” of both language and group identity. Even in relatively early medieval sources, identity boundaries separating various groups of individuals are drawn along linguistic lines. This theme is addressed by Vogl (cf. above), and is also at the heart of various case studies in the second part of the volume. In “Constructing identity: language and identity in the narration of the Franco-Flemish conflict  (1297–1307)”, Catharina Peersman presents a contrastive analysis of narrative sources predating 1330. She examines the use and perception of languages in chronicles written in Latin, Old French and Middle Dutch. The common ground shared by these sources is their description of the Franco-Flemish conflict, from either a Flemish or a French point of view. Given the fact that one of the central events, the 1302 battle of Courtrai, is a highly politicised cornerstone of present-day Flemish identity, the analysis aims at determining whether and to what degree the actual battle contributed to the creation of a Flemish identity in the aftermath of the battle. To that objective, Peersman uses implicit and explicit textual markers as proxies for historical language attitudes. Combining a qualitative analysis of the narrated period 1207–1307 with a quantitative analysis of the general identifiers in the coverage of 1302, she argues that identity, on both sides, is implicitly but strongly linked to language, or rather to specific usages of the language of the “other” within clearly defined contextual boundaries, as is illustrated by loanwords and code-switching. The analysis of the identifiers complements these findings, but also opens up possible leads suggesting that the link between language and identity was present before the definition of 1302 as the “national” battle in the textual tradition and before the formation of nationstates as a larger sociolinguistic landmark. The French language as the language of the “other” remains an important theme in subsequent periods. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in

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particular, a lively discourse on the so-called frenchification of the Netherlands comes into being. Willem Frijhoff, in his chapter on “Multilingualism and the challenge of frenchification in the early modern Dutch Republic” discusses the position of French and other languages of international communication vis-à-vis Dutch in the seventeenth-century Northern Low Countries. The frenchification hypothesis has long dominated Dutch cultural history. The increase of the use of the French language and the introduction of French manners have been made responsible for Holland’s perceived decline as an independent power and a culturally innovative nation during the late seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, until its occupation by the French under the Napoleonic Empire. Against the background of Dutch multilingualism, however, Frijhoff argues that a more differentiated approach is necessary. An important empirical question concerns the point at which the domains and in which French really pervaded Dutch everyday life and culture, and which social, cultural and linguistic opposing forces became apparent during that evolution. Frijhoff analyses a wide variety of sources and contemporary comments to trace language use in various domains of society, including education, international trade, diplomacy, church, scholarship and so on. He shows how the Dutch Republic was in many ways a fullyfledged multilingual society, but also argues that the use of French cannot be overestimated based on its prominent and highly visible position in public life and among the social elite. The analysis by Frijhoff is continued in the chapter by Marina Kessels-van der Heijde, which discusses “The use of languages in Maastricht in the nineteenth century: the press and family archives”. Zooming in on language choice in two important societal domains in one specific town close to the language border in one specific period, Kessels-van der Heijde offers a detailed and largely qualitative picture of the use of language based on extensive research in historical archives. She investigates di- and triglossia, and the potential conflict between French, Dutch and the local Maastricht dialect, focusing on two important domains of nineteenth-century society, viz. the press and family correspondence. In many cases, she only encounters documents written by educated people in either Dutch or French. The local dialect is less frequently used in writing, although this changes after the establishment of the Momus society in 1840. From a carnival club, Momus developed into a cultural society with many departments including a theatre company. The members wrote prose and poetry in the Maastricht dialect, thus advancing the written version of the Maastricht vernacular. Offering an overview of language choice in the press and in family correspondence, both commercial and private, Kessels-van der Heijde shows that the linguistic situation in the border town of Maastricht changed mainly as a result of changing economic, social and demographic conditions. The use of French, for instance, decreased as the local economy shifted its market and ori-

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entation from the Francophone hinterland around the city of Liège to the more monolingually Dutch-speaking parts of the Northern Netherlands. Both Frijhoff’s and Kessels-van der Heijde’ chapter suggest that the use of French was much less important than the frenchification discourse would suggest, being mainly restricted to specific social contexts, and, moreover, historically declining under the influence of economic and demographic developments. Nevertheless, in the course of the Early and Late Modern periods, frenchification became increasingly perceived as a threat to the Dutchness of the Dutch language and culture. Zooming in on the linguistic outcome of French–Dutch language contact, Gijsbert Rutten, Rik Vosters and Marijke van der Wal in their chapter on “Frenchification in discourse and practice: loan morphology in Dutch private letters of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries” shift the focus from a language-sociological to a more sociolinguistic point of view. In the first part of their chapter, they discuss language choice in different domains of society in the Early and Late Modern period, with special attention to the use of French. They show that in some domains such as trade and education, the use of French was quite common throughout the period, and argue that the presence or even dominance of French in certain domains gave rise to the frenchification discourse also addressed in Frijhoff’s chapter. In the second part of their chapter, Rutten, Vosters and Van der Wal turn to linguistic aspects of the language contact situation. First, they briefly discuss some unambiguous examples of French influence on the Dutch lexicon. Then they turn to derivational morphology, as Modern Dutch has borrowed many suffixes from French. Looking at borrowed suffixes in Dutch private letters from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, they investigate the extent of French influence on the Dutch language in the Northern and Southern Netherlands. As their corpora allow for research into regional and social variation, they are able to demonstrate that frenchification in the sense of suffix borrowing mainly affected the upper ranks of society, while also hinting at possible differences between the northern and southern parts of the language area, the latter being closer to the language border.

4.2 Educational policies and practices The close link between language and group identity remains relevant up to the present day. One of the domains of society where the need to manage multilingualism is felt most strongly, with the possible consequences of group identity politics and social exclusion, is education. The chapter by Kristine Horner and Jean-Jacques Weber brings together these two dominant themes in the history of the language border in the Low Countries: nationhood and education. In their

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chapter on “Multilingual education and the politics of language in Luxembourg”, Horner and Weber discuss language-in-education policy in the trilingual grand duchy of Luxembourg. They discuss the language-in-education policies and the ideologies underpinning them from the nineteenth century to the present, with a strong emphasis on the second half of the twentieth century: it is indeed only from the 1970s onwards that the awareness of Luxembourgish as a language fully emerges, due to major economic and demographic changes. Horner and Weber argue that, despite these changes, the language-in-education policies have remained remarkably persistent as they largely ignore linguistic reality. This results in a highly fixed multilingual school system, with all children, even romanophone students whose home languages are mostly French or Portuguese, forced to go through the same language regime with German as the language of literacy  – which is very similar to a monolingual system. Horner and Weber’s analysis points out that the school system, language-in-education policies and language debates are all informed by a monolingual mindset and similar discourses, in particular the discourse of ethnolinguistic essentialism, but also the concern with language endangerment, as Luxembourgers are afraid of becoming a minority in “their own country”. In order to create a flexible education system that puts the real needs first, they argue that the societal debate needs to be entirely refocused. The vast research tradition on language-in-education policies in present-day metropolitan areas is also represented in the final contribution to this volume, which takes language contact and conflict to the school system in post-war Brussels. In their chapter “In contact and/or in conflict? Ethnocultural markers, language and schooling in post-war Brussels”, Rudi Janssens and Joost Vaesen focus on one of the major politically divisive issues of Belgium. Since Brussels and its educational system have always been situated at the core of both language contact and language conflict in contemporary Belgium, the role of schools in the process of ethno-cultural identification is indicative for the promotion or inhibition of contact between the two language groups. Janssens and Vaesen argue that political and institutional changes invariably affected the school system: in the immediate post-war period, Dutch-medium education in Brussels was in a precarious position, but the creation of sub-national entities, the Communities, ensured more direct control over educational matters. The ensuing non-hierarchical organisation of education, with schools belonging to either the Dutch-medium or the French-medium system, was then challenged by the State Reform of 1988/9 and the influx of multilingual or allophone immigrants. Similar to Luxembourg now, Brussels was facing a discrepancy between a changing social reality and a school system based on an essentially monolingual mindset. However, as a lynch-pin for the Belgian political-institutional model, Brussels is also shown to

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be a laboratory of transitions and experiments, reflecting intermingling political, demographic and socio-cultural transitions. Educational concerns, however, are not the privilege of present-day situations of super- or hyper-diversity. Travelling back into time, Magali Boemer and Jeroen Darquennes’ chapter on “Language conflict in the educational realm: Eupen-Malmedy in the interbellum period (1920–1940)” blends the principles of Critical Discourse Analysis with McRae’s theoretical framework for analysing societal language conflict into a contextualised analysis of both the Belgian language legislation in the field of education and the reactions against this legislation. The German-speaking community of Belgium, or more specifically the districts of Eupen, St. Vith and Malmedy, were exposed to linguistic assimilation after World War I (1920–1940) and logically, the language-in-education policy of that time reflects the geo-political changes and ensuing conflicts. Boemer & Darquennes distinguish between three subperiods (1920–1925, 1925–1932 and 1932–1940) for their analysis of the official law documents and the comments in the local press. They argue that the first period is one of transition and uncertainty with a mainly German-oriented press, but from the second period onwards, the discrepancies between policy and reality concerning the use of languages in education (i.e. German and/or French) spark language conflict. The discussions over the use of French in education in particular are significant, as Boemer and Darquennes use them to identify not just the changing actors influencing the language-in-education policy, but also their perception of the language contact situation as a problem or an opportunity.

4.3 From contact to conflict or Nelde’s Law The contributions to this volume discuss a wide variety of topics, among which nationhood or more generally group identity and educational policies are but two dominant ones. In addition, all the chapters show the topicality of what is sometimes called Nelde’s Law (cf. the chapter by Darquennes), amounting to the alleged inseparability of language contact and language conflict (e.g. Nelde 1987). Nelde (1997) argued that “[t]he statement that there can be no language contact without language conflict … may appear exaggerated, but there is in the realm of the European languages at present no imaginable contact situation which cannot also be described as language conflict”. This is clearly demonstrated in the chapters by Horner and Weber and Janssens and Vaesen, which largely deal with present-day situations of contact that seemingly inevitably result in conflict. In both cases, i.e. Luxembourg and Brussels, important causes that lead contact to develop into conflict are the so-called monolingual mindset and the (ethnolin-

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guistic) identity functions of language referred to above. But in historical times, too, contact implied conflict, as the other chapters demonstrate. Boemer and Darquennes, for example, detail the transition from language contact to language conflict in the German-speaking parts of Belgium in the first half of the twentieth century under the influence of changing political circumstances. Peersman’s contribution delves deeply into the medieval roots of historical and present-day conflict situations along the language border. Interestingly, the historical conflict situation analysed by Peersman is first and foremost a political conflict that manifests itself on the battlefield. The linguistic side is secondary. Discussing causes of language conflict, Darquennes stresses that situations of contact and conflict are usually characterised by asymmetrical multilingualism, i.e. by differences in prestige, status, power, social organisation, values and beliefs between speakers of the respective languages. Therefore, the conflicts that arise between speakers of different varieties are social, political, cultural and/or economic conflicts at the same time, or even primarily. In this connection, Darquennes, following Nelde, talks about the stratification of language conflict. Language conflicts often appear to be secondary indicators of – broadly speaking – social conflicts between groups of actors that are unequal in terms of opportunities and privileges. In the case of Peersman’s chapter, this is obvious, but in subsequent periods, too, knowledge of French was normally not only practical or accidental, but also an in-group sign of distinction as well as an out-group tool for social exclusion or for blocking social mobility. A related aspect of language conflict is its sensitivity to metalinguistic identity work, or, as Nelde (1997) put it, ideology can be used “to intensify the differences that exist”. The above-mentioned asymmetry both in social and linguistic terms can lead to strong or even apparently compulsive language ideologies. Illustrative examples can be found in various chapters, of which present-day ethnolinguistic essentialism as discussed by Horner and Weber is but one. In the history of the Low Countries, the continuous discourse on the alleged frenchification of originally Germanic societies constitutes the obvious counterpart. Despite the relatively small proportion of the historical population from which a good command of French can be expected, the beast of frenchification dominates both historical and contemporary accounts of the sociolinguistic situation in the Low Countries in the Early and Late Modern periods, as outlined by Vogl, Frijhoff and Rutten, Vosters and van der Wal. In these cases, it could perhaps even be argued that the actual contact between speakers of different languages does lead to conflict, which is, however, largely restricted to metalinguistic discourse.

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5 Research directions After three introductory papers, introducing different theoretical frameworks on language conflict, the history of the language border and the functions of language ideologies in the writing of language histories, the present volume presents seven case studies that focus on language contact and conflict in the Low Countries, from the thirteenth to the twenty-first century. Through these case studies, a perspective of the history of Romance–Germanic contact in the Low Countries is developed, that is both very detailed and highly diverse. These studies lay the groundwork for a complete and integrated history of the Romance–Germanic language contact and conflict in the Low Countries. At the present, however, such a work, systematically mapping out all relevant aspects past and present, covering both the Southern and the Northern Low Countries, and both cities and smaller towns and rural areas, remains to be written. Richard Watts, in the final chapter, sketches the theoretical and methodological principles that would ideally define such a work. It is obvious that, in spite of the wide range of topics and periods covered in this and previous works, some clear lacunae remain, providing us with exciting avenues for future research. While this volume makes a clear effort to focus not just on the better-known sites and eras of language conflict (e.g. Flanders in the nineteenth century, the city of Brussels from the eighteenth to the twentieth century), different geographical areas and different time frames still deserve more attention. As a case in point, much is still to be explored on the topic of multilingualism in medieval Flanders. Kleinhenz and Busby’s (2011) Medieval Multilingualism: The Francophone World and its Neighbours only contains one case study on the Low Countries, namely Sleiderink’s analysis of the changing attitude of Middle Dutch scribes towards their francophone sources. Earlier publications on multilingualism (or code-switching) in medieval Flanders are mostly written from a strictly historical perspective and more often than not focus on charters. A more systematic study of language conflict and multilingual practices in different types of sources is a clear desideratum. Another example of an area meriting still further investigation would be French Flanders, which Willemyns briefly discusses in his introductory chapter. Particularly from the perspective of language shift, this is an area that calls for detailed investigation. Being located in the most southern part of the Low Countries across the Channel from Dover, French Flanders and its most important town, Dunkirk, were predominantly Dutch-speaking until the seventeenth century. In the course of that century, however, the area came under French rule, which was followed by a migration of French speakers, most of them probably from nearby Picardy (Knooihuizen 2012, cf. Baycroft 2004). As a result, Dunkirk has been mainly French-speaking from then onward. The social conditions affect-

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ing language shift, such as inter-ethnic marriage and the ideological assumptions justifying specific language choices, would be an interesting research topic for a comparative study of Dunkirk in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and Brussels in the nineteenth century, when the Belgian capital shifted from predominantly Dutch to mainly French. Along those lines, more comparative research concerning language contact and conflict is called for, both from a synchronic and from a diachronic perspective. The various case studies from Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands not only need to be integrated in an overall history of Romance–Germanic encounters along the language border in the Low Countries, but also need to be viewed in a larger, European perspective. Comparisons with other sites of contact and conflict along the Romance–Germanic border can include, as mentioned by Willemyns in the present volume, the Alsace region, Switzerland and Northern Italy (cf. Willemyns 1996). Beyond just the confluence of Germanic and Romance language varieties, parallel projects on Germanic–Slavic and/or Slavic–Romance language contact and conflict also offer promising avenues for future research (cf. for instance Kamusella 2009). In all of those scenarios, the area of contact between speakers of Germanic and Romance languages and language varieties offers an exciting laboratory for various types of language contact, conflict and language planning over time, providing researchers with an interesting starting point for comparative work. As discussed in Kessels-van der Heijde’ chapter, historical language shifts are also mirrored by the socially embedded use of French by nineteenth-century elites, who shifted back to Dutch in the course of the century, often for economic or demographic reasons. The alleged frenchification of certain social groups or domains is also discussed in the chapters by Frijhoff and by Rutten, Vosters and Van der Wal. There is, however, still an enormous lack of data on which speakers actually used French in which situations and in which periods – and to whom. More generally, the topics of societal and individual multilingualism in history have received little scholarly attention, and it is mainly for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as outlined by Frijhoff, that some data, however scarce, exist. This underlines the strong research tradition of going back to unpublished, original and often unfamiliar sources that has characterised historical sociolinguistic research, and from which studies into historical language contact and conflict situations can only benefit. It is particularly on the level of the individual language user that we are in need of reliable source materials. The linguistic resources exploited by multilingual individuals across the life span and the languages choices connected to these make up an exciting line of research, even if reliable data will often only be found for members of the upper ranks of society. With the advent of historical

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code-switching as a field of inquiry (Schendl 2012 for an overview), such matters have only become more pressing. Variable language choices and multilingual practices such as language-mixing and macaronic writing are well-known from medieval sources (Schendl & Wright 2011; cf. Kleinhenz & Busby 2011), while a detailed account of their prominence in post-medieval times is lacking, despite well-known observations such as that sixteenth-century Dutch poetry was characterised by a plethora of French loans and the fact that in the wake of the French Huguenot flight to the Netherlands, multilingual families came into existence that were to remain bilingual for several generations. In addition, research on historical multilingualism often focuses on language choice and the social and ideological conditions steering language choice in certain contexts. The linguistic implications of societal and individual multilingualism have attracted far less attention. In this volume, too, specific linguistic features such as code-switching and contact-induced change are addressed in only a few chapters (e.g. Peersman, and Rutten, Vosters and Van der Wal). The elite orientation implied in the previous paragraph naturally poses the question of the multilingual experiences of the lesser privileged members of society. Multilingual language guides and phrase books aimed at merchants and travellers were relatively cheap and widely in use, but people will also have learnt foreign languages such as French without the help of such instructive texts. The Flemish soldiers, for example, who were forced to take service in the Napoleonic army (cf. the chapter by Rutten, Vosters and Van der Wal), must have communicated in French, probably even on a daily basis. One of the greatest challenges for a renewed investigation of situations of language contact and conflict along the Romance–Germanic language border is the recognition of the implications of such a perspective “from below” on the history of multilingualism and intercultural communication, viz. to try to reconstruct the multilingual practices of social layers that are not usually part of language histories, but nevertheless make up the large majority of the population. All of these possible avenues for future research show that even such a classic topic as the Romance–Germanic language border in the Low Countries still holds substantial promise for future research, especially when approached from different methodological and disciplinary angles and when seen in a larger and possibly comparative perspective. In that sense, and as the contributions in the present volume will also demonstrate, the case of Romance–Germanic encounters in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands will be of interest to anyone concerned with language planning, societal multilingualism and situations of historical language contact or conflict. As such, linking up the historical perspective with more present-day studies on language contact and language conflict will

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help us to better understand language conflicts and the challenges of multilingualism in present-day Europe.

6 References Baycroft, T. 2004. Culture, Identity and Nationalism: French Flanders in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press. Braunmüller, K. & G. Ferraresi (eds.). 2003. Aspects of Multilingualism in European Language History. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Darquennes, J. 2010. Language contact and language conflict in autochthonous language minority settings in the EU: A preliminary round-up of guiding principles and research desiderata. Multilingua 29(3/4). 337–351. De Keere, K. & M. Elchardus. 2011. Narrating linguistic conflict: A storytelling analysis of the language conflict in Belgium. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 32(3). 221–234. Devoldere, L. (ed.). Grens/Frontière: 1713–2013. Rekem: Ons Erfdeel. Fonteyn, G. 2009. Over de taalgrens. Van Komen naar Voeren. Berchem: Uitgeverij EPO. Horner, K. (ed.). 2009. Luxembourg. Special issue of Language Problems and Language Planning 33(2). 101–189. Kamusella, T. 2009. The Politics of Language and Nationalism in Modern Central Europe. With a foreword by Peter Burke. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Knooihuizen, R. 2012. The use of historical demography for historical sociolinguistics: The case of Dunkirk. In N. Langer, S. Davies & W. Vandenbussche (eds.), Language and History, Linguistics and Historiography. Interdisciplinary Approaches, 323–340. Oxford: Peter Lang. Kleinhenz, C. & K. Busby (eds.). 2011. Medieval Multilingualism: The Francophone World and its Neighbours. Turnhout: Brepols. Lamarcq, D. & M. Rogge. 1996. De taalgrens. Van de oude tot de nieuwe Belgen. Leuven: Davidsfonds. Nelde, P. 1987. Language contact means language conflict. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 8(1/2). 33–42. Nelde, P. (ed.). 1989. Historische Sprachkonflikte. Special issue of Plurilingua VIII. Bonn: Dümmler. Nelde, P. 1997. Language conflict. In F. Coulmas (ed.), The Handbook of Sociolinguistics, 285–300. Malden: Blackwell. Raskin, B. 2012. De taalgrens. Of wat de Belgen zowel verbindt als verdeelt. Leuven: Davidsfonds. Schendl, H. 2012. Multilingualism, code-switching, and language contact in historical sociolinguistics. In J. M. Hernández-Campoy & J. C. Conde-Silvestre (eds.), The Handbook of Historical Sociolinguistics, 520–533. Oxford: Blackwell. Schendl, H. & L. Wright (eds.). 2011. Code-switching in Early English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Schjerve-Rindler, R. 2003. Diglossia and Power. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Thomason, S. G. & T. Kaufman. 1991. Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press.

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Treffers-Daller, J. & R. Willemyns (eds.). 2002. Language Contact at the Romance–Germanic Language Border. Special issue of Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 23(1/2). 1–149. Van Coetsem, F. 1988. Loan Phonology and the Two Transfer Types in Language Contact. Dordrecht: Foris. Van Velthoven, H. 2011. Waarheen met Belgie? Van taalstrijd tot communautaire conflicten. Brussel: ASP Publishers. Von Busekist, A. 1998. La Belgique. Politique des langues et construction de l’État, de 1780 à nos jours. Paris/Bruxelles: Duculot. Willemyns, R. 1996. Language borders in Northern France and in Belgium: A contrastive analysis. In U. Ammon & M. Hellinger (eds.), Contrastive Sociolinguistics, 229–249. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, Witte, E. & H. Van Velthoven. 2010. Strijden om taal. De Belgische taalkwestie in historisch perspectief. Kapellen: Pelckmans. Wright, S. & H. Kelly (eds.). 1995. Languages in Contact and Conflict: Contrasting Experiences in the Netherlands and Belgium. Special issue of Current Issues in Language and Society 1(2). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Part I: Theoretical and historical overview

Jeroen Darquennes

Chapter 2 The dimensions of language conflict: an exploration 1 Introduction Although language conflict as a research topic already features in an embryonic way in literature on language contact in the 1950s, it took until the 1960s before it began to be more prominently and systematically explored. In North America, scholars such as Haugen (1966), Inglehart/Woodward (1972[1967]), Joy (1972[1967]) and Mackey (1967) were instrumental in putting it on the research map. In European, Catalan sociolinguists (cf. Aracil 1966; Ninyoles 1969), soon to be followed by Occitan sociolinguists (cf. Lafont 1971) helped to boost a multidisciplinary approach to the study of language conflict. During the 1970s and 1980s political scientists (e.g. McRae 1983, 1986, 1997), sociologists (e.g. Strassoldo & Delli Zotti 1982), and social psychologists (e.g. Bourhis 1984) began to uncover and analyse the multiple dimensions of linguistic strife in a systematic way. They were joined by the geolinguist Williams (1984) and sociolinguists including Calvet (1987), Haarmann (1986, 1990, 2001), Mattheier (1984, 1989) and Nelde (1987a, 1987b, 1992, 1996, 2006), all of whom developed a special interest in linguistic strife in situations of societal multilingualism. McRae, Haarmann and Nelde, in particular, made major contributions to secure a prominent place for language conflict within research on language contact and societal multilingualism. McRae began a book series on Conflict and Compromise in Multilingual Societies (with volumes on Switzerland [1983], Belgium [1986] and Finland [1997]). Haarmann (1990) introduced a general theory of language conflict inspired by Haugen’s ideas on language planning and the ecology of language. Nelde, finally, initiated a series of international conferences on Contact & Conflict in 1981 and devoted 8 of 30 volumes of his Plurilingua series explicitly to the topic of language conflict. Despite all these research efforts in a community that became closely knit in the slipstream of the successive Contact & Conflict conferences, research on language conflict lost momentum in the second half of the 1990s. From a presentday perspective and notwithstanding valuable contributions to the field by Mac Giollà Chríost (2003) and Rindler Schjerve (2003, 2007), Haarmann’s observation that language conflict theory and methodology deserve to be fleshed out a little more, still holds true (cf. Haarmann 1990: 1–2). In addition, there is a dearth of attempts to try and elaborate on Nelde’s inspiring articles on the scope and the

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dimensions of (research on) language conflict (cf. above). In an attempt to contribute towards a systematic account of the state of the art of language conflict research, I begin this chapter with a systematic sketch of its main areas of focus. The chapter then explores the dimensions of societal language conflict and subsequently offers an overview of existing methodological approaches to language conflict research before concluding with a number of research desiderata.

2 Research on language conflict: Main areas of focus Given the close connection between research on language contact and research on language conflict (cf. Nelde 1997), it hardly comes as a surprise that the main areas of research focus in both areas are very similar. Drawing on Nelde (1992) and Clyne (1996), they can be described as “language”, “the individual language user(s)” and “society”.

2.1 Language The first area of research focus is concerned with the existence of possible conflicts arising at the level of the contact languages themselves. At the centre of attention are mechanisms that hamper or block the processes by which one language (or, in broader terms: a language variety) borrows morphological, phonological, phonetic, semantic, morpho-syntactic and syntactic features from another language (variety). According to Wölck (1997: 462), the idea behind this type of language conflict research is to “investigate language contact and conflict looking for ‘winners’ and ‘losers’, ‘survivors’ and ‘casualties’ among language categories, qualities and features on the field of linguistic confrontation”. With or without reference to the notion of “conflict”, examples of this kind of research can be found in abundance in the literature on contact-induced language change and code-switching (or, to use “competing” notions: code-mixing, interference and transference). Thomason’s borrowing scale, for example, as well as her discussion of whether or not some linguistic features are “unborrowable” particularly appeals to those interested in the study of the linguistic features of language conflict (Thomason 2001). The same counts for Carol Meyers-Scotton’s discussion of morpho-syntactic constraints on code-switching in her book Duelling Languages (1993).

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In line with the ideas of the founding fathers of sociolinguistics, present-day literature on contact-induced change and code-switching points to the importance of recognising what Weinreich (1968[1953]: 83) referred to as the “interrelationship between socio-cultural conditions and linguistic phenomena”. Languages are seen as “a product of, and a vehicle for, communication among people” (Thomason & Kaufman 1988: 4), or, alternatively, the “language using individuals” are seen as “the locus of language contact” (Weinreich 1968[1953]: 1). Translating these general principles of language contact into language conflict, Haarmann (1990: 2–3) notes that “a language conflict is not a state of affairs where one linguistic system is in conflict with another system”. Language conflicts rather result “from contact settings whose conditions are controversially evaluated by people who are involved”. Without the capacity to evaluate events in his/her environment, Haarmann adds, “the individual would not be capable of even identifying a language contact as a conflict”. In conclusion, he states that “[s]ince the evaluation of a situation in terms of language conflict is an activity in the individual’s mind, the actual language conflict exists in the person’s consciousness”. When focusing on purely linguistic features of language conflict, one therefore needs to be aware of the intimate and intricate interplay that exists in every situation of language contact between intra-linguistic phenomena, the socio-psychological disposition of the language users and the sociolinguistic environment in which the language users are active.

2.2 The individual language user(s) Turning to the second area of research focus, attention shifts from the investigation of conflicts that arise at the intra-linguistic level to the study of conflicts related to language use in interaction. The focus here is not so much on the actual language competences that manifest themselves in interaction. The focus is more on the social-linguistic behaviour of the individual language users. The interest here is on what people actually do with their languages or language varieties in interaction, which languages or language varieties they choose to use in different circumstances, why they choose them (or why not) and what hampers or blocks their use (cf. the list of questions pertaining to the study of individual bilingualism presented in Mackey 2005). Literature on intercultural and intra-cultural communication clearly shows that “impediments” in interaction can occur in situations of contact in which persons use different languages belonging to different diasystems as well as in situations in which persons use varieties belonging to the same diasystem. Apart from being treated through the lens of “cultureme” theory (cf., e.g., Oksaar 1997),

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language conflicts are also dealt with in research on intra-cultural communication. Werlen (1997), for example, refers to impediments in interaction as “Kontaktkonflikte” and illustrates these by referring to a situation of “dialect contact” in Switzerland. Examples of language conflict in the case of intercultural communication can be found in the work of Konrad Ehlich (1994), who prefers the notion of “communication disruptions” to refer to language conflict. That research on language conflict in the area of interpersonal communication is not just interesting in and of itself is convincingly illustrated by Watts (1988). Watts analyses the socio-communicative interaction of German-speaking and French-speaking Swiss participants in a half-an hour television discussion on German-speaking Swiss television. His analysis illustrates the added value of micro-sociolinguistic studies focusing on communicative interaction for a more fine-grained understanding of the relationship between language, ethnic identity and national identity that is at the centre of focus in many macro-studies dealing with language conflict at the societal level.

2.3 Society Language conflict at the level of society is without any doubt the area of focus with which research on language conflict is most often associated. Case studies that come to mind are the Dutch–French language conflict in Belgium, the French–English language conflict in Quebec, the Basque–Spanish language conflict in the Basque Autonomous Community, the Catalan–Spanish conflict in Catalonia and the Irish–English conflict in Ireland. As can be inferred from the previous paragraph, these (and other) conflicts have received considerable attention in literature exploring the links between language, nationalism and ethnic identity. By contrast, macro-level research on language conflict in societal settings where historically grown ethnolinguistic tensions played little or no role has not really gained much momentum. Quite recently, Ammon (2006) made an attempt to study such forms of “artificial language conflicts” (Nelde 1997: 294) at the institutional level of the European Union. Given the fact that such research is still in its infancy, the remainder of this paper deals exclusively with what Nelde (1997: 293) refers to as “natural” societal language conflict emerging from the (long-standing) coexistence of different speech communities.

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3 Societal language conflict In order to allow for a better understanding of the multifaceted nature of societal language conflict in traditional language contact settings, the available literature has been analysed with the aim of pointing out some central features of language conflict in a number of key areas. In what follows, the focus will be on “causes”, “visibility”, “manifestations”, “focal points” and “management” of societal language conflict as well as on “outcomes of language conflict management”. Readers should be aware that the list of key areas is nowhere near exhaustive. Furthermore, it is also important to realise that the discussion of the features of language conflict as presented here is a tentative one. Not all of the available literature has been consulted and language conflict is approached mainly from a European point of view.

3.1 Causes of language conflict Literature on societal language conflict emphasises that language conflict at the societal level comes about in situations of societal language contact. These situations are characterised by asymmetrical rather than symmetrical multilingualism. The differences in prestige, status, power, social organisation, values and beliefs as they exist between a speech community A and a speech community B are reflected in the prestige, status, legitimisation and institutionalisation of language (or language variety) A vis-à-vis language (variety) B (cf. Nelde, Strubell &Williams 1996). As a consequence of these differences – others refer to them as “divisions” or “cleavages” (cf. McRae 1983: 16–23 and Labrie 2003: 41) – language often develops into a significant symbol of social conflict, even if it is not the direct cause of the conflict. In that sense, it is possible to characterise language conflicts as “umgeleitete Sozialkonflikte [diverted social conflicts]” (Mattheier (1989: 1), as “sozial, wirtschaftlich und politisch motivierte Konflikte …, die über das Sekundärmerkmal Sprache ausgetragen werden [socially, economically and politically motivated conflicts …, which are staged via language as a secondary symbol]” (Rindler Schjerve 2003: 47) or as conflicts that are “at bottom social conflicts of one kind or another (ethnic, economic, cultural, ideological, political, etc.)” (Bugarski 1990: 41). In order to track down the causes of a language conflict, one needs to consider the ecology of the language contact situation carefully (cf. also part 4 below). Such a consideration of the ecology of a language contact setting reveals a great deal about the nature of the social or other cleavages that characterise a situation of language contact. It also reveals a lot about the way in which these differences are perceived.

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3.2 Visibility of language conflict It is essential for the understanding of language conflict that in some cases the social or other divisions that in other cases would lead to language conflict either go unnoticed or are not experienced as being problematic. In the words of Dua (1996: 10), [s]ocial groups in a given community often show distinct objective differences in social organisation, cultural values and beliefs, independently of their use of language varieties, dialects or registers. Not only do people live with these differences, but under normal circumstances they may even fail to notice them, let alone consider them responsible for their grievances. Only when they become aware of these differences, consider them to be responsible for their grievances, and feel that their identity is being threatened, do the differences and inequalities become a source of conflict.

In this quotation, Dua very adequately clarifies the distinction which Nelde (1987a), based on the writings of Krysmanski (1971), made between “latent” (or “subcutaneous”) and “manifest” language conflict. It is precisely this dichotomy that inspired Nelde (1987b) to claim that “language contact means language conflict”. At first sight, Nelde’s one-liner might indeed seem a little far-fetched or exaggerated (cf. the criticism raised by de Bot 1997). However, if one takes into account the asymmetrical nature that characterises every situation of language contact, albeit to different degrees, one has to conclude that language conflict is pre-programmed although it might not always be visible (cf. Haarmann 2001: 204). In that sense, there is indeed no language contact without language conflict, since the latter can be either latent, manifest or latent on the way of becoming manifest. And once a language conflict is manifest, the question is how it manifests itself.

3.3 Manifestations of language conflict The word “conflict” itself may conjure up images of violence, i.e. the sort of violence typical of terrorism, war or riots. It cannot be denied that in some cases language conflict has been accompanied by or has given cause to language riots or violent events. Belgium is known for its language riots, for example those in the 1970s when Flemish people protested in Schaerbeek (a suburb of Brussels) because the mayor refused to treat Dutch-speaking inhabitants on an equal footing with the French-speaking inhabitants in the town hall (in Dutch literature this case is known as the “lokettenkwestie”, a loket being a “counter”). And in Friesland “kneppelfreed”, or “truncheon Friday”, a particular day in 1951 when

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riots broke out after a journalist had to appear before court after having insulted a judge for not being able to understand Frisian in a newspaper article, is part of the collective memory of (older) Frisian speakers (cf. www.kneppelfreed.nl, last accessed on 9 September 2013, for more information). Yet, despite of these outbursts of language conflict related violence (examples could be added from Wales, Quebec, the Basque Country, etc.), one can agree with Laitin (1999: 24) who states that, in cases of language conflict, the OECD maintains that “none of them was linked in any way to significant guerrilla activity”. Whether this claim can be generalised with respect to other parts of the world is something to be left aside for lack of sufficient research findings. However, as Rindler Schjerve (2003: 49–50) argues, it does seem to be the case that in democratic societies conflicts in general, and language conflicts in particular, are “fought” on a discursive level. Rather than dealing with violent manifestations of language conflict, the study of language conflict is thus to be seen as the study of differences of opinion or incompatibilities between two or more opinions on language in society. It is thus particularly interesting to try and shed some light on the discursive focal points around which language conflict centres.

3.4 Focal points of language conflict One way of coming to terms with the discursive focal points of language conflict, is to focus on the aspects of “language” to which the differences of opinion pertain. In his article on the politics of language conflict, Dua (1996: 8–9) makes a distinction between what language “is” and what language “has”. In the former sense (what language “is”), the structural properties of a language (variety) are at the centre of interest. The second sense addresses the distribution of a language (variety) in society. A discourse that emphasises structural properties seems to prevail in the case of contact between speech communities using a language variety that belongs to the same diasystem. Discussions on language use seem to be more typical of language contact involving speech communities that use a language (variety) belonging to a different diasystem. Differences certainly exist as to the intensity with which language conflicts are discursively fought as well as to the actors that take part in the conflict. These differences will not be elaborated here. What follows is a more general description of how language conflict discursively tends to pivot primarily on the “is” or the “has” of language.

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3.4.1 Structural properties of language as a focal point There are many examples of language conflicts that discursively centre around structural language features. Most of them are documented in the literature on linguistic nationalism or language standardisation. A case that is often discussed in the literature is the Norwegian language conflict over the development of a national standard written idiom different from the other Nordic languages (cf. Haugen 1966; Jahr 1993; Jahr 2003). Other examples include the debates over the development of written standards in minority settings such as those of the Sardinians and the Ladins in Italy (cf. Rindler Schjerve 1997; Darquennes 2012). It is typical of quarrels over the development of a written standard that the existence of competing varieties belonging to the same diasystem are nevertheless associated with different social, political, economic, religious, cultural, historical or other forces in society. In the case of the examples mentioned, the debates over the selection of a standard variety (stage 1 in Haugen’s language planning model, cf. Haugen 1987: 627) are not only colored by discussions on what the “most authentic” or “purest” basis for the new standard is or ought to be. The debates (most of them fought out in the media or viva voce in language commissions, cultural committees and governmental assemblies) are also loaded with what Haugen refers to as “power brokerage” (Haugen 1987: 630). The analysis of present-day processes of language standardisation shows, in particular, how different forces in society attach emotional values to specific historically grown linguistic varieties and sometimes experience the rejection of their own variety (or even the rejection of specific features of it) almost as a denial of their linguistic identity. These emotions interfere with the process of codification (stage 2 in Haugen’s language planning model) and certainly also have an impact when it comes to implementing the codified version of the selected variety with the aim of diffusing it and having it accepted across society. Given the “power measurements” that surround it, the implementation stage (i.e. the third stage in Haugen’s language planning model) can therefore, as Deumert and Vandenbussche (2003: 7) rightly argue, be seen as the “Achilles heel” of the standardisation process. It is this stage that decides on the success or the failure of the decisions made during the preceding stages of selection and codification. Turning to the final stage of the standardisation process as described by Haugen, i.e. elaboration, research shows that this stage is not debate-proof, either. In particular, the modernisation of the lexicon is again likely to lead to discussions on the “authenticity” and “purity” of the selected, codified and implemented standard variety (cf. also Fishman 2006 in this respect). Confronted with the task of language elaboration, the question arises as to whether one should rely on the word stock of one’s own language to build new words or whether one

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should rather rely on neighbouring or more distant languages. This is a point of discussion in the case of so-called “Ausbau”-languages such as Luxembourgish, Croatian and Serbian (cf. Kloss 1952, 1978) since language elaboration can be used to increase the distance with the “roofing” language that the “Ausbau”-language community is trying to move away from. Language elaboration is also debated in many language minority settings where the question is to what extent one should allow the language of the surrounding majority to influence the vocabulary of the minority language or whether one should rather try to refrain from doing this so as not to deliberately reproduce the social pressure which the majority exerts on the minority in the language itself (cf. O’Rourke & Ramallo 2011 for a discussion of this topic in the context of so-called “new speakers”).

3.4.2 Language use as a focal point Language use in a language contact setting concerns the use of a language (or, again, in broader terms, a language variety) A and a language (variety) B in so-called private, semi-public or public domains or contexts of language use. The question is to what extent the use of language (variety) A versus language (variety) B is institutionalised (i.e. taken for granted, or not, in particular contexts) and the way in which the use of A versus B is legitimised by means of laws or (in)formal language policies that support the use of a language in a specific context or not. The degree of institutionalisation and legitimisation of a language mirrors its status and prestige in society and is obviously also linked to the status, prestige, social power and balance of the group that uses the language. Discussions about the use of language in a particular context are thus not discussions about the languages themselves but about the weight which languages have in society, about the relationship between language and social mobility and about the social pressure exerted by one speech community on another speech community. As Mattheier (1984) shows, such conflicts over language use can also occur in “monolingual communities”, i.e. in communities in which different varieties of the same diasystem are used by different groups. Mattheier (1984: 202) explains the occurrence of language conflict in such a community in the “Rheinland” by the fact that “verschiedene sprachliche Varietäten die Funktion von Sozialsymbolen übernehmen können, von Symbolen für bestimmte gesellschaftliche Gruppen” [‘several language varieties can take on the function of social symbols, symbols for specific social groups’]. The attention that has been given to these sorts of language conflict is, as Mattheier himself states, rather low. More attention is given to conflicts over the use of language in situations where contact exists between speech communities that use a language (variety) belonging to a differ-

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ent diasystem. Examples include studies on language conflict in bilingual cities, cf. Levine’s account of the development of the English–French language conflict in Montreal (Levine 1990) or Elmiger and Conrad’s description of German–French language conflict in the city of Biel/Bienne (Conrad & Elmiger 2010). There are also studies describing language conflict within an entire state (such as Witte & Van Velthoven 2011 on Belgium or McRae’s already cited volumes on Switzerland, Belgium and Finland) as well as many descriptions of language contact in language minority settings in which it is shown that the (lack of opportunity to) use the minority language on public road signs, in public administration, in health care, the courts, education, etc. gives rise to emotion-laden language conflicts that cover a (whole) range of social tensions (cf. many of the articles in the Plurilingua series). Especially in situations where the language conflict continually builds up, there is a demand for the elaboration of solutions that might help to settle the conflict.

3.5 The management of language conflict and its outcomes Before entering into a brief discussion of possible approaches to the management of language conflict, it is useful to refer once more to the stratification of language conflict. As Nelde (1997: 290) points out, language conflict has both a “surface structure” and a “deep structure”. The surface structure of the language conflict (i.e. the debate about language or language use) functions as a sort of “lightning conductor” in that it distracts attention from the real social motivations behind the conflict (i.e. the “deep structure” of the conflict). As such, “language conflict appears to be the lesser evil, since apparently it can be more easily corrected and neutralized than primary socio-political conflicts” (Nelde 1997: 292). In order to correct, neutralise or de-emotionalise a situation of language conflict, language policy and planning come into play. In early writings on sociolinguistics and the sociology of language, it is already noticeable how language policy and planning are closely linked to the topic of language conflict. Without directly referring to the notion of language conflict, Fishman (1972: 173), for example, considers the relevance of what he refers to as the “applied sociology of language” (of which language policy and planning are the essential parts) in that it assists “in the solution of societal language problems” (cf. also Jernudd & Das Gupta 1971: 211). Whereas attempts have been made especially since the 1970s to distinguish policy and planning (cf. Calvet 1999[1987]: 154–155 for an example), literature these days tends to focus on the inextricable link between policy and planning, hence the increasing use of the LPP designation (“language policy and planning”, cf. Hornberger 2006:

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24–25). As to the dimensions of LPP, there seems to be a consensus (since Cooper 1989) on the fact that LPP concentrates on the corpus, the status (as well as the prestige) and/or the acquisition of a language (variety). Relating language policy and planning to language conflict management now, it appears obvious that language policy and planning activities that aim at the “corpus” of a language (variety) can help to provide solutions to language conflicts with language features as a focal point (cf. 3.4.1 above). Language policy and planning activities that aim at the status and the acquisition dimension can help to find solutions to language conflicts with language use as a focal point (cf. 3.4.2 above). Given the specificity of each language conflict, it is difficult to give a precise description of the way in which language policy and planning are or can be used to provide solutions to language conflict as a societal language problem. Therefore, the following paragraphs can provide only a few general examples.

3.5.1 Corpus policy and planning If one takes the example of conflicts over the selection of a variety of a language in attempts to standardise this language, then one approach to settle the conflict (or to avoid it from the onset) is to resort to the method of “dialect synthesis” (Wölck 2006: 322) or “Ausgleich”, as it is also called. This roughly means that the development of a standard variety is based on common characteristics of all the available (written) varieties of the language. This approach in one way or another is at the basis of many standardisation processes in the European realm (cf. Deumert & Vandenbussche 2003 for examples concerning Germanic languages). It has been used with a certain degree of success in Latin America (cf. the case of Quechua). It was also quite recently used in the Ladin community in Northern Italy where the corpus planners of SPELL (Servisc de Planificazion y Elaborazion dl Lingaz Ladin) tried to develop a common Ladin standard for the competing written versions of Ladin as used in the Ladin valleys. Building on the work of the Swiss scholar Heinrich Schmid (1994) the SPELL team developed a grammar for and a dictionary in standard Ladin (cf. www.spell-termles.ladinia.net). Hope existed that SPELL’s endeavours would lead to a general acceptance of “Ladin Dolomitan” as a unified written variety of Ladin that could help to further status and acquisition planning measures (e.g. the production of teaching materials, the availability of laws and administrative documents in the minority language, etc.). This hope, however, was in vain. Shortly after Ladin Dolomitan was launched, the government of South Tyrol decided to formally exclude it from all its legal texts, publications and websites. At the local level, Ladin Dolomitan is also hardly used in the administration and its use in schools is blocked in favour of local idioms.

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The Ladin example shows that the road leading to the diffusion of a new set of norms is a hard and weary one, and a considerable amount of institutional support and a positive social and political climate are needed for it to be accepted by the language community. If that climate is lacking, then corpus planning efforts meant to settle language conflict over language matters might very well intensify existing conflicts and/or lead to new language conflicts (cf. Jahr 1993: 1).

3.5.2 Status and acquisition policy and planning Nelde (1997) has illustrated how “positive discrimination”, bilingual education and the principle of territoriality can be used to try and settle language conflict over the use of languages (cf. also Labrie, Nelde & Williams 1993). As far as the use and the function of status and acquisition language policy and planning for settling language conflicts in language minority settings is concerned, one could also look at the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. It was published in 1992 by the Council of Europe, an organisation that aims at securing the peaceful coexistence of its member states mainly by means of harmonising their legislation. The Charter, which entered into force in 1998, holds an important position as a frame of reference in European discussions on the preservation of linguistic diversity. It is of special importance that the Charter contains a catalogue of measures that might help to promote the use of the selected regional or minority languages in areas including education, the courts, administration and public services, media, cultural activities and facilities, economic and social life and trans-frontier exchanges. The parties that ratify the Charter must choose 35 mutually reinforcing measures from the catalogue (cf. Darquennes 2011 for a more detailed overview). Obviously, the success of language shift reversal in minority settings does not solely depend on the mere ratification of the Charter by a member state of the Council of Europe, nor by the mere existence of other (complementary) policy documents or even language laws at that state’s national or regional level. It also depends a lot on the means provided “from above” and the way in which these means allow the facilitation and implementation measures that can help to create a climate in which the minority language can flourish alongside the majority language in some sort of a diglossic constellation (whereby diglossia does not necessarily have to be thought of in the sense of “stable” diglossia as originally put forward by Ferguson and criticised in early Catalan and Occitan literature on language conflict, cf. Kremnitz 1979 and Boyer 1991). In addition, it also depends on the willingness of the population to accept the measures in different domains of society as they are implemented from above and to complement them with

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grassroots initiatives “from below”. The success of language policy and planning aiming at resolving language conflict over language use depends on many factors. For this reason, the road to success might not be instant. And the danger of elaborating measures that magnify rather than reduce language conflict is always present. Language policy and planning that aims at the management of language conflict is therefore best based on a careful analysis of the language conflict situation.

4 Methodological approaches A methodological approach that is often applied in the study of societal language conflict is the approach known as “linguistic profiling”. This approach dates back to the 1960s. At that time scholars such as Ferguson (1962), for example, promoted the idea that studies based on a profile of the broad social environment in which a language is used allow for a better judgment of the changes in the status and function of that language. This idea was soon picked up by Haugen. Haugen (1972) pleads for a multidimensional and interdisciplinary approach towards the interplay between language and its environment and labels this approach “the ecology of language”. He emphasises that the ecology of language aims to cover “a broad range of interests within which linguists can cooperate significantly with all kinds of social scientists towards an understanding of the interaction of languages and their users” (Haugen 1972: 328–329). What the ecology of language (like other sorts of profiling such as Wölck’s Community Profiles, cf. Wölck 1985) aims for is to discover major social distinctions and structural divisions in a community and to identify a subset of the population that represents such features or structural divisions. The ecology of language can show how these divisions or structural features are paralleled by or correlate with linguistic features or differences in language use (cf. Wölck 1985: 33). To do this, a broad (historical, demographic, political, linguistic, social, cultural, religious, etc.) description of the community investigated is necessary in which, in particular, those sectors of society that influence language use and language attitudes are of primary interest. Haarmann (1986) has identified the variables that should be taken into account when describing the community that is being studied in most detail. His approach has been constructively criticised and refined by Mac Giolla Chríost (2003). The description of the language community as called for by Haarmann and Mac Giolla Chríost can be based on a careful study of the available literature and policy documents. However, it is useful to combine this phase of “armchair linguistics” with an empirical study of the language community under investiga-

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tion with quantitative and/or qualitative data (cf. Wölck 1985 for details). Qualitative research on language conflict can benefit from the principles of Critical Discourse Analysis. As Ricento (2006: 131–132) notes, linguistic analysis using CDA “can provide greater detail and specificity about how particular social beliefs, values and ideologies are … reproduced (often implicitly) in a variety of written and spoken genres in defined contexts”. Rindler Schjerve and Vetter (2003), for example, have successfully applied the CDA method in their analysis of the interplay between diglossia and power in the Habsburg Empire. For a further development of research on language conflict, it would be worthwhile to take stock of existing methods (e.g. those developed by Labrie 1997 and 2003 and Dumbrava 2004) that are scattered over the available literature and to try to build synergies where possible.

5 Desiderata It is certain that the future of research on language conflict does not only depend on a more careful consideration of the research methodology. Research on language conflict deserves to be more systematically developed in other areas as well. The role of the different actors in language conflict settings, for example, deserves to be analysed in more detail. So far, too little is known about the agenda of the parties (individuals and/or groups) that “steer” language conflicts. Research also needs to concentrate more on a careful study of the extent, the stability and the intensity of language conflict (cf. de Vries 1990: 21–22) since such a study would allow us to refine the still somewhat vaguely defined typologies of language conflict as they exist now (cf. Weber 2003: 105–107 on ethnolinguistic conflicts, language political conflicts and politicised language conflicts). An attempt to refine existing typologies would also profit from a screening and a thorough digest of available language conflict literature in the language sciences (for example, the contributions made by scholars involved in policy and planning in minority settings, cf. Gardeazabal 2011) and beyond (cf. the contribution of sociology and political science to the study of language conflict especially in the 1960s to the 1980s). In addition, one final point which has not been addressed and still deserves some consideration is the question of whether the concept of “language conflict” is a useful one at all. On the one hand, one can understand the reservations some might have with respect to the use of the concept of “language conflict”. These reservations might be inspired by the fact that the detection and description of latent conflicts that might not even be perceived as such by the population have the potential to cause the latent conflict to become overt.

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Researchers should indeed make sure that they do not “inflame” situations in which language contact only leads to latent language conflict. On the other hand, however, it would be a shame if such reservations were to cause researchers to refrain from approaching situations of language through the lens of language conflict altogether. Like other conflicts, language conflicts are endemic to society and lead to social change (cf. Cooper 1989: 178–180). A better understanding of the mechanisms of language conflict could therefore help us to gain a better understanding of social change and might even help to influence processes of social change positively. It is well known that conflicts “should not only be condemned as negative” but can also lead to “new structures which are more advantageous than earlier ones” (Nelde 1997: 292–293). Too little is known, however, about the paths that lead to such more advantageous structures. In this respect, the potential of the sociology of language, sociolinguistics and contact linguistics as sub-disciplines of linguistics that can be of assistance in finding solutions to the many societal language problems that surround us, deserve to be more thoroughly explored.

6 References Ammon, Ulrich. 2006. Language conflicts in the European Union: On finding a politically acceptable and practicable solution for EU institutions that satisfies diverging interests. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 16(3). 319–338. Aracil, Lluis V. 1966. A Valencian dilemma. Identity Magazine 24. 17–29. Bourhis, Richard.1984. Conflict and Language Planning in Quebec. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Boyer, Henri.1991. Langues en conflit: Etudes sociolinguistiques. Paris: L’Harmattan. Bugarski, Ranko.1990. The social basis of language conflicts and language attitudes. In Peter H. Nelde (ed.), Language Attitudes and Language Conflict (Plurilingua IX). Bonn: Dümmler, 41–47. Calvet, Louis-Jean. 1999[1987]. La guerre des langues et les politiques linguistiques. Paris: Hachette. Clyne, Michael. 1996. Sprache, Sprachbenutzer, Sprachbereich. In Hans Goebl, Peter H. Nelde, Zdenek Stary & Wolfgang Wölck (eds.), Contact Linguistics, Vol. 1, 12–22. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter. Conrad, Sarah Jane & Daniel Elmiger. 2010. Leben und Reden in Biel/Bienne. Vivre et communiquer dans une ville bilingue. Tübingen: Narr. Cooper, Robert L. 1989. Language Planning and Social Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Darquennes, Jeroen. 2011. Minorities, language politics and language planning in Europe. In Bernd Kortmann & Johan Van der Auwera (eds.), The Languages and Linguistics of Europe: A Comprehensive Guide, 547–560. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter,

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Darquennes, Jeroen. 2012. Language standardization and language identity issues in European language minority settings: Some general remarks in the light of the Survey Ladins. In Patrick Studer & Iwar Werlen (eds.), Linguistic Diversity in Europe: Current Trends and Discourses, 69–86. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter. de Bot, Kees. 1997. Nelde’s Law revisited: Dutch as a diaspora language. In Wolfgang Wölck & Annick De Houwer (eds.), Recent Studies in Contact Linguistic, 51–59. Bonn: Dümmler. Deumert, Ana and Wim Vandenbussche. 2003. Standard languages: Taxonomies and histories. In Ana Deumert & Wim Vandenbussche (eds.), Germanic Standardizations: Past to Present, 1–14. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. de Vries, John. 1990. Language planning as conflict management. In Peter H. Nelde (ed.), Language Attitudes and Language Conflict (Plurilingua IX), 17–27 Bonn: Dümmler. Dua, Hans Raij. 1996. The politics of language conflict. Language Problems & Language Planning 20(1). 1–17. Dumbrava, Vasile. 2004. Sprachkonflikt und Sprachbewusstsein in der Republik Moldova: Eine empirische Studie in gemischtethnischen Familien. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Ehlich, Konrad. 1994. Communication disruptions: On benefits and disadvantages of language contact. In Martin Pütz (ed.), Language Contact and Language Conflict, 103–122. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ferguson, Charles. 1962. The language factor in national development. In Frank Rice (ed.), Study of the Role of Second Languages in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, 8–14. Washington: Center for Applied Linguistics. Fishman, Joshua A. 1972. The Sociology of Language: An Interdisciplinary Social Science Approach to Language in Society. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. Fishman, Joshua A. 2006. DO NOT Leave your Language Alone: The Hidden Status Agendas within Corpus Planning in Language Policy. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers. Gardeazabal, Javier. 2011. Linguistic polarization and conflict in the Basque Country. Public Choice 149(3). 405–425. Goebl, Hans, Nelde, Peter H., Starý, Zdenek & Wolfgang Wölck (eds.). 1997. Kontaktlinguistik, Vol 2. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter. Haarmann, Harald. 1986. Language in Ethnicity: A View of Basic Ecological Relations. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Haarmann, Harald. 1990. Elements of a theory of language conflict. In Peter H. Nelde (ed.), Language Attitudes and Language Conflict (Plurilingua IX), 1–15. Bonn: Dümmler. Haarmann, Harald. 2001. Babylonische Welt: Geschichte und Zukunft der Sprachen. Frankfurt & New York: Campus. Haugen, Einar. 1953. The Norwegian Language in America: A Study in Bilingual Behavior. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Haugen, Einar. 1966. Language Conflict and Language Planning: The Case of Modern Norwegian. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Haugen, Einar. 1972. The ecology of language. In Anwar S. Dil (ed.), The Ecology of Language, 325–339. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Haugen, Einar. 1987. Language planning. In Ulrich Ammon, Norbert Dittmar & Klaus J. Mattheier (eds.), Sociolinguistics, Vol 1, 626–637. Berlin & New York: de Gruyter. Hornberger, Nancy. 2006. Frameworks and models in language policy and planning. In Thomas Ricento (ed.), An Introduction to Language Policy: Theory and Method, 24–41. Oxford: Blackwell.

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McRae, Kenneth D. 1986. Conflict and Compromise in Multilingual Societies. Vol. 2: Belgium. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press. McRae, Kenneth D. 1997. Conflict and Compromise in Multilingual Societies. Vol. 3: Finland. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press. Meyers-Scotton, Carol. 1993. Duelling Languages: Grammatical Structure in Codeswitching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Moelleken, Wolfgang W. & Peter J. Weber (eds.). 1997. Neue Forschungsarbeiten zur Kontaktlinguistik. Bonn: Dümmler. Nelde, Peter H. 1987a. Research on language conflict. In Ulrich Ammon, Norbert Dittmar & Klaus J. Mattheier (eds.), Sociolinguistics, Vol. 1, 607–612. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter. Nelde, Peter H. 1987b. Language contact means language conflict. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 8(1/2). 33–42. Nelde, Peter H. 1992. Multilingualism and contact linguistics. In Martin Pütz (ed.), Thirty Years of Linguistic Evolution, 379–397. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Nelde, Peter H. 1997. Language conflict. In Florian Coulmas (ed.), The Handbook of Sociolinguistics, 285–300. Oxford: Blackwell. Nelde, Peter H. 2006. La linguistique de contact, la recherche sur le conflit linguistique et l’aménagement linguistique au XXième siècle. In Sylvain Auroux, E. F. K. Koerner, Hans-Josef E. Niederehe & Kees Versteegh (eds.), History of the Language Sciences, 2413–2429. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter. Nelde, Peter, Miquel Strubell & Glyn Williams. 1996. Euromosaic: The Production and Reproduction of Minority Speech Communities in the European Union. Luxembourg: Office for official publications of the European Communities. Ninyoles, Rafael Ll. 1969. Conflicte lingüístic valencià. Valencia: Tres i quatre. Oksaar, Els. 1997. Sprache und Kommunikationskonflikt: Kulturemtheoretische Beobachtungen der deutsch–deutschen Verständigungsschwierigkeiten. In Wolfgang W. Moelleken & Peter J. Weber (eds.), Neue Forschungsarbeiten zur Kontaktlinguistik, 392–397. Bonn: Dümmler. O’Rourke, Bernadette & Fernando Ramallo. 2011. The native–non-native dichotomy in minority language contexts: Comparisons between Irish and Galician. Language Problems & Language Planning 35(2). 139–159. Ricento, Thomas. 2006. Methodological perspectives in language policy: An overview. In Thomas Ricento (ed.), An Introduction to Language Policy: Theory and Method, 129–134. Oxford: Blackwell. Rindler Schjerve, Rosita. 1997. Sardaigne. In Hans Goebl, Peter H. Nelde, Zdenek Starý & Wolfgang Wölck (eds.), Kontaktlinguistik, Vol 2, 1376–1383. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter. Rindler Schjerve, Rosita. 2003. Kontakt- und Konfliktlinguistik im Wandel. In Klaus Bochmann, Peter H. Nelde & Wolfgang Wölck (eds.), Methodology of Conflict Linguistics (Plurilingua XXIV), 47–58. St. Augustin: Asgard. Rindler Schjerve, Rosita. 2007. Language conflict revisited. In Jeroen Darquennes (ed.), Contact Linguistics and Language Minorities (Plurilingua XXX), 37–50. St. Augustin: Asgard. Rindler Schjerve, Rosita & Eva Vetter. 2003. Historical sociolinguistics and multilingualism: Theoretical and methodological issues in the development of a multifunctional framework. In Rosita Rindler Schjerve (ed.), Diglossia and Power, 35–68. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

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Schmid, Heinrich.1994. Wegleitung für den Aufbau einer gemeinsamen Schriftsprache der Dolomitenladiner. Institut Cultural Ladin: Vich – San Martin de Tor. Strassoldo, Raimondo & Giovanni Delli Zotti (eds.). 1982. Conflict and Co-operation in Border Areas. Milano: Franco Angeli. Thomason, Sarah Grey. 2001. Language Contact: An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Thomason, Sarah Grey & Terrence Kaufman. 1988. Language Contact, Creolization and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press. Watts, Richard J. 1988. Language, dialect and national identity in Switzerland. Multilingua 7(3). 313–334. Weber, Peter J. 2003. Sprachkonflikte und neue Medien. In Klaus Bochmann, Peter H. Nelde & Wolfgang Wölck (eds.), Methodology of Conflict Linguistics (Plurilingua XXIV), 103–125. St. Augustin: Asgard. Weinreich, Uriel. 1968[1953]. Languages in Contact. The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter. Werlen, Erika. 1997. Kontakt, Konflikt und Kommunikationskultur. In Wolfgang W. Moelleken & Peter J. Weber (eds.), Neue Forschungsarbeiten zur Kontaktlinguistik, 496–504. Bonn: Dümmler. Willemyns, Roland. 2009. Cantat avis quaevis, sicut rostrum sibi crevit. Die Rolle der National-, Regional- und Minderheitensprachen bei der Identitätsbildung. In W. Eberhard & C. Lübke (eds.), Die Vielfalt Europas: Identitäten und Räume, 57–64. Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag. Williams, Colin H. 1984. More than tongue can tell: linguistic factors in ethnic separatism. In John Edwards (ed.), Linguistic Minorities, Policies and Pluralism, 179–219. London: Academic Press. Witte, Els & Harry Van Velthoven. 2011. Languages in Contact and in Conflict: The Belgian Case. Kalmthout: Pelckmans. Wölck, Wolfgang.1985. Beyond community profiles: A three-level approach to sociolinguistic sampling. In Peter H.Nelde (ed.), Methods in Contact Linguistic Research (Plurilingua V), 31–43. Bonn: Dümmler. Wölck, Wolfgang. 1997. Conflict linguistics: A proposal. In Wolfgang Wölck & Annick De Houwer (eds.), Recent Studies in Contact Linguistics, 457–464. Bonn: Dümmler. Wölck, Wofgang. 2006. Kontaktlinguistische Universalien und Sprachplanung. In Vittorio Dell’Aquila, Gabriele Iannàccaro & Matthias Stuflesser (eds.), Alpes Europa 2: Soziolinguistica y Language Planning, 319–329. Trento: Regione Autonoma Trentino-Alto Adige. Wölck, Wolfgang & Annick De Houwer (eds.). 1997. Recent Studies in Contact Linguistics (Plurilingua XXVIII). Bonn: Dümmler.

Roland Willemyns

Chapter 3 Trilingual tug-o’-war: language border fluctuations in the Low Countries¹ 1 Prolegomena 1.1 The status and function of the Romance–Germanic language border Both the status and the function of the Romance–Germanic language border in Europe are very different. It has the least prominence in France, a country harbouring many other languages than French, which are all reduced to the status of minority languages, enjoying practically no rights whatsoever. Since those minority languages do not “officially” exist, the same a fortiori applies to the “language borders” delimiting or surrounding the areas in which they are in use. Consequently, France is, strangely enough, a country without language borders. Quite the opposite is to be found in Belgium and Switzerland, countries divided into language territories on the basis of the territoriality principle.² So the language border here is a very real device, since it is the legal means par excellence of delimiting the areas in which a particular language is the official one. In Belgium, moreover, the legislator has attempted to rearrange and succeeded in rearranging all domestic administrative divisions (from regions through provinces to communes) into monolingual entities. With the sole exception of Brussels where, for lack of a territorial demarcation, the principle is not workable, the result has been that each and every administrative entity in federal Belgium functions in a strictly monolingual way (cf. also Janssens & Vaesen, this volume). Both the language border and the territoriality principle are defined in the constitution.

1 This chapter is an updated version of an article that previously appeared as: Willemyns, Roland. 2002. The Dutch–French Language Border in Belgium. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 23(1/2). 36–49. The article is reprinted by permission of the publisher, Taylor & Francis Ltd (www.tandfonline.com). 2 As opposed to the personality principle (all citizens, regardless of where they live, can decide for themselves in which language they want to communicate with the authorities), the territoriality principle means that the place where citizens live is decisive (McRae 1975). People in Germanspeaking Switzerland or French-speaking Belgium are addressed by their federal governments in German and French respectively, regardless of their own linguistic preference.

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Although in Switzerland (another federal country) the territoriality principle is, constitutionally speaking, less official, it is very real as well, since it secures the right of each canton to regulate language use in its own territory at its own will. The situation is different in countries where a language has a regionally official status. Although such a language enjoys considerably fewer rights than the official languages in the Belgian and Swiss cases, and although the territories they are used in are not (officially) monolingual, it is the language border which delimits the territory where the language at stake enjoys its (partially) official status; some prominent examples are Catalonia and Friesland. Along the Romance–Germanic border this applies to the South Tyrol in Italy; it is not unequivocally clear whether this also applies to German in Belgium (cf. also Boemer & Darquennes, this volume). According to Ammon (199: 65ff.), German there is a “regionale Amtssprache” (‘regionally official language’) as opposed to a “nationale Amtssprache” (‘nationally official language’). In the case of Luxembourg, the language border is hardly a geographical frontier at all but rather a social one: strictly speaking, there is no language border in Luxembourg and this country features other unusual and atypical characteristics as well (cf. also Horner & Weber, this volume). For one, it is not very often that a dialect and the standard language it is part of, are both official, administrative languages (Standard German and the Moselfränkisch dialect, the Luxembourg part of which is now called Lëtzebuergesch). On top of that, the use and the official status of French, mother tongue to no one, is the consequence of language planning measures. At any rate, the language border in Luxembourg is a device completely different from what it is in the other situations mentioned so far.

1.2 Genesis of the language border The final word on the precise circumstances of the genesis of the Romance–Germanic language border has definitely not been spoken yet. For the Belgian and Northern French area, Van Durme (2002) made the assumption that massive Germanic penetration in Northern Gaul faced a “Romance block”. In the late Roman era, a reorganisation of population groups had taken place in that area. Many of those groups had Germanic roots, but very soon they were subject to an accumulative latinisation process in which newly created military-administrative structures probably played the leading part. Van Durme, proceeding according to the micro-toponymic method, has been able to accurately reconstruct the language border genesis for a number of Belgian regions. Combining his results with those of Loicq (1993) and Van Loon (2010), one has to accept the rather remarkable conclusion that Caesar must have

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witnessed a situation opposing Celtic and Germanic in Belgium, in a territory slightly more to the south than the early medieval Romance–Germanic language border. Yet it was undoubtedly Latin that the Germanic tribes were confronted with when they first entered the former Roman province of “Belgica” (Van Durme 2002: 14). More or less linear language borders were mostly generated through a gradual dissolving of language islands within a very large bilingual territory. This process was probably completed by the end of the 11th century (Van Durme 2002).

1.3 A short summary of the situation in the remaining part of the language border area: Alsace, Switzerland and the South Tyrol During the past century Alsace changed its political affiliation four times. Its situation is characterised by the use of German dialects combined with the use of the French standard language. It is on the western side of this bilingual territory that we find the “language border”, which sets Alsace apart from the territories characterised by the unique use of French. In Bister Broosen (2002) we find a historical overview and a discussion of various geopolitical aspects of the language border. Alsatian dialects or the German standard language they are part of, do not enjoy any official support, have no official functions and are hardly used by the younger generations any longer. As far as daily language practice is concerned, the language border and the state border are doomed to coincide within the lapse of only a few generations. In Switzerland we are confronted with German in contact with three different Romance languages (French, Italian and Romansch). The main aspects of the legal status of the four Swiss national languages, and the language policies of individual bilingual and trilingual cantons are discussed in Rash (2002). The revised language law of 1996 legislates for special assistance for the two minority languages, Italian and Romansch, and was designed to promote improvements in relations between these and the two majority language communities. The southernmost part of the language border area is the South Tyrol, the German-speaking autonomous region in Italy, where language contact involves German and Italian. Although they have coexisted for centuries (Eichinger 2002), for a very long time the language groups lived side by side with only a limited amount of out-group communication and individual bilingualism. The first changes began at the beginning of the 19th century, when the vernaculars were used in all official contexts and group identities developed, based on shared languages. Language planning measures were taken immediately after the South

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Tyrol became a part of Italy after World War I. They intensified still further when the fascists came to power in the early 1920s: they banned the use of German in all public domains. Simultaneously, they began a migration campaign bringing a large number of Italian-speaking people into the area. After World War II the situation had become so tense that it ultimately led to a political clash, culminating in bomb attacks and other acts of violence in the early 1960s. This is the only part of the Germanic–Romance border region area where violence has ever been used to come to terms with linguistic diversity.³ From then onwards attempts were made to solve the problems by means of linguistic legislation, meant to protect the German-speaking minority. Still, German remains only a regionally official language, resulting in a considerable degree of individual bilingualism, especially in the speakers of German (Eichinger 2002)

2 The Dutch–French language border The borders of Dutch language territory delimit the area where Dutch is an official language. The border that separates Dutch from German, almost runs parallel to the state border between Holland and Germany, although it also cuts off a small part of Belgium. It has been stable for some time now, although until the early 20th century German was used in some parts of Limburg, whereas Dutch still had some functions in some German areas close to the border (Willemyns 2013: 12–13). The most legendary language border, however, is the Dutch–French one, the crash barrier in Belgium that separates Flemings from Walloons. It is internationally famous for the cohabitation problems both peoples have had and are still struggling with up to the present day, with the extremely slow and difficult cabinet formation between Dutch-speaking and Francophone parties after the June 2010 elections as an interesting case in point. A small part of that Dutch– French border is situated in France.

3 Violence was also in evidence in the struggle to institute a new canton in Switzerland, the Canton of Jura, along the lines of the language border between French and Swiss German in the Canton of Bern. At the end of the day, the new canton was finally inaugurated in 1978, but along confessional rather than linguistic lines and running through the French-speaking part of the old Canton of Bern.

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2.1 The Dutch–French language border in France A small group of native speakers of Dutch survives in Northern France, and although language shift has reduced their number dramatically during the last two centuries, it is still common practice to locate the westernmost part of the Romance–Germanic language border in the French Département du Nord. Native speakers of West Flemish dialects are concentrated in the so-called Westhoek, in the arrondissements of Dunkirk (Dutch: Duinkerke) and of Hazebroek (Ryckeboer 1997; Knooihuizen 2011). This piece of Northern France was originally part of Dutch-speaking Flanders until 1678, when it was annexed by the French crown as a result of the Treaty of Nijmegen. It has remained under French rule since then and is (colloquially) known as Frans Vlaanderen (‘French Flanders’). Although the language shift process started almost right away, it gained momentum only after the French Revolution as a consequence of a concerted frenchification policy and legislation on the part of the French authorities (Ryckeboer 2002). The most recent, complete and reliable data available were collected between 1935 and 1939 by the dialectologist and professor of Dutch linguistics Willem Pée. His main conclusion was: “Should industrialisation not be stopped instantly, then my prediction is that, in the rather near future, Dutch will be pushed backward toward the Belgian border, where it may still survive for quite some time in a few border villages” (Pée 1957: 57). Industrialisation was, on the contrary, intensified even more. The Flemish dialect spoken in French Flanders belongs structurally to the West Flemish dialect group. Most dialect maps do not show a break along the state border between Belgium and France. Most isoglosses, on the contrary, cross the state border, and it is clear that this state border does not correspond to any old dividing line in human communication. Only the political separation of the last 300 years has caused it to become a “secondary dialect boundary” (Ryckeboer 2002). Summarising, we can see how frenchification was initiated by political events that have disconnected parts of Flanders from the motherland. Consequently, the inhabitants lost contact in a number of domains of which language is probably the most spectacular. This entailed functional as well as structural loss and thus reduced its communicative value decisively. Theoretically, a language can survive for a long time even under the circumstances just mentioned. Subsequent extralinguistic factors, however, may be the prelude to almost complete attrition. Conscious discrimination through linguistic legislation is one of them. Another is growing industrialisation and a considerable internal migration (in both directions) that annihilates the linguistic homogeneity of the region and, consequently, the usability of the minority language. Social integration took care

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of the rest: mastery and usage of the majority language appear to be so indispensable for upward social mobility (and social life in general) that they easily overcome solidarity factors such as cultural and linguistic loyalty. The combination of all these factors hardly ever allows for more than a short transitional period of bilingualism. The minority language, structurally and functionally impoverished and no longer supported by innovating injections from a genetically related standard language, stands no chance against the domestic majority language and thus gradually vanishes. The only lasting consequence of the cultural heritage in these parts may lie in the field of foreign language acquisition and mastery: since Dutch is now again available as a subject in French schools and since a considerable number of private Dutch classes have also emerged during recent decades, it may be assumed that French Flanders will produce more students of Dutch than other regions of France, where it is not part of the cultural heritage. Together with a considerable number of place and family names this may be, in the not too distant future, the only remnant of the Dutch past of French Flanders.

2.2 The Dutch–French language border in Belgium 2.2.1 Status and function Belgium (11 million inhabitants) is a trilingual federal country, consisting of four different entities constituted on the basis of language: the Dutch-speaking community (called Flanders; 57.5% of the population); the French-speaking community (called Wallonia; 31.8%); the small German-speaking community (0.7%; incorporated in the Walloon region); and the Dutch–French bilingual community of Brussels (10.4%). Since regional governments have legislative power, the frontiers of their jurisdiction, being language borders, are defined in the constitution (Willemyns 2007). The Belgian part of the Romance–Germanic language border is quite remarkable for two main reasons: a. Its status and function have changed considerably since the country came into existence b. Its present status and function are almost unique as compared to all the other parts of the Germanic–Romance language border under consideration. The “language struggle”, which was destined to dominate Belgian political life, started only shortly after 1830, the year in which Belgium had become an independent constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system dominated by the bourgeois elite that secured its position by adopting a poll-tax system (out

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of 3.5  million people, only 46,000 had the right to vote; Ruys 1973). Although the new constitution provided for “linguistic freedom”, it was obvious that this “freedom” was only profitable to the rich and the powerful, i.e. to the bourgeoisie from Wallonia and Flanders, all of whom were French speakers. For this bourgeoisie, French was a natural choice as the language of the state (see also subsection 2.2.2.3 below). The government appointed only French-speaking civil servants and the discrimination of Dutch throughout the 19th century was general and very deliberate, despite the fact that Dutch speakers constituted the majority of the population (Witte & Van Velthoven 1998). Given the scope of this chapter, however, there is no room to elaborate on the genesis of this situation. Although the language border has existed for centuries, no solid information prior to the 19th century is available as far as the territory of present-day Belgium is concerned. In 1846, the recently established Kingdom of Belgium began conducting censuses including a question on language usage that provided statistical information until 1947 (De Metsenaere 1998). For various reasons the information gathered this way is often inaccurate. Mostly two basic requirements for reliable information gathering, viz. honest intentions and scientific support, were hardly ever met (Gubin 1978; De Metsenare 1998). The most important insight yielded by the first census in 1846 is that the administrative division of the country into provinces, arrondissementen (‘counties’) and even communes had been carried out without taking the language border into account at all and that it had never been the intention to provide for more or less linguistically homogeneous administrative entities. On the other hand, the information yielded was enough to draw a language map showing a borderline neatly separating the French- and the Dutch-speaking communities. For almost one century (and in spite of the deficient methodology), there were (with the exception of Brussels) no significant differences from one census to another (Martens 1975), a fact demonstrating the remarkable stability of Belgium’s linguistic communities. A dramatic change occurred in 1932, the year in which the language border became a political issue. A century of struggle by the Flemish Movement in favour of the promotion of Dutch in a country up to then dominated by French speakers had finally resulted in extensive linguistic legislation bringing about the de facto acceptance of the territoriality principle (McRae 1975), which implied that Flanders was to be governed exclusively in Dutch and Wallonia exclusively in French. To implement this decision, however, a precise legal description of the delimitation of these territories, in other words of the language border, was needed. Although the 1932 laws did not provide such a description, they held a provision that communes with a linguistic minority of at least 30 percent were to be governed bilingually and that, should a minority become the majority, the linguistic

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status of the commune was to change accordingly. This seems fair enough, were it not for the fact that the only means of acquiring the information needed was the census, which thus, unfortunately, acquired important political significance (Deweerdt 1998). The first census with these political implications was scheduled for 1940 but was postponed because of World War II, and when in 1947 it was finally carried out, it resulted in an outburst of political commotion. Contrasting markedly with the stability the returns had shown for more than a century, it appeared that this time not only were notorious shifts registered, but also that they all went in the same direction: many Dutch-speaking villages appeared to harbour so many French speakers that they turned into either bilingual or even French-speaking communes (Martens 1975). Since fraudulent manoeuvering by the authorities (local as well as national) was very apparent (De Metsenaere 1989), the Flemish reaction was extremely vigorous, and the government was finally forced to skip language questions from future census questionnaires altogether and to look for a political solution that might, once and for all, determine the language border between the communities. A law to this effect came into being on September 1, 1963, and since its underlying philosophy was to produce linguistically homogeneous administrative entities, several adjustments had to be made, transferring 25 communes with 87,450 inhabitants from Flanders to Wallonia and 24 communes with 23,250 inhabitants from Wallonia to Flanders (detailed information in Martens 1975; Verhulst, De Metsenaere & Deweerdt 1998). Another provision of the 1963 law was the installing of communes with socalled faciliteiten (linguistic facilities; De Schryver 1998), meaning that if a community harboured a considerable linguistic minority (on the date of September 1, 1963), provisions were to be made enabling this minority to communicate in its own language with communal authorities and to obtain possibilities for instruction in its own language. This status was allotted to a restricted number of communes on both sides of the language border. This was a major blunder, jeopardising the functioning of an otherwise perfectly workable system. However, the major provision meant to put minds at rest was that after September 1, 1963, changes in the linguistic status of communes and provinces became virtually impossible and could be brought about only through a very complicated procedure of changing the constitution. On top of a two-thirds majority required for any constitutional change, those with linguistic implications required a majority within both language factions of the Belgian parliament. In spite of still being at the centre of political controversies from time to time, the faciliteiten system remains intact, even after the recent rise to power of the Flemish nationalist party in the Dutchspeaking part of the country. Relative peace of mind indeed came about almost

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everywhere, with two notorious exceptions: the so-called Voerstreek and the Brussels suburban region (the so-called Randgemeenten). In spite of its official bilingual character, Brussels is a problem area sui generis.

2.2.2 Problem areas 2.2.2.1 The “Voerstreek” The Voerstreek is part of the so-called “Land van Overmaas”, a small territory situated between the major cities of Aachen (Germany), Maastricht (the Netherlands) and Liège (Wallonia, Belgium). During the Ancien Régime, Dutch was the language of instruction and administration in the whole Overmaas territory (Goossens 1998, but cf. Kessels-van der Heijde, this volume), but subsequently both a germanifying and a frenchifying tendency had become apparent. From the end of World War I onward, when the Eupen region, which had become a Prussian possession after the Vienna Congress, was annexed by Belgium, the 17 Overmaas communes were part of three different linguistic regimes (Goossens 1998), two of which (Old Belgium and New Belgium) will be dealt with below (cf. section 3). This leaves the six communes of the Voerstreek, which gained political notoriety and a wretched reputation during the final decades of the 20th century (Murphy 1988). Subject to both the frenchification process, which also affected the other communes in the region, and (mostly) to Walloon immigration, they turned out a linguistically mixed region with a French-speaking minority. For that reason the 1963 law transferred them from the Walloon province of Liège to the Flemish province of Limburg. However, since they are not geographically linked to the latter province and were dependent, for various economic functions, on Liège, some of its inhabitants were not very happy with this transfer. This uneasiness has been exploited by Walloon activists, causing political commotion for a long time. Still, both Flemish determination and changes in the constitution that put the Voerstreek firmly under the authority of the autonomous government of Flanders seem to have lessened political tension a good deal. From 1964 through 2000, the political faction advocating a return to the francophone province of Liège (“retour à Liège”) managed to secure an ever diminishing majority in the local city council (Vandermeeren 1996). However, from October 2000 on, the opposite faction came to power and grew stronger after every election. Consequently, a return to Liège is no longer on the political agenda of Voeren’s city council and of the majority of its inhabitants. Linguistic unrest in the region has stopped ever since.

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2.2.2.2 The Brussels Suburban Region (Randgemeenten). The 1963 law and the ongoing frenchification of Brussels also affected the status of some of the suburbs in the Brussels region. Mostly because of the immigration of French speakers, some of these communes lost their former exclusively Dutchspeaking character, and pressure was put on consecutive governments to annex them to bilingual Brussels. Yet surrendering to francophone demands was politically unfeasible and, afterward, made constitutionally impossible. Some of these suburbs, however, appeared to harbour not only important French-speaking minorities but in some cases even de facto majorities. Six of them – Drogenbos, Kraainem, Linkebeek, Sint-Genesius-Rode, Wemmel and Wezenbeek-Oppem  – officially received a faciliteiten system (De Witte 1975; Witte 1993a; De Schryver 1998) but remained part of Flanders and, consequently, officially Dutch speaking. In this way the risk of Francophone overspill to other than these six communes was considerably diminished (Deschouwer & Mariette 1993). The constitutional change of 1993 also provided for the split of the province of Brabant as from January 1, 1995, into the province Vlaams Brabant (‘Flemish Brabant’) and the province Brabant Wallon (‘Walloon Brabant’), cutting off the Brussels periphery from the capital for good (Detant 1998). This furthered the increasing homogeneity of the language territory through assimilation of minority language islands but has not yet appeased the situation in the six faciliteiten communes. Prolonged governmental crises in 2007 and 2010–2011 were mainly due to that problem. A new change of the constitution is part of the government programme of the sixparty coalition government that was sworn in on December 6, 2011, after tortuous negotiations lasting 540 days. It guarantees the split (both administratively and judicially) of the Flemish communes of the cantons Halle and Vilvoorde (including the six faciliteiten communes) from Brussels, with which they once formed one constituency. This split was approved in parliament in July 2012 and carried out accordingly. As a result of all the changes mentioned above, we are now in the presence of a firmly monolingualised Belgium, divided into autonomous communities based on linguistic homogeneity and determined to reduce the political consequences of language contact at their borders to a strict minimum. In so doing, the language border has become the most important internal boundary to which all preexisting administrative delimitations were subordinated. In Belgium at large the language border is no longer a mere linguistic notion but a legal, administrative and political reality. This evolution has completely changed the nature of the coexistence of the country’s various linguistic communities – firmly embedded in their own monolingual structures – and has also demonstrated how decisive the implications of language planning activities can

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be. One problem, though, has never been solved: that of Brussels, the only part of Belgium where the comforting territoriality principle is not applicable.

2.2.2.3 Brussels The portrait of Belgium’s capital city Brussels is one of immense complexity involving not only linguistic background and competence, but also attitudes, social status, job conditions, circumstances of discourse, feelings towards the interlocutor, etc. – in a word, all of the sociolinguistic variables which are known to determine linguistic interaction in multilingual settings. Until the 19th century, Brussels shared its linguistic fate with other Flemish cities: an important part of the social elite was bilingual and used French for most of the traditional cultural and social language functions. The majority of the population spoke a Dutch dialect (De Vriendt & Willemyns 1987). Since frenchification was stopped and eventually reversed in Flanders but not in Brussels, an explanation can be found only in factors specific to the Brussels situation. Ever since the start of the Burgundian period in the 15th century, Brussels has been a capital city, and consequently the number of courtiers, noblemen and influential government officials and civil servants has always been larger than elsewhere. It is precisely in these groups of people that the influence (and usage) of French has always been the most important. Frenchification after the annexation by France was more intensive here than elsewhere in Flanders, not the least because of the presence of an influential group of French immigrants (Witte 1993). After 1830, Brussels emerged as a symbol of Belgium, and here the “onecountry-one-language” principle appeared to be more appropriate than elsewhere. The strongly centralising Belgian policy resulted in a disproportionally high concentration of the country’s financial and industrial power in the francophone milieu of the capital. Since power and wealth essentially derived from Walloon industry, it is hardly surprising that the elite particularly favoured this region and its language. At rather short notice, Brussels became a pole of attraction to numerous immigrants. Between 1830 and 1840 the population quadrupled (De Metsenaere & Witte 1990: 3). Flemish immigrants mostly consisted of lower-class and poor people, whereas Walloon immigrants were mostly upper-working-class and middle-class people (De Metsenaere 1998). The latter immediately fortified the Francophone population. As to the former, “[t]he pressure from the top social stratum to adopt its French language filtered down through the middle-classes and from them into the ‘labour aristocracy’ of skilled workers, but generally stopping short at the lowest categories of service personnel and day labourers, made up to a large extent in the nineteenth century of Flemish immigrants to

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the capital” (Baetens Beardsmore 1990: 2). Consequently, until far into the 20th century, being Flemish (and speaking Dutch) was habitually associated with being poor or even being socially and culturally retarded. An additional handicap for both immigrant and autochthonous Dutch-speaking Brusselers was that their habitual language was a dialect, that is, a variety with a very limited social prestige. Consequently, the majority of the lower middle and working classes tried to acquire mastery in the only language that appeared to make upward social mobility at all possible. Hence, the attractiveness of the French educational system was immense in a period of rapid development of mass education. The unprofessional and fraudulent censuses in Brussels (Gubin 1978) showed an enormous increase in the statistical number of allegedly Frenchspeaking inhabitants, and the judicial consequences of censuses were very real. An additional reason for the development in Brussels being different from Antwerp or Ghent was that most of the linguistic legislation either did not apply to Brussels or, worse still, had to be paid for by concessions intensifying the frenchification of the capital. This situation changed as soon as the major struggle in Flanders was over and the Flemish Movement was able to start paying attention to the capital as well (Witte & Van Velthoven 1998, 2010). The turning-point appears to have been when Flemings agreed to give up the advantages of their numerical majority in the country at large in favour of parity in administration for Brussels. This implied, among other things, that Dutchspeaking Brusselers, even after having become a minority group, were nevertheless allotted a substantial number of the high-ranking civil servant positions in the city administration. Several measures taken by the federal government guarantee Dutch speakers in Brussels on all kinds of levels a position, which they could never have extorted by virtue of their sole numerical strength. In addition, as Baetens Beardsmore (1990: 5) points out, Flanders’ increasing economic resources made it possible to put up structures in Brussels which enabled “[s]chools, hospitals, welfare services, cultural instances, recreational facilities … to service either community in its own language. Hence … the minority speaker (was enabled) to maintain his ethnolinguistic identity”. It also enabled him to profit maximally from the gain in prestige the language had acquired in the country at large (Willemyns 1997). Education in Brussels is a story of its own (cf. Janssens & Vaesen, this volume). From the late 1970s onward, there has been a constant increase in the population of Dutch schools as opposed to the decrease of the school population in French schools in Brussels. The reinstatement of the so-called freedom of the head of the family meant that, rather unexpectedly, many “heads” of French-speaking as well as foreign families use their freedom to choose Dutch education for their children. Pupils in the Dutch schools in Brussels originate in increasing numbers

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from linguistically mixed or even homogeneously French-speaking households. In recent years non-native speakers of Dutch constitute the majority of the pupils in many Dutch-speaking schools (Janssens 2007; Mettewie 2007). Finally, the rapidly expanding foreign origin population accounts for the fact that more than one-third of the capital’s citizens do not have one of Belgium’s languages as their mother tongue. Yet, for the majority of those, French is their first “Belgian” language. The importance and use of English is rapidly growing as well, and in private business many important jobs and positions are occupied by trilinguals, i.e. people who are proficient in English, French and Dutch (Mettewie & Van Mensel 2009). However, this kind of proficiency is rather low in native speakers of French.

3 German-speaking Belgium German-speaking Belgium is divided into two parts known in the linguistic literature (though not in any administrative sense) as Neubelgien and Altbelgien (‘New Belgium’ and ‘Old Belgium’). The former is Belgium’s official German-speaking part, whereas in the latter, German has by now become a minority language in an officially French-only speaking territory. Both areas are situated in the eastern part of Belgium, adjacent to Germany and Luxembourg. In the 13th century, the Land van Overmaas (Goossens 1998), to which these territories belonged, became part of the Duchy of Brabant and shared its general and linguistic fate for a long time. By the end of the Ancien Régime, a triglossic situation had developed: Dutch was the language of the administration; High German was the language of the school and the church; and the population communicated by means of a local dialect of which it is impossible (and also futile) to determine on the basis of linguistic criteria whether it was (or is) a Dutch or German dialect (Nelde 1979: 69). At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the region was split: part of it (later known as New Belgium) went to Prussia; the rest (Old Belgium) remained in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and after 1830 in Belgium. In 1839 the larger part returned to the Dutch King William I and has been known ever since as the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. As a result of the frenchification policy of the Belgian authorities and weakened by the loss of four-fifths of its speakers to Luxembourg, French gradually superseded German in all official and formal domains in Altbelgien. Since it is geographically situated within the Walloon part of Belgium, frenchification never stopped and as of today French is its sole official language,

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and German, if still used at all, has become limited to the private domain (Darquennes 2005). The fate of New Belgium was completely different. During the time it was part of Germany, German was firmly established not only as its official language but also as the habitual means of communication of the population. However, the situation changed dramatically when after World War I the Versailles Treaty allocated the region to Belgium as war booty. It became (and still is) part of the province of Liège and consequently nowadays it is part of the “Walloon Region”. The Belgian authorities provided for no autonomy or linguistic protection whatsoever, and both the habitual frenchification policy and the usual mechanisms of upward social mobility resulted in French becoming the language of administration and also increasingly a language mastered and used by the upper social strata of the population. The inhabitants eventually profited, however, from the struggle of the Flemings against francophone dominance. Linguistic legislation in 1963, based on the territoriality principle, upgraded German to an official language of the area, which, as a consequence of the subsequent constitutional changes, became an autonomous region. The Deutschsprachige Gemeinschaft, as it is now officially called, comprises the cantons of Eupen and Sankt Vith (some 65,000 people on 867 square kilometers) and has qualifications almost identical to those of the Flemish and Walloon communities. Having its own parliament and government, its population now constitutes, as Héraud (1989: 33–34) observes, probably the best protected linguistic minority in Europe. German is the official language of the administration, education and the judicial system, and it is the everyday language of those who live there. On the level of Belgium at large, though, it does not enjoy the same rights and privileges as Dutch or French and, consequently, its qualification by Ammon (1991: 65 ff.) as a “regionale Amtssprache” (‘regional official language’) is correct.

4 Luxembourg Luxembourg is also characterised by trilingual contact. In 1839 its current borders were drawn approximately along the Romance–Germanic language border. From that moment on, the Grand Duchy was inhabited by a population speaking a German dialect, while by historic tradition and political opportunity, the administrative and judicial language continued to be French (Gilles & Moulin 2003). According to Fehlen (2002), the situation in recent decades has been characterised by two interesting new aspects, viz. the language proficiency of the Luxembourgers as well as their changing attitudes toward them, and, secondly, the

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way the increasing number of immigrants is affecting the linguistic habits in that tiny country. In Luxembourg, Fehlen (2002: 92–93) states that we are witnessing “a legitimate multilingual language competence”, requiring a subtle understanding of the combination of various varieties of the three languages officially in use. The first of the three components is a profound proficiency in Lëtzebuergesch, the country’s koinë, displaying numerous borrowings from French. A high level of academic French is the second component, with proficiency in writing being equally, or even more important, in speaking. The French required is classical and ritual, rather than that meant for everyday communication. Since French is the language of prestige in Luxembourg, being proficient in it means claiming part of that prestige. Finally, being proficient in High German is required as well, although giving the impression of being too fluent in German is “not well considered”, as Fehlen (2002: 93) puts it. In the opinion of most Luxembourgers, the main function of Standard German is to write down what is said and thought in Lëtzebuergesch (cf. Horner & Weber, this volume, for how language attitudes and ideologies have affected the role of German and French). English is the first “real” foreign language Luxembourgers have to try to master. As French is devaluated by becoming a means of communication in the immigrant community (luso-luxo-French pidgin), English is gaining in prestige and is tending to become “the real means of distinction”. The number of students (presumably the children of the cultural and economic elite) who study in England and the United States is steadily increasing. Keeping up with three languages in a country in which there is basically only one mother tongue, demands an awful lot from the school system. The language of instruction in the early school years is Lëtzebuergesch, replaced by High German in the following classes, whereas in the final grades French is the language of instruction. French is considered to be the “really” difficult language and consequently, there is a common fear of not being able to speak the prestige language as well as one should. Certain situations, such as being asked by a shop assistant, in a more or less insistent manner, to speak French, “can give rise to feelings of humiliation, offence and embarrassment and the impression of having returned to school” (Fehlen 2002: 94). For the children of immigrants, and especially those coming from Romance language countries,⁴ the teaching of reading and writing in Lëtzebuergesch and German, using the method of “mother tongue German” presents a nearly insurmountable hurdle. Before reaching the particular school level where French is the

4 The large majority of early immigrants are of Italian of Portuguese origin.

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means of selection, all pupils must indeed establish their competence in German. An insufficient competence bars the access to the higher levels of secondary education. As a way out, some newcomers in Luxembourg will send their children to schools in Belgium or France. The top executives of international companies and European administrators have their children educated at the international schools in Luxembourg. Yet gradually, and for the first time in Luxembourg’s history, Fehlen observes, it is possible to live and work in Luxembourg without ever speaking Lëtzebuergesch and by using French instead. According to a recent survey, 20% of the residents say that they never speak Lëtzebuergesch. The political pressure from organisations defending the interests of foreigners to offer alphabetisation in French for children coming from Romance language speaking families is steadily increasing and pilot projects, such as the Walferdange bilingual school project (cf. Horner & Weber, this volume), have already been set up. Yet this evolution also presents some quite unexpected side effects. Since the European Union no longer accepts nationality as a criterion for access to most jobs in the public service sector of its member states, Lëtzebuergesch becomes the last stronghold to restrict newcomers’ access to this protected area. And those civil servants who formerly favoured speaking French are now becoming fervent supporters of Lëtzebuergesch. So the definition of what Fehlen calls “legitimate linguistic competences” will, he says, undoubtedly become an ever more hotly discussed item in Luxembourg’s political world and, in this context, one may wonder whether the increasing interest in Lëtzebuergesch may also be interpreted as a reaction of the establishment against the competition of newcomers.

5 Typology of language borders and patterns of change 5.1 Language borders As may have become clear from the above, the notion of “language border” is not easy to define. It is obvious that language areas are seldom separated by a clear-cut line (Willemyns 2007). Usually, there is some kind of transitional zone between them and a demarcation line, therefore, will always be of a somewhat arbitrary character. In such transition zones, a social variable, rather than a geographic one, is often decisive for linguistic “affiliation”. Dialect-geographers are

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very familiar with these kinds of problems, and to cope with them they tend to make use not so much of a theoretical but of a practical solution, which may differ from one region to another. Both in a historical and a contemporary sense, it may be necessary to refer to an “intuitive consensus” on language borders. In the case of French Flanders, for example, there is a general consensus among scholars to consider the isogloss used in dialect-geographic studies as “the” language border between the Romance and the Germanic dialects in the region (it is reproduced in, among others, Pée 1957). The same applied to Belgium up to 1963, the year in which the language border was laid down by law. From then onward the notion of “language border” has been used in a sociolinguistic sense, meaning that it separates two regions in which either Dutch or French are the official languages, disregarding any possible bilingual communication which may actually occur in the transition zone: the language border coincides with the border separating different administrative entities. As far as regards the changes which are discussed in this chapter are concerned, two essentially different types need to be noted: a. language shift resulting in “erosion”, meaning that the contact situation has been decisively changed in the course of history although the “language border” (in the traditional sense) has not changed its course. Since in Belgium the constitutional notion of language border not only refers to the demarcation lines between monolingual territories but also to the demarcation lines between monolingual and officially bilingual zones, “erosion” is also used to characterise a decisive change of the situation within bilingual zones. What previously occurred in the “Voerstreek” and the Brussels hinterland is not a fluctuation of the language border, but an erosion from within, due to the sociological mechanism of “upward social mobility and integration”, as well as to Francophone immigration. b. language shift resulting in a change of the location of the border, meaning that places which used to be part of the transition zone have, in the course of time, definitely moved into the monolingual zone on either side of the border. Actually, incidences of places really shifting from one community to the other are rare. Still, the villages that the 1963 Belgian law relocated in a different language community are examples of this type of change. History shows that demarcation lines between different languages, or dialects, can remain remarkably stable over centuries, but also that changes in the political and/or social constellation may account for dramatic alterations leading to language shift and eventually language loss. Even so, the situation in the field demonstrates that only (conscious or semi-conscious) language planning ini-

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tiatives may entail durable, irreversible change. Planned political interference of various kinds (and linguistic legislation is only one of them) accounts for a process of socially determined shift, resulting in language erosion on one side of the language border and eventually in complete loss. Since language planning initiatives may be of a contradictory nature – either to encourage the “offensive” language or to support the “defensive” one – political and sociological factors will decisively determine the eventual outcome.

5.2 Language changes Changes that have occurred in the regions analysed in this chapter can alternatively be classified into different types or patterns: a. “monolingualisation” of formerly bilingual or bicultural villages, as is the case in some of the communities along the language border over its whole length (A > Ab > aB > B).⁵ This is the case in almost all villages of French Flanders or Altbelgien; b. “bilingualisation” of formerly mostly monolingual communities, i.e. “frenchification”, e.g. in the border villages of Brussels, some of which have indeed been annexed to the Brussels bilingual community in the course of time; bilingualisation also occurred massively in Alsace and South Tyrol. c. the evolution in Brussels itself, although very specific, is mainly of type b. In Belgium, the overall result of change and shift has been that we are now in the presence of a firmly monolingualised country, divided into autonomous communities based on linguistic homogeneity and determined to reduce the political consequences of language contact at their borders to a strict minimum. In so doing, the language border has become the most important internal boundary to which all pre-existing administrative delimitations have been subordinated. The only interesting place left (from a (socio)linguistic point of view) is Brussels. The principle of territoriality does not apply here; there is no official demarcation line between speakers of both languages and no way of officially controlling language contact or potential shift either.

5 That is, monolingual A > bilingual A prominent > bilingual B prominent > monolingual B

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6 Some conclusions Since language border change is brought about by extralinguistic factors, e.g. political change, as was the case in French Flanders, Alsace or South Tyrol, language border research has very often been influenced or even inspired by political motives. For a very long time, language border theories supported by ideology instead of by facts have provided arguments for language political decisions or language planning initiatives. The Romance languages seem to have always been more aggressive and almost all the changes in the Romance–Germanic language border in the course of history have been to the detriment of the Germanic languages.⁶ Apparently this has been the case from the very beginning since, according to Van Durme (2002: 15), “[t]he fact that the language border in Belgium and Northern France is not currently situated more to the south probably has to be explained by the Frankish willingness to assimilate”. As to the typology of the Romance–Germanic language border, we can see that very different types occur, varying from no official existence or acknowledgment at all (France), to very powerful internal administrative borders (Switzerland and, most of all, Belgium) over borders which are not geographical but social (not horizontal but vertical, i.e. when various groups speak a different language in the same territory). These social distinctions are usually a sign of ongoing language shift or erosion.

7 References Ammon, Ulrich. 1991. Die internationale Stellung der deutschen Sprache. Berlin & New York: Walter De Gruyter. Baetens Beardsmore, Hugo. 1990. The evolution and current status of Brussels as a bilingual city. In H. Baetens Beardsmore (ed.), Bilingualism in Education: Theory and Practice. Brussels: Pre-prints in Linguistics 11, # 3. Bister Broosen, Helga. 2002. Alsace. In Jeanine Treffers & Roland Willemyns (eds.), Language Contact at the Romance–Germanic language border, 98–111. Special issue of Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 23(1/2). Darquennes, Jeroen. 2005. Sprachvitalisierung aus kontaktlinguistischer Sicht: Theorie und Praxis am Beispiel Altbelgien-Süd. St Augustin: Asgard-Verlag. De Metsenaere, Machteld. 1998. Talentellingen. In Nieuwe Encyclopedie van de Vlaamse Beweging, 2950–2956. Tielt: Lannoo.

6 But see the final chapter in this collection by Watts for an exception to this general “rule“.

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De Metsenaere, Machteld & Els Witte. 1990. Taalverlies en taalbehoud bij de Vlamingen te Brussel in de negentiende eeuw. Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden 105. 1–38. Detant, A. 1998. Randgemeenten. In Nieuwe Encyclopedie van de Vlaamse Beweging, 2536–2547. Tielt: Lannoo. Deschouwer, K. & D. Mariette. 1993. De westerse migranten in Brussel en in de rand. In E. Witte (ed.), De Brusselse rand, 423–449. Brussel: VUBPress. De Schryver, Reginald. 1998. Faciliteiten In Nieuwe Encyclopedie van de Vlaamse Beweging, 1105–1107. Tielt: Lannoo. De Vriendt, Sera & Roland Willemyns. 1987. Linguistic research on Brussels. In Els Witte & Hugo Baetens Beardsmore (eds.), The Interdisciplinary Study of Urban Bilingualism in Brussels,195–231. Clevedon & Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters. Deweerdt, Marc.1998. Taalgrens. In Nieuwe Encyclopedie van de Vlaamse Beweging, 2956–2962. Tielt: Lannoo. De Witte, K. 1975. Randgemeenten In Encyclopedie van de Vlaamse Beweging,1286–1299. Tielt: Lannoo. Eichinger, Ludwig. 2002. South Tyrol: German and Italian in a changing world. In Jeanine Treffers & Roland Willemyns (eds.), Language Contact at the Romance-Germanic language border, 137–149. Special issue of Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 23(1/2). Fehlen, Fernand. 2002. Luxembourg, a multilingual society at the Romance/Germanic language border. In Jeanine Treffers & Roland Willemyns (eds.), Language Contact at the Romance-Germanic language border, 80–97. Special issue of Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 23(1/2). Gilles, Peter & Claudine Moulin. 2003. Luxembourgish. In Ana Deumert & Wim Vandenbussche (eds.), Germanic Standardizations: Past to Present, 303–330. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Goossens, Jan. 1998. Overmaas. In Nieuwe Encyclopedie van de Vlaamse Beweging, 2367–2368. Tielt: Lannoo. Gubin, Elise. 1978. La situation des langues à Bruxelles au XIXme siècle à la lumière d’un examen critique des statistiques. Taal en Sociale Integratie 1. 33–79. Héraud, Guy.1989. Deutsch als Umgangs- und Muttersprache in der Europäischen Gemeinschaft. Synthesebericht. In R. Kern (ed.), Deutsch als Umgangs- und Muttersprache in der Europäischen Gemeinschaft, 31–49. Brüssel: Europäisches Büro für Sprachminderheiten – Belgisches Komitee. Janssens, Rudi. 2007. Over Brussel gesproken. Taalgebruik, taalverscheidenheid en taalidentiteit in het Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest. Brussel: VUBPress. Knooihuizen, R. 2011. The use of historical demography for historical sociolinguistics: The case of Dunkirk. In N. Langer, W. Davies & W. Vandenbussche (eds.), Language and History, Linguistics and Historiography, 323–340. Oxford: Peter Lang. Loicq, J. 1993. Théonymes celto-germaniques en Gaule du Nord. In André Crépin, Danielle Buschinger & Wolfgang Spiewok (eds.), Etudes linguistiques en l’honneur d’André Crépin, 245–253. Greifswald: Reineke Verlag. Martens, P. 1975. Taalgrens. In Encyclopedie van de Vlaamse Beweging, 1552–1562. Tielt: Lannoo. McRae, K. 1975. The principle of personality and the principle of territoriality in multilingual states. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 4. 35–54.

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Mettewie, Laurence. 2007. Elèves non-néerlandophones dans l’enseignement néerlandophone à Bruxelles: analyse des répercussions éducatives de la traversée de la frontière linguistique. In Laurent Puren & Sophie Babault (eds.), L’éducation au-delà des frontières, 141–178. Paris: L’Harmattan. Mettewie, Laurence & Luk van Mensel.2009. Multilingualism at all costs: Language use and language needs in business in Brussels. Sociolinguistica 23. 131–149. Murphy, Alexander. 1988. The regional dynamics of language differentiation in Belgium. University of Chicago: Geography Research Paper # 227. Nelde, Peter. 1979. Volkssprache und Kultursprache. Die gegenwärtige Lage des sprachlichen Übergangsgebietes im deutsch–belgisch–luxemburgischen Grenzraum. Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik, Beihefte # 31. Pée, Willem.1957. Anderhalve eeuw taalgrensverschuiving en taaltoestand in Frans-Vlaanderen. Amsterdam: Bijdragen en Mededelingen van de Dialectencommissie #17. Rash, Felicity. 2002. The German–Romance language borders in Switzerland. In Jeanine Treffers & Roland Willemyns (eds.), Language Contact at the Romance-Germanic language border, 112–136. Special issue of Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 23(1/2). Ruys, Manu. 1973. The Flemings, a People on the Move, a Nation in Being. Tielt: Lannoo. Ryckeboer, Hugo. 1997. Het Nederlands in Noord-Frankrijk: Sociolinguïstische, dialectologische en contactlinguïstische aspecten. Gent: Universiteit. Ryckeboer, Hugo. 2002. Dutch/Flemish in the North of France. In Jeanine Treffers & Roland Willemyns (eds.), Language Contact at the Romance-Germanic language border, 22–35. Special issue of Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 23(1/2). Vandermeeren, Sonja. 1996. Language attitudes on either side of the linguistic frontier: A sociolinguistic survey in the Voeren/Fouron-area in Old Belgium North. In U.Ammon & M. Hellinger (eds.), Contrastive Sociolinguistics, 157–174. Berlin &New York: W. de Gruyter. Van Durme, Luc. 2002. Genesis and evolution of the Romance–Germanic language border in Europe. In Jeanine Treffers & Roland Willemyns (eds.), Language Contact at the RomanceGermanic language border, 9–21. Special issue of Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 23(1/2). Van Loon, Jozef. 2010. Neue Erkenntnisse und Hypothesen über die Germanenstellen bei Caesar und Tacitus. Handelingen van de Koninklijke Commissie voor Toponymie en Dialectologie LXXXII. 325–362. Verhulst, Adriaan, Machteld de Metsenaere & Marc Deweerdt. 1998. Taalgrens. In Nieuwe Encyclopedie van de Vlaamse Beweging, 2949–2962. Tielt: Lannoo. Willemyns, Roland. 1997. Toward a plurilingual urban environment: Language policy and language planning in Brussels. In M. Pütz (ed.), Language Choices: Conditions, Constraints, and Consequences, 179–193. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Willemyns, Roland. 2002. The Dutch–French language border in Belgium. In Jeanine Treffers & Roland Willemyns (eds.), Language Contact at the Romance-Germanic language border, 36–49. Special issue of Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 23(1/2). Willemyns, Roland. 2007. 175 Jahre Sprachplanung und Sprachenpolitik in Belgien. In Anne Begenat-Neuschäfer (ed.), Belgien im Blick: Interkulturelle Bestandsaufnahmen, 209–231. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Willemyns, Roland. 2013. Dutch: Biography of a Language. New York: Oxford University Press. Witte, Els. 1993a. De plaats van Brussel in het gefederaliseerde België. Internationale Spectator 47. 560–565.

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Witte, Els. 1993b. Faciliteiten voor taalminderheden in de Brusselse rand. In Els Witte (ed.), De Brusselse rand, 168–209. Brussel: VUBPress. Witte, Els & Harry van Velthoven. 1998. Taalpolitiek en -wetgeving. In Nieuwe Encyclopedie van de Vlaamse Beweging, 2994–3043. Tielt: Lannoo. Witte, Els & Harry van Velthoven. 2010. Strijden om taal. De Belgische taalkwestie in historisch perspectief. Kapellen: Pelckmans. [English translation 2011: Languages in Contact and in Conflict. The Belgian Case. Kapellen: Pelckmans].

Ulrike Vogl

Chapter 4 Standard language ideology and the history of Romance–Germanic encounters 1 Standard language ideology and language historiography Gal (2009) is one of the many experts who point to the standard language ideology as underlying dominant views on language in Europe. She even takes it one step further and claims that the concept of language as we know it – language as a discrete entity – is a European invention. It was invented in Early Modern times, a period when interest in the vernacular languages of Europe increased remarkably (cf. Burke 2004: 15ff). This interest manifested itself in the creation of grammars and dictionaries which praised each of the vernacular languages as the most beautiful language. These grammars were oriented towards Latin, which served as a model for how languages should be: immutable and pure. Grammar writing in Early Modern times laid the foundation for later traditions of language historiography. In many cases, these later traditions included an “authoritative history” (cf. Milroy 2001: 548) in which the language in question is traced back to its early roots. Both Milroy (2001: 549) and Burke (2004) criticise the practice of claiming continuity from mediaeval or early modern language varieties to modern national languages within the same territory. Burke (2004: 61) refers to this common practice as a “Whig” history of language, i.e. a language history in which certain varieties were bound to be the “winner”, to finally become the undisputed national standard language. According to him, this practice does not do justice to the complexity of the process of language selection: depending on the social and political context, other varieties could have become the dominant language. In other words, language histories in Europe are generally written from the perspective of standard languages, and competing varieties within the same territory are not taken into account. More specifically, this common practice of “Whig histories” is not only typically European but also Western European as can be seen from the fact that the early traditions of codification of the vernacular are characteristic for certain language areas in Europe, mostly in the West and the North. They are specific for, among others, French, Spanish, Dutch and English (the “early standard lan-

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guages”, cf. Vogl 2012: 22). The view of Eastern and South-eastern Europe – specifically the Balkan region – as a chaotic mix of peoples, religions and languages evolved from this Western perspective from the 19th century onwards. This was in clear opposition to the ideal of “one-nation-one-language”. Consequently, the language situation there was depicted in a simpler way, focusing on sets of larger homogeneous language territories and “hiding” smaller and often linguistically mixed border regions. Irvine and Gal (2000: 37–39) propose underlying semiotic processes by which the one-to-one relationship between language and territory is accomplished. There is, for example, the process of erasure whereby certain  – non-standard, multilingual – practices are omitted from debates. They apply these to the Southeastern European context and to common depictions of (post)colonial contexts. Gal (2009: 14) also applies it to minority and migration contexts when she writes that “the dominant ideology of language in Europe today is ‘standard language’. It simultaneously shapes and hides many of the actual practices of speakers, especially minorities and migrants”. In this chapter, we look at the language historiography of the Romance–Germanic border region in Belgium. More specifically, we investigate how language contact between Romance and Germanic varieties is depicted in language histories of the Low Countries. We assume that language histories in this particular context are equally biased by standard language ideology and that practices deviating from this ideal tend to be “hidden”.

2 Elements of standard language ideology In the introductory section, we stressed the impact of standard language ideology on how “we”, laypersons and professional linguists alike, have learned to assess and describe language practices over the centuries – in Europe, and specifically in Western Europe. Milroy (2001: 543ff.) also emphasises the influence of the ideology of standardisation on the work of linguists (see also Davies 2012) and stresses its impact on descriptive, theoretical and historical linguistics. Thus far, however, we have not discussed the core elements of what is generally known as “standard language ideology”. Two core elements are the “ideology of correctness” and the “ideology of the hierarchisation of varieties” (cf., for example, Milroy & Milroy 2012). With “hierarchisation of varieties”, we refer to the widespread idea that there is (or has to be) such a thing as “the one best variety” and, as a result, varieties that are inferior to this best variety. Generally, “the one best variety” is the national or standard language, as opposed to regional

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or social dialects. Even linguistic terminology reconfirms this hierarchisation by employing the terms standard (=default) and non-standard (=deviation from the standard; cf., for example, Elspaß & Maitz 2012 on this issue). Language histories that focus on a specific standard language commonly depict instances of extensive dialect use as a temporary state that had to be overcome, for example, the case of Dutch in the Southern Low Countries (cf. 4.1.1). The power of the “ideology of correctness” manifests itself in a strong conviction of the average speaker about the correct and incorrect forms within one language. Moreover, there is a belief that there should be only one correct variety of a language (the aforementioned “one best variety”). In the Low Countries, one recurring topic in language histories is the incorrect use of Dutch in the South in the centuries after the Fall of Antwerp in 1585, an iconic event which marked the division of the Southern part of the Dutch language area (roughly presentday Flanders) from the Northern part (roughly present-day Netherlands).¹ In this case, “incorrect” is used in comparison with correct forms that are used in the North (cf. 4.1.1). The ideal of “the one best variety” with its clear norms of correctness entails that even speakers who learned a language variety of the region as their first language still have to learn their mother tongue (or rather: the abstract ideal of their mother tongue as a standard language).² Therefore, if they do not learn their language properly, they are not “adequate speakers” of the language (cf. speakers of Flemish dialects in the South; cf. 4.1.1) The ideology of correctness comprises a few specific properties that are deemed desirable for “the one best variety”, such as uniformity, discreteness and stability (cf. Milroy 2001: 543). First, uniformity implies, for example, uniformity of spelling. Today it is “common sense” that any particular word should always be spelt in the same way. However, this claim was clearly not relevant before the Early Modern period, as indicated by the inconsistent manner of spelling in mediaeval documents. In practice, consistent spellings were not very widespread until the twentieth century (cf. Rutten & Vosters 2011; Van der Wal 2010: 141ff.; Elspaß 2002). Second, “discreteness” refers to the ideal of a language which is clearly delimitable from any other variety. In other words, it should be self-evident where one language ends and the other language begins. Third, “stability” manifests itself in resistance to changes in grammar and pronunciation and in opposition

1 For an overview of the course of events in the language history of Belgium, cf., for example, Vogl & Hüning 2010. 2 In the words of Milroy (2001: 537), “the ideology requires us to accept that language (or a language) is not the possession of the native speakers”.

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to lexical change, e.g. loanwords. These three elements are seen as the core of “standard language ideology” (Milroy 2001: 543; Milroy & Milroy 2012; Weber & Horner 2012: 17), and they are all linked to what we can call “purist activities”. The notion of “purist” and “purism” requires clarification. For many Western European standard languages, language histories contain records of purist tendencies and provide names of “purism activists”.³ Purism – in terms of an opposition to features of foreign origin (cf. the definition of Trask 1999: 254) – is said to occur in all language communities. However, “purism” in a wider sense refers to an opposition to undesirable elements from any variety including dialects, sociolects and styles used by the same speech community. At the same time, it implies strong support for retaining certain desirable elements. In other words, it implies, in a certain way, a struggle for stability (cf. Van der Sijs 1999: 11; Langer & Davies 2005: 3). Thus, striving for a pure, discrete and stable language, is intrinsic to the processes of language standardisation across Europe. For this reason, we must take into account that linguistic purism is not only a tendency in history linked to specific actors (as, for example, the Dutch “purist” Balthazar Huydecoper), but that it is also part of the dominant (standard) language ideology. Moreover, we can expect it to underlie (some) language historical accounts. Finally, we move beyond the above-named core elements and consider the social implications of striving for standard languages. Deumert & Vandenbussche (2003: 461) emphasise that the reason for our view of language being influenced to such a great extent by standard language ideology is that standard languages have been instrumentalised for social and political purposes for centuries. Having one specific standard language as a mother tongue and being able to use it in the correct way has become socially relevant through the spread of schooling and the introduction of compulsory education. It has developed into a prerequisite for social mobility and has been important up to the present day. Another discourse in which standard languages have played an important part is that of democracy in the 19th century. In this case, the focus is on the ideal of a language that is uniform and stable within the boundaries of a political entity. The “shared linguistic sphere” was seen as a precondition for a viable democracy by 19th-century political thinkers such as John Stuart Mill (cf. Peled 2012). Furthermore, standard languages have been instrumentalised as national languages: (at least) since the end of the 18th century, a one-to-one-relationship 3 From the Dutch language area we have, for example, 16th-century mathematician Simon Stevin (cf. De Vries et al. 1993: 62) and the 18th-century grammarian Balthazar Huydecoper (cf. De Vries et al. 1993: 88).

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between belonging to a nation and speaking the language of that nation has become not only the ideal but also the “normal” relationship. As a consequence, practically every context in which this ideal is not met is seen either as an exception (e.g. Luxembourg and Switzerland) or as a problem. In the Low Countries, this concerns, for example, the case of Brussels and the surrounding area. The underlying “one-nation-one-language ideology” concerning this region will be dealt with in section 4.2. In the next section, we present the corpus of texts for analysis and explain our methodological approach to these texts.

3 Corpus and methodological approach For this chapter, we analyse texts on the history of language contact in the Romance–Germanic border region. My approach to these texts is a discourse analytical approach, i.e. I regard the texts as constructive of how we – linguists and laypersons – think and speak about past and present language contact in the area. We aim to explore and make explicit the language ideologies informing these texts. In doing so, we expect to reveal elements of standard language ideology (as elaborated in the previous section), and I aim to identify “discourse models” underlying the linguistic past of the region in question. Gee (2011:  170) uses the designation “typical story” to help us grasp the essence of “discourse models”; he explains that “discourse model” stand for what a speaker or writer must have assumed to be “typical” or “normal” regarding language to, for example, tell the (hi)story of a language in a certain manner (or the contact between various languages in a region). Gee (2011: 176) also stresses that “discourse models” are commonly shared by social groups, such as groups from a specific academic discipline. To discover more about “discourse models” related to the history of Romance– Germanic encounters, we selected four books which provide an overview of the external history of Dutch, as shown in table 1.

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Table 1. Selected Books on History of Dutch

Title

Author(s)

Year of publication

Geschiedenis van het Nederlands⁴ [History of Dutch]

Marijke van der Wal & Cor van Bree

1992

Het verhaal van een taal⁵ [The story of a language]

Jan de Vries, Roland Willemyns & Peter Burger

1993

Het Nederlands vroeger en nu⁶ [Dutch now and then]

Guy Janssens & Ann Marynissen

2003

4 In this book, I focused specifically on chapter 13, “De strijd voor en om het Nederlands in Vlaanderen” [‘The struggle for and about Dutch in Flanders’], which was written by Cor van Bree. A second revised edition was published in 1994, and a third in 2008. The chapter on Dutch in Flanders, however, remained unchanged. 5 Six unchanged reprints of Het verhaal van een taal [‘The story of a language’] appeared after 1993. Het verhaal van een taal was so successful that a fourth printing was issued within a year of its initial publication. Moreover, a television documentary in four parts, based on Het verhaal van een taal, was broadcast in 1993 and had several re-runs. In Het verhaal van een taal, we focus specifically on chapter 4 (“Nieuwnederlands in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw” [‘Modern Dutch in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’]), chapter 6 (“De Vlaamse strijd” [‘The Flemish struggle’]), chapter 10 (“Verschillen tussen Noord- en Zuidnederlands; Vlamingen en Nederlanders over hun eigen taal en de taal van hun buren” [‘Differences between Northern and Southern Dutch; the Flemish and the Dutch on their own language and the language of their neighbours’]) and chapter 12 (“De grenzen van het Nederlands: Frans-Vlaanderen, de Belgische taalgrens en Brussel; de Nederlands-Duitse taalgrens; het Friese taalgebied” [‘The borders of Dutch: French Flanders, the Belgian language border and Brussels; the Dutch-German language border; the Frisian language area’]). The chapters were written by Jan de Vries (chapter 4) and Roland Willemyns respectively. We are well aware that, in 2009, a revised and supplemented edition of Het verhaal van een taal by Nicoline van der Sijs and Roland Willemyns was published under the title Het verhaal van het Nederlands [‘The story of Dutch’] (Van der Sijs and Willemyns 2009). However, because the original Het verhaal van een taal was widely used until then, we consider it justified to select the original for our corpus. In Het verhaal van het Nederlands, in particular, the chapters dealing with the history of Dutch in the South have been thoroughly rewritten by Roland Willemyns in the light of the findings from empirical research on 18th- and 19th-century language use in Flanders (cf. footnote 8). The same, however, holds true for the fourth textbook that we selected as part of our corpus – Het verhaal van het Vlaams [‘The story of Flemish’], also written by Roland Willemyns: it is also based on findings from empirical research on 18th- and 19th- century language use in Flanders, and some passages from Het verhaal van het Nederlands overlap with passages from Het verhaal van het Vlaams (see, for example, p. 30 and p. 341 on Brussels). 6 In this book, we focused on chapter 4 (“Nieuwnederlands” [‘Modern Dutch’]) and section 6.1 (“Het Nederlands in Brussel-Hoofdstad” [‘Dutch in Brussels-Capital’]). Both chapters were written by Guy Janssens. There are two slightly revised editions of Janssens and Marynissen (2003) from 2005 and 2008. The chapters that we selected remained unchanged.

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Title

Author(s)

Year of publication

Het verhaal van het Vlaams [The story of Flemish]

Roland Willemyns⁷ & Wim Daniëls

2003

What the four books have in common is the target audience: students from higher education institutions and interested laypersons, as well as colleagues from Dutch linguistics and literature studies. In the blurb for Geschiedenis van het Nederlands [‘History of Dutch’] we can read a very general statement regarding the target audience: “Dit overzicht is van groot belang voor ieder die zich met onze taal bezighoudt” [‘This overview is of great importance for everyone who is concerned with our language’]. In the preface, the authors are more specific and claim to reach “studerenden aan universiteiten en HBO-opleidingen en de bredere kring van geïnteresseerden. Wij hopen echter dat ook collega’s taal- en letterkundigen … in dit boek iets van hun gading zullen vinden” [‘university students and HBO (Higher Professional Education) students and the broader circle of interested parties. We hope, however, that colleagues from linguistics and literary studies will also find something that interests them’]. Janssens & Marynissen (2003) additionally cater to students of Dutch at universities outside the Low Countries. Moreover, we can state that the four books are clearly designed as textbooks for educational purposes and for reading pleasure, as they contain no references in the text; instead, they make use of sections containing recommendations for further reading. Additionally, the four books share authors from similar professional backgrounds: they are professional linguists from the Low Countries with expertise in different fields of linguistics – among others, historical linguistics and sociolinguistics. However, despite the common ground these books share regarding the content, target audience and professional background of the authors, there are also relevant differences. These differences mainly concern Het verhaal van het Vlaams, as opposed to the other three textbooks. First, three books (Geschiedenis van het Nederlands, Het verhaal van een taal and Het Nederlands vroeger en nu) focus clearly on the history of Dutch in the North (present-day Netherlands),

7 In 2013, there appeared another history of the Dutch language by Roland Willemyns, Dutch: Biography of a Language (Willemyns 2013), published by Oxford University Press. It is designed for a more international audience of linguistics students and professional linguists (who do not necessarily have to know Dutch) than the four Dutch textbooks of our corpus. It is equally based on the results from empirical research on language use in the South in the 18th and 19th centuries that has been carried out in the past few decades (cf. footnote 8).

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whereas the fourth (Het verhaal van het Vlaams) explicitly pays attention to developments in the South. Second, Het verhaal van het Vlaams makes use of findings from empirical research on 18th- and 19th-century language use in Flanders. These findings are based on source materials from archives containing documents from local administrations, private correspondence and scientific writings from this period, among others.⁸ Thus, on the one hand, we expect to find evidence for shared “discourse models” in this specific type of textbook on the external history of Dutch, which were written by authors from a shared professional background. On the other hand, we also look for indications of “deviations” from these models;⁹ these variations can be parts in the accounts where commonly accepted information – for example, that Dutch in Brussels is threatened by French – is put into perspective, such as when the author points to the presence of a multitude of other languages in Brussels (cf. 4.2). We expect that “deviations” are more likely to be detected in Het verhaal van het Vlaams, as it takes a different perspective (with a focus on the Southern Low Countries) and is based on new insights from empirical research. Before proceeding to the analysis of the selected texts, the relationship between “discourse models” and “ideology” should be further discussed. The question may arise as to whether there is a difference between the two, and if there is, then what is the nature of this difference. Geeraerts (2003: 3) notes that it is commonly assumed that “the cultural models underlying reasoning and argumentation are to some extent idealized entities”. He elaborates that from the perspective of cognitive linguistics, these models can be seen as helping us to understand complicated phenomena. For example, speaking of “the native speaker of Dutch” is a method of simplifying a complex reality of varying competencies (“how much native is native?”) in different spoken varieties (“a native speaker of which Dutch?”) by having an “ideal” speaker as a point of reference. This simplification is done by laypersons and linguists alike: every attempt at counting languages and distinguishing between languages is guided by the ideal of clearly delimited, stable languages (thus: standard languages). However, the crucial point, as Geeraerts (2003: 3) stresses, is that the idealised character is sometimes forgotten: in this case, the difference between the linguistic reality (people with varying competencies in various language varieties) and

8 Regarding the 19th century, cf., among others, Vandenbussche 1996; Vanhecke & de Groof 2007 and Vosters and Vandenbussche 2009; on the 18th century, see Rutten 2011. 9 This strategy is inspired by the “rich points” that an ethnographer looks for in his/her data. In the words of Agar (2003: 6): “A gap, a distance, between two worlds has just surfaced in the details of human activity. Rich points, the words and actions that signal those gaps, are the unit of data for ethnographers …”.

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the abstract model (people speaking one clearly defined language perfectly) is disregarded. In other cases, not only is the idealised character forgotten but the “discourse model” is also applied in a prescriptive rather than a descriptive way. This means that, the “one-nation-one-language ideology” (a one-to-one relationship between being the speaker of a certain language and belonging to a certain nation) is instrumentalised to exclude certain groups of speakers and deny them access to democratic participation and social mobility (then, as Geeraerts [2003: 4] points out, we are dealing with models of “how things should be” and not “how things are”). In practice, it is not always easy to draw a line between an abstract or idealised model and an ideological model, in terms of an “action-oriented system of beliefs” (cf. Blommaert 1999). As for standard languages, which are the focal point of this article, we have already pointed out their social impact in section 2; for example, how they were instrumentalised from the 19th century onwards as the only path to social mobility. Moreover, their relevance, or rather dominance, has been stressed by Gal (2009) and Irvine & Gal (2000) (cf. section 1), who focus on the fact that, in Europe, the difference between the “ideal” of standard languages and linguistic practice is often neglected. Therefore, certain – non-standard, multilingual – practices are excluded from debates. In the present corpus, we are looking for “discourse models” that are specific for the context of the Low Countries and can be seen as a way of providing a “simpler” view of a very complex history of language contact. Nevertheless, we can expect models, reasoning and arguments that are informed by standard language ideologies and therefore have the potential of reproducing linguistic and social inequalities. As one of the core elements of the standard language ideology is the belief in discrete, pure and uniform languages (the “ideology of correctness”), accounts of language history that are informed by the standard language ideology commonly present instances of language contact as inseparable from language conflict.¹⁰ In the following section, we show how, in the corpus, contact between Dutch and French is framed as a conflict situation in which Dutch is threatened by French.

10 This idea of an “inseparability of language contact and language conflict” is not only characteristic for the historiography of multilingual regions but – as “Nelde’s Law” – it has also been a very influential position in language contact research for the past decades (cf. the introduction to this volume).

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4 Contact and conflict in textbooks of Dutch language history The first discourse model that we identified from our material is related to the French annexation of the South in 1794. The French regime in the Southern Low Countries lasted from 1794 to 1814, and it is said that, in this period, the pressure on Dutch (mainly from the dominant French language) was at its climax (cf. 4.1). The second discourse model is linked to the federalisation process in Belgium, and it pictures the implementation of the territoriality principle as the path towards the survival of Dutch against the threat of French – especially in Brussels and the surrounding areas (cf. 4.2). The texts from the corpus are informed, to a certain extent, by these discourse models. In the following section, we provide a more detailed analysis.

4.1 Decay of Dutch in the South in the shadow of French The situation of Dutch in the South is contrasted with the situation in the North and with the position of French. The Northern Low Countries are depicted as the place where there was a genuine interest in the Dutch language. The North is presented as the region where the process of standardisation was taking place and where speakers of the language were dedicated to using it in its highest and purest form. The South, however, is portrayed as “being cut off” from the activities in the North and as a place where a true concern for the mother tongue was the exception rather than the rule.

4.1.1 Decay of Dutch in the South The contrast between the South and the North is expressed, for example, in the following excerpt: In de periode dat er in het Noorden een eenheidstaal werd opgebouwd, kwam het standaardiseringsproces in het Zuiden tot stilstand … [‘While a uniform language was being built in the North, the process of standardisation came to a halt in the South …’]. (Janssens & Marynissen 2003: 105)

Interest in the Dutch language is considered to have decreased through the centuries, as written Dutch played an increasingly marginal role:

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Aan het einde van de zeventiende eeuw werd er nog literair werk van belang geschreven in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden … maar in de loop van de achttiende eeuw raakte het Nederlands in verval. [‘At the end of the 17th century, important works of literature were still written in the Southern Netherlands; … in the course of the 18th century, however, the Dutch language started to decay.’] (Vries et al. 1993: 95)

The decline of Dutch in the written domain is contrasted with the continuing use of Dutch dialects by the common people. The above text continues as follows: Maar het volk bleef het plaatselijke dialect spreken. [‘The common people, however, continued to speak the local dialect.’] (De Vries et al. 1993: 97)

Although the endurance of spoken varieties of Dutch figures as something positive in view of the growing dominance of French, the exclusive use of dialects is framed as part of the “decay story” of Dutch in the South. For example, Willemyns & Daniëls (2003: 179) state the following: Op het einde van de Franse periode was het Nederlands in het Zuiden een totaal prestigeloze taal, die … alleen in de vorm van lokale dialecten verder leefde als regionaal communicatiemiddel … . Veel meer dan de verfransing zou dat het grote obstakel zijn voor de pogingen, later in de negentiende eeuw, om het Nederlands weer tot de bestuurstaal van Vlaanderen te maken. [‘At the end of the period of French dominance, Dutch in the South was a language completely devoid of prestige, which … only continued to exist in the form of local dialects as a regional medium of communication … . It would, later in the 19th century, prove a much greater obstacle to the attempts at re-establishing Dutch as the language of administration in Flanders than would frenchification.’]

We do not deny that varieties of Dutch in the South indeed were judged as inferior because of the absence of a common standard. However, we want to stress that dialects (or non-standardised varieties) are, of course, not intrinsically inferior to standardised varieties. They are only considered inferior and inappropriate for official purposes because there is such a thing as a standard language (roughly since Early Modern times) and because our belief in “the one best variety” has led us to the assumption that dialects are lower in the hierarchy than standard languages. Therefore, in a way, dialect use in the South can only become an “obstacle” in the “decay story” of Dutch in that area, because we have come to live in a standardised universe¹¹ in which all languages are measured against the 11 Milroy (2001: 539) devotes a section to “language in an unstandardized universe”. He refers to research on Austronesian languages that found that speakers do not even have a conception of language (let alone, standard language) but only of “speaking”. In contrast, “speakers” in Europe generally live in a “standardised universe” (or “standard language culture”, cf. Gal 2009) where languages are equated with standard languages.

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ideal of “the one best variety”. Thus, every account mentioning Flemish dialects as a problem in the emancipation process of Dutch in the South is informed by a standard language ideology, more specifically by an “ideology of the hierarchisation of varieties”.¹² While in the above-mentioned fragments from the textbooks, the focus is on the marginal role of (Standard) Dutch in various domains in the South, there are also passages with comments about people’s proficiency in Dutch in the South. Generally, the remarks refer to a linguistic deficit of the people in the South as compared with those in the North. This is not only reported for earlier centuries but also claimed for the 20th century. The deficit is framed in terms of a lack of standardisation, particularly, a lack of familiarity with the written as well as the spoken standard language. In this part of the account, indications of an underlying “ideology of correctness” can be found. As seen in the above citations from the textbooks, we find references to the struggle for one correct form of a language (“een eenheidstaal” [‘a uniform language’]), which took place in the North. The example given below clearly shows that believing in the existence of one correct form implies that even native speakers have to learn their mother tongue (in its standard form), an opportunity which the Flemish had only in a very limited form until the 20th century: De Vlamingen, die pas in 1930 in hun moedertaal konden gaan studeren, hadden te kampen met grote achterstand. Ze beheersten de Nederlandse cultuurtaal onvoldoende. De dialecten hadden in Vlaanderen een zeer sterke positie. [‘The Flemish, who could only get a university education in their mother tongue from 1930 onward, were faced with a great deficit. They mastered the “Dutch language of culture” insufficiently. Dialects had a very strong position in Flanders.’] (De Vries et al. 1993: 196)

Even for present-day Flanders, the phenomenon of tussentaal (‘intermediate language’)¹³ is ascribed to the South lagging behind in terms of language stan-

12 Another noteworthy characteristic of the accounts of dialect use in the South in the corpus is the lack of a broader perspective: the use of dialects as a regional medium of communication in the South is not placed within the context of dialect use in the Low Countries (or in Europe) in general. The use of a standardised language in the oral domain was far from common until the end of the 19th century, basically anywhere in Europe. For the Dutch language area, it is assumed that a spoken standard language (referred to as Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands [‘Common Civilised Dutch’], or ABN, and today mostly referred to as Algemeen Nederlands [‘Common Dutch’], or AN) developed and spread only from the end of the 19th century onward (cf. Van der Horst & Van der Horst 1999). 13 Tussentaal or Verkavelingsvlaams designates informal spoken varieties that are used widely in present-day Flanders. See, for example, Vandekerckhove (2007) and Absillis et al. (2012).

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dardisation and the lack of opportunity for its speakers to really learn their mother tongue: Veel Vlamingen spreken tussentaal omdat ze niet de kans hebben gekregen of de mogelijkheid hebben gehad om behoorlijk Standaardnederlands te leren. [‘Many Flemish people speak intermediate language because they have never had the chance to learn Standard Dutch properly.’] (Janssens & Marynissen 2003: 120)

Generally, the “ideology of the hierarchisation of varieties” as well the “ideology of correctness” includes the hope that non-standard use will be overcome one day and that the one correct form will be known and used by a majority of speakers. In the texts that were analysed, this aim is said to be realised in Brussels. It is claimed (De Vries et al. 1993: 223 and Van der Wal & Van Bree 1992: 403) that, instead of Brabantish dialects, Algemeen Nederlands [‘Common Dutch’, viz. Standard Dutch] is now commonly spoken in Brussels. The explanation provided for this change towards Standard Dutch is the aspiration of the Flemish speakers of Brussels to “fight” French by using a prestigious standard language instead of dialects: Omgekeerd staat in Brussel nu juist de standaardtaal heel stevig omdat men het gevoel heeft alleen daarmee tegen het Frans te kunnen opboksen. [‘On the other hand, the standard language now has a very strong position in Brussels because it is considered the only weapon against French.’] ¹⁴ (Van der Wal & Van Bree 1992: 403)

Thus, the story of the decay of Dutch in the South covers a period from the end of the 16th century (the iconic Fall of Antwerp) onward, with consequences of the period(s) of decay until the present. It constitutes a good example of the impact of the standard language ideology on language historiography and of how linguistic developments in the past are measured against present-day expectations: the ideal of one uniform written and spoken standard across the language area.

4.1.2 Frenchification It is important to note that accounts of the ongoing decay of Dutch are frequently intertwined with accounts of growing frenchification, as illustrated by the

14 The authors do not support either of these claims by any language data, and there is no evidence of such practice. The sentence that claims that Standard Dutch has a strong position in Brussels as a “weapon against French” remained unchanged even in the newest edition of the Geschiedenis van het Nederlands (cf. Van der Wal & Van Bree 2008: 403).

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passage cited at the beginning of section 4.1.1 (Janssens & Marynissen 2003: 105). It continues as follows: … en raakte de volkstaal zelfs bedreigd door het Frans. [‘… and the vernacular language was even threatened by French.’] (Janssens & Marynissen 2003: 105)

The most eminent danger to the Dutch language is distinguished as the period of French rule (1794–1814): De situatie van het Nederlands in België, zoals die er op het einde van de Franse periode uitzag, was niet meer ver van het point of no return verwijderd. [‘The situation of Dutch in Belgium, as it presented itself at the end of the period of French dominance, had almost reached a point of no return.’] (Willemyns & Daniëls 2003: 209)

Generally, in accounts of the period of French rule, the word used to describe the linguistic situation is the Stigmawort¹⁵ verfransing [‘frenchification’]: De Zuidelijke Nederlanden werden vanuit Parijs bestuurd en volledig verfranst. Ook de lokale bestuursfuncties waren in handen van Fransen, die daarmee alle sleutelposities bezetten. [‘The Southern Netherlands was governed from Paris and was completely frenchified. Jobs in local administration were also in the hands of the French, which meant that they took up all key positions.’] (Willemyns & Daniëls 2003: 172)

In accounts of frenchification, Brussels appears as the place with the strongest degree of this phenomenon: Al in de 18e eeuw was er in Brussel sprake van een sterke verfransing. … In en na de Franse tijd nam de verfransing sterk toe: er vestigden zich vele Walen en Fransen in de stad en het Frans was ook al een taal met een groot prestige. [‘As early as the 18th century, Brussels was the site of massive frenchification … During and after the period of French dominance, frenchification increased intensely: many Walloons and French came to live in the city and French was a language with high prestige anyway.’] (Van der Wal & Van Bree 1992: 391)

In some cases, such as the above example (Van der Wal & Van Bree 1992: 391), migration is explicitly named as a relevant factor in frenchification (“er vestigden zich vele Walen en Fransen in de stad” [‘many Walloons and French came to live in the city’]). Migration led to contact between the language groups, which is depicted as a situation of conflict, posing a threat to Dutch:

15 Stigmawort stems from the typology of Schlagwörter [‘catchwords’] by Armin Burkhardt (cf. Burkhardt 2002) and designates words that are negatively connoted within a specific group (in this case, the Flemish in Belgium); Fahnenwörter are words with a positive connotation within a specific (political) group (for example, vernederlandsing [‘dutchification’], cf. 4.2).

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De verfransing werd ook in de hand gewerkt doordat Frans- en Nederlandssprekenden in bepaalde buurten door elkaar heen woonden. … daardoor kwamen er nogal wat taalgemengde huwelijken tot stand, waarin het Frans vrijwel altijd de gezinstaal werd. [‘Frenchification was also enhanced by the fact that, in specific neighbourhoods, French- and Dutchspeaking people lived mixed together. … this led to a fair number of mixed marriages where French nearly always became the family language.’] (Janssens & Marynissen 2003: 171)

Although the French occupation in 1794 is seen as the “climax” in terms of the frenchification of the Dutch-speaking South, accounts of frenchification go far back to the 18th century and are still applied to 20th-century Belgium. One central aspect of this account is what has – in 18th-century writings – been called Franschdolheyd [‘francomania’]. In the discourse model “decay of Dutch in the South in the shadow of French”, speakers of varieties of Dutch who succumb to the pressure of French play an important role. French is considered as the “glamorous” language, a role model for all other languages. This lure of the French language is met with anger. J. B. Verlooy, who was an 18th-century lawyer and is commonly named as one of the exceptions who cared about the Dutch language in the South, published his Verhandeling op d’onacht der moederlyke tael in de Nederlanden [‘Treatise on the neglect of the mother tongue in the Low Countries’] in 1788, in which he complained about his fellow speakers who were so drawn to the French language (Franschdolheyd) that they neglected their own language. These complaints by Verlooy are cited in all textbooks that were used for our analysis (De Vries et al. 1993: 96; Willemyns & Daniëls 2003: 153; Van der Wal & Van Bree 1993: 379; Janssens & Marynissen 2003: 106). Nevertheless, the success of French also induced fatalism. In one of the above examples, Van der Wal & Van Bree (1992: 391) report on the migration of French-speaking people to Brussels in the 18th century and add that “Frans was ook al een taal met een groot prestige” [‘French was a language with high prestige anyway’], implying that nothing could be done to stop the expansion of French. Another important role ascribed to French is that of competitor and role model at the same time. The tenor here is that French can only be beaten by making Dutch as “French” as possible: in other words, by creating and spreading a uniform “Dutch language of culture”. For many, this meant an adherence to the already existing standard language of the North: Alleen in het noorden had de taal zich kunnen ontwikkelen tot een eenheidstaal, en het adopteren daarvan was het efficiëntste wapen in de strijd tegen het Frans. [‘Only in the North could the language develop into a uniform language, and adopting it was the most efficient weapon in the battle against French.’] (De Vries et al. 1993: 120)

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The (written) Dutch that was used in the South over the centuries is regarded unsuitable for this goal: Kortom, een echte standaardtaal …, die enigszins de vergelijking met het prestigieuze Frans kon doorstaan, kon men die traditionele zuidelijke schrijftaal bezwaarlijk noemen. [‘Thus, the traditional written language in the South could barely be called a real standard language that would stand comparison with the prestigious French language.’] (Janssens & Marynissen 2003: 113)

In the previous section on the “decay of Dutch”, we demonstrated that varieties of Dutch in the history of the region are dealt with from the perspective of an underlying standard language ideology, particularly, the “ideology of the hierarchisation of varieties” and the “ideology of correctness”, which manifests itself in a depiction of Dutch varieties in the South as inferior and flawed. At this point, it is interesting to note that, especially in 19th- and 20th-century accounts of Flanders, negative attitudes towards the Flemish dialects are specifically ascribed to French speakers: … omdat de Franstalige sociale en politieke elite niet afliet erop te wijzen dat … de taal van de Vlamingen dus geen cultuur- of standaardtaal was, maar een samenklontering van dialecten. [‘… because the French-speaking elite kept pointing out that … the language of the Flemish was not a language of culture or standard language but a conglomerate of dialects.’] (Janssens & Marynissen 2003: 116)

Furthermore, contact with French is blamed for foreign elements in the Dutch language in the South, which are claimed to be much more numerous than those in the Dutch of the North (a view on which Vosters and Rutten, this volume, provide a more differentiated perspective): De lexicale invloed van het Frans, vooral op de dialecten maar ook op de schrijftaal, is in Vlaanderen natuurlijk vele malen groter geweest dan in Nederland. [‘The lexical influence of French, mainly on the dialects but also on the written language, was of course much stronger in Flanders than in the Netherlands.’] (Janssens & Marynissen 2003: 118)

Lexical influence from French, in turn, is held responsible for the rise of alternative purist terms that are meant to replace alleged loanwords from French, even if they are in use in the North, such as punaise [‘drawing pin’], which is replaced by the purist term duimspijker [‘drawing pin] (De Vries et al. 1993: 191). These complaints are based on the assumption that languages are ideally well-defined stable entities, free from foreign (in this case French) elements as well as from elements from non-standard varieties (viz. the “ideology of correct-

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ness”). In other words, all elements that cause a language to deviate from the “one best variety” are not desirable. Altogether, we can say that accounts of the decay of Dutch in the South are inextricably linked to Romance–Germanic language contact with a clear potential for conflict. French, as the prestigious language of Europe, is blamed for the decreasing interest in the mother tongue; its speakers are blamed for their negative attitude towards Dutch (dialects); and contact with French in general is disapproved because of an assumed threat to the purity and uniformity of Dutch.

4.1.3 Other models? At this point, it is necessary to point out ‘deviations’ from the discourse model “decay of Dutch in the South in the shadow of French” in the corpus. Such deviations can mainly be found in Het verhaal van het Vlaams. This can partly be explained by the fact that Het verhaal van het Vlaams constitutes a much more extensive account of the history of Dutch in the South and has therefore  – literally – more pages that provide a more detailed and balanced account. Moreover, there were more empirical data available on actual language use in the 18th and 19th centuries at the time of its writing. Most importantly, the author of Het verhaal van het Vlaams himself instigated much of the empirical research on 18thand 19th-century language use in Flanders.¹⁶ The first deviation that was identified is related to the time frame of the assumed decay of Dutch connected with a frenchification of the South. In the above discourse model, frenchification strikes the South after the Fall of Antwerp and in the course of the Austrian and Spanish Habsburg rule (in the 17th and 18th centuries), with the French annexation in 1794 as a climax. Willemyns & Daniëls (2003), in contrast, dedicate a whole chapter to the Burgundian period in the 14th and 15th centuries. This chapter clearly reveals that the region of the Southern Low Countries has always been at the crossroads of and under the influence of Romance varieties. The second deviation is concerned with the impact of French on actual language use. In contrast with, or rather in addition to, the discourse model of the Southern Netherlands becoming completely frenchified after annexation, Het verhaal van het Vlaams (Willemyns & Daniëls 2003: 177–178) relativises this frenchification by pointing out that in reality only a small percentage of the population could actually speak French (e.g. only 13.8% of the population of West Flan-

16 For references of research publications, see footnote 8.

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ders). The authors also stress the need to look at different domains of language use: they point out that the contact with French was strongest in the domain of tourism and in the army (cf. Frijhoff, this volume). The third deviation that was identified is a reference to the role of Spanish in the 18th-century Low Countries (during Spanish Habsburg rule). Investigation of archival material showed (Willemyns & Daniëls 2003: 141) that Spanish played an important role in the communication between the higher social classes and foreigners. The acknowledgement of Spanish is remarkable insofar as accounts are typically characterised by a dichotomy between Dutch, on one hand, and French, on the other. This dichotomy is also true for the second “discourse model” that was identified in the material: “monolingual Flanders”.

4.2 Monolingual Flanders In one of the textbooks (De Vries et al. 1993: 113), the survival of the Dutch language in the Southern Low Countries is summarised as follows: In de vorige eeuw krabbelde het vertrapte Nederlands overeind en na een lange reeks protestacties, … is het Nederlands nu de krachtige taal van de Vlaamse gemeenschap in een federaal België. [‘In the past century, the enslaved Dutch language rose again and after a long series of protests, … Dutch is now the strong language of the Flemish community in a federal Belgium.’]

Vertrapt [‘enslaved’] in this citation implies “enslaved by French”: this role of a “victim of French” is quite commonly ascribed to the Dutch language. This is noted by Vandenbussche (2007: 131), who asks how it can be that the Flemish movement¹⁷ did not know that Dutch was not “steamrolled” by French through the centuries, but was actually quite frequently and regularly used, even in public domains (as recent empirical research confirms, cf. footnote 8). He suggests that the role of victim given to the Dutch language was quite consciously used (or at least not contradicted) by the Flemish movement in its struggle for the emancipation of Dutch. This role is indeed reproduced throughout the textbooks that we analysed (e.g. in Willemyns & Daniëls 2003: 31). In the long run, the story of Dutch in Flanders is presented as a success story. Dutch finally won after a struggle of one and a half centuries (Van der Wal & Van Bree 1992: 391). This victory mainly constitutes of the goal of monolingualism in 17 The Flemish movement fought for the rights of the Dutch language in Belgium from the second half of the 19th century onwards. See, for example, Witte and Van Velthoven 1999, for an introduction to language and politics in 19th century Flanders.

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Dutch that was achieved for the Flemish territory as part of the federalisation process of Belgium. In accounts of this process, vernederlandsing [‘dutchification’] figures as a socalled Fahnenwort, a term by Burkhardt (2002), in contrast with the Stigmawort verfransing [‘frenchification’]:¹⁸ De algehele openbare vernederlandsing is vandaag een feit. [‘The complete public dutchification is a fact today.’] (Janssens & Marynissen 2003: 112)

At the policy level today, a monolingual Flanders is laid down in the territoriality principle. This concept implies that language use in public domains is organised according to monolingual territories, regardless of the language of individuals living in that territory. This means that the public language of the territory of Flanders is Dutch, whereas that of Wallonia is French. The justification that is given for this striving for monolingualism is the general dominance of French in the Southern Low Countries throughout the centuries. It is assumed that every contact with French necessarily leads to a shift from Dutch to French, as in the case of mixed neighbourhoods and, even more so, mixed marriages. The dominance of French in all instances of language contact is commonly ascribed to the refusal of the French-speaking people to learn another language, least of all Dutch. In other words, in the story of “Monolingual Flanders”, the persistent monolingualism of the French-speaking population serves as a justification for the monolingualism of the Dutch-speaking people. The territoriality principle is presented as the ultimate goal and the only way of defending Dutch against the threat of French. The other option, the personality principle,¹⁹ is considered dangerous for Dutch: Deze oplossing zou waarschijnlijk op den duur voor de Vlaamse zaak gevaarlijk geweest zijn. [‘In the long run, this solution would have been dangerous for the Flemish cause.’] (Van der Wal & Van Bree 1992: 388)

4.2.1 The problem of (non-monolingual) Brussels In practice, the implementation of the territoriality principle might very well have been the best solution for safeguarding the future of Dutch in Belgium – it is not 18 See footnote 14. 19 Generally, the personality principle implies that citizens are granted services in the language(s) that they speak.

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our intention to contest this. However, it needs to be said that its implementation (and the discourse about it) is definitely informed by the “one-nation-onelanguage ideology”. According to this ideology, one language should be linked to one territory; moreover, it implies an essentialist link between belonging to a people/nation and speaking a specific language. Both aspects clearly underlie the following depiction of federal Belgium  – where the existence of a language border that separates the Flemish people (who speak Dutch) from the Walloon people (who speak French) is highlighted: De taalgrens is voor de mensen het dranghek dat op de landkaart van België de Vlamingen van de Walen scheidt. [‘To the people, the language border is the “crash barrier” that separates the Flemish from the Walloons on the map of Belgium.’] (De Vries et al. 1993: 212)

When it comes to Brussels, these ideal links become problematic: Een andere exclusiviteit van Brussel is dat de stad het enige gebied in België is waar de sprekers van twee talen niet door een geografische lijn van elkaar gescheiden worden. Het territorialiteitsprincipe werkt er dus niet. [‘Another peculiarity of Brussels is that the city is the only area in Belgium where the speakers of two languages are not separated by a geographical line. So, the territoriality principle does not work there.’] (Willemyns & Daniëls 2003: 341)

For this reason, Brussels is depicted as a bilingual Dutch–French-speaking “enclave” in Flanders (De Vries et al. 1993: 222): Brussel … is een tweetalige enclave in Vlaams gebied, ruim tien kilometer ten noorden van de taalgrens. Binnen de gemeente wonen Nederlands- en Franstaligen door elkaar. [‘Brussels … is a bilingual enclave on Flemish territory, a little more than ten kilometres north of the language border. Within the municipality, Dutch- and French-speaking live mixed together.’]

In all the above examples, the focus is on the dichotomy French–Dutch. In the following example (De Vries et al. 1993: 224), possible future developments for Brussels are sketched out, in the light of a stronger Flemish economy. The authors expect that the balance between the two language groups will shift towards the Dutch-speaking group. They use the metaphor of melting or the merging of one language group into the other – in contrast with the image of “mixing”, which is used in the above example (De Vries et al. 1993: 222) – to characterise the present situation in Brussels.

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Het ligt zelfs in de lijn van de verwachting dat veel Franstaligen zich in de toekomst zo sterk op de Nederlandstalige bevolkingsgroep richten dat ze daar gedeeltelijk in opgaan. [‘It can even be expected that many French speakers will, in the future, turn so much towards the Dutch-speaking population group that they will partly merge into this group.’] (De Vries et al. 1993: 224)

From the perspective of the “one-nation-one-language ideology”, the linguistic situation in the surroundings of Brussels  – the so-called Brusselse or Vlaamse Rand [Brussels or Flemish Rim]  – has frequently been illustrated by the metaphor of an oil stain. This also holds true for our corpus, where this metaphor is equally reproduced (e.g. Willemyns & Daniëls 2003: 240; Van der Wal & Van Bree 1992: 393). The municipalities around Brussels have become attractive for French-speaking people who work in Brussels, but prefer to live in a greener and quieter environment. Six of these municipalities are so-called faciliteitengemeenten [‘municipalities with language facilities’], which, based on the Belgian language law, allow speakers (in this case, speakers of French) to use their language in the public domain even if the language of the territory – in this case Flanders – is Dutch. The other municipalities around Brussels are not faciliteitengemeenten; however, they do have a common factor: French and the French-speaking population are becoming increasingly dominant. From the perspective of the “onenation-one-language ideology”, this is viewed as a threat to the territorial homogeneity of monolingual Flanders (thus: as an oil stain spilling over Flanders).²⁰

4.2.2 ‘Alternative discourse model’? In addition to the discourse model of “monolingual Flanders”, in which the dichotomy Dutch–French and the irreconcilable differences between the Dutchand the French-speaking populations play a central role, there is another model which we can call “super diverse Belgium/Brussels”. This model is the backdrop for sociolinguistic research on Brussels and on Flemish cities and is shared (among others) by those who are involved in the research.²¹ In this discourse model, the focus is on migration, individual multilingualism and mixed varieties. Brussels is a multilingual rather than a bilingual city, and ethnicity cannot be directly linked to Standard Dutch and Standard French.

20 For a discussion of language political measures regarding the Flemish Rim which are informed by the “one-nation-one-language ideology”, cf. Vogl and Hüning (2010: 239–241). 21 See, for example, research by Jaspers (2009) or by Rudi Janssens (this volume).

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In this model, there are many more varieties and multilingual practices that play an important role. The analysis of the textbooks on the history of Dutch have revealed some characterisations of the situation in Brussels which would fit this alternative model. Brussels is designated as a “meertalige metropool” [‘multilingual metropolis’] (Willemyns & Daniëls 2003: 10) and as an “internationaal gerichte metropool” [‘internationally oriented metropolis’] (Janssens & Marynissen 2003: 172). According to Willemyns & Daniëls (2003: 346), research has shown that in Brussels “heel wat talen en variëteiten” [‘quite a number of languages and varieties’] are spoken. In this respect, the growing importance of English as a rival to both Dutch and French is stressed (Janssens & Marynissen 2003: 172). The careful recognition that the French-speaking population is not as strongly opposed to using Dutch anymore is remarkable as it is not in line with the discourse model of “monolingual Flanders”: Een belangrijke verandering is ook dat Franstalige of verfranste Brusselaars vandaag meestal bereid zijn om als ze in het Nederlands worden aangesproken ook in het Nederlands te antwoorden of het ten minste te willen verstaan. [‘An important change concerns French-speaking or frenchified inhabitants of Brussels who are willing to answer in Dutch when they are approached in Dutch, or are at least willing to understand it.’] (Janssens & Marynissen 2003: 172)

Furthermore, there are passages in which the ideal of clearly separated languages in distinct territories is questioned. In contrast to the example given in 4.2.1 (De Vries et al. 1993: 224), in which it is expected that one language group will merge with the other or will melt into the other, we also find the statement (Van der Wal & Van Bree 1992: 394) that many people in Brussels consider themselves bilingual. Finally, there is the observation (Willemyns & Daniëls 2003: 346) that codeswitching … komt in Brussel zo vaak voor, dat de leek dit als hét kenmerk bij uitstek van de Brusselse taalsituatie beschouwt. [‘… is so frequent in Brussels that the lay person regards it as the characteristic trait par excellence of the language situation in Brussels.’]

In this passage, the linguistic practice of code-switching in Brussels is presented as a sociolinguistic fact that is so strongly present that even lay persons are bound to notice it as characteristic of Brussels.

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5 Conclusion In section 4, we demonstrated, based on the analysis of four textbooks on the history of Dutch, that the language historiography of Dutch is indeed informed by the standard language ideology. We presented and analysed two discourse models that underlie the language historical accounts (“decay of Dutch in the shadow of French” and “monolingual Flanders”). These models focus on how the use and quality of Dutch in the Southern Low Countries is said to have declined over the centuries and how, reputedly, the dominance of French is (partly) responsible for this. They also concentrate on the struggle for Dutch and its final victory in Flanders, which is grounded in a striving for territorial monolingualism. The way in which language and language use are depicted in these accounts elucidates that elements of the standard language ideology – namely, the “ideology of the hierarchisation of varieties”, the “ideology of correctness” and the “one-nation-one-language ideology” – provide the conceptual basis of this discourse. Moreover, from this perspective, contact between different languages and its speakers is automatically depicted as a situation of conflict as it poses a threat to monolingualism and linguistic homogeneity. However, in the wake of our analysis, some more questions remain. It would certainly be interesting to research intertextual aspects of the language historiography of Dutch: to what extent are the discourse models that we identified part of a larger (language historical) discourse, across the language area and through history? Moreover, the question arises as to whether these discourse models, which are apparently shared by some linguists and historians of Dutch, are equally part of lay persons’ discourse in the Low Countries, especially in the Southern Low Countries. To what extent is their assessment of the linguistic situation in Belgium characterised by these discourse models and to what extent is it informed by standard language ideology?²² A subsequent question concerns the alternative discourse model which is addressed in 4.2.2.: “super diverse Belgium/Brussels”. On the one hand, it would be fruitful to assess in more detail whether there is a shift towards this “alternative model” in more recent textbooks (e.g. Willemyns 2013) and /or other publications on the language history of the Low Countries. On the other hand, there is a clear need to take a closer look into the language ideology which underlies accounts

22 The aspect of lay persons’ discourse as well as the perspective of both language communities (cf. below) – have been covered by De Keere & Elchardus (2011), who did a storytelling analysis of sessions with Dutch- and French-speaking lay persons on their view of the language conflict in Belgium.

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that focus on migration, individual multilingualism and mixed varieties. Grondelaers & Van Hout (2011: 229) ask the question of whether “a more liberal ideology is currently taking over in Flanders” and if this more liberal (standard language) ideology possibly constructs and negotiates the recent widespread use of the nonstandard variety “tussentaal”. The same “more liberal” (standard) language ideology can be expected to underlie the alternative discourse model “super diverse Belgium/Brussels”. Further research is needed to answer the question of what the core elements of this more liberal ideology are or to what extent the core elements of (the more conservative) standard language ideology have been modified to give way to a more liberal one. What is also needed are speaker evaluation data: how do, for example, speakers living in Brussels evaluate code-mixing? How would they describe the language contact situation in Brussels? Finally, our analysis indicates the need for a new angle on the language history of the Low Countries. As stated at the beginning of the chapter, language histories in Europe are generally written from the perspective of standard languages, and this is certainly true for the Low Countries where the story is told either from a Dutch or a French perspective. One interesting further step would be to add a “French perspective” to the Dutch perspective and to compare and contrast the discourse models in the historiography of Dutch with those in the historiography of French (in Belgium). An even more important further step would be to write a language history of the Low Countries that is informed by an “alternative discourse model”: the focus would then not be on the path to monolingualism in Dutch (or French) but on shifts in language repertoires over a period of time in the context of political, social and demographic changes.

References Absillis, Kevin, Jürgen Jaspers & Sarah van Hoof (eds.). 2012. De manke usurpator. Over Verkavelingsvlaams. Gent: Academia Press. Agar, Michael. 2003. Ethnography. In Jef Verschueren, Jan-Ola Östman, Jan Blommaert & Chris Bulcaen (eds.), Handbook of Pragmatics Online. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Blommaert, Jan (ed.). 1999. Language Ideological Debates. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Burke, Peter. 2004. Languages and Communities in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Burkhardt, Armin. 2002. Politische Sprache: Ansätze und Methoden ihrer Analyse und Kritik. In Jürgen Spitzmüller (ed.), Streitfall Sprache – Sprachkritik als angewandte Linguistik? Mit einer Auswahlbibliographie zur Sprachkritik (1990 bis Frühjahr 2002), 75–114. Bremen: Hempen. Davies, Winifred V. 2012. Myths we live and speak by: Ways of imagining and managing language and languages. In Matthias Hüning, Ulrike Vogl & Olivier Moliner (eds.),

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Standard Languages and Multilingualism in European History, 45–69. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Deumert, Ana & Wim Vandenbussche. 2003. Research directions in the study of language standardization. In Wim Vandenbussche & Ana Deumert (eds.). Germanic Standardizations: Past to Present, 455–469. Amsterdam & New York: John Benjamins. Elspaß, Stephan. 2002. Standard German in the 19th century? (Counter-) evidence from the private correspondence of “ordinary people”. In Andrew Linn & Nicola McLelland (eds.), Standardization. Studies from the Germanic Languages, 43–65. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Elspaß, Stephan & Péter Maitz. 2012. New language norm authorities in Germany: Ideological roots and social consequences. In Anne Schröder, Ulrich Busse & Ralf Schneider (eds.), Codification, Canons and Curricula: Description and Prescription in Language and Literature, 195–208. Bielefeld: Aisthesis (Bielefelder Schriften zu Linguistik und Literaturwissenschaft 26). Gal, Susan. 2009. Migration, minorities and multilingualism: Language ideologies in Europe. In Clare Mar-Molinero & Patrick Stevenson (eds.), Language Ideologies, Policies and Practices: Language and the Future of Europe, 13–27. Basingstoke u.a.: Palgrave Macmillan. Gee, James Paul. 2011. How to Do Discourse Analysis: A Toolkit. New York, NY: Routledge. Geeraerts, Dirk. 2003. Cultural models of linguistic standardization. In René Dirven, Roslyn May Frank & Martin Pütz (eds.), Cognitive Models in Language and Thought: Ideology, Metaphors and Meanings, 25–68. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Grondelaers, Stefan & Roeland van Hout. 2011. The standard language situation in the Low Countries: Top-down and bottom-up variations on a diaglossic theme. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 23(3). 199–243. Horst, Joop van der & Kees van der Horst. 1999. Geschiedenis van het Nederlands in de twintigste eeuw. Den Haag: Sdu Uitgeverij. Hüning, Matthias, Ulrike Vogl & Olivier Moliner (eds.). 2012. Standard Languages and Multilingualism in European History. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Irvine, Judith T. & Susan Gal. 2000. Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In Paul Kroskrity (ed.), Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities, 35–84. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press. Janssens, Guy & Ann Marynissen. 2003, 2005, 2008. Het Nederlands vroeger en nu. Leuven: Acco. Jaspers, Jürgen (ed.). 2009. De klank van de stad. Stedelijke meertaligheid en interculturele communicatie. Antwerpen: Acco. Keere, Kobe de & Mark Elchardus. 2011. Narrating linguistic conflict: A storytelling analysis of the language conflict in Belgium. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 32(3). 221–234. Langer, Nils & Winifred V.Davies (eds.). 2005. Linguistic Purism in the Germanic Languages. Berlin: de Gruyter. Milroy, James. 2001. Language ideologies and the consequences of standardization. Journal of Sociolinguistics 5(4). 530–555. Milroy, James & Lesley Milroy. 20124. Authority in Language: Investigating Standard English. Milton Park Abingdon Oxon & New York: Routledge. Peled, Yael. 2012. Marching forward into the past: Monolingual multilingualism in contemporary political theory. In Matthias Hüning, Ulrike Vogl & Olivier Moliner (eds.),

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Standard Languages and Multilingualism in European History, 71–95. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Rutten, Gijsbert. 2011. Een nieuwe Nederduitse spraakkunst. Taalnormen en schrijfpraktijken in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden in de achttiende eeuw. Brussel: Vubpress (m.m.v. Rik Vosters). Rutten, Gijsbert & Rik Vosters. 2011. As many norms as there were scribes? Language history, norms and usage in the Southern Netherlands in the nineteenth century. In Nils Langer, Steffan Davies & Wim Vandenbussche (eds.), Language and History, Linguistics and Historiography: Interdisciplinary Approaches, 229–254. Oxford & New York: Peter Lang. Sijs, Nicoline van der (ed.). 1999. Taaltrots. Purisme in een veertigtal talen. Amsterdam: Contact. Sijs, Nicoline van der. 2004. Taal als mensenwerk. Het ontstaan van het ABN. Den Haag: Sdu Uitgeverij. Sijs, Nicoline van der & Roland Willemyns. 2009. Het verhaal van het Nederlands. Een geschiedenis van twaalf eeuwen. Amsterdam: Bakker. Trask, Robert L. 1999. Key Concepts in Language and Linguistics. London: Routledge. Vandekerckhove, Reinhild. 2007. “Tussentaal” as a source of change from below in Belgian Dutch: A case of substandardization processes in the chat language of Flemish teenagers. In Stephan Elspaß, Nils Langer, Joachim Scharloth & Wim Vandenbussche (eds.), Germanic Language Histories “from below” (1700–2000), 189–203. Berlin: de Gruyter. Vandenbussche, Wim. 1996. Schriftelijk taalgebruik van de lagere klassen in 19de eeuws Brugge. In: Verslagen en Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde 106, 161–175. Online: http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_ ver016199601_01/_ver016199601_01_0011.php (accessed on 7/10/2013) Vandenbussche, Wim. 2007. Wij willen Willem weer. Het Verenigd Koninkrijk der Nederlanden als breekijzer voor een nieuwe 19de-eeuwse taalgeschiedenis. In Wim Vandenbussche & Guy Janssens (eds.), Taalpolitiek, taalplanning en taalgebruik in het “Verenigd Koninkrijk der Nederlanden”: (1814–1830), 129–135. Gent: Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde. Vanhecke, Eline & Jetje de Groof. 2007. New data on language policy and language choice in 19th-century Flemish city administrations. In Stephan Elspaß, Nils Langer, Joachim Scharloth & Wim Vandenbussche (eds.), Germanic Language Histories “from below” (1700–2000), 449–469. Berlin: de Gruyter. Vogl, Ulrike & Matthias Hüning. 2010. One nation, one language? The case of Belgium. Dutch Crossing 34(3). 228–247. Vogl, Ulrike. 2012. Multilingualism in a standard language culture. In Matthias Hüning, Ulrike Vogl & Olivier Moliner (eds.), Standard Languages and Multilingualism in European History, 1–42. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Vosters, Rik & Wim Vandenbussche. 2008. Wijzer worden over Willem? Taalgebruik in Vlaanderen ten tijde van het Verenigd Koninkrijk der Nederlanden (1814–1830). Internationale Neerlandistiek 46(3). 2–22. Vosters, Rik & Wim Vandenbussche. 2009. Nieuw onderzoek naar taalbeleid en taalvariatie in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden ten tijde van Willem I. In Ad Backus, M. Keijzer, I. Vedder & B. Weltens (eds.), Artikelen van de Zesde Anéla-conferentie, 389–395. Delft: Eburon. Vries, Jan de, Roland Willemyns & Peter Burger. 1993. Het verhaal van een taal. Negen eeuwen Nederlands. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Prometheus. Wal, Marijke J. van der & Cor van Bree. 1992, 1994, 2008. Geschiedenis van het Nederlands. Utrecht: Het Spectrum.

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Wal, Marijke J. van der. 2010. De voortvarende zeemansvrouw. Openhartige brieven aan geliefden op zee. Zutphen: Walburg Pers. Weber, Jean-Jacques & Kristine Horner. 2012. Introducing Multilingualism: A Social Approach. London: Routledge. Willemyns, Roland & Wim Daniëls. 2003. Het verhaal van het Vlaams. De geschiedenis van het Nederlands in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden. Antwerpen: Standaard Uitgeverij. Willemyns, Roland. 2013. Dutch: Biography of a Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Witte, Els & Harry van Velthoven. 1999. Language and Politics: The Belgian Case Study in a Historical Perspective. Brussels: VUB University Press.

Part II: The Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period

Catharina Peersman

Chapter 5 Constructing identity: language and identity in the narration of the Franco-Flemish conflict (1297–1305) 1 Introduction The results of the Belgian elections on June 11, 2010, put a right-wing Flanders up against a left-wing Francophone community. The linguistic and political differences between Belgium’s northern and southern parts¹ seemed larger than ever, with headlines linking N-VA’s “historic” victory² to the official holiday of the Flemish community, to be celebrated one month later. Indeed, since 1973, the Flemish holiday of July 11 has commemorated the Battle of Courtrai or the Battle of the Golden Spurs (July 11, 1302), when “Flemish” troops unexpectedly beat the “French” army. Even though the comparison of present-day Flanders with medieval Flanders is as inadequate as comparing N-VA’s victory with the Battle of Courtrai,³ it illustrates how a certain vision of the past is still very much present in and linked to the current political and linguistic situation in Belgium. Considering the highly mediatised opposition of French and Flemish communities in the present-day Belgian context (see, e.g., De Keere & Elchardus 2011) and the prominence of French–Dutch language contact and conflict as a socio-

1 For a definition of present-day Flanders and the Dutch–French language border, see Vogl’s and Willemyns’ contributions to this volume. 2 N-VA, short for Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie (“New Flemish Alliance”), is a young Flemish nationalist political party. It evolved out of the Volkunie (“People’s Union”) in 2001 and advocates more independence for the Flemish community. In the months leading up to the 2010 elections, its leader, Bart De Wever, had become quite popular due to his appearance in talk and game shows on Flemish radio and television. Through its electoral victory in 2010, N-VA became the largest political party, both in Flanders and on a national level. As a result, the ensuing government formation was a long and difficult process, with Belgium going without an elected government for 589 days. 3 The medieval county of Flanders only partly corresponds to present-day Flanders (for a description of medieval Flanders in the context of the Franco-Flemish conflict, see Trio et al. 2002: 35–36). Comparing N-VA’s political victory with the Battle of Courtrai on the grounds of a “Flemish” victory over the “French” is based on 1302 as a historiographical Flemish myth (see Trio et al. 2002) and typical stories of the north–south language conflict in Belgium (see Vogl’s contribution to this volume).

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linguistic topic (see most of the contributions in the present volume), it is rather surprising that the historic sources describing the battle between “Flemish” and “French” in 1302 have not yet been examined from a sociolinguistic perspective.⁴ This lacuna is probably due to the absence of explicit language policy predating 1409.⁵ One might wonder whether a “Flemish” identity was already in the making at that time and what kind of role was to be attributed to language in the process. The present chapter analyses the historic sources commemorating the FrancoFlemish conflict (1297–1305) and, more specifically, the two events to which so much mythical weight would be attributed over the 19th and 20th centuries: the Bruges Matins⁶ and the Battle of Courtrai or the Battle of the Golden Spurs. More specifically, I will examine language attitudes in the historic sources predating 1330, as these sources provide the historical foundation to typical stories (see Decloedt-Pincon 2010 and Vogl’s contribution to this volume) of the Romance– Germanic language conflict circulating in Flanders today. The analysis of language as an identity marker is widely accepted and adopts many different forms (see, e.g., Heller 2003; Mendoza-Denton 2004; Jaspal 2009). In my analysis of medieval sources, I focus on specific explicit and implicit markers as proxies for getting at historical language attitudes. The first section describes the sources in order to situate them within the textual tradition and the historiographical canonisation of 1302. Section 2 covers the analyses, which are subdivided into 5 subsections, according to the types of markers analysed: language judgments (2.1), names of people and toponyms (2.2), references to the language and loanwords (2.3), references to the people and the region (2.4) and finally multilingualism (2.5). The conclusions make up section 3.

2 Textual tradition and the canonisation of 1302 The primary sources upon which this chapter is based are the historic sources closest to 1302. These narrative sources describing the battle of Courtrai originate from both sides of the Franco-Flemish conflict. The micro-corpus used for

4 From a historical-codicological perspective, however, Biemans (1997: 263ff) discusses the effect of the Battle of the Golden spurs on the production of Middle Dutch manuscripts. 5 Language policy in medieval Flanders officially begins in the reign of the Burgundians. The first language ordinance relates to language use at the count’s council in Flanders and is issued in 1409 by duke John the Fearless (Willemyns 1994). For a more recent, geographically larger perspective on this, see Vale (2005). 6 In the night of 18 May 1302, Flemish rebels entered the houses where French troops were garrisoned and massacred all those who were not able to say schilt en vriend (“shield and friend”).

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the qualitative analysis comprises seven texts predating 1330 and originating in either the French king’s realm or the County of Flanders.⁷ At the turn of the century (1300), medieval Flanders was a trilingual region at least as far as administration was concerned.⁸ As such, it comes as no surprise that the written languages represented in our selected narrative sources are Latin, Middle Dutch and Old French. The present section aims to give a diachronic overview of the corpus texts, providing a socio-historic profile and basic content description for each text. Their position in and value for the subsequent mythification process of 1302 will also be specified. The source which is chronologically closest to 11 July 1302 also happens to be the source most recently uncovered. It is a parodic “Passion of the French according to the Flemish”, the Passio Francorum secundum Flemyngos (henceforth PF). De Smet (1978: 292) locates this Latin prose parody in Bruges and situates its creation between September 29, 1302 and April 4, 1303. The PF, preserved by chance in Adam of Usk’s Chronicon (ed. Thompson 1904) narrates, in highly Biblical Latin, the defeat of the French and more specifically ridicules the death of the French commander-in-chief, the Count of Artois. With its 195 short lines, the PF documents the mood shortly after the Battle of the Golden Spurs, reflecting the bitter aftertaste of the French occupation and the exhilarating experience of unexpected freedom. Peppered with references to over ninety Bible pericopes (de Smet 1978: 317–319), the text was clearly written by and intended for educated religious men. Given the form, the content and the intended audience of the text, it is far from surprising that the text was written in Latin. The first historiographical description of the battle from a French perspective is written by an anonymous eye witness from Arras in 1304 or shortly after (Funck-Brentano 1899: ix–xiii). It is a prose text written in Picard French. This Chronique artésienne (henceforth CA) is dedicated to Philip IV “the Fair”, king of France from 1285 to 1314. Covering a period of 8 years (1297–1304), the chronicle can be split into two parts. The first part relates events from 1296 to 1302 and contains charter translations and a summary of events in episodic form, often with time gaps in between different events. The second part, however, offers a

7 That is, Crown Flanders (la Flandre de la Couronne), which coincided with those regions in the county of Flanders that were not a direct loan from the French crown (for a recent discussion, see Kestemont 2012). Brabant not being part of Crown Flanders means that Boendale’s Brabantsche Yeesten are not part of the corpus and as such, the Yeesten – although offering a short description of the events – are not included. 8 For an overview of trilingualism in the Flemish administration, see Prevenier and De Hemptinne (2005). For a detailed case study, see for instance Peersman (2012).

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detailed and continuous account from the Battle of Courtrai onwards,⁹ in which the author took part on the French side. It seems obvious that our anonymous writer feels the need to elaborate more after the shattering defeat of the French at Courtrai. Shortly after the CA, a more literary effort in favour of the French perspective is composed by Guillaume Guiart, a native of Orléans, in 1306 or 1307. The Branche des royaux lignages (henceforth BRL), also dedicated to Philip IV the Fair of France, counts 21,510 octosyllabic verses and ambitiously covers the history of France from the birth of Philippe Auguste (1165) to 1306.¹⁰ The author, who wrote the BRL while recovering in Arras from wounds he received in Flanders,¹¹ explicitly states that his text is a counter-manoeuvre against an unidentified Flemish romans mocking the French and their king.¹² Obviously, the triumphant Flemish mood had found outlets, of which our corpus only contains a few known examples.¹³ In 1308, an anonymous Franciscan monk from Ghent provides the first¹⁴ (preserved) historiographic source from a Flemish perspective, the Annales Gandenses (henceforth AG). The annals offer a vivid account in prose of the events

9 One of the characteristics that makes the Chronique artésienne stand out are its unadorned lists of certain participants in the battle: the fallen French high nobility and bannered knights (Chi aprés sont li non des dus et des contes et des prinches et des chevaliers banerés qui furent mort a chele mesaventure), the few captured alive (Che sont li non de chiaus qui furent pris vif) and the leaders of the Flemish troops (Et che sont les kievetainnes qui furent en chele bataille en l’ost des Flamens) (Funck-Brentano 1899: 49, 51). All translations are my own. 10 The strictly informative value of the Branche is generally recognised to be of higher relevance as far as the passages on Philip’s reign are concerned, because Guiart was a contemporary. 11 V. 103–107: … me séjournoie / a Arras, car navrez estoie / d’un fer d’un quarrel el pié destre / et d’une espee el bras senestre / en Flandres, a la Haingnerie (De Wailly & Delisle 1865 : 174). “… I was staying in Arras, because I was wounded in Flanders, in my right foot by an arrowhead and my left arm by a sword, at la Haingnerie”. 12 “ D’un romans que veu avoie / ainz que je fusse a ce mené/ que Flamanz orent ordené / et où le roy, que point n’amoient / et ceus de France diffamoient ” (v. 118–122). “Because of a romans I had seen, which was why I was led to do this, which was ordered by the Flemish and in which they besmirched the king, whom they didn’t love, and all of France”. Moreover, Guiart claims that this romans does not do honour to the actual events (faiz, v.124): it puts all the stress on Courtrai and rather ignores the defeats the Flemish suffered at Veurne, Arques, Gravelingen and Zeeland (V.128–136) (ibid.). A similar reference to a partial Flemish interpretation is made by Gilles le Muisit (Trio et al. 2002: 87). 13 There were undoubtedly many more than those preserved and identified today, oral and written creations playing with and referring to the issues at hand. As a middle English mocking song on the “king of the weavers” opposing the French king has been preserved (Pertz 1888: 496–497), it seems only logical that the French were mocked in similar ways in Flanders as well. 14 The PF is a parody of a Bible text and as such not a “proper” historiographic source.

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in Flanders between 1296 and 1310. Like the PF, this Latin text was created in a monastic environment and the intended audience was a religious community,¹⁵ as the author explicitly states that his aim is to “entertain some of the brothers who at times enjoyed hearing or reading such things”.¹⁶ Because our corpus is limited to narrative texts written in the conflict regions before 1330, it contains only one text written in Dutch.¹⁷ As far as a description of 1302 is concerned, this happens to be the source that is best known today, at least in Flanders, where it has had a huge impact through its romantic retellings. It is a continuation of the Spiegel Historiael (henceforth SH) by Jacob van Maerlant, written in 1315 and 1316 by the Brabantine priest Lodewijk van Velthem. This fifth source consists of some 29,000 verses, of which 1,200 cover the battle of Courtrai: it is the longest and most detailed narration of the events of 11 July 1302.¹⁸ Stylometric analysis suggests that Velthem used an existing description of the battle, written shortly after the actual events (Kestemont 2010).¹⁹ Whereas Velthem, as the anonymous Franciscan and the PF before him, voices the Flemish perspective,²⁰ the Chronique métrique (henceforth CM) reinforces the French perspective around 1316. Traditionally attributed to Geoffroy of Paris, a clerk in the French royal chancery,²¹ this chronicle covers a period of 16 years (1300–1316). The defeat of the French troops at Courtrai is dealt with in a 15 The similar profile of the Passio Francorum and the Annales Gandenses does not necessarily imply that this anti-French mood prevailed in all religious communities in the county of Flanders. The Chronicon Balduini of the abbey of Ninove, in particular, contains two Latin poems by the hand of Gillebert of Outer describing the events of 1297 (De Smet 1841a: 731–733), in which the author condemns the rise of the count of Flanders against his liege lord and its disastrous consequences. 16 … motus desiderio quorumdam Fratrum recreativoque solatio, quos quandoque talia audire vel legere delectabat … (Funck-Brentano 1896: 1). 17 The paucity of Dutch texts in our corpus is mainly due to geographical, chronological and typological constraints. See also footnote 2. 18 Velthem’s heroic story contrasts strikingly with the short – less than a hundred verses – description of the same events in the Brabantsche Yeesten (part V, 183–274) by Van Boendale, written at approximately the same time (1316/1317). Jean II, Duke of Brabant (1294–1312), was generally less attached to the count of Flanders than to the French king. The second wife to the French king Philip III was Jean’s aunt Marie and his uncle, Godefroy, and the latter’s son, Jean, fought among the French troops at Courtrai (Hélary 2012: 23) 19 The original Flemish source has not been preserved. It could be (similar to) the romans Guiart was referring to (cf. footnote 7). Recycling other texts was a common procedure: Godefroy does exactly the same (Hélary 2012: 123–124), and Velthem’s narration of the battle is based on a Flemish source. 20 See Sleiderink (2005) on why Velthem, as a Brabantine author, takes a Flemish viewpoint. 21 The origins of the text are probably to be located within the entourage of Charles de Valois, the eldest brother of Philippe le Bel (see Hélary 2012: 189; Dunbabin 1998).

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few dozen verses and needs to be viewed, according to the author, as a warning, a lesson to the (future) king(s) of France. Our last text was written around 1329. It is the Continuatio Claromariscensis (henceforth CC), a continuation of the Flandria Generosa A by Bernardus of Ypres, a monk from the abbey of Clairmarais. This Latin prose chronicle²² covers the period from 1214 to 1329 and was written during the uprising of Coast-Flanders (1323–1328). It offers a rather simplistic version of the battle, in which a few Flemish beat the huge French army. In doing so, the author of the CC (as Velthem before him) planted the first seeds of a historiographic myth: the battle of 1302 as a collective action of the Flemish people in order to save their country. This vision of the battle was to have a large and international (cf. table 2) impact as it spread through the late medieval chronicles (Lambert 2000: 382, 283). Table 1. Overview of the sources

Source

Date

Language

Perspective

PF

Sept. 1302

Latin

Flemish

CA

1304

French

French

BRL

1306/1307

French

French

AG

1308

Latin

Flemish

CM

1314–1316

Dutch

Flemish

SH

1315–1316

French

French

CC

1323–1329

Latin

Flemish

Historians (e.g. Lambert 2000; Trio et al. 2002) have amply demonstrated how the Battle of Courtrai, or the so-called battle of the Golden Spurs, went from a historic event to official lieu de mémoire through a process of canonisation and mythification. Our texts obviously document only the very beginning of this canonisation process: the first reports from the first decade after the event and the first definition of the “national” battle up to 1330. Rather than retracing the historians’ argumentation, we summarise it in the following chronological overview. Table 2 is based upon the sources and of the canonisation process textually mentioned by Lambert (2000), Trio et al. (2002: 185, 216 ss.) and Hélary (2012: 161–64, 187–190), who all consider specific aspects and phases of the mythification pro22 Technically, it is a genealogy of the counts of Flanders, within which the bellum Flandricum (“Flemish war”), the rebellio Brugensium (“Bruges rebellion”) and the bellum Curtracense (“Battle of Courtrai”) receive their own episodes (Martène & Durand 1717: 404, 407, 408).

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Table 2. Phases in the canonisation process

Phase I – first decade of the 14th century

– 1302 Passio Francorum secundum Flemyngos (anon. monk, Bruges) – 1304 Chronique artésienne (anon. inhabitant of Arras) – 1306/7 Branche des royaux lignages (Guillaume Guiart) – 1308 Annales Gandenses (anon. Franciscan, Ghent)

Phase II – definition of the “national” battle

– 1314–16 Chronique métrique (Geoffroi de Paris) – 1315–16 Spiegel Historiael V (Lodewijk van Velthem, Brabant) – 1316–18 Österreichische Reimchronik (Ottokar von Stiermarken) – 1323–29 Continuatio Claromariscensis – Flandria Generosa A (Bernardus of Ypres, Clairmarais abbey)

Phase III – confirmation in later 14th and 15th century texts

– …–1348 Historie fiorentine (Giovanni Villani) – …–1348 Chronica (Jean de Winterthur) – 1347–1349 Tractatus tertii pars sexta (Gilles le Muisit, St. Martin’s abbey Tournai) – 1371–1390 Rijmkroniek van Vlaanderen (anon.) – 1425–1450 Flandria Generosa C (anon.) – 2nd half 15th C Dutch translations of Flandria Generosa C: Excellente Cronike van Vlaanderen, Kronyk van Vlaenderen, chronicle by Jan van Dixmude

Phase IV – modern – 1561 Compendium chronicorum Flandriae (Jacobus de Meyere, Bruges) times and the – 1571 Chronique et Annales de Flandres (Pierre d’Oudegherst, Antwerp) romantic imagery – 1728 first part of the Chronyke van Vlaenderen (anon., Bruges) – 1738 Jaer-boecken der stad Brugge (Karel Frans Custis) – ca. 1740 Troja Belgica (Beaucourt de Noortvelde) – ca. 1790 Ode aen de vryheyd (Pieter Joost de Borchgrave) Phase V – the road *1831 declaration of independence, °Belgium to canonisation – 1838 De Leeuw van Vlaendren (Hendrik Conscience) – 1847 De Vlaamse Leeuw (Hippoliet Van Peene) –1851 Mémoire sur la bataille de Courtrai (Henri Moke) *1973 July 11 official holiday of the Flemish community, first 2 stanzas of De Vlaamse Leeuw official anthem of the Flemish community

cess.²³ Through our compilation of the texts and general periodisation, we present a chronological overview which, rather than aiming at exhaustiveness,²⁴ allows

23 For phase V, two key moments (rather than key texts) in Belgian and Flemish national history are added and marked by an asterisk (*). 24 More information on the canonisation process is be found in Lambert (2000, 2001) and Trio et al. (2002). For detailed information on phases IV and V in particular, see, e.g., Verschaffel (1998) for Flemish historiography in the 18th century, Peeters (2003) for Belgian historiography

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us to properly locate the aforementioned texts within the textual tradition on 1302 and within the evolution of the “national” myth.

3 Analysis Our corpus consists of seven texts predating 1330, originating from both sides of the Franco-Flemish conflict: the French kingdom and the County of Flanders, specifically Crown Flanders. Of these texts, only the sections concerning the period of the Franco-Flemish war (1297–1305) and the two subsequent years (1306–1307) are analysed. The time of the narration thus covers a period of 11 years, with two equal parts of five years preceding (1297–1301) and following 1302 (1303–1307). This selection allows us to make the most of the available source material by means of a comparison of the narration of the very same events. This implies that the PF, which is entirely dedicated to the events of 1302, and the CA, which covers the period from 1297 to 1304, are entirely part of the analysis whereas only the relevant sections of the CM or SH are taken into account.²⁵ These texts and selected text sections constituting the corpus are analysed with respect to language perception and use. Since the texts analysed all predate language policy, language perception and use have to be revealed through what I will call explicit (language judgments) and implicit markers (names, toponyms, language names, multilingual fragments).²⁶ This categorisation enables us to indirectly get at language attitudes. The way authors deal with names of people and toponyms, with references to and the integration of languages other than their own reveals how they thought about language. As such, the markers, both explicit and implicit, can act as reliable proxies for historical language attitudes. The obvious explicit marker of language perception is a language judgment, in a positive or negative sense. The most well-known language judgment within the Flemish nationalist discourse is beyond any doubt the rhyming insult wat

between 1787 and 1850, or Simons (1998) for a solid overview of the Vlaamse Beweging (Flemish Movement). 25 The corpus for this case-study consists of the PF and the CA as a whole, the BRL from 1297 onwards, the AG from 1297 to 1307, the fourth book of the fifth part of the SH, the CM from its beginning to 1307 and the CC from 1297 to 1307. 26 To my knowledge, this categorisation has not yet been used in the analysis of language perception and use in medieval sources. However, the link between language and identity and the definition of power relationships as implied by language use are tenets of Critical Discourse Analysis, to which our approach is related.

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walsch es, valsch eyst (“what is French, is false/devious”), often wrongly attributed to Velthem.²⁷ However illustrative of the author’s perception of language(s), language judgments like these are unfortunately not very numerous. A more nuanced perspective on language perception and use is created through the analysis of implicit markers in the texts. Two types of identifiers and the use of multiple languages are considered to be implicit markers within this case study. On a lexical level, we consider in the first place names of people and toponyms, as they can illustrate how the author (and his intended audience) deals with foreign identity: does he adapt them to his own language, or is the original name preserved. Secondly, the texts are analysed for the identifiers used to refer to languages, to the people that speak them and the regions where they are spoken. For instance, in Latin one can refer to the Flemish as Flandrenses or as Flamingi, whereas in Dutch, a medieval source can refer to Francophones as Walen or Fransoyse. Since these words are synonyms only to a certain degree, the choice the author makes illustrates his perception of a linguistic reality. The last type of marker in the texts analysed is the use of multiple languages and, in particular, the use of loanwords from and code-switching in direct speech in the “other” language. The treatment of the Flemish shibboleth schild en vriend used at the Bruges Matins²⁸ falls into this last category.

3.1 Language judgments Only one of the texts analysed contains a possible language judgment. In its description of the events of 1302, the CM explains why the French king is having trouble with the Flemish. Among other reasons, he states that the Flemish have always been a nuisance to the French king,²⁹ in many different ways. The author’s

27 This negative language judgment is late medieval: it appears for the first time in the Flandria Generosa C’s narration of the Bruges Matins. However, as Lambert (2000: 383–384) points out, the author might have been inspired by van Maerlant’s prologue to the Historie van den Grale, where the latter is pointing out contradictions between the French Estoire del Saint Graal and the Bible: Ick will dat gy des zeker zijt dat ick die historie vele valsch gevonden hebbe in dat Walsch (“I want you to know that I have found many deviations in the French ‘version of the story’”). For the change in dietsche attitude from francophile to francophobe, see Sleiderink (2010). 28 The long standing discussions on whether they said this or rather des gilden vriend (“friend of the guilds”) and on whether this was really effective to distinguish between the French and their own (schild being pronounced in several Flemish dialects as speakers of French would, namely skilt) are irrelevant to our analysis. 29 Les Flamens… / ne firent onques loiauté, / mès tosjors porchacié nuisance, / aux royaux et au roy de France (v. 1040–45, Buchon 1827: 41). “The Flemish were never loyal towards the royal family and the king of France but were always looking for trouble”.

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summing up explains that for all these reasons the king could not bend the Flemish to his will and then adds the final insult (v. 1087–90, Buchon 1827: 43): Por ce le roy mie ne pot Fère son vouloir des Flamens; Car sa gent si sont mal parlans, Et c’est au roy trop grand laidure³⁰

Apparently, on top of all the other ways the Flemish have to annoy the French, they also “speak badly” (mal parlans), which is too much of an insult (laidure) to the king. Mal parlans can be interpreted in two different ways. The most plausible interpretation is that the Flemish speak ill of the French, which is consistent with Guiart’s complaints about a very partial Flemish account of the conflict (cf. note 12). Another interpretation, however, could suggest that the Flemish literally speak badly, that they have an ugly language – which would be a language judgment. Although less plausible, this interpretation seems possible, as neither context nor grammatical features allow us to disambiguate the verse and this ambiguity could be intended by the author.

3.2 Names of people and toponyms For the analysis of implicit markers of language perception, the texts are grouped according to the language they are written in, given the fact that, as a general principle, the language in which the text is written is dominant. According to the same principle, in a text written in Latin, names and toponyms should be Latinised. In a text written in French, names should be frenchified, and so forth. The Latin texts in our corpus (the PF, the AG and the CC) all have Flemish origins, as has our only source written in Dutch, the SH. The sources from the French side are all written in French. In the PF, the first names of people are Latinised, but their surnames systematically are not, e.g. Petrus Flot (Pierre Flote), Petrus Canyng (Pieter de Coninc). The AG and the CC, on the other hand, Latinise both first and surnames systematically: Pierre Flote, Pieter de Coninc, Jacques de Saint-Pol and Willem van Gulik become respectively Petrus de Flota, Petrus (cognomine) Rex, Jacobus de Sancto Paulo and Wilhelmus Juliacensis/de Juliaco. As far as toponyms are concerned, the Latinisation is applied less consistently. Due to the size and theme of the PF,

30 Literally: “Because of this the king can never do his will with the Flemish; because those people also speak badly and that is too much of an insult to the king”.

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toponyms are rare, but always Latinised. The two other Latin sources offer a more nuanced perspective, as their authors generally Latinise toponyms (e.g. Curtracum, Duacum for Kortrijk, Douai), but make several exceptions, indiscriminately for both Flemish and French place names. The AG mention for instance Hondescote, Wavery, Ardenborch and Louchy whereas the CC mentions Valkenborg, Dam, Vitri and Arkes. Our Middle Dutch source, the SH, seems to follow the same principles as the prose sources written in Latin, despite the fact that it is written in verse: it presents “dutchification” of first and surnames (e.g. Jacop van Simpole for Jacques de Saint-Pol) and a mixed attitude towards toponyms, which are sometimes Dutchified and sometimes preserved in the original language. The choice between the two options (e.g. Risele vs. Lile) is probably determined by syllable and end rhyme constraints rather than by a conscious choice that might reveal anything about Velthem’s language perception. One can be even more concise about the French sources, which, whether verse or prose text, are all very systematic in their frenchification of both names of people and places. Pieter de Coninc, for instance, invariably becomes Pierre or Pierron le Roy and toponyms such as Kortrijk, Maldegem or Ingelmunster become Courtrai, Maldenguien or Ynglemoustier. Generally, the French sources seem to be the most systematic in their frenchification of both names of people and places. The Latin sources seem to be quite systematic in latinising the names of people, but are more flexible for toponyms. Our Middle Dutch source seems to have a mixed attitude towards dutchification. However, it is impossible to draw any conclusions as to what this entails regarding the author’s or the anticipated readership’s language attitudes, as it is only one source, written in verse.

3.3 Referring to the language and loanwords When it comes to the choice of words made to refer to a language or to the people who speak it, however, the texts seem to diverge to a far greater degree. Whereas four of our sources, two on each side of the conflict (the PF and the CC for the Flemish and the CA and CM for the French perspective) do not name a single language, the three others do. The AG mentions the Flemish language twice: “in flamingo”. In the first case, it simply introduces a toponym : parochia que vocatur in Flamingo Ingelmonstre³¹ (Funck-Brentano 1896: 5). This type of set phrase is commonly used as a meta-

31 Translation: “the parish which in Flemish is called Ingelmonstre”.

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linguistic marker, introducing names or loanwords and appears in charters as well.³² The next occurrence is indeed linked to a loanword from Middle Dutch, and to the Bruges Matins in particular (Funck-Brentano 1896: 25): Committentesque cum eis, ipsos superant,et lugere et terga vertere compellunt, conclamantes sicut inter se ante dictam pugnam condixerant, duo vocabula, scilicet “scutum” vel “clypeus” et “amicus”, eo quod “clypeus” in Flamingo cum aspiratione, quam Franci et Gallici sonare non possunt, et scribitur sic : “scilt”.³³

This significant passage offers the most “properly” linguistic description of the Matins’ shibboleth.³⁴ In Flamingo does not directly precede the loanword ‘scilt’, which is only introduced at the end of the sentence. The author first explains in Latin which two words were used (“scutum/clipeus” for scilt; “amicus” for vrient) by the Flemish and then provides the reader with a phonetic reason why scilt was chosen: “because in Flemish it is pronounced with an ‘aspiration’, which the Francophones are unable to pronounce”, the ‘aspiration’ referring to the velar fricative [x] in the initial sequence [sx] of the word. As further analysis will indicate, this passage is relevant at more than one level. The AG contains two more Middle Dutch loan words relating to the lexical field of warfare: springale (a kind of catapult) and trumpe (a bassoon or trumpet used by military) (Funck-Brentano 1896: 59, 77). These loanwords receive metalinguistic markers as well, of the type que vulgariter… vocantur (‘commonly called…’), but without specifying the language. This is not the case for the only mention of the French language by the BRL, en françois, which seems – rather ironically – to have been triggered by a loanword from Middle Dutch (v.14411–14, de Wailly & Delisle 1865: 233):

32 Although in the charters from medieval Flanders before 1300, the rare references to the Flemish language are made in a slightly different way: instead of in flamingo, they state in lingua teuthonica, one of the Latin equivalents of the Middle Dutch diets (Peersman 2006). 33 “All together, they are more numerous than them and force them to tears and flight, yelling one to another – as they had agreed between them before said fight – two words, which were ‘shield’ and ‘friend’, because in Flemish, ‘shield’ is pronounced with an aspiration, which the Francophones are unable to pronounce, and which is written like this: ‘scilt’”. 34 A few decades later, Gilles le Muisit also tries to explain why this particular shibboleth was chosen, but without any phonetic description. He simply states that no one who does not know Flemish is able to pronounce the words correctly and that everyone who was not able to pronounce these words was killed without delay: … sed ordinaverunt quaedam verba in flamingo, quae nullus, nisi sciat flamingum, potest perfecte pronuntiare aut dicere, et fuerunt verba: scilt en vrient, et qui talia verba perfecte non pronuntiarent et dicerent, statim sine dilatione caederentur (de Smet 1841b: 193).

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Tiex bastons qu’il portent en guerre ont nom godendac en la terre Goden dac, c’est bon jour à dire qui en françois le veust descrire.³⁵

Guiart offers a detailed description (v. 14408–14430) of the weapon preferred by the Flemish infantry, a long stick with a sharp metal spike at the end, ironically called goedendach in Middle Dutch, which he mentions 18 times in total. Before getting into a detailed description of the use and lethality of the weapon, Guiart explains the loanword to his readers: it means “good day”, which corresponds to the French “bonjour”. He offers a similar translation, without naming a language, of the only other loanword from Middle Dutch, wacharme (v. 18796–7, de Wailly & Delisle 1865: 275): En criant: wacarme! wacarme!³⁶ Qui veut autant con dire halas!³⁷

This exclamation of sorrow or pity (‘ay me’ or ‘alas’) would later be adopted into French as vacarme (‘a loud noise’), but it would apparently take some time before it was fully integrated, as the late medieval farce of master Pathelin still identifies the word as non-French or at least hard to understand around 1460.³⁸ Of all the sources, the SH is the only one to explicitly name all the languages involved. Latin is mentioned twice as latijn (v. 866, 884), linked to a religious character of little importance. French is also mentioned twice as fransoys (v. 2082, 2366). In both cases, the mention of the language immediately precedes or follows direct speech of the Count of Artois, even if the quotes themselves are not necessarily in French (cf. 2.5.). Of particular interest, however, are the two different ways of mentioning Flemish, namely diets (‘Dutch’, v. 926) and der Vlaminge tongen (‘the tongue of the Flemish’, v. 2658), because they seem to establish a solid link between the Flemish identity and the language the Flemish speak. The former appears in direct speech, when the king of France promises his wife he will destroy Flanders to such a degree that the language will not be heard

35 “Those sticks they carry to war are called godendac in their land. Goden dac means ‘bon jour’ to whoever wishes to describe it in French”. 36 At the same time Guiart proves the author of the Annales Gandenses right, as the orthography vacarme represents the velar plosive [k] rather than the velar fricative [x]. 37 “Calling out: wacarme! Wacarme! Which means as much as saying ‘alas!’”. 38 Pretending to be delirious, Pathelin rants in different French dialects and in Flemish. The opening word of the Flemish tirade happens to be vuacarme (v. 863, Dufournet 1986: 128).

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anymore,³⁹ the underlying reasoning unequivocally identifying the geographical territory with the people and the language they speak. The latter (the tongue of the Flemish) is more descriptive. The context illustrates what happens if language does not suffice to distinguish friends from foes: knights from Brabant siding with the French realise they are losing, get off their horses and start yelling the Flemish battle cry Vlaendren ende Leu (‘Flanders and the Lion’) in an attempt to get away unnoticed. The author specifies they are able to do this because they know the language well⁴⁰: si consten wel der Vlaminge tongen (v. 2658, Van der Linden e.a. 1906: 2336). Apparently, the undercover knights are overdoing it, because the Flemish report to Guy of Namur, one of their leaders, that “those from Brabant call out like we do, they also follow the lion. It seems friends are enemies!” (v. 2674–6, Van der Linden e.a. 1906: 2337) and ask for guidance. The solution Guy proposes is to simply kill those wearing spurs (v. 2680–1, idem), or, to resort to external (vestimentary) signs to correctly identify friend from foe, a scenario completely the opposite of the Bruges Matins shibboleth.

3.4 Referring to the people and the region If mentioning a language by name is rather rare in our texts, the references to the people and the geographical regions involved in the conflict are generally more numerous. Indirectly, these can also refer to language. My approach to these data is twofold, as I take into account the frequency of identifiers used to refer to one’s own identity versus the identity of the other and the different types of identifiers used to refer to either France or Flanders as one general entity.⁴¹ In the PF, the toponym Flandria appears 7 times, whereas no reference to France is made. Generally, the Flemish identity is more explicit than the French: 8 references are made to the French, 11 to the Flemish. The Flemish are systematically referred to as Flemyngi⁴² – linking the people to the language they speak rather than to the geographical area of Flanders – whereas 7 out of 8 references to 39 Dit geloefdi in haer hant / Dat hi soude al Vlaenderlant / so dorriden ende dorbreken / Datmer geen diets in soude spreken (v. 923–926, Van der Linden e.a. 1906: 2265). “He promised her that he would raid and destroy the land of Flanders to such a degree that Dutch no longer would be spoken”. 40 Both Dutch and French were spoken in the medieval Duchy of Brabant, which straddled the language border. 41 To ensure a one-to-one relationship between the two sides of the conflict, strictly general references to the “French” or “Flemish” as one singular entity are taken into account. This means that more specific identifiers, such as Picards, are not included. 42 When referring to the Latin identifiers, the nominative forms are used.

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the French take the form of Franci (‘Franks’). The one other term used is Gallicus (‘Gallic’). In itself not a peculiar choice of words, Gallicus appears in the other Latin sources as well, mostly as a synonym of Francus. In parodying the passion of Christ, however, the PF provides Gallicus with an extra layer of meaning as a pun on gallus (‘rooster’), which could not have escaped the religious audience the text was aiming at. Gallicus only appears twice more in one other source, the AG, instead of the much more frequent Franci (79 instances). To a certain degree, these two identifiers are synonyms for inhabitants of France and therefore Francophones. Even though the first instance of Gallici vel Franci seems to confirm the interchangeability of both identifiers by the use of vel (‘or’), the second instance states Franci et Gallici (Funck-Brentano 1896 : 24, 25), using et (‘and’). The fact that this exact passage narrates the Bruges Matins, where the use of a shibboleth plays on pronunciation difficulties, is not a coincidence. The shibboleth indicates that the relevant common denominator between both identifiers is the fact that they speak French (‘in French’ is usually translated in Latin by ‘in gallico’) and thus cannot pronounce the Flemish words correctly. The difference between Gallici et Franci refers to the geographical situation of these Francophones: Franci to the inhabitants of the French crown domain, Gallici to Francophones living elsewhere, such as French Flanders or Hainaut. Similarly, the identifier Flandria flamingans is considerably more specific than the more frequent Flandrenses or Flamingi. The most neutral term is Flandrenses, used 116 times in the AG, which refers to inhabitants of the County of Flanders. Flamingi, used 32 times, is more specific, as it refers rather to those who speak Flemish. Flandria flamingans, appearing only 3 times in this one source, thus refers to the Dutch-speaking part of Flanders, the ‘Flemish’ part of the county, and in particular to the insurgent part of Flemish Flanders. The counterpart of these rebels are identified as Liliardi, the Flemish sympathising with the French, nicknamed after the heraldic symbol of the French royal house, the lilies. Liliardus, or Liliard/Leliaert in Middle Dutch, is an identifier typical of the sources from Flanders. It appears mainly in the AG and the SH, but also appears in the CC.⁴³ The heraldic nickname for the Flemish rebels, the identifier Liebard (referring literally to the ‘leopard’, or rather the Flemish lion, heraldic symbol of the count of Flanders), is unique to the SH. The comparative analysis of the absolute number of identifiers for the French and the Flemish per source renders one very interesting result. As one would 43 In his rather short description (1,013 words) of the year 1302, the author of CC very dryly likens the Flemish collaborators to those who have renounced their faith, one of the worst possible insults at the time: Liliardis sive apostatis (Martène & Durand 1717: 408). Cf. 2.5. Faus clercs die Ju leer.

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expect, the sources favouring the Flemish side of the conflict generally contain more Flemish identifiers than French. There is, however, only one French source out of three, the CM, in which French identifiers are present more frequently than the Flemish. The fact that the CM is the source least close to the actual events could be relevant: the crushing defeat the French suffered at the hands of the Flemish at Courtrai in 1302 seems to be more or less relativised. According to the CM, the Flemish are only one enemy among others: pope Boniface VIII, the Jews, the knights Templar – even if the Flemish – get the lion’s share of the text. But does this necessarily mean that the CA and the BRL, both written within 5 years after Courtrai, testify to an undoubtedly badly bruised French ego⁴⁴ because the French identifiers seem to vanish in front of a mass of Flemish identifiers? Or do the French generally feel less of a need to refer explicitly their own identity than the Flemish at the time? The first option seems more plausible, but the analyses are not yet detailed enough to justify a definite reply. A number of methodological observations indeed need to be made. Currently, the quantitative analysis only takes into account the general identifiers, whereas a French or Flemish identity in a text could also be measured through more specific identifiers, the most specific being the people mentioned by name. For the CA, this would change the results considerably, as it contains lists of names. Moreover, the analysis adds up all general identifiers of our sources for a narrated period of ten years (1297–1307), which means that varying numbers of identifiers over time (e.g. fewer Flemish identifiers in the descriptions of the years preceding 1302 than in those narrating subsequent events) are not visible.⁴⁵ The last observation is more important still: the frequencies mentioned above are absolute, which means the differences in length of the different texts are not taken into account. As the creation of a digitised tagable corpus is currently in progress,⁴⁶ relative frequencies are only available for the narration of the year 1302 (see table 2), which is the only year covered by all of our sources.⁴⁷

44 Despite subsequent victories over the Flemish, Courtrai would haunt French memory for a long time, as documented by Froissart’s Chronicles eighty years after the facts: les François hayoient durement les Flamens et la ville pour une bataille qui jadis fut devant Courtray, ou le conte Robert d’Artois et toute la fleur de  France  fut jadis  morte (Paris ms.fr. 2652 191v, Ainsworth & Croenen 2012). “The French vehemently hated the Flemish and the town because of a battle fought in the past before Courtrai, where count Robert of Artois and all the flowers of France were killed”. 45 Further analysis will be detailed with regard to the number of individual identifiers per year of narrated time within each source. 46 The texts analysed are available mainly through printed editions, several of which from before 1900. 47 The PF is limited to 1302.

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Figure 1. General identifiers in the narration of 1302

Figure 1 visualises the relative frequency of general identifiers for 1302 in each source. The four sources to the left are the Flemish sources, the three others on the right are French. Within each group, the sources are placed chronologically. The percentages for this one year seem to confirm that identifiers from one’s “own” side are more frequent than those referring to the “other” in the Flemish narration of the conflict, although in the AG, the difference is very small. The French narration of 1302 barely counts more French identifiers as far as the BRL is concerned, but for the CA and the CM, Flemish identifiers predominate. However, it is interesting to see how the frequency of the French identifiers in the French sources increases in time, as this seems to corroborate a growing French confidence as they recover from their 1302 defeat. Further analysis will put this hypothesis to the test, but generally, Flemish identifiers seem to be more frequent on both sides.

3.5 Multilingualism As we mentioned with respect to toponyms (cf. sub-section 2.2), the language in which the texts are written determines the way they are treated. The same observation can be applied to direct speech in our narrative sources: if the text is written in Latin, direct speech is in Latin as well. Whether it is the Count of Flan-

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ders, the King of France, the Pope or a lowly peasant, they all speak Latin. The same principle applies to sources in Middle Dutch and Old French. This implies that any deviation beyond the level of a loanword is the result of a conscious choice by the narrator, intended to have a certain effect. The AG, the CA, the BRL and the CC do not go beyond the insertion of loanwords. The PF, the CM and the SH, on the other hand, present nice examples of code-switching – from both sides of the conflict, and through three different matrix languages. Even though the PF and the SH were written in Latin and Middle Dutch respectively, they both narrate the Flemish perspective on the conflict. The codeswitching passages in both sources have in common that they focus almost exclusively on the leader of the French troops, Robert, Count of Artois. Most of the time, direct speech by the count is rendered in the language of the text, which means he speaks Latin in the PF and Middle Dutch in the SH. However, in both sources, certain quotes switch to Old French. The PF shows three examples of code-switching (de Smet 1978: 314). Two small identical Jeo⁴⁸ luy suy (lit. ‘I am him’) are said by the count to Pieter de Coninc. In crying out Bayard, Bayard, ou es tu? Pur quey as moy refuse?, the count is addressing his horse, as Christ calls out for God in Aramaic Eli, Eli, lamma sabakhtani? (‘My lord, my lord, why have you forsaken me?’). True to its model (i.e. the Bible), which has Aramaic followed by a Latin translation, the PF has the French quote translated into Latin, changing ‘Bayard’ (a common name for a brown horse), to ‘my horse’ (Equus meus, equus meus, ut quid me dereliquisti?). The humoristic intent is obvious: where Christ at the cross calls out for God, the dying count calls out for his horse.⁴⁹ This is echoed by the SH, which has the count pleading – in Middle Dutch – for his horse’s life before his own (v. 2362–4, Van der Linden e.a. 1906: 2324). The SH likewise quotes the count speaking French. The first quote is the most extensive case of code-switching. It amounts to three verses entirely in French, set apart as direct speech, in which the count, ready to charge, exhorts his enemies to flee (v. 2076–8, Van der Linden e.a. 1906: 2313):

48 The vocalism /u/ written or of the stressed personal pronoun of the first person singular is a characteristic of Picard French. 49 This particular parody seems still to be alive in Belgium today. In April 2011, the Walloon cartoonist Hachepé released Le calvaire de Di Rupo, which is a very similar, albeit visual, parody of the exact same Bible scene (see http://hachepepresscartoons.blogs.lalibre.be/ media/01/02/2055907640.jpg). The visual jokes are reinforced by the use of code-switching. The socialist prime minister Elio di Rupo is nailed at the cross, crying out Marx, Marx, lamma Sabacthani?, while Bart De Wever, leader of the Flemish right-wing party N-VA, dressed as a Roman soldier, is commenting in both French and Latin.

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Fuyès, merdaelge, treis arière, Faus clercs die Ju leer, Rendé vos sans reposeer!⁵⁰

The insult merdaelge appears again when some French troops realise they are losing the battle and cry out, half in French, half in Dutch: Merdaelge! Vliet! (v. 2240, Van der Linden e.a. 1906: 2319). Two more quotes with some minor instances of code-switching are again to be attributed to the count of Artois: Ariète, om tebbene platse! and Paterne dieu! Wat ons gesciet? En weet nu God van ons niet? (v. 2298, 2305–6, Van der Linden e.a. 1906: 2322). The first combines ariète (which could be either the adverb arrière ‘withdraw’ or the imperative arrête ‘stop’) and a subordinate clause (‘in order to make room’), whereas the latter combines Latin (paterne) and French (dieu) in an invocation of God, followed by a double question in Middle Dutch.⁵¹ In all instances, code-switching never obstructs the underlying grammar of the matrix language, Middle Dutch. One can assume that even with very limited knowledge of French, these quotes were intelligible to the audience mainly through the context. Even if they did not get the meaning of every word, they would still be able to identify the insertion of French. In other words, code-switching to French enhances the “frenchness” or “otherness” of the Count of Artois and can thus be seen as an identifier in its own right. In the CM also, code-switching is used to enhance the enemy’s identity: not at the expense of the Flemish, as one might expect, but rather at the expense of Pope Boniface VIII, an Italian born Pope. The first quote is rather hard to disentangle if one wants to identify different languages or dialects (v. 1995–7, Buchon 1827: 96–97), but this might have been exactly what the author had in mind: Eh! Filiol my, qui esto? Que me faig tant de tempesto. Favelle a my qui est ton sire.⁵²

Boniface VIII was an Italian, and to a Francophone audience, this kind of Italianised or Latinised⁵³ French would still have been understandable while at the same time setting the speech clearly apart from the rest of the chronicle. The

50 Merdaelge is an altered form of merdaille, lit. ‘heap of dung’. A translation into modern English could be: “Flee, shitbags, withdraw, False clerks who have renounced God, Surrender without delay!” 51 “What is happening to us? Is God forsaking us now?” 52 “Eh! My son, who are you? You are making quite a racket. Tell me who is your lord.” 53 One notices, for instance, Filiol my instead of it. figlio mio or fr. mon fils and the endings in –o for esto (instead of Qui es tu lat.) and tempesto (instead of lat. tempestas or it. tempesta).

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second quote is equally italianised, but contains a neatly distinguishable chunk of Latin⁵⁴ (v. 2110–2, Buchon 1827: 101): O my sire! nomine Dex! Ou sont andas, Filliol my, cex Qui si nous ont fort tormentast?⁵⁵

As the underlying syntax and most of the words are French, even with the insertion of Italian verbs like andare and tormentare,⁵⁶ the quote was undoubtedly comprehensible to the intended audience. At the same time, the head of the Catholic church is shown not to be infallible through his less than excellent command of a certain language. The use of code-switching in direct speech is, as we mentioned before, a conscious strategy by the author, and the aims do not differ whether the author adopts a Flemish or a French perspective. The socio-historical context of the sources analysed (cf. section 1), the systematic embedding of the code-switching within direct speech and the actual form and length of the code-switching passages inform us that the audience could understand (at least) most of it. The aims of code-switching are multiple. On the one hand, it sets the character quoted, who in all instances is an enemy, apart through his language. The code-switching serves to alienate him from the audience, to stress his “other” identity. On the other hand, the alienation never happens to such a degree as to make the enemy unintelligible, because the humorous effect would then be lost.

4 Conclusions This chapter proposes a first sociolinguistic analysis of the medieval sources predating 1330 which narrate the Franco-Flemish conflict. The corpus is highly diverse: the seven texts that make it up are written in three different languages (Latin, Old French, Middle Dutch), they are of different text types (prose and verse; annals, chronicles and a parody passion), and they reflect two opposing perspectives on the same events. Moreover, they do not necessarily cover the same time period nor have the same size. However, through a qualitative analysis of the period of narration from 1297 to 1307 and a quantitative analysis of the

54 The invocation of God nomine Dex is an incorrect Latin translation of the swearword nom de Dieu. 55 “O my lord! In the name of God! Where did those go who have tormented us so badly?” 56 Which are incorrectly conjugated and accompanied by French auxiliaries.

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identifiers in the coverage of 1302, certain trends and constraints in the construction of identity through language can be determined. Given that remarks on the use and perception of languages, such as language judgments (2.1), are rare, the qualitative analysis focused on implicit markers of identity. It is hardly surprising that the degree to which names of people and toponyms (2.2) are maintained in the original language or adapted to the language in which the text is written depends on the written medium rather than on a Flemish or French perspective. The presence of loanwords (2.3) is limited, but highly significant, as the presence of a loanword is ruled by constraints which seem to bridge the differences in language and perspective. There is indeed a common need to clearly set apart the language of the “other” from one’s own, as the loanwords are systematically made to stand out with metalinguistic markers and/or translations. In the case of the Bruges Matins shibboleth, this need even generates linguistic comments avant la lettre. This concern of clearly distinguishing between one’s own identity and the other’s through a very specific use of language continues beyond the level of the mere loanword, as code-switching (2.5) is ruled by similar constraints: it is strictly limited to direct speech by a prominent enemy and is generally used with humorous intent. The general trend we derive from these data is that identity, on both sides, is implicitly but strongly linked to language, or rather to specific usages of the “other” language within clearly defined contextual boundaries. The quantitative analysis of the general identifiers (2.4), despite its being limited to the narration of 1302, opens up a few promising leads. The French identifiers seem to increase in the French sources over time, which could point to a growing French confidence. The Flemish identifiers in Flemish sources, however, do not show a continuous upward or downward trend – at least not at this point in time. The evolutions in the French/Flemish identifiers ratio per source still need to be determined, but in the narration of 1302, the Flemish sources clearly favour Flemish identifiers over French, while the opposite seems true for the French perspective. Whether this is a trend provoked by the French defeat in the year narrated, remains to be determined. Further analyses of the narration of the years leading up to 1302 and of the consecutive years are necessary to determine how great the impact of 1302 really was in terms of identifiers, on both sides of the conflict. The data we have already seem to predict that the link between language and identity in the narration of 1302 was implicitly present before the definition of the “national” battle in the textual tradition and before the formation of nation-states as a larger sociolinguistic landmark.

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Acknowledgements I am grateful to the Belgian American Educational Foundation (BAEF) and the Fund for Scientific Research Flanders (FWO) for enabling me to begin this research project through a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Minnesota (2009–2010) and the K. U. Leuven (2009–2012).

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Sleiderink, R. 2010. From Francophile to Francophobe: The changing attitude of medieval Dutch authors towards French literature. In C. Kleinhenz & K. Busby (eds.), Medieval Multilingualism: The Francophone World and Its Neighbours, 127–143. Turnhout: Brepols. Trio, P., D. Heirbaut & D. Van den Auweele (eds.). 2002. Omtrent 1302. Leuven: Leuvense Academische Pers. Vale, M. 2005. Language, politics and society: The uses of the vernacular in the later Middle Ages. English Historical Review 120(485). 15–34. Verschaffel, T. 1998. De hoed en de hond. Geschiedschrijving in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden 1715–1794. Hilversum: Verloren. Willemyns, R. Taalpolitiek in de Bourgondische tijd. Verslagen en Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse taal- en letterkunde 1994(2). 162–177.

Willem Frijhoff

Chapter 6 Multilingualism and the challenge of frenchification in the early modern Dutch Republic 1 Frenchification and the French language The early modern Dutch Republic, with its rather limited population of less than 2 million inhabitants, was a remarkable crossroads of commerce, culture, religion, science and political interests. Its army was truly international, and the seven provinces were repeatedly the object of huge immigration waves from the Southern Netherlands (including Liège and Wallonia), France, Switzerland, Germany, Central Europe, Great Britain and the Scandinavian Countries, not to forget the travel-mindedness of the Dutch themselves and their numerous functional relations with the great commercial ports of France, Spain, Italy and the Levant and their commercial companies with the East and the West. The result of all these events, relations and movements was a truly multilingual society, in which the Dutch language could only slowly impose itself as a unifying instrument and a national asset. In fact, Dutch was from the start – and increasingly as Latin lost its predominant position in the world of science, culture and politics – challenged by the rise of French as a lingua franca in a plurality of social and cultural fields. The hypothesis of the “frenchification” of the early modern Dutch Republic has long dominated Dutch cultural history. The increase in the use of the French language and the introduction of French manners have been made responsible for Holland’s perceived decline as an independent power and a culturally innovative nation during the late seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, until its occupation by the French under the Napoleonic Empire. However, against the background of Dutch multilingualism, a more differentiated approach is now necessary. Until what point and in which domains did French really pervade Dutch everyday life and culture, and what social, cultural and linguistic opposing forces manifested themselves during that evolution?¹ 1 This chapter is mainly based on my earlier research, in particular Willem Frijhoff. 1989. Verfransing? Franse taal en Nederlandse cultuur tot in de Revolutietijd. Bijdragen en mededelingen betreffende de geschiedenis der Nederlanden 104(4). 592–609; www.dbnl.nl/tekst/frijoo5verf01/ index.htm; id., Le plurilinguisme des élites en Europe de l’Ancien Régime au début du XXe siècle. Le Français dans le Monde. Recherches et applications, February–March 1991, 120–129; 2010.

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The French language indeed occupied an important position in a few welldefined areas of Netherlandic society (see Riemens 1919; Frijhoff 1990, 1996; Frijhoff & Reboullet 1998; Frijhoff 2013). Ever since the Middle Ages French had been the language of diplomacy and of international trade, an important part of which was carried out with France. During the Burgundian era, when the Dukes of Burgundy and their successors reigned over the majority of the Netherlandic territories, it was also the language in which the Low Countries were governed from Brussels. The latter was no longer the case after the founding of the Dutch Republic, but the importance of French as an international means of communication actually increased with the growth of trade and the intensification of international relations. Moreover, a large portion of the refugees who had settled in the Republic since the end of the sixteenth century, either from the Walloon provinces or from Switzerland or France itself, were French-speaking. They were given their own French (“Walloon”) churches, 43 in the course of the seventeenth century prior to the 1685 Revocation of the Toleration Edict of Nantes, and in all up to 80 afterwards. As early as 1585 a separate “Walloon” synod for the Frenchspeaking Reformed parishes was instituted, which helped to maintain the use of colloquial French in everyday religious settings for reading the Bible and other spiritual books, for prayer at table and for social intercourse, etc. French thus became the second language in almost all the cities of Holland. Moreover, the pronounced international orientation of the stadholder’s court meant that French continued to be spoken there, and as the attraction of this court increased, the social prestige of French rose as well. By and by, the social elites marked their distance toward the common people by opting for membership of the Frenchspeaking Walloon churches – a movement that was facilitated by the increasing tendency to combine schooling in French, as a modern language, with a traditional, classical education in Latin. From the start of the Republic Latin teachers often did French tutoring in their free time, and during the eighteenth century boarding-schools combining the two languages became fashionable. It is therefore hardly surprising that the language of politics and administration of the seventeenth century Netherlands, and still more the language of law with its many fixed expressions and traditional formulas, teemed with loanwords

Codes, routines et communication. Formes et sens de la pluralité linguistique dans les sociétés occidentales d’autrefois. In Javier Suso López (ed.), Plurilinguisme et enseignement des langues en Europe: aspects historiques, didactiques et sociolinguistiques. Trois regards (Willem Frijhoff, Daniel Coste, Pierre Swiggers) en parallèle, 15–48. Granada: Editorial Universidad de Granada: 2010. Meertaligheid in de Gouden eeuw: Een verkenning [KNAW, Mededelingen van Afdeling Letterkunde, Nieuwe Reeks, Deel 73, no. 2]. Amsterdam: KNAW Press, also as: www.knaw.nl/publicaties/pdf/20101019/pdf.

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from French. Without an active knowledge of French, the political writings of grand pensionary Johan de Witt (1625–1672), for instance, are barely understandable. Even an author as sensitive to the purity of the Dutch language as Pieter Cornelisz Hooft (1581–1647) could not avoid filling his official correspondence as the bailiff of Muiden with French loanwords. From the way the stadholder’s secretary Constantijn Huygens (1596–1687) ridiculed the frenchified language used by the youth of The Hague in his poem “Voorhout” (1621), just as Gerbrand Adriaensz Bredero (1585–1618) had run down Walloon mannerisms and bastard language in his satirical play De Spaanschen Brabander Ierolimo (‘The Spanish Brabantine’, 1617), we can infer that in those circles, too, French affectation was the rage. Yet for the next generation, in the time of the fully-fledged and independent Dutch Republic after the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, there was as yet no in-depth frenchification of the Dutch language and culture. It is true that when preparing to send his sons on their grand tour to France in 1649, Huygens wrote to André Rivet (1572–1651) that they had little more to learn of French, having been educated in that language. But for most boys, including those from the higher social classes, it remained a foreign language, and a difficult one at that (cf. Huygens 1916; van der Wal & van Bree 1992: 224–225, 230–231). The behavioural model imported from France for the cultural upper crust, that of the honnête homme, of civilité and courtoisie, remained closely associated with the French language, but its influence at that moment was still limited to a small elite. Initially French-language publishing took place mainly in The Hague because of the impact of political relations on the printed press. In the third quarter of the seventeenth century, the situation would begin to change, not so much with respect to the quantity of the publications in French, for that remained small, fluctuating between a tenth and a fifteenth of the total. Only around 1680 does there appear to be a clear upward trend. What did change, however, was the type of publication. Especially striking is the increase in the number of literary and “chivalrous” texts, the tragedies of Quinault and Corneille and similar works. And these were no longer published in the diplomatic capital The Hague but by the Elseviers in commercially and culturally prominent Amsterdam and in the university town of Leiden. Part of this production was definitely intended for export, but we can assume that the Dutch public benefited as well. Around that time the burgher class was looking more and more to the French bourgeoisie for models of decorum and etiquette, and less to the court. In the last quarter of the seventeenth century Rotterdam became another publishing centre for French books. Among others, the French refugee professors Pierre Bayle and Pierre Jurieu developed their intellectual strategies and fought their mutual battles there. During the eighteenth century, the centre of gravity moved to Amsterdam where French publishers, mostly Huguenot refu-

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gees, abounded. As early as 1700, one hundred of the 230 publishers of Amsterdam (43%) were French-speaking, and they published largely for an international market, including France itself where censorship loomed large. Amsterdam was therefore given the French nickname of “Le magasin de l’univers” (see BerkvensStevelinck et al. 1992; on the Huguenots see Frijhoff 2003).

2 Dutch among the other languages The cohesion of the Dutch Republic had primarily been realised in its own language, Dutch. No matter how diverse the usage in the various provinces and social classes on the level of administration, communication and culture, the use of a single, more or less standardised language was extremely widespread. It was the language of a middle-class culture, in the broadest sense of the word. The use of French was limited to a small group that sought its identity in a supranational rather than a national community. To a certain extent this was also true of Latin, the language of the Republic of Letters (Bots & Waquet 1997). But because Latin was used mainly in scholarly and literary works, it represented more an intellectual than a social distinction. During the second half of the seventeenth century French would also expand its influence in this area. Both language communities, each in its own way, brought a touch of top European culture into the Republic. This does not alter the fact that the cultural identity of the large majority of the population was closely associated with the Dutch language, and this was precisely what gave French and Latin their distinguishing potential. Perhaps the most revealing examples can be found in the correspondence of Constantijn Huygens (see Bachrach 1962). Few persons of his time would have had contact with so many people from so many different strata of society. As secretary of the Oranges, he corresponded with the many members of that house, as well as with diplomats, soldiers and administrators; as a member of the Domain Council (responsible for the domains, and thus the fortune, of the Oranges) with architects and artists; as curator of the Illustrious School of Breda with professors; as a poet with poets; as a musician with musicians. Letters to and from members of the court and the stadholder’s family are always in French, as well as almost all those to and from higher civil servants and patricians, particularly those in The Hague. Latin is found only in correspondence with scholars, unless they happened to be of French origin, like the Leiden professor André Rivet, or to have previously taught in a French-speaking country, like his colleague Fredericus Spanhemius (1600–1649), a Bavarian who had taught at Geneva. With Anna Maria van Schurman (1607–1678), the most learned woman in the Republic, able

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to speak a dozen ancient and modern languages, he also corresponded in Latin. The letters that ordinary citizens sent to Huygens, however, even those who must have been well trained in French, were always written in Dutch. We might wonder whether some national linguistic awareness played a role here (see Hofman 1983). The developments in the Republic may not have deviated markedly from those in France, England and Germany. Yet the factors influencing that development differed considerably from one country to another. A strong central government, which explicitly considered itself responsible for promoting the national language and culture, as in France, had a positive impact on the development of a national language, contrary to the confederate Dutch Republic.

3 French schooling French was not only spoken and published but also taught in the schools of the North. Ever since the later Middle Ages, the Netherlands were a highly schooled society, especially at the elementary level. The reading capacity must have been one of the highest in Europe, among boys as well as girls. In the early sixteenth century every town had at least one publicly funded school. In the course of that century, the city school was gradually divided into a school for primary education in the Dutch language and a Latin school for secondary education. Primary education in Dutch was for both boys and girls, sometimes in separate schools but usually mixed. Secondary education in Latin, which offered prospects of the university, was in practice exclusively for boys, although there was no formal prohibition on admitting girls. The average citizen could learn French at the “French School”, as it was called, where the curriculum consisted of subjects useful for trade and business, and French was most often the language of instruction. Initially these “schools” could be simply French “classes” on the primary level. They also provided some elementary bookkeeping and mathematics, because these schools were normally the final level of formal instruction for the offspring of merchants or artisans. Schools of this kind already existed in the sixteenth century, but after 1580 their numbers increased considerably owing to the influx of immigrants from the Southern Netherlands, especially from the commercial city of Antwerp (see Dibon 1998; Briels 1972; Gelderblom 2000). Many of them tried to capitalise on their knowledge of French by setting themselves up as French schoolmasters. Quite early there were French schools for girls, too, which alomgside French offered subjects better suited to the social position of women – useful handicrafts, music, etc. Some Latin schools, in Amsterdam for example, also included French in their

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curricula, and courses taught by private French tutors were available for university students as well. The most famous French teacher in Leiden academic circles was the Lorraine-born Jean-Nicolas de Parival (1604–post-1669). His Délices de la Hollande, first published in 1651 and reissued 16 times until 1728, has guided innumerable French visitors through the Dutch Republic (see Nijenhuis 2012). But besides the French lessons or classes in Dutch primary schools there were also fully-fledged French schools for boys and others for girls, which not only offered French language lessons but where all the teaching took place in French and where the pupils, mostly belonging to the middle classes and sometimes to the higher burgher elites, were normally expected to speak the language as well. In the coastal provinces of Holland and Zealand these were usually private schools and as a rule were therefore more expensive. In the inner provinces the city magistrate normally financed one French schoolmaster with public means. These schools had a heavier curriculum, which differed from one school to another depending on the constituency and increased over time: mathematics, navigation, astronomy, double bookkeeping, occasionally history and geography, and often a second foreign language, usually Italian but in some cases High German too. It was strictly forbidden, however, for such schools to teach Latin and Greek. With the generalisation of primary education, elementary self-tuition was probably reduced to a means of acquiring supplementary knowledge and skills, such as more specialised technical knowledge, or to an option for those who had no access to education for reasons of class or sex. The latter was true, for example, of women who wished to acquire higher learning, for the Latin school and higher education remained a male preserve. A femme savante like Anna Maria van Schurman consequently taught herself, starting at the age of two, one language and one academic subject after another, and continued to do so all her life (cf. de Baar et al. 1996). Although she was considered an exceptional woman in her time, we find the same learning pattern among other women from the well-off classes. Actually only modern languages were viewed as a field open to women, and French first of all. It has even been claimed that French initially played the same role for women that Latin did for men. Autodidactic language learning also flourished in academic circles. Around 1650 many students, especially the wealthier ones, “shopped around” the courses, public lectures and especially the expensive privatissima, the private classes given in the home of the professor, where he could deviate from the fixed subject matter, the traditional approach, or the prescribed canon, and where genuine innovations were very likely tested and taught. The university was actually a place where, besides gaining professional knowledge (of theology, law, medicine, classical languages, the art of fortification), a student could develop

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broad cultural interests and acquire the social skills essential for intellectual exchange among the administrative elite and in the Republic of Letters. After 1650, however, the Latin model gradually lost its appeal as an instrument for the renewal of learning and general education. The Latin language yielded more and more ground to French as the lingua franca of international communication. The function of the Latin school finally shrank to that of a simple step on the way to the university and thus to an intellectual profession or an administrative or political function. The French school became a compulsory addition for whoever wanted to climb higher on the social ladder, to widen his or her social circles and to have access to modern literature, current intellectual debates, and a more encyclopedic knowledge.

4 English and French attraction compared French was not the only modern language taught in the Dutch Republic. In fact, two commonwealths increasingly dominated the horizon of the Dutch in the seventeenth century, Great Britain and France. For several centuries England and Scotland had been commercial partners of the Hanseatic towns of the Eastern provinces of the Netherlands, and of the commercial towns on the coast of the North Sea. Scotland had its staple first at Middelburg in Zealand, and after 1441 at Veere, whereas an important Scots community of several hundred persons (merchants, in particular of the coal trade, and seamen, but also soldiers of the Scots regiments of the Dutch army) was gradually built up at Rotterdam during the 17th century. It was in the religious communities of the migrants that their home language was most actively fostered and maintained. A Scots Presbyterian church was founded at Rotterdam in 1643. Inside that community Scots was spoken, but English was the language of contact in the Dutch community (see Catterall 2002). Commerce with neighbouring England had always been important. The English woollen staple of the Company of Merchant Adventurers had moved from Antwerp to Middelburg in 1582; from then on it was established at Delft in 1621, at Rotterdam in 1635, and at Dordrecht from 1655 to its suppression in 1688. An English Reformed Church was opened at Middelburg in 1598, at Amsterdam in 1607 (still existing in the chapel of the Begijnhof), at Utrecht in 1621, at Dordrecht in 1625, at Rotterdam in 1635 (the Court Church of the Merchant Adventurers). Other Scots and English communities existed for some time in garrison towns with English-speaking regiments. However, the attempt to unite all the Presbyterian churches in an English-speaking Synod in the Netherlands, in 1630, did not succeed. The Puritans who fled in 1609 to Amsterdam and thence to Leiden

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held themselves far from the rather liberal English community in that town, until their departure for the New World in 1620 as the “Pilgrim Fathers”. The Anglican Church, initially prohibited in the Dutch Republic because it was contrary to the prevailing Calvinist monopoly in the public space, was formally admitted at Amsterdam in 1698 and at Rotterdam in 1708, but gathering spaces for the Episcopal community existed on an unofficial basis at a much earlier stage, and, of course, the English representatives at The Hague had their Anglican chapel since 1586. All these English-speaking religious communities were essentially inwardlooking and barely recruited members of the congregation among their Dutch hosts. Whenever useful or necessary, colloquial English could be learned by Dutch inhabitants on an individual basis, with the help of grammars and textbooks, and sometimes under a formally established English language master, such as the famous William Sewel (1653–1720). Occasionally, such masters managed to found a boarding-school where English was taught to merchants’ sons, such as François Hillenius (1613–post-1664) at Rotterdam in 1637. He published the English and Low Dutch Instructer for his school in 1664. Another English boarding-school existed on the Glashaven at Rotterdam in 1747 for which Edward Evans (1715–1804) published in that year a Short and clear instruction in the spelling and pronouncing the English Tongue, reprinted several times, and in 1757 A new complete English and Dutch grammar, equally popular among Dutch pupils until 1806 (see Loonen 1991). However, during most of this time England was a political adversary of the Dutch in the field of international, maritime and colonial relations. Among the Dutch youth who spent part of their grand tour on travel in England, marvelling at the court ceremonies in London and at the Gothic splendour of the university towns of Oxford and Cambridge, it was mainly an object of cultural curiosity, not an example to imitate. The English language was considered a purely functional instrument for commercial, political or military relations. As a cultural language it was held in disdain. When language master Barthélemy Piélat (1640?–1681), a French Huguenot refugee, published his Octoglotton, ou Phraséologie en Huict langues at Amsterdam in 1673, the English language figured last after French, Latin, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German and “Flemish” (Dutch)  – an order that reflects fairly well the decreasing prestige of these languages in the seventeenth-century Dutch community. Although everyday knowledge of English in the Dutch Republic may have been greater than appears to be the case from the printed sources, English was mainly the language of merchants and refugees, one that would be learned ad hoc from an English language tutor or during an apprenticeship with an English merchant, almost never at school. But given the presence of the English court at

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The Hague during Cromwell’s Commonwealth and the many refugees it attracted, it is not surprising that an English publisher set up his business there: Samuel Browne, brother of the court preacher of Mary Stuart. In his seven years of business in The Hague (1647–1654) he published 86 works, most of them on English matters, and his shop functioned as a meeting point for Royalist and Anglican exiles from all parts of Europe (see Keblusek 1997). On some occasions the relation between the English-speaking communities and the Dutch went beyond a purely functional level. Two stadholders married English wives and maintained a court at The Hague where, next to Dutch and French, English was also spoken: Mary Stuart (1631–1660) was the spouse of the young deceased stadholder William II (1626–1650), and Mary II Stuart (1662–1694) was married to his posthumous son, king-stadholder William III (1650–1702). In addition, important English-speaking clubs of refugees or intellectuals existed in certain periods in the Dutch Republic: first the Pilgrim Fathers, of course, but also the refugee royalists under Cromwell, the Puritans in other periods, and later the Quakers, in particular the political club The Lantern around the English Quaker merchant Benjamin Furly (1636–1714) at Rotterdam, where he received and hosted for a shorter or longer time such influential English intellectuals as William Penn, George Fox, Robert Barclay, Algernon Sidney, John Toland, the earl of Shaftesbury, and above all John Locke, who stayed six years (1682–1689) and wrote his ground-breaking Epistola de Tolerantia (1685) there (see Zijlmans 1999; Israel 2001).

5 Gallus amicus, non vicinus France, on the contrary, had been the most important political ally of the Netherlands for decades. In fact, this had been the case ever since the rebellious States had persuaded François, Duke of Anjou (1555–1584), the son of the French king, Henry II, to take up the sovereignty over the Netherlands after the abjuration of the Spanish king Philip II. Anjou’s choice proved to be a mistake, but the alliance with France, at the time not only the most central but also the most populous, rich and important nation in Europe, was vital for the victory of the rebellious provinces over their formal overlord, the King of Spain. When the new French king Henry IV, after his conversion to Catholicism, inaugurated a policy of toleration towards the Calvinists through the Edict of Nantes (1598) and defended the new state of the Netherlands against Spain, France was for many years its main ally and formal protector. As late as 1606, a quarter of a century after the abjuration, King Henry IV tried to persuade the Dutch States-General to offer

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him the sovereignty over the Netherlands, The proposal was turned down by the liberal faction under grand pensionary Joan van Oldenbarnevelt (1547–1619), the informal prime minister of the confederation, but it inaugurated a long period of political alliance. France went so far as to oblige the Calvinist States-General to support the kings of France in their repression of the French Huguenots, in 1617, and again at the terrible siege of La Rochelle in 1625, when the Dutch admiral Guillaume de Zoete dict Haulthain (1565–1637) was sent with a fleet to sustain the French besiegers. Yet, at the same time, this event shows the diversity of the pro-French sentiments in Dutch society: whereas France, without distinction of confession, was becoming especially important as a secular cultural model for the Dutch elite, the common people of the Northern Netherlands sustained French Calvinists for religious reasons. Still, on February 8, 1635 the Republic signed an Offensive and Defensive Pact with France, with the intention of dividing up the Southern Netherlands if those provinces did not rebel against Spain: Brabant (with Antwerp) and Malines would fall to the Republic, Flanders and the more southern border areas to France. Freedom of worship for Catholics would be maintained in the South, however. On February 29, 1644 this treaty was reconfirmed. In the wake of this political alliance, France also became a mirror for the cultural identity of the Dutch elites. This was in particular the case of the youngsters whose parents belonged to the so-called States faction with its rising republican ideology, opposed to the quasi-monarchical desires of the stadholders and their Orangist clan. At the sudden death of young stadholder William II in 1650, they managed to put his heir aside for 22 years, until the French invasion of 1672 provoked the restoration of his son William III to power. “Better French than Prince” was the motto of the States faction, in spite of France being the very prototype of a modern monarchy! The message could hardly have been clearer. France cultivated the alliance with care, not only along political lines but also by social and cultural means. One of these appealed cleverly to the Dutch regents’ sense of social standing. Many of them had risen only recently to the highest government functions and to social prestige through successful careers in trade or the civil service. But because they remained burghers, their foreign colleagues treated them with some condescension. Nobility played an important symbolic role in the social organisation of Europe’s early modern societies, but the Dutch Republic no longer had a sovereign monarch who could confer nobility. While in other countries deserving civil servants were raised to peerages one after the other, in the Netherlands they had to be satisfied with a surrogate: an aristocratic lifestyle, without the accompanying rights and privileges. Dutch regents and former diplomats liked to flaunt the French order of St. Michael, which gave them “genuine” nobility that could be hereditary. When it suited him, the King of France handed

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out knightly titles as lavishly as the English, Danish or Swedish king did, or as the German emperor bestowed the title of “baron”. The Dutch solicited French titles all the more eagerly as they were draped with the symbolism of the most prestigious monarchy of Europe, and with the luxury of the highest cultural standing with regard to public behaviour. However, the rising importance of the French language as the cultural lingua franca of Europe and of the French cultural model for the political and intellectual elites, must not deceive us about the strength of the French connection with the Dutch, in particular from a political point of view. In the influential and often reprinted pamphlet Munsters praetie (‘A talk about the peace negotiations at Münster’) of 1648 all the issues are weighed in a fictional conversation in a Deventer inn among ten citizens with differing positions and opinions: the costs of the war, privateering, trade, religion and especially the attitude of France. The city council member who articulates the opinion of the regents concludes that the Southern Netherlands ought to be a “dividing wall” (buffer zone) between France and the Netherlands. As soon as these provinces are independent they can, of course, enter into agreements with their neighbours in the North as well as in the South, but in this way the French will at least be kept at a distance. This was one of the first expressions of the principle Gallus amicus, non vicinus (‘The Frenchman a friend, but not a neighbour’), which would determine the international diplomacy of the Republic for decades to come while at the same time justifying the Francophile mentality of the elite in the Northern Netherlands. The peace year 1648, it was firmly believed, marked the dawn of a new age of international peace, as the Peace of Utrecht, recreating Europe as a truly secular political community of nations under the cultural leadership of France, would do 65 years later in 1713. Attitudes and actions had to adjust to new perspectives. The European horizon of the Dutch shifted from east to west, and from south to north: no longer were Spain and the German Empire (to which the Dutch Republic formally belonged until 1648) pivotal to their image of the European political scene. Those who had grown up in the war years still had news from Central Europe ringing in their ears, but now France and England were playing an increasingly prominent role.

6 Iter Gallicum: the grand tour through France For the rise of France as a trend-setting nation among the Dutch elites, travel to France played a decisive role. The custom for young people from the noble, patrician or established burgher classes from the countries of Northern and Central

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Europe to go on a “grand tour” (through the whole of France, continued through Italy by the most wealthy among them) or a “small tour” (limited to Northern France, Normandy, Paris and the Loire valley) to acquire the finishing touches to their education shows that this cultural learning process should be interpreted quite literally (see Ridder Symoens 1996; Dibon 1990; Frank-van Westrienen 1983; Frijhoff 2005; Verhoeven 2009). Having completed their studies, and often after a short detour in England, the sons of the local and national elites would undertake a long educational journey through France and, if possible, Italy as well, as far as Rome and Naples. Soon travel guides and textbooks for the grand tour were published, showing how to benefit most from this expensive educational tradition. Among others, the Leiden professor of Oriental languages Thomas Erpenius (1584–1624), who in 1610 had himself made a grand tour through England, France, Italy and Germany, wrote a popular handbook for the grand tour, De peregrinatione Gallica utiliter instituenda tractatus, in which he described in detail a method for both the passive and active study of the French language. His definition of the objects of the grand tour is as concise as precise: “Finis peregrinationis sit notitia sextuplex: linguae, regionis, religionis, rerum gestarum, morum et clarorum virorum ”, i.e. learning to speak the language, visiting the country, discovering its religion, learning about its history, becoming acquainted with its manners and morals and paying a visit to its scholars and other famous men (1631: 2). Obviously the study of the French language takes first place, as a precondition for any form of intercourse with the locals. After acquiring a doctorate in law or medicine  – mostly at one of the universities around the Loire (Orleans, Bourges, Angers or Caen) and at lightning speed, as it was a mere formality for those who had the necessary florins in their pocket – they spent anywhere from a few months to a few years mastering the etiquette of the cultured classes and learning the rituals of courtly “civility” and court culture: conversing, riding, dancing, playing the lute and other necessary, useful, or recreational activities (see the articles in Montandon 1994, particularly Margolin; see also Muchembled 1998). Paris and the royal court, later also Versailles, were therefore compulsory stages on the grand tour. The famous riding academies of the capital, like that founded in 1594 by Antoine de Pluvinel (1555– 1620), were actually institutions of elite socialisation which provided acquisition of a great variety of high-level social skills. Other towns, especially those in the Loire valley, were in fact more useful (and less expensive) for the appropriation of the rules of civility and etiquette by the young Dutch burghers, and of the French language in its purest setting. The twenty-year-old Johan de Witt, the future grand pensionary, for example, set out on a grand tour in 1645 with his elder brother Cornelis (1623–1672) after completing his law studies in Leiden. Having obtained a doctorate in Angers on Christmas Eve 1645, he spent the first weeks of 1646

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learning dancing and fencing in this city, which had an outstanding reputation for its climate, wine and French accent, and also hosted the excellent riding academy of Dupuy-Rideau. He then began a tour through France and England, which lasted more than a year. As was customary, he married almost immediately after his return and from that moment on entered public life. The grand tour was a rite of passage to adulthood for the well-to-do, and whereas Italy showed the young travellers the marvels of European art, France was much better known as a school for the social dimensions of public life. A reasoned calculation for the iter gallicum comes to a total of about ten thousand Dutch travellers on grand or small tour during the seventeenth century (see Frijhoff 1986 for an estimate of the numbers). The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by the French king in 1685, which implied that henceforth even foreign Protestants were in danger in France, gave the finishing stroke to the grand tour. But it was already more or less moribund among the Dutch, who in the meantime had discovered and defined their own identity as superior to that of any foreign nation, including the French. During the late seventeenth century they were in the process of transforming the grand tour into shorter and more precisely targeted journeys to foreign towns and regions of interest, in particular in Germany with its rising culture and science. Yet the grand tour was certainly one of the major tools of intercultural contact and language proficiency. Whereas Catholic travellers were reaffirmed in their religious culture by the encounter with Catholic populations sharing their religious traditions, forbidden in the public space of the Dutch Republic, the Protestants among them discovered Catholicism there. They were shocked by its baroque, counter-reformation appearance, not to speak of the public forms of popular religion and superstition. It strengthened their sense of moral superiority and in the long run cast a doubt on the utility of the grand tour itself. The relation with the French Huguenots came about mainly through the Walloon church of Reformed persuasion. France itself had ten Calvinist semi-universities, called académies, of which those in Saumur and Sedan were the most important. They provided a full curriculum in theology but remained destitute of graduation rights other than the magister artium degree see Bourchenin 1982; Guenée 1982). Theology professors like the more liberal and Irenic humanists John Cameron, Louis Cappel and Moïse Amyraut at Saumur, or the more orthodox Pierre Dumoulin and Samuel Desmarets at Sedan, attracted many Dutch students on their grand tour through France. At the suppression of the Sedan academy prior to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the Sedan professors Pierre Jurieu and Pierre Bayle found shelter at Rotterdam in 1681, where their arrival motivated the revival of the local Illustrious School. Many of the Walloon ministers and professors employed in the Netherlands were products of these French

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institutions. They were, however, increasingly replaced by second-generation immigrants educated at the college run by the Walloon church at Leiden University. The authority of the Leiden professors and the presence of the Walloon court preacher in The Hague gave the Walloon church greater political-religious clout than its size might lead one to expect. This was certainly true in the years between 1630 and 1646, when both functions were filled by André Rivet, a man of great authority and with a broad international network of correspondents. For the Huguenots in France, however, with their increasingly difficult position, the stands taken by the Dutch Reformed church served as important guidelines. In 1620 their national synod in Alès had accepted the resolutions of the Synod of Dordrecht (1618–1619), and scholarly theological discussions, like those between the more orthodox school of Sedan and the slightly more rationalistic school of Saumur, were conducted with the active participation of Dutch professors (Laplanche 1986; Kretzer 1975; van Stam 1988).

7 Speaking French among the Dutch It is a commonplace to state that among the Dutch elites French played the role that English plays today. One of the best examples is the noble Dutch femme savante Belle van Zuylen (Isabelle de Charrière, 1740–1805), who wrote her literary oeuvre entirely in French (van Dijk 2006). The same holds true for some of the most eminent scholars, like the philosopher François Hemsterhuis (1721–1790) (see Melica 2005; Fresco 2007). In reality the French language played a multiplicity of sometimes very different roles. French was indeed the language most used in international transactions at that time. That naturally had to do with the then proportionately large number of people familiar with the French language. In the last quarter of the eighteenth century, there were at least thirty to thirty-five million French speakers in Europe, and barely three or four million Dutch speakers, in the Dutch Republic and in the Flemish regions. But it also had to do with France’s still dominant position as an economic and political superpower. French was the language of international diplomacy, it still dominated scientific exchange and the international book trade, and it remained of great importance in commerce. This, however, was not the reason why French was learned as a semi-mother tongue by the aristocracy. That had much more to do with the development of the European balance of power and with the attitude of the aristocracy towards the exercise of power. French was indeed the language of power. After the humanistic Neo-Latin phase, which we can see as the tail end of the pan-European concept of Christendom, European culture had gradually

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crumbled away until it came under the hegemony of the emerging national states. It first came under Italian influence, but quickly felt the pressure of the then most powerful country in Europe, France. The virtually permanent state of war and the fragmentation of power in the great German Empire during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries prevented the emergence of a counterweight, so that French culture had full scope in Europe. As early as the sixteenth century, French began to eclipse Italian as the international language of trade and finance, partly because the European economic centre of gravity moved along the fringe of the French-speaking areas to the north, including Lyon and Burgundy, with the active contribution of French-speaking merchants and the printing press. French, however, was not only a vehicle for merchants and scholars. It was also the language of what gradually became the most prominent court in Europe, in a country, namely France, where the vernacular had been actively propagated as the official and national language since the Edict of Villers-Cotterêts (1539). And as such it developed within several decades into the central training instrument of the aristocracy and, more generally, of the cultured elite. They regarded French not only as more practical but as inherently richer and better than their own national languages, or than Latin and Greek, which, for example, still had a prominent place in the educational treatise for young aristocrats De institutione principum, ac nobilium puerorum, written by the Antwerp burgomaster Philippe de Marnix, lord of St. Aldegonde (1540–1598). Though published in 1615, this Latin textbook still reflected the humanistic ideals of the late sixteenth century, and its spirit would soon be superseded (see Frijhoff 2001). For the elite, French thus became the second mother tongue, that of the supranational mother country which took shape along French lines in aristocratic networks and international court culture. Through a social imitation mechanism French then descended to the lower classes. For the sub-top and the sub-elites, speaking French became a means of raising one’s status, because of the prestige of court culture and the behavioural model of the elite derived from it. In the eighteenth century, French Huguenot churches in the Dutch Republic owed a lot of their success to this factor: after the third generation of refugees had been more or less assimilated and greatly decreased in numbers, the Walloon communities were supplemented by the bourgeois elites, who thus boosted their social status in local society. French acquired extra prestige from this ecclesiastical blessing. French was the language of the God of the powerful. However, the advance of the French language in the Dutch Republic must not be exaggerated. If we discount individual pupils, who usually escape documentation in any case, or the French-speaking immigrants themselves, less and less numerous in the eighteenth century, a reasoned estimate indicates that around 1800 at most 5% of the Dutch population would have learned French at school

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or from an established language teacher: one in twenty (Frijhoff 1983). In fact, speaking French was a characteristic of the social and intellectual upper crust, with a few downward shoots in individual occupations in which French was useful or essential, such as bookselling and wig making. The universal frenchification which the common people and some worried intellectuals claimed to perceive and deplore in the Netherlands and which made many a pamphleteer reach for his pen, was largely the effect of image creation and rhetoric. French was admittedly not much spoken in public life but it was very visible, thanks to the immediate association with the centres of political, social and cultural power: the court, aristocracy and nobility, elite culture, scholarship, the book trade and the church. In these sectors of community life, French was the central instrument of what we might call a supranational communication network. Those who spoke French gained access to a culture in many forms, which transcended the social and cultural boundaries of the everyday environment on all sides. The second half of the eighteenth century saw the emergence of a new, geographically determined communication network, which was likewise characterised to a high degree by the emergence of a common language. But that was the language of the people, of the country, and in this country that language was Dutch. Anyone who did not speak it placed himself on the margins of society. Terms such as “citizen” and “mother country”, which reflect commitment to the nation, were no longer purely neutral expressions; they became politically loaded concepts. The everyday functional language was reloaded with a moral and political charge. A good citizen had to promote the welfare of his mother country by speaking his native language. For the moment Latin and French remained the international languages, while English and German were the national languages of rival or friendly countries, important for intercourse with these countries, but not a lingua franca in themselves. The lingua franca remained French, which occupied an ever more neutral position on the language spectrum, decreasingly linked to a particular nation or seen as the language of the French alone. It took over the former position of Latin. This French was often far from perfect, as the French themselves scornfully complained to the Dutch elites. It was a sort of global French for cosmopolitans, who thought globally and saw themselves as world citizens. In this sense French had become the mode of expression of a cosmopolitan subculture in the eighteenth century, a life-style which in the eyes of its patriotic critics was characterised by frivolity, extravagance and worldly behaviour, but which nevertheless had its own rules and ideals.

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8 Cosmopolitanism and frenchification Cosmopolitanism was indeed the other, global mode of frenchification in Europe. The term “cosmopolitan” was not new – Erasmus had already called himself a civis mundi – but it experienced a boom at the beginning of the eighteenth century, after the Peace of Utrecht (1713), Rastatt and Baden (1714) involving virtually all European nations and the expectations of a truly new age that it evoked(cf. Castel de Saint-Pierre 1713; Duchhardt 1992). As early as 1721 we find it in the Dictionnaire de Trévoux. After a century of armed conflict in Europe through which national boundaries were reinforced bit by bit and religious differences were intensified, and in the wake of the “crise de la conscience européenne” (Paul Hazard), cosmopolitanism appeared to many to be a philosophically valuable, spiritually necessary, politically promising and culturally enriching solution (see Frijhoff 1997). It stimulated curiosity about what was going on in the world, including what lay beyond Europe, although Europeans hesitated between two options: on the one hand, the idea that the non-European was inferior and so ought to be raised to European standards, and on the other hand, a wide sense of world fraternity based on natural law, one that judged foreign races on their own merits. We must distinguish cosmopolitanism clearly from the supranational Republic of Letters. The members of the latter sought learning and for their everyday existence duly had to take into account their monarch, patrons or other authorities. The cosmopolitan, however, sought a shared intellectual attitude to life, spirituality and sensibility, a universalistic mentality and a lifestyle transcending national differences. It was precisely in the strongly centralised monarchies of Europe, such as France or Prussia, where the state closely supervised the orthodoxy of intellectual exchange, that intellectual cosmopolitanism developed most strongly. From the second quarter of the eighteenth century it manifested itself ever more clearly as a modern alternative for social groups which felt crippled and restricted by national authorities, not only the Republic of Letters but also the international aristocracy. The cosmopolitan claimed to have a universal message for all, something to say about all walks of life, including politics, the economy and the practical sciences. In the Dutch Republic the state had remained relatively weak, although the real power of the House of Orange increased tremendously in the second half of the eighteenth century. But freedom of thought was unhampered. The old Republic of Letters accordingly continued to function there somewhat longer than elsewhere and provided the new cosmopolitanism with some of its most important instruments for the spread of information, knowledge and scholarship: periodicals, the book trade, collections and libraries, scholarly networks, new forms of expression such as those modelled on Addison and Steele’s Spectator (1711). The

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minimal censorship attracted hordes of persecuted philosophers, scribblers and hacks from all sorts of countries including France itself to the Dutch Republic, but Dutch production in comparison was quite modest. That presents us with a new problem, for where French was concerned, the Dutch book trade printed everything going, and even though this was mainly destined for export, it was read in the Netherlands, too. So the conviction took root in the Netherlands that Dutch morality was being threatened, if not undermined, by a culture of French origin. This impression was not altogether wrong. For the French language, however international, was also the main instrument of disseminating French culture in the strict sense of the word: the style, aesthetics and manners which came from France, the French nation. In actual fact, the moneyed elite in the various European countries, and particularly in the Netherlands, often adopted the mere form rather than the content of French style. Thus there emerged an image of a vapid French culture which, in itself, had nothing much to say, which stayed on the surface and contributed little more than the corruption of virtues which the Dutch traditionally ascribed to themselves and which had made the country great: diligence, self-control, thrift, modesty, prudence, careful planning, openness to others, etc. What remained was an empty shell, an array of empty conventions which tainted Dutch culture and threatened prosperity: the French tongue, French loan words, affected language use, mannerism, lax morals, the petitsmaîtres fashion craze, a growing craving for social distance, inequality and the defence of group interests, set against the traditional Dutch morality of fundamental equality for all, as a guarantee for communal prosperity (cf. Sturkenboom 1998). When in the second half of the eighteenth century the full extent of the stagnation, indeed the economic downturn of the Dutch Republic became visible, the scapegoat was easily found: French manners had corrupted the nation. Contrary to France itself, in the Dutch Republic Frenchified cosmopolitanism did not become an ideology. It remained only a practice, an aristocratic style of living and thinking which linked cultured people across national borders in a spirit of high-born equality.² But it is important to realise that cosmopolitanism aimed to dismiss once and for all the idea of nationhood as an intellectual instrument. National politics were not meant to create culture; literature and, above all, the broad, common culture were meant to unite people in one big plan, embraced by all, for a new supranational international policy. Clearly, this philosophical and cultural universalism clashed with national boundaries, which accordingly grew all the stronger, and these clashes led to fundamental reflection on the relationships between people, their values and their political realisations. As Vol2 As shown in the title of the spectatorial magazine De kosmopoliet, of Waereldburger, published weekly in Dutch during the years 1776–77.

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taire (1694–1778) wrote in his Dictionnaire philosophique in 1764, “Il est triste que souvent, pour être bon patriote on soit l’ennemi du reste des hommes … . Celui qui voudrait que sa patrie ne fût jamais ni plus grande, ni plus petite, ni plus riche, ni plus pauvre serait le citoyen de l’univers.” Cosmopolitanism had its very concrete niches which the international aristocracy made good use of when it suited them: the interconnected royal houses, court aristocracy, networks of the nobility, merchants and bankers, the literary community, the international networks of Jansenists and Huguenots, Freemasons, the great religious orders like the Jesuits, the international book trade, the Jewish financier families – most of them with at least one or their principal centres of gravity in the Dutch Republic. The national states were uneasy about them, but could not do without them. All of these networks, in their own way, supported the conviction that people lived in a supranational cultural community, providing the impetus for large, encyclopaedic projects which conceived of Europe as a reality and the world as a virtual mother country. International commerce in particular was seen as promoting universal brotherhood. Cities such as Cadiz, Leghorn, Constantinople and Smyrna, not to speak of Paris and Amsterdam, were not only crossroads of international wholesale trade, but they also formed living proof of the daily reality of cosmopolitanism.

9 French language and French morals Cosmopolitanism did not aim to be the possession of one country, but it was in possession of one language for all to know and speak. That language was French, not only because in practice this was already the most international medium, but mainly because the French language had a powerful connotation which harmonised with the needs of the internationale of the mind. French was the formative language of the honnête homme, the language of French manners and considered to be of universal value. It was the language of savoir-vivre, the cultural model of France as a country. Inspired by the civiltà, the style of the courtier, which developed at the Italian and Iberian courts and was further polished at Versailles, this cultural model developed in Paris into a new form of civilité, burgher manners and urbanité, urban refinement, which from the end of the seventeenth century spread over the whole of Europe as an authoritative behavioural model. It is true that Italy continued to exercise fascination and inspiration as the prime source of civilisation, following the example of Goethe and Winckelmann: the grand tour to Italy became an obligatory ritual for the male, and sometimes also the female, cosmopolitan. But France provided the international elite with

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the language and style of her rituals, her world of ideas and her repertory of manners: savoir-vivre, etiquette, good taste, style, conversation, salons, theatres, operas. In his Discours sur l’universalité de la langue française, delivered at the Academy of Berlin in 1785, Antoine de Rivarol (1753–1801) rejoices at the triumphal progress of French as the universal language of all civilised world citizens. France, and in particular Paris, ranked for a long time as the Mecca of cosmopolitans. The cosmopolitans of other countries tried to model their lifestyles on those of France. Thus in a 1750 magazine, an anonymous Dutch “Cosmopolite” advocates adopting French customs wholesale.³ In England, the Earl of Chesterfield established the French style of upbringing for the English aristocracy in a series of Letters to his Son (1752), which, reissued many times, had a tremendous influence on the elite far beyond England and which made French politesse the English aristocracy’s formal code of behaviour, in town and at court as well as in the country. A high point was reached in 1777 when the Marquis of Caraccioli, the Neapolitan ambassador at Paris, published a lyrical book with the revealing title Paris, le modèle des nations étrangères ou l’Europe française. French language, French culture and French manners were thus closely interconnected. However, they could also hinder each other, or even clash, for the cultural aims of France very often failed to coincide with those of the French-speaking international community. Francophones were not always Francophiles, and vice versa. And Gallophilia (love of France) was often in a precarious balance with Francophilia (love of French culture). The French themselves have often been mistaken about this, as is, for example, shown by their ambiguous attitude towards the apparently most Francophile monarch of Europe, Frederick II of Prussia. The cosmopolitanism of the elite suffered from this, especially towards the end of the eighteenth century. The distrust of French policy reflects the emergence of nationalism. In England and the Dutch Republic, Frenchified fellow-citizens were ridiculed in order to denounce internationalism, and to extol authentic national virtues and the construction of a national identity by way of contrast. As early as 1763 Reverend E.M. Engelberts (1731–1807) wrote a Verdediging van de eer der Hollandse natie (‘Defence of the honour of the Dutch nation’) in protest at an English publication’s disparagement of the Dutch contribution to scholarship and culture. His booklet was an enormous success and was reprinted several times. Dutch patriots were cut to the quick by the arrogance of foreigners (cf. Sturkenboom 2008). The balance accordingly began to shift. We see this patriotic ideal much more fully in the work of the Leiden university lecturer Johannes Le Francq van

3 De Nederlandsche Spectator, vol. II (1750), no. 49.

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Berkhey (1729–1812), entitled Natuurlyke historie van Holland (‘Natural history of Holland’), in which he presents the Batavian race as the purest model of native Dutch virtue. The next step is that of Willem Anthony Ockerse (1760–1826), whose Ontwerp tot eene algemeene characterkunde (‘Outline of a general characterology’, 1788) contains a global description of the Dutch national character with the aid of historico-physical explanatory models, including an account of geographical and social differences and a special discussion of the elite. The enlightened preacher IJsbrand van Hamelsveld (1743–1812) published in 1791 in his Zedelijke toestand der Nederlandsche natie (‘Moral state of the Dutch nation’), a scathing attack on the decline of Dutch moral standards under the influence of French culture. In 1812, during the French occupation of the Netherlands, pro-Dutch and anti-French sentiment culminated in the programmatic poem in six long songs De Hollandsche Natie (‘The Dutch Nation’) written by the business man and amateur poet Jan Frederik Helmers (1767–1813). Expressing rising Dutch national feelings, he still paid a literary tribute to the great French authors Corneille and Voltaire, at the same time, however, claiming Dutch priority, since Corneille had been preceded by Joost van den Vondel (1587–1679) with his masterpiece Gijsbrecht van Amstel (1638), now interpreted in nationalistic terms. And the 1672 invasion by Louis XIV was for Helmers one of the greatest disasters that had come over his country, a horror equal to the Spanish tyranny one century earlier.

10 The French tyranny The debate on French influence and frenchification comprised another frequently occurring element, namely the changing political relationship between France and the Dutch Republic. On several occasions France had acquired its place in the national memory of Dutch history, as a friend or a foe. In fact, the rejection of King Louis XIV and the awareness that the country’s fate had been radically changed in the ‘year of disaster’ 1672, had become a topic in popular literature almost immediately after the Guerre de Hollande. France now took the place of Spain in the traumatic memory of the Dutch. Until the 1640s, with the aid of the leyenda negra, war propaganda had painted the Spaniards in the darkest hues, most clearly and persistently in chapbooks under the caption The Spanish Tyranny, with gruesome illustrations of Spanish atrocities in various parts of the world, including the Netherlands. But after 1672, The Spanish Tyranny was suddenly exchanged for The French Tyranny. The new version was illustrated with striking engravings by Romeyn de Hooghe (1645–1708) showing, among other things, French soldiers in the village of Zwammerdam impaling babies on a spit,

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stabbing pregnant women and torturing peasants (see Haks 2013). For more than a century The French Tyranny was reprinted and this stereotype of the enemy was hammered in at school, where these texts were used as reading-books for young children, until after the English naval war of the 1780s, The English Tyranny took up the baton. For some decades England then became the arch-enemy and France once more became the natural ally, at least for those Dutch who yearned for a fundamental change of their mouldering state with their now tightly closed conservative elites. In 1787 Dutch patriots fled en masse to France, even though that country was still groaning under the yoke of its monarch. Until that moment France was portrayed as the traditional enemy, but only in the political arena. The cultural model remained French, and the use, if not the prestige, of the French language remained virtually undiminished. Yet the dominant role of French customs, language and culture in Europe was seen by many members of the burgher class as a harbinger of what would eventually lead to political subjection. After all, Louis XIV wished to subject all of Europe to himself in a universal monarchy. When this political hegemony was slowly but steadily undermined, the relationship between France and the Netherlands also underwent a shift. After their independence, the Netherlands had claimed a place for itself at the top of Europe for at least one century, just below France, and in a certain balance with England. Not only the Dutch but foreigners also shared this opinion: the French and English studied the Dutch language, Dutch culture was extolled, Dutch scholarship ranked as the very best during the whole of the seventeenth century. The University of Leiden is the best in Europe, wrote the chevalier Louis de Jaucourt (1704–1779) in the early 1760s still in the Grande Encyclopédie of Diderot and d’Alembert, long after this institution had ceded its first place to Halle or Göttingen. In the second half of the eighteenth century Europe began to look different, although neither France nor the Netherlands realised this at the time. England and particularly Germany were on the way up. We see this in the rapidly growing number of language teachers, in the emergence of modern languages (German, Italian, English) at boarding schools, and in the translations from those languages; in the flourishing of old and new German universities such as Halle, Göttingen, Erlangen, Giessen, Jena, later Berlin, which suddenly began to attract Dutch students who previously would have preferred going to France; and in the emergence of new sciences in the field of human and social perfectibility in Germany, such as public administration (Kameralistik), ethnology (Volkskunde) or educational theory (Erziehungswissenschaft), for which France felt little or no interest as yet. Though the grand tour of the wealthy elite was still spent in Italy, from now on the scholarly journey of young middle class sons led to Germany, only sporadically to France, and then only for special technical knowledge at the

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margins of the university, in the field of surgery, obstetrics, military engineering or veterinary medicine. France might still have a technical lead but was losing its cultural prestige at a great rate. All of this slowly revealed for contemporaries that the supposed “frenchification” of the Netherlands had had its day, if that word had ever been a meaningful notion in the first place. While among the elite the French language was still seen as the international language par excellence, the elite themselves were undergoing a shift, and French manners were increasingly undermined (see Jourdan 2008). When, following the Batavian Republic (1795–1806) and the Napoleonic Kingdom of Holland (1806–1810), the French became the real masters in the Netherlands for some years during the annexation by the Napoleonic Empire in 1810–1813, most people’s knowledge of French was deplorably scanty, and there was little inclination to improve it. French was still the language of scholarly communication, but German and English were straining at the leash to take over this role. The Netherlands did not act as the go-between in Europe in this process, as it had done earlier through the dissemination of French via the international book trade. In fact the Netherlands had forfeited its primary place in European culture for a long time to come.

References Bachrach, A. G. H. 1962. Sir Constantine Huygens and Britain 1596–1687: A Pattern of Cultural Exchange. Leiden: Universitaire Pers. Berkvens-Stevelinck, Christiane (ed.). 1992. Le Magasin de l’univers: the Dutch Republic as the centre of the European book trade: papers presented at the international colloquium, held at Wassenaar, 5–7 July 1990. Leiden: Brill. Bots, Hans & Françoise Waquet. 1997. La République des Lettres. Paris: Belin/Brussels: De Boeck. Bourchenin, Pierre-Daniel. 1882. Étude sur les académies protestantes en France au XVIe et au XVIIe siècle. Paris: Grassart.  Briels, J. G. C. A. 1972/1973. Zuidnederlandse onderwijskrachten in Noordnederland 1570–1630. Archief voor de geschiedenis van de katholieke kerk in Nederland 14 (1972). 89–169, 277–298; 15 (1973). 103–149, 263–297.  Briels, J. G. C. A. 1985. Zuidnederlanders in de Republiek 1572–1630 : Een demografische en cultuurhistorische studie. Sint-Niklaas, Belgium: Danthe. Briels, J. G. C. A. 1987. De Zuidnederlandse immigratie 1572–1630. Tijdschrift voor geschiedenis 100. 331–355. Caraccioli, Marquis de. 1777. Paris, le modèle des nations étrangères ou l’Europe française. Paris: La Veuve Duchesne. Castel de Saint-Pierre, Abbé Charles-Irénée. 1713. Projet pour rendre la paix perpétuelle en Europe. Utrecht: A. Schouten.

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Riemens, K. J. 1919. Esquisse historique de l’enseignement du français en Hollande du XVIe au XIXe siècle. Leyde: Sijthoff. Sturkenboom, Dorothée. 1998. Spectators van harttocht. Sekse en emotionele cultuur in de achttiende eeuw. Hilversum: Verloren. Sturkenboom, Dorothée. 2008. Merchants on the defensive: National self-images in the Dutch Republic of the late eighteenth century. In Margaret C. Jacob & Catherine Secrétan (eds.), The Self-Perception of Early Modern Capitalists, 99–122. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. van Berkhey, Johannes Le Francq. 1776. Natuurlyke historie van Holland, 2 vols. Amsterdam: Yntema en Tieboel. van den Vondel, Joost. 1638. Gijsbrecht van Amstel. Amsterdam. van der Wal, Marijke & Cor van Bree. 1992. Geschiedenis van het Nederlands. Utrecht: Het Spectrum. van Dijk, Suzan, Valérie Cossy, Monique Moser-Verrey & Madeleine van Strien-Chardonneau (eds.). 2006. Belle de Zuylen/Isabelle de Charrière: Education, Creation, Reception. Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi. van Hamelsveld, IJsbrand. 1791. Zedelijke toestand der Nederlandsche natie. Amsterdam: Johannes Allart. van Stam, F. P. 1988. The Controversy over the Theology of Saumur, 1635–1650: Disrupting Debates among the Huguenots in Complicated Circumstances. Amsterdam: Holland University Press. Verhoeven, Gerrit. 2009. Anders reizen? Evoluties in vroegmoderne reiservaringen van Hollandse en Brabantse elites (1600–1750). Hilversum: Verloren. Voltaire. 1764. Dictionnaire philosophique. London. Zijlmans, Jori. 1999. Vriendenkringen in de zeventiende eeuw: Verenigingsvormen van het informele culturele leven te Rotterdam. The Hague: Sdu.

Part III: The 18th and 19th centuries

Gijsbert Rutten, Rik Vosters and Marijke van der Wal

Chapter 7 Frenchification in discourse and practice: loan morphology in Dutch private letters of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries 1 Introduction In this chapter, we discuss the influence of French on Dutch in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when French is assumed to have been the dominant language of upward social mobility in the Low Countries. While the period under discussion has often been described and criticised as one of verfransing “frenchification”, both by contemporary commentators and by later (language) historians, this view has come under attack in recent years. In our study, we focus both on ideological aspects of the language contact situation and on aspects of language use. We first give a brief overview of the political situation in section 2. In section 3, we discuss language choice in different domains of society in the Early and Late Modern period, focusing on the use of French. We will show that in some domains, such as trade and education, the use of French was quite common throughout the period. The presence or even dominance of French in certain domains gave rise to a complaint tradition (cf. Milroy & Milroy 1985) specifically focused on French. The discourse on the alleged frenchification of the Netherlands will be discussed in section 4. In the second part of the chapter, we turn to linguistic aspects of the language contact situation. Section 5 briefly discusses some unambiguous examples of French influence on Dutch, viz. in the lexicon. It is notoriously difficult, however, to determine the extent to which loans have become integrated into the host language and to evaluate their degree of conventionalisation across the language community. In our empirical study, reported on in section 6, we therefore focus on a different aspect of the language, viz. derivational suffixes borrowed from French. Using two unique and in part socially stratified corpora of private letters from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, we will investigate patterns of regional, social and gender variation.

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2 Sketch of the political situation in the Early and Late Modern period The Low Countries, presently consisting of three separate states, viz. the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, were historically a collection of counties and duchies, brought together into the personal union of the Seventeen Provinces by Charles V (1500–1558), the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. After his abdication in 1555, opposition to the taxation and religious policies of his successor Philip II of Spain (1527–1598) resulted in the Dutch Revolt, which began in the 1560s and only ended with the Treaty of Münster, part of the Peace of Westphalia, in 1648. Crucially, the Dutch Revolt led to a separation of the Low Countries into a southern part, which remained subservient to Philip II, and a northern part, which formally declared its independence from the Spanish king in 1581 in the socalled Plakkaet van Verlatinghe “Act of Abjuration”. From then on, the Northern Netherlands developed into the sovereign Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, while the Southern Netherlands remained under Habsburg rule, first as the Spanish Netherlands, and from 1714 onward as the Austrian Netherlands. The political split came to an end in 1795, when French troops invaded the Netherlands. The years 1795–1815 constitute the so-called French period, when the Netherlands were de facto a vassal state of France. After the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821), the southern and northern parts were unified into the (United) Kingdom of the Netherlands, created as a buffer-state against France at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Luxembourg was also part of the Kingdom, albeit by a personal union. The Kingdom of the Netherlands was brought to an end by the Belgian Revolution of 1830, when the present situation of three separate states was more or less established. The divergent political histories of the Southern and the Northern Netherlands in the Early and Late Modern Period are of crucial importance for a thorough understanding of the Dutch–French language contact situation, as well as for the language ideologies connected to it.

3 Language choice in different domains The history of the Early and Late Modern Low Countries as a multilingual area – with its many and not always mutually intelligible Dutch dialects, with its Frisian and French-speaking areas, and with its many immigrants speaking languages such as French, German, Portuguese and Norwegian  – remains to be written (cf. Frijhoff 2010, this volume). Domain-specific language choices, however, are

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easily identified. We will mainly focus on the use of French in the Low Countries. The following discussion should be interpreted against the background of the hegemony of French throughout Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when French gradually developed into the main language of diplomacy, was spoken at courts from the Netherlands to Russia and became an important language for international scholarly periodicals, which were incidentally often printed in the Netherlands by Huguenot refugees (Burke 2004: 86–87). From the Middle Ages onward, French had been in use in diplomacy and international commerce. Multilingual (self-help) language guides with vocabulary lists and dialogues were available to students of foreign languages, the most wellknown example being the Vocabulare by Noël de Berlaimont (?–1531), which in its first edition of 1527 comprised only Dutch and French, but which was reprinted about 150 times in the following two and half centuries, throughout Europe, incorporating many other languages such as Latin, Spanish, Italian, German, English, Portuguese, Czech, Polish and Hungarian (van der Sijs 2004a). French was also taught in schools, and moreover, a school type came into existence that was mainly focused on teaching French. The so-called French schools date back at least to the sixteenth-century, when they originated as a form of vocational education, preparing boys for a career in trade. Reading, writing, arithmetic and French were the main subjects (Dodde 1991: 67). In the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the French schools developed into fully-fledged educational institutions, offering both primary and secondary education. Many schools added new subjects to the curriculum, including history, geography, astronomy, German and English (Boekholt & de Booy 1987: 49–50; Dodde 1991: 117). French schools offering such a wide variety of subjects were mainly oriented to the upper (middle) ranks of society, as tuition fees largely depended on the number of courses taken by the students. Quantitatively speaking, however, the French schools did not make up a major part of the educational system. It is estimated, for example, that in the Northern Netherlands in 1811, only 2 to 3% of the male and female population of approximately 6 to 17 years old learned French through schooling, mostly at such French schools (Dodde 1991: 117; Frijhoff 2010: 47–48). Apart from the French schools, two other school types need to be mentioned: the Nederduitse scholen ‘(Nether-)Dutch schools’ and the Latin schools. The Dutch schools mainly offered primary education, limited to – in descending order of importance  – religion, reading, writing and sometimes arithmetic (Boekholt & de Booy 1987: 33–41). Latin, as the language of the church and of the learned, was probably the most important foreign language in the educational system of the Middle Ages and well into the sixteenth century (Boekholt & de Booy 1987: 10). It was used in the international Republic of letters, where it was gradually

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being replaced by French in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Frijhoff 2010: 20). In connection with the religious upheavals of the Early Modern period, many protestant French immigrants settled in the Netherlands from the late sixteenth century onward, where they founded their own Francophone, so-called Waalse “Walloon” churches. Furthermore, French was the main variety spoken at the court of the stadtholders, i.e. the princes of Orange-Nassau. Because of its importance in diplomacy, trade, education, public and religious life, as well as at the court, it has been argued that French was the most important second language in the towns and cities of Holland in the seventeenth century (Frijhoff & Spies 1999: 234). It needs to be stressed, however, that quantitative studies of language choice are scarce. In addition, French gradually developed into the distinctive language of the upper ranks of society (van der Wal & van Bree 2008: 254). A well-known example constitutes the private correspondence of the Huygens family, where Constantijn Huygens (1596–1687), the secretary to the three successive princes of Orange-Nassau, is the central figure. While the letters written by his mother and sisters are in Dutch (e.g. Howell 2006 and the references there), Constantijn himself and his sons – among them the physicist Christiaan (1629–1695) – often wrote their family correspondence in French (e.g. van der Wal & van Bree 2008: 230). Although it is not probable that many speakers of Dutch adopted French for all communicative purposes, it is beyond doubt that French was used as a means of social exclusivity and social exclusion. The French schools, for example, showed a large amount of variation in the qualitative and quantitative presence of French at school. On the one hand, there were schools that offered French as a mere subject, where Dutch remained the language of instruction. On the other hand, much more expensive “true” French schools also existed, where French was the language of instruction for all courses, and where fully mastering the language as such was more important than a mere practical working knowledge of French (cf. Boekholt & de Booy 1987: 49–50, 54). Especially the latter type was oriented towards the prosperous upper (middle) ranks of society. Vandenbussche (2004) argues that French was used as means of social exclusion in town council meetings in Bruges in the nineteenth century. In this specific communicative context, upper class members of Bruges society preferred French so as to be able to exclude non-upper class members from political participation. When convening in the context of the archers’ guild, however, the same members of the upper class did use Dutch, as non-upper class citizens were excluded from guild membership and there was thus no need to consistently use French as a means of social distinction. While the importance of French in domains such as trade, diplomacy and education is characteristic of both the Southern and the Northern Netherlands,

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as of so many other areas in Europe at the time, there are fundamental differences as well. Importantly, in the domain of politics, the States General of the Northern Netherlands switched to predominantly Dutch in 1582 (van der Wal 1994), while French remained important as a language of administration in the Southern Netherlands. French continued to be used as a language of law and higher administration in the Spanish and Austrian periods in the Southern Netherlands of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. On the local level, however, Dutch remained in use on a very large scale in the Southern Netherlands. De Ridder (1999) argues that 90 to 95% of all official documents relating to Brussels from before 1794 were drawn up in Dutch.¹ In other words, the frenchification of the Southern Dutch local administration did not take off before the French invasion of 1795. In the next section, we will zoom in on the presumed frenchification of the Netherlands in the eighteenth century.

4 The discourse on frenchification In the previous section, we listed various domains of society where French became an important language in the Early and Late Modern period. The growing importance of French in historically Dutch-speaking areas is often referred to as verfransing “frenchification”, and opposition to this frenchification is as old as the use of French in the domains referred to itself. Due to the importance of French in Early and Late Modern Europe, fear of frenchification was a wide-spread phenomenon across Europe. Complaints of francomania are attested, for example, in the German, English, Italian and Spanish language areas (von Polenz 1994: 49–50; Nevalainen 1999: 359–360; Burke 2004: 151, 153, 158; Beal 2012). With regard to the Netherlands, it is in the linguistic history of the Southern Netherlands in particular that the alleged frenchification of large parts of society is a recurrent topic. De Ridder (1999: 151–152) noted that lists of domains and/or social ranks where French was commonly used are often interpreted as proof of frenchification, especially with regard to the Southern Netherlands – whereas similar lists can also be drawn up for the Northern Netherlands, as we did in section 3, or for England, without contemporary or present-day commentators claiming that the community was predominantly frenchified. In the present section, we focus 1 Cf. Hasquin (1979: 200), who came to similar conclusions: “Certes, il est vraisemblable que le bilinguisme s’était considérablement répandu parmi la population flamande. … Mais il est tout aussi vrai que lorsqu’il s’agissait de régler des questions relatives à leur vie privée (testaments, contrats de mariage, conclusions de baux, emprunts), la langue matemelle reprenait le dessus ainsi qu’en témoigne l’écrasante supériorité des actes en flamand [sic]”.

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on such discourses on frenchification, arguing that they reveal the ideological function of metalinguistic discourse rather than describe the actual sociolinguistic situation.

4.1 Types of opposition to frenchification The use of French in the Low Countries, and its growing importance throughout Early and Late Modern Europe, led to different types of opposition to the frenchification of Dutch society. As to influence from the French language, we can distinguish at least two closely related types of opposition also well-known from other language areas, which are characterised by the increasing importance they attach to the French peril. The first type is purism, which mainly aims at offering Germanic alternatives to lexical items borrowed from French and Latin (cf., e.g., Langer & Davies 2005). As early as 1553, a puristic dictionary appeared providing Dutch equivalents of French and Latin loans used in legal discourse. Ironically, the dictionary was called Tresoor der Duytsscher talen (‘Treasure of the Dutch language’), with the French loan tresoor in the title, which was purified into Den schat der Duytsscher talen in the second edition of 1559.² Another example is the Nederlandtsche Woorden-schat (‘Dutch lexicon’), which was first published in 1650 and which saw its twelfth edition as late as 1805. The Nederlandtsche Woorden-schat was also a purist dictionary offering Dutch alternatives to onduytsche woorden (‘un-Dutch words’) and basterdt-woorden (‘bastard words, loans’).³ The opposition to French and Latin loans persisted well into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but was gradually replaced by opposition to German and, at present, English loans. A second type of opposition to French is similar to lexically oriented purism, but shifts attention to the use and status of the language as a whole, while focusing on specific social contexts and/or ranks. In particular, the complaint now concerns French being the preferred language of the upper classes, and the harmful effect this may have on the native varieties of Dutch as such, not just on specific lexical elements. Again we can trace such grievances to at least as far back as the sixteenth century, when a well-known author such as Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert (1522–1590) as well as the anonymous author of the first full grammar of Dutch (1584) complained about the Dutch–French language mixing which was

2 The author was the Antwerp-based regent Jan van de Werve (1522–1576), see Claes (1977: 207). 3 The first edition was authored by Johan Hofman (?–1666), the second, third, fourth and fifth editions by Lodewijk Meijer (1629–1681), who would appear on the title page of later editions as well. The book was continuously reworked and expanded. See van Hardeveld (2000).

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thought to have resulted from the previous era of the Burgundian and Habsburg reign in the fifteenth century and sixteenth centuries:⁴ Overmits onze spraack in korte Jaren herwerts, (sedert dat wy met de Walsche steden onder een ghemeen Vórst ende hóf zyn gheweest) zó zeer met uytheemsche wóórden vermengt is, dattet schier onder t’vólck een onghewoonte zou zijn enkel Duits te spreken. (Twe-spraack 1584: 6; cf. Dibbets 1985: 511–513) [‘Because a few years ago (since we were united with the French cities under a common ruler and court) our language became so mixed with foreign words that it is almost unusual among the people to speak only Dutch.’]

This complaint also persisted well into the following centuries. In its most extreme form, it not only criticises the (wrong) language choice of parts of the population, but even warns of the native language being pushed aside by French, i.e. of the ultimate risk of language death. The extreme formulation is perhaps not as common as the weaker variant, but it characterises the sociolinguistic situation in the Southern Netherlands, where it gained momentum in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By then, it was often claimed that the entire frenchification of the upper ranks of society in the previous period prevented the Dutch language from developing into a standardised or cultivated form. Instead, Dutch in the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Southern Netherlands was supposed to have been “merely” a collection of spoken local dialects, while official, cultural and public functions of language were all fulfilled by French (Vosters 2011; Vosters et al. 2012). Considering the fact that supralocal written varieties of Dutch had been in use in the sixteenth century, the presumed dialectisation of Dutch in subsequent periods was interpreted as the virtual death of Dutch in the South (cf. Rutten & Vosters 2012). In a somewhat softened way, this view can still be found in recent histories of Dutch, where it is always linked to the political split at the end of the sixteenth century (van der Sijs 2004b: 52; Janssens & Marynissen 2008: 137; van der Wal & van Bree 2008: 378).

4 The first full grammar of Dutch, the Twe-spraack vande Nederduitsche letterkunst (‘Dialogue on Dutch grammar’) was published anonymously in 1584 by the Amsterdam chamber of rhetoric De Eglantier (‘The Eglantine’), well-known for its motto In liefd bloeyende (‘Flourishing in love’). It is assumed that Hendrik Laurensz. Spiegel (1549–1612) was the author. See Dibbets (1985) for a discussion of Coornhert’s complaints about French influence on Dutch (e.g. 1985: 70).

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4.2 Frenchification as a cultural yardstick The impetus for both types of opposition to frenchification were concrete sociolinguistic facts, viz. loans and language choice. As indicated above, however, frenchification developed into a major theme in discourses on language and culture from the eighteenth century up to the present day, both in the Northern and Southern Netherlands. In this development, language ideological positions have been revealed, more specifically, in nineteenth and twentieth-century nationalist historiography, where eighteenth and nineteenth-century elites are often criticised for their love of French, and depicted as largely francophone (Frijhoff 1989, and Frijhoff, this volume). While this francomania and complaints about frenchification are as much part of Northern Dutch as they are of Southern Dutch historiography, it is in the Southern Netherlands that they acquired the most prominent position in discourses about language and culture. The historical linguistic textbook account claims that the political split of the Southern and the Northern Netherlands at the end of the sixteenth century led to political independence, extreme prosperity, flourishing of the arts and language standardisation in the Northern Netherlands, while the Southern Netherlands remained under foreign rule, sank into poverty and were subject to cultural decline and the above-mentioned dialectisation (de Vooys 1952: 116–119; van den Toorn et al. 1997: 563; van der Sijs 2004b: 52; Janssens & Marynissen 2008: 138; van der Wal & van Bree 2008: 377–378). This means that any frenchification in the Northern Netherlands would still occur against the background of the standardisation of Dutch, whereas the sociolinguistic situation in the South did not allow for any relevant opposition to frenchification (see also Willemyns, this volume). There is, in other words, a discursive connection between the political history of the Low Countries, the assumed presence or absence of standardisation and frenchification. Where frenchification competed with standardisation, it was relatively harmless, while French could take over many important functions in the Southern Netherlands in the absence of a Dutch standard. The traditional view capitalises on the standard language ideology as analysed in the works of Milroy & Milroy (1985) and Lippi-Green (1997), which in the Dutch situation not only amounts to the concept of an idealised homogeneous variety, but also, historically, to the development of this variety in the Northern Netherlands, with simultaneous dialectisation in the Southern Netherlands. The traditional view has come under attack in more recent times and systematic empirical research has been called for, not least because many proofs of frenchification are entirely anecdotal, singling out individuals who preferred French to Dutch  – such as Belle van Zuylen (1740–1805), who was born in the Northern Netherlands into a Dutch noble family and would become the well-known francophone writer Isa-

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belle de Charrière  – and disregarding others who preferred Dutch (cf. Frijhoff 1989; de Ridder 1999; Vandenbussche 2001; Vanhecke & de Groof 2007). Moreover, the presumed frenchification of southern Dutch elites in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and the concomitant neglect of the Dutch language, were ideologically interconnected in nineteenth and twentieth-century Flemish emancipatory discourse (van der Horst 2004; Rutten & Vosters 2012). When in the course of the nineteenth century, the Vlaamse beweging (‘Flemish movement’) began its pursuit for the cultural revitalisation of the Southern Netherlands and for a linguistic reunion with the Northern Netherlands, its agents were in need of a discursive opponent in order to render their own deplorable cultural and linguistic situation as plausible as possible. This opponent was found in French domination, both cultural and political, in the previous period, which had stifled the Dutch language and culture. Or, to take another example, in twentieth-century nationalist historiography, eighteenth-century Northern Dutch elites have been described as fully frenchified, entirely unwilling to speak Dutch (Frijhoff 1989: 596–597). However, when Ruberg (2007: 65, 271) investigated elite correspondence from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, she found that only 17% of the letters were in French. De Ridder (1999) argued against the presumed frenchification of Brussels before 1794, showing that 90 to 95% of official documents relating to Brussels were in Dutch. Despite the absence of empirical research covering the whole period and the whole language area, we may still hypothesise that the concept of frenchification has a number of “mythical strands” (cf. Watts 2000) attached to it. In the Southern Netherlands in particular, the discourse on frenchification acquired an extreme character, with mid-twentieth century commentators claiming that Dutch “disappeared as a civilised language; it was abandoned to the lower classes” (Deneckere 1954: 262, as translated by Vosters 2011: 26), that it became “impossible [in the French period around 1800] for an entire generation to acquire a Dutch culture, so that the language shrivelled and became corrupted” (Wils 2003: 33, as translated in Vosters 2011: 26), and that, finally, where Dutch did not die out, it was heavily influenced by French, both lexically and grammatically (Vosters 2011: 27). Contrary to the idea that the Dutch language was nothing more than a collection of local spoken dialects in the eighteenth century, recent research has revealed that there was a vivid linguistic culture in the Southern Netherlands in the eighteenth century, with schoolteachers and grammarians producing language guides and grammars – a linguistic culture that could even be described as one of standardisation (Vosters 2011; Rutten 2011; Rutten & Vosters 2012). Put (1990: 202) had already argued that most primary schools in the late eighteenth century owned such a grammar, along with reading materials and a catechism.

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From both eighteenth-century and more recent discussions of the language contact situation, we can deduce at least three hypotheses. First, French was widely used in the Low Countries in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but it is unlikely that there were any social groups appropriating French in every social context, despite the fact that some individuals did. Second, French was more in use among the upper ranks of society than among the lower ranks. Third, French was more widely used in the Southern Netherlands than in the Northern Netherlands. These are very general and still quite impressionistic observations, and it is against this very general background that we will carry out one of the first systematic empirical studies of the actual influence of French on eighteenth and nineteenth-century Dutch. Our case study will allow us to address the second and third of the observations made.

5 French influence on Dutch What may immediately come to mind when dicussing the influence of French on Dutch is the lexicon. In the corpora that we used for our case study, many striking examples of French loans can be found. The corpora will be introduced in section 6. Here, it is important to note that they comprise private letters from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In these letters, nouns such as arrivement ‘arrival’, compliment ‘compliment’ and correspondent ‘correspondent’ are highly frequent (1–3): (1)

make uwEd: mijn arrivement bekend⁵ make you my arrival known ‘I make known to you my arrival’

(2) versoeke ok mijn compliement an uee geerde famielie⁶ request also my compliment to your honoured family ‘I request also [that you send] my compliment to your honoured family’ (3) Edog dit behoeven onse Corispondenten […] niet te weeten⁷ but this need our correspondents not to know ‘but our correspondents do no need to know this’

5 Dutch Letters as Loot Corpus (S.H. Cadenski, 30 May 1781). 6 Dutch Letters as Loot Corpus (A. Donker, 29 November 1780). 7 Dutch Letters as Loot Corpus (N. Reuvenhagen, 16 December 1780).

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However, it is notoriously difficult with lexical borrowings to determine their degree of integration into the linguistic system, where they are caught between the tension of imitation and adaptation (van Coetsem 1988: 8–12).⁸ From a modern perspective, for instance, compliment and correspondent are widely used in Dutch. The origin of these nouns may or may not be known to speakers, and while it seems unlikely, it may still be the case that some speakers consider them as loans. Arrivement is obsolete in present-day Dutch. However, these intuitions do not bring us any closer to the status of these words in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, especially since conventionalisation need not be a linear process. One way to determine the degree of integration of these nouns into the linguistic system of speakers of Dutch might be to study their derivational and compounding possibilities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, on the assumption that this would provide an indication of their conventionalisation in the language community (cf. Nevalainen 1999: 362–363). We did not, however, believe that the available sources allowed for such an extensive investigation. We therefore decided to focus on another part of the language, viz. derivational morphology. Dutch has borrowed many suffixes from French throughout history, and our corpus study consists of an investigation of such loan suffixes in Dutch. To determine the extent of borrowing, we based ourselves on van der Sijs’ (2005) loan dictionary, which features an extensive list of French loan suffixes used with nouns, adjectives and verbs (van der Sijs 2005: 188–194). Examples (4) to (7) illustrate the process of suffix borrowing with examples from our own corpora: (4) voyage ‘trip, travel’ < Fr. voyage ‘trip, travel’ (15th century) ik hebben zeer wel geweest op mijn voijage⁹ I have very well been on my travel ‘I have fared very well on my travels’ (5) maîtresse ‘girlfriend, mistress’ < Fr. maîtresse ‘mistress’ (17th century) ben Jk verwonderd hoe dat nog al gaed met mijne maetresse¹⁰ am I curious how that still all goes with my mistress ‘I am curious how my mistress is doing’

8 Cf. Cajot (2004), who discusses other difficulties investigating lexical borrowings from a North–South perspective in present-day Dutch. 9 Napoleonic Soldiers’ Letters Corpus (F.J. Pinson, 1813, letter 139). 10 Napoleonic Soldiers’ Letters Corpus (P. Vermuelen, s.a., letter 001).

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(6) kleerage ‘clothing’ < Du. kleren ‘clothes’ + Fr. -age (ca. 18th century) ik hebbe geen sleggter kleeragen en hebbe ik noijt gedragen I have no worse clothing neg. have I never worn als nu¹¹ as now ‘I have never worn any worse clothing than I do now’ (7) minnares ‘girlfriend, mistress’ < Du. minnen ‘love’ + Lat. -aar + Northern Fr. -esse met […] Hoogagting, Lievdraagende Minnaarres, UEd:D:W: Dienaar¹² with regards loving mistress your servant ‘with regards, my loving mistress, your humble servant’ Crucially, these are grammatical, not lexical elements. As derivational morphology is situated lower on the stability gradient than the lexicon, suffixes are less easily borrowed than whole loan words (Van Coetsem 1988; Howell 1993). Evidence of morphological borrowing thus implies a greater intensity of language contact than in the case of mere lexical borrowings. However, it is typical for borrowed derivational morphemes that they enter the recipient language through lexical borrowings, but acquire morphological productivity when enough items have been transferred (Winford 2010: 175–176). In this case, this means that such suffixes can eventually occur both with Romance and Germanic stems. Initially, these suffixes came into Dutch attached to a French loan word, as in examples (4) and (5): -age as in voyage is still used for abstract and common nouns, whereas -es as in maîtresse is used for feminine agent nouns. Later, such loan suffixes became productive and started to be attached to Dutch bases, as in examples (6) and (7): in the case of kleerage, the borrowed -age suffix could operate on the Dutch base kleren, and in the case of minnares, the older combination of minnen plus the Latin-based suffix -aar combines once more with the French loan suffix -es, generating minnares as a mixed equivalent for the lexically borrowed maîtresse.

11 Napoleonic Soldiers’ Letters Corpus (J. La Roij, 1806, letter 089). 12 Dutch Letters as Loot Corpus (C. De Somer, 26 January 1781).

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6 Empirical study 6.1 Corpora To test the degree of suffix borrowing, we looked through two private letter corpora: one from the Northern Netherlands and one from the Flemish South. The northern corpus consisted of a selection of 384 private letters, which are part of the Letters as Loot corpus compiled at Leiden University.¹³ All our letters date back to between 1777 and 1783, with the large majority of them being written in 1780 and 1781. In those days, ships often operated as mail carriers between the Netherlands and its territories in the Caribbean and the East Indies, and these letters were captured by English privateers from Dutch sailing vessels during the 4th Anglo-Dutch War and the American Revolutionary War. The letters have been kept in the archive of the British High Court of Admiralty, currently at The National Archives (TNA) in Kew (London). These private letters are interesting for historical-sociolinguistic research, because they were written by both men and women from various social ranks, including sailors and captains, but also kitchen-aids and cabin-boys, sailors’ wives and family members, and other Dutch men and women living in the Netherlands or in some distant outpost of the Republic. About 7% of the individual scribes can be traced back to the lower social classes, 28% could be characterised as lower middle class, 34% belonged to the upper middle class and about 31% can be said to be upper class. It is important to note that what we call the upper class was in fact not the highest rank of Dutch society at the time, where we should distinguish a top layer of the nobility and the gentry.¹⁴ Scribes have also been grouped according to their age category, with 41% being under 30, 48% between 30 and 50 and just 11% over 50 years old. Most letters originate from the (north)west of the language area (the provinces of Zeeland, Noord-Holland, Zuid-Holland – with the city of Amsterdam accounting for about 48% of the total), but other regions of the Netherlands are also represented. Our southern corpus is based on Jan van Bakel’s collection of soldiers’ correspondence from the Napoleonic era (van Bakel 1977). It contains 317 letters sent by 282 young Flemish conscripts, who had been drafted into the French revolution13 Research program Letters as Loot. Towards a Non-Standard View on the History of Dutch, funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). See van der Wal, Rutten & Simons (2012) for an overview. See brievenalsbuit.inl.nl for the corpus. 14 The social stratification is primarily based on the letter writers’ occupation and/or the occupation of family members. It closely follows the social stratification commonly used by historians (cf. Frijhoff & Spies 1999: 190–191).

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ary army, and who wrote home to their families from the various battlefields all over Europe. The letters come from a slightly later period than the Letters as loot letters, dating from the early days of the Consulate (1799) until the end of the First Empire around 1813. Many of the letters are not autographed, but were written by “social scribes”: literate fellow soldiers who would take it upon themselves to write down the words dictated by their illiterate peers. Conscripts in those days were all men, usually in their late teens or early twenties and not surprisingly mostly from the lower ranks of society. As we do not have solid biographical data available for most writers, we cannot determine their social rank with absolute certainty, but when we do have incidental evidence about their social background available from the content of the letters, it points towards the lower and lower middle classes: many of these soldiers come from families of servants, day labourers, skilled and unskilled workers, and local craftsmen. The letters were sent to many different destinations in West and French Flanders, where, in nearly all cases, the hometown of the writer is located.

6.2 Methodology Based on the loan suffixes for nouns, adjectives and verbs listed in van der Sijs (2005), we wrote a series of regular expressions to search for the many spelling variants in both sub-corpora. Parts of letters completely written in French were, of course, excluded altogether. We strictly limited ourselves to the loan suffix categories defined by van der Sijs, basing ourselves on the semantic and formal criteria she discusses. This means, for instance, that a token such as correspondent ‘correspondent’ was included in the analyses, as the -ent suffix stems from French, but that a token such as regi-ment ‘regiment’ was excluded, as the -ment suffix was borrowed from Latin  – even though regiment as a whole is a word borrowed from French. Several etymological dictionaries were consulted to corroborate borrowing, and cases of persistent doubt were excluded from the final analyses.

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Table 1. Loan suffixes under investigation Example15

Suffix

Suffix

Example

genocide ‘genocide’

– nouns – 16 -aard

lafaard ‘coward’

-cide

-erd (< -aard)

leukerd ‘wisecracker’

-oïde/ide hominide ‘homonid’

prinses ‘princess’

-ine

cocaïne ‘cocaine’

-e (-nte/-inge)

studente ‘female student’

-isme

calvinisme ‘calvinism’

-ette

misdienette ‘altar girl’

-teit

majesteit ‘majesty’

-ier

aalmoezenier ‘chaplain’

-lei

allerlei ‘all sorts of’

-ist

orangist ‘Orangist’

-tiek

boetiek ‘boutique’

-ant

predikant ‘pastor’

-ein/ain/ijn

republikein ‘republican’

-aal

amicaal ‘friendly’

-ees

Chinees ‘Chinese’

-air

elitair ‘elitist’

-ent

producent ‘producer’

-eel

financieel ‘financial’

-eur/teur

ambassadeur ‘ambassador’

-esk

soldatesk ‘soldierly’

-iaan

Indiaan ‘Indian’

-eus

complimenteus ‘complimentary’

-iet

islamiet ‘Muslim’

-iek

politiek ‘political’

-ade

blokkade ‘blockade’

-age

lekkage ‘leakage’

-es/esse 17

– adjectives –

– verbs – -eren

waarderen ‘appreciate’

15 Examples from van der Sijs (2005). 16 The suffixes -ij and -ie mentioned by van der Sijs (2005) were not included in our analyses, as it could not be generally determined whether the suffix was borrowed from French, which had in turn borrowed it from Latin (e.g. poëzie ‘poetry’), or if it derived from Latin directly (e.g. academie ‘academy’). 17 As corpus searches for the ending -e gave too many false positives, we only focused on words ending in -nte (e.g. producente ‘female producer’) and -inge (e.g. Zuiderlinge ‘female Southerner’), where the feminine agent suffix -e is added to the words with the existing suffixes -ent/-ant (which in itself are loan suffixes from French) and native -ing.

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6.3 Results 6.3.1 Overall frequency in North and South Figure 1 shows the raw token counts per suffix. To correct for the different size of the two sub-corpora,¹⁸ the absolute numbers were weighed over 100,000, thus giving us the suffix frequency per 100,000 words in each corpus. As is clear from the graph, most suffixes actually occur only a handful of times, or hardly at all: the large majority of suffixes occur less than 20 times per 100,000 words. The one major exception is -eren: this verbal suffix proves to be extremely frequent in comparison to the noun and adjective suffixes, with a rate of over 400 tokens in each sub-corpus:

Tokens per suffix 100

...462.39 ...441.47

North South

kapitein 'captain'

60

●

kanonnier 'cannoneer' prisonnier 'prisoner' grenadier 'grenadier' officier 'officer'

40

Suffixes per 100,000 words

80

●

20

●

●

●

● ●

●

●

● ● ●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

● ● ●

_a

ar d _a d _a e ge _a n _c t id e _e _e es _e in _e nt _e rd _e s _e tte _e u _i r aa n _i de _i er _i et _i n _i e sm e _i st _l ei _t ei _t t ie k _a al _a ir _e e _e l s _e k us _i e _e k re n

0

●

●

●

Nouns

Adjectives

Verbs

Figure 1. Loan suffixes in both sub-corpora

Additionally, figure 1 shows a strikingly similar distribution of suffixes in each sub-corpus. There are some discrepancies that can be explained by referring to the specific text types under investigation. A first case is the more frequent -ein in

18 196,617 words for the northern sub-corpus, versus 105,972 words for the southern sub-corpus.

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the northern data, which proves to be mainly due to the frequent lemma kapitein ‘captain’ (108 out of 139 tokens) – typical, of course, for sailors’ correspondence; or the more frequent -ier suffix in the southern data, to a large extent caused by the lemmas kanonnier ‘cannoneer’, prisonnier ‘prisoner’, grenadier ‘grenadier’ and officier ‘officer’ (32 out of 48 tokens) – typical, of course, for soldiers’ correspondence. These obvious discrepancies aside, we can observe that loan suffixes are distributed in a very similar way in both Northern and Southern Dutch. For our further analyses, we will move away from the token count per individual loan suffix and turn to the total loan suffix frequency over 100,000 words per scribe. Thus grouping all northern and all southern scribes, we can get an additional idea of the overall frequency of loan suffixes in each sub-corpus. The median suffix frequency per 100,000 words is almost identical for both groups (486 for the North, 471 for the South, with an inter-quartile range of 746.25 and 664.25 respectively). According to a Mann-Whitney U Test, this difference in median loan suffix frequency is not significant (W = 42057.5, p = 0.65), suggesting that overall loan suffixation occurs to very comparable degrees in both our northern and our southern sub-corpus.¹⁹

6.3.2 Region Moving beyond the general North–South division, our data also allow us to group scribes based on their regional background. Figure 2 shows the suffix frequency per 100,000 words for each of the scribes in our sample, grouped by their regional background. All southern scribes originate from the Flemish dialect area (around West and French Flanders), while the northern scribes come from various regions in the Republic. Note, however, that most northern scribes in our corpus originate from the coastal provinces, and especially for the Southeast region, the number of scribes is extremely limited (n = 3). Nonetheless, some regional differences are visible  – especially when we focus on the coastal areas. A Kruskal–Wallis rank sum test indicates that the median frequency scores are significantly different among the regions (H = 15.95, df = 8, p = 0.04311). As a rough general trend, we can observe that, as we move further away from the Dutch–French language border in the South  – i.e. moving northwards along the coastline – the median loan suffix rate drops from 471 in Flanders to 409 in South Holland and less than 400 in Zeeland and North 19 Additionally, according to a Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, the loan suffix frequency rates per scribe in the northern and in the southern sub-corpora are also not distributed in a significantly different way (D = 0.0495, p = 0.874).

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Median suffix frequency per region

Northeast 103

North Holland 381

(IQR 641)

(IQR 370.50)

Amsterdam 508 (IQR 675)

Central 813

South Holland 409

(IQR 1022.50)

(IQR 829.50)

Zeeland 382 (IQR 1023)

Southeast 378 (IQR 582.00)

Flanders 471

Abroad 733.5 (IQR 668.50)

(IQR 664.25)

Map based on HisGIS België (www.hisgis.be) and HisGIS Nederland (www.hisgis.nl)

Figure 2. Scribes’ loan suffix rates per region

Holland. The difference between Flanders, on the one hand, and Zeeland, South Holland and North Holland, on the other hand, is remarkable, as is the difference between these provinces and the even more remote Northeast. One notable exception to this pattern is the city of Amsterdam. This, however, is not unexpected at all, given that contact with and exposure to French must have been more common for the inhabitants of the capital. The scores for the Central region and for scribes coming from abroad are also extremely high. This may in part be due to the limited number of data points in our sample, but further investigation would be needed to explore these regional discrepancies in more detail.

6.3.3 Changes in real and apparent time As mentioned earlier, most of our northern letters were written in 1780 and 1781 (with a small number of exceptions as early as 1777 and as late as 1783), whereas the southern letters range from 1799 to 1813. Figure 3 shows the suffix frequency for each scribe in the different time frames, overlaid with the group medians. As

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is clear from the figure, the extreme variation in the median loan suffix rate for the earliest years of the southern data is due to the limited number of scribes for those years. If we compare the scores from 1806 onwards, when our data are more robust, loan suffixation seems fairly stable: just as in the earlier northern data, the median scores per year all lie around the overall Flemish median of 471 and the overall northern median of 486. A Kruskal–Wallis rank sum confirms that these scores are not significantly different per year (H = 20.80, df = 15, p = 0.1432), suggesting the absence of an overall effect of year of writing. In other words, the use of French loan suffixes remained fairly stable over time in our sample, even though the earliest scribes would have learned to write before the French occupation in the 1790s, and the later scribes would probably have received their (limited) education under the French regime, possibly even partly in French.

2500 2000 1500 1000 500

median

17 77 −

North

3

2

18 1

1

18 1

0

18 1

18 1

18 09

18 08

18 07

18 06

18 05

3

18 04

18 0

18 02

0

18 01

9

18 0

17 9

17 8

3

0

Scribe suffix frequency per 100,000 words

3000

Suffix frequency per year

South

Figure 3. Scribes’ loan suffix rates per year

Apart from the real-time dimension, which best represents our southern data, the northern data can be explored through apparent time: we have age information available for most northern scribes, who can be divided into a young (under 30),

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a middle-aged (between 30 and 50) and an older age group (over 50).²⁰ While the use of French loan suffixes remained stable over time in the southern subcorpus, our northern material does exhibit an apparent-time effect, as shown in figure 4. Interestingly enough, we see that the use of loan suffixes goes up with age, and especially the older scribes tend to use many more French suffixes than the middle-aged and the young group. A Mann–Whitney U Test correspondingly indicates a near-significant difference between the median scores for the two youngest groups, on the one hand, and the older group on the other hand (W = 4898, p = 0.054):

Suffix frequency per age group (Northern subcorpus)

1000 500

+ +

'+' indicates the arithmetic mean

● ● ● ● ● ●

1500

2000

●

+

0

Scribe suffix frequency per 100,000 words

2500

● ●

Young (0−30)

Middle (30−50)

Older (50+)

Figure 4. Scribes’ loan suffix rates per age group (northern sub-corpus)

Taking into account that the northern letters were mostly written around 1780 and 1781, and assuming that loan suffixation would be fairly stable across the life span, this apparent-time dimension then suggests that French loan suffixes had been slowly on the decline over the course of the eighteenth century, up until a few years before the French annexation. However, for exactly that period, our southern data suggest that its frequency somehow stabilised. The increased 20 For the southern sub-corpus, reliable age information is only available for under 10% of all scribes, with 21 of 23 scribes belonging to the youngest group. The age effect will thus only be further explored for the northern sub-corpus.

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contact with French during the 1790s and early 1800s may thus have halted or mitigated an ongoing trend of decreasing suffix borrowing from French.

6.3.4 Social class The scribes of the northern sub-corpus can be grouped into four social class categories based on information about their social and professional background (cf. Nobels & van der Wal 2011; van der Wal, Rutten & Simons 2012). This gives us the data shown by the four first boxes of the top panel of figure 5, where we can observe a steady rise of the median loan suffix frequency as we move up the social ladder: every social class group tends to use more French suffixes than the social class groups under it. This strong effect is confirmed by a Kruskal–Wallis rank sum test, suggesting that the differences between the social class group scores in the northern sub-corpus are highly significant (H = 71.06, df = 3, p < 0.001). In inverse terms: the lower a scribe’s social class may be, the less likely he or she is to use French loan morphology in our corpus. Moreover, this effect proves to be robust. Splitting up the data per age group generates the same stepwise increase of the loan suffix medians per social class, as shown in the middle panel of figure 5. Here, too, it is especially the UC group which towers far above the other social classes in terms of loan suffix use. Splitting up the social class data per gender gives us a similar pattern, as shown in the bottom panel of figure 5, where, however, the results for the LMC seem to diverge from the overall pattern.²¹ Returning to the overall social class effect in the top panel of figure 5, we can also compare the northern scribes to the Napoleonic soldiers of our southern sub-corpus. As we discussed in section 6.1, the social rank of these Flemish soldiers cannot be determined with certainty, although a majority of them can probably be situated in the lower classes of society, roughly corresponding to the LC or LMC categories of the Letters as Loot corpus. Thus comparing the southern soldiers to their lower class peers from the North, we observe a marked difference between both groups: the median loan suffix rate for the southern scribes 21 There is a striking gender difference in the LMC group. The men of this group use a lower than expected amount of loan suffixes (median 152, IQR 547), with a median score at about the same level as the LC men (median 163.5, IQR 387.25). The women of this LMC group, however, score remarkably higher (median 553, IQR 634). This loan suffix rate exceeds that of their male social peers, but even outperforms that of the women belonging to the UMC (median 440, IQR 580.5). Regional background seems to be partly responsible for this effect, as some of the top-scoring LMC women come from the relatively high-suffixation regions of Amsterdam and – to a lesser extent – Zeeland.

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Figure 5. Scribes’ loan suffix rates per social class

is much higher than that for the northern scribes in the LC or LMC. A Mann– Whitney U Test comparing southern scribes, on the one hand, and both the northern LC and LMC groups, on the other hand, confirms that this difference is highly significant (W = 10303, p < 0.001). In fact, not only do the Flemish soldiers tend to use more loan suffixes then their LC and LMC peers from the North: the southern scribes even seem to use French loan suffixes to a similar degree as the northern scribes from the UMC. This interaction of social class and North–South

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differences may thus signal a larger underlying North–South difference: our observations from the lower classes suggest that, if we correct for social class, southern scribes tend to use more French loan suffixes than northern scribes. Moving beyond the limitations of our corpus, this could indicate that suffixes from French were somewhat more prominent in Southern Dutch at the time than in the Northern Dutch.

7 Discussion and conclusions Comparing these findings to our hypotheses, the process of suffix borrowing gives us an interesting insight into the influence of French on Dutch at the turn of the 18th century. First and foremost, we established that loan suffixes constitute a linguistic feature that is strongly conditioned by the social background: the higher the social class of a writer, the more borrowing from French can be encountered. This confirms the dominant image in Dutch language history that contact with French mainly affected the higher echelons of society. However, we found that the lower social ranks were clearly influenced by the process as well, and borrowed suffixes occurred in the writings of scribes from all social levels. This suggests that the influence of French went beyond those parts of the population which may have regularly come into contact with the source language. Secondly, we were able to confirm that, among the lower social classes, loan suffixes were more common in our southern than in our northern data. We certainly have to take the different nature of the sub-corpora and the lack of systematic and reliable background information for the southern scribes into account, but this may suggest that the influence of French may have been larger in Flanders than in the Dutch Republic. Further study will need to investigate whether this effect holds true for other types of sources as well. Nonetheless, we also found considerable regional differences within the Dutch North, with the northernmost regions using fewer French suffixes than the areas closer to the language border, and with the capital of Amsterdam also scoring considerably higher than the surrounding hinterland. On top of the regional distribution, this also hints at a distinction between urban metropolitan centres and smaller cities or towns – which is not surprising, given that exposure to French would have been more intensive in the capital. For the South, we could only investigate sources from the Flemish dialect area, but here, too, we should be careful not to treat the entire region as one homogeneous block without diverging regional patterns. French influence on Dutch may thus have been stronger in the South than in the North,

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but some regions or cities may have been more affected than others, regardless of the North–South distinction. Finally, combining real-time and apparent-time data, we established that suffix borrowing from French may not have been equally frequent over the years. Our northern data showed, in apparent time, a pattern where loan suffixation was on the decline, while our southern data indicated, in real time, that the process had stabilised in terms of frequency. Given that our northern material is slightly older than our southern material, and combining the apparent and the real-time dimensions, we were able to hypothesise that loan suffixes had been losing ground throughout the eighteenth century, but that this downward trend came to a halt around the 1790s, possibly as a result of the intensified contact with the source language during the early years of French expansion after the 1780 revolution. Future studies with older and more recent material will need to corroborate this hypothesis, investigating how the observed pattern might fit into a larger trend of varying French influence on the Dutch language over time. While our study showed that loan suffixes from French formed an integral part of Dutch morphology in the Late Modern period, French influence on Dutch, more broadly speaking, may not be overestimated on the basis of these findings either. With around 481 French loan suffixes per 100,000 words (i.e. 0.48% of the total lexicon), the phenomenon is still fairly marginal. While a study of less stable aspects of the language such as the lexicon may reveal a stronger influence of French than is apparent from our focus on the less borrowable derivational morphology, we also need to take the strong lexical conditioning often associated with the register typical of these letters into account. Military terms borrowed from French frequently occurred in the case of the soldiers’ correspondence, while the Northern Dutch letters often contain information about the ships and their captains (cf. figure 1). Only comparable studies over larger time spans, e.g. also exploring the phenomenon in current-day corpus data, can put these absolute figures into a more relative perspective. Although our study may have raised more questions than answers and should be seen as nothing more than a first exploration of Dutch–French language contact in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, we hope that it can serve as a basis for future research into the actual influence of French on past stages of the Dutch language, moving away from anecdotal and possibly ideologically motivated observations about the state of the language as a whole and towards more corpus-driven empirical analyses.

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References Bakel, Jan van. 1977. Vlaamse Soldatenbrieven uit de Napoleontische Tijd. Brugge: Orion & Nijmegen: Dekker & Van de Vegt. Beal, Joan. 2012. “À la Mode de Paris”: Linguistic patriotism and francophobia in 18th-century Britain. In Carol Percy & Mary Catherine Davidson (eds.), The Languages of Nation: Attitudes and Norms, 141–154. Bristol, Buffalo & Toronto: Multilingual Matters. Boekholt, P. Th. F. M. & E. P. de Booy. 1987. Geschiedenis van de school in Nederland vanaf de middeleeuwen tot aan de huidige tijd. Assen & Maastricht: Van Gorcum. Burke, Peter. 2004. Languages and Communities in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cajot, José. 2004. “Die hollanders toch met hun franse woorden altijd!” Een Vlaams verhaal van de splinter en de balk. In Johan De Caluwe, Georges De Schutter, Magda Devos & Jacques Van Keymeulen (eds.), Schatbewaarder van de Taal. Johan Taeldeman. Liber Amicorum, 135–153. Gent: Academia Press. Van Coetsem, Frans. 1988. Loan Phonology and the Two Transfer Types in Language Contact. Dordrecht: Foris. Claes, F. 1977. De lexicografie in de zestiende eeuw. In D. M. Bakker & G. R. W. Dibbets (eds.), Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse taalkunde, 205–217. Den Bosch: Malmberg. Deneckere, Marcel. 1954. Histoire de la langue française dans les Flandres (1770–1823). Ghent: Romanica Gandensia. de Ridder, Paul. 1999. The use of languages in Brussels before 1794. In W. Blockmans, M. Boone & T. de Hemptinne (eds.), Secretum Scriptorum. Liber alumnorum Water Prevenier, 145–164. Leuven: Garant. de Vooys, C. G. N. 1952. Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse taal. 5th ed. Antwerpen: De Sikkel & Groningen: J. B. Wolters. Dibbets, G. R. W. 1985. Twe-spraack vande Nederduitsche letterkunst. 1584. Introduced, interpreted and edited by G. R. W. Dibbets. Assen & Maastricht 1985: Van Gorcum. Dodde, N. L. 1991. …tot der kinderen selffs prffijt… Een geschiedenis van het onderwijs te Rotterdam. The Hague: Sdu. Frijhoff, Willem. 1989. Verfransing? Franse taal en Nederlandse cultuur tot in de revolutietijd. Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden 104. 592–609. Frijhoff, Willem. 2010. Meertaligheid in de Gouden Eeuw. Een verkenning. Amsterdam: KNAW Press. Frijhoff, Willem & Marijke Spies. 1999. 1650: Bevochten eendracht. The Hague: Sdu. Hasquin, Hervé. 1979. Le français a Bruxelles entre 1740 et 1780. Premier essai de quantification. In R. Mortier & H. Hasquin (eds.), Etudes sur le XVIIIe siècle (6): L’influence française dans les Pays-Bas autrichiens et la Principauté de Liège au temps de Voltaire et de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 193–200. Bruxelles: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles. Howell, Robert. 1993. German immigration and the development of regional variants of American English. Using contact theory to discover our roots. In J. Salmons (ed.), The German Language in America, 190–212. Madison: Max Kade Institute. Howell, Robert. 2006. Immigration and koineisation: The formation of Early Modern Dutch urban vernaculars. Transactions of the Philological Society 104. 207–227. Janssens, Guy & Ann Marynissen. 2008. Het Nederlands vroeger en nu. Leuven & Voorburg: Acco.

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Langer, Nils & Winifred V. Davies. 2005. Linguistic Purism in the Germanic Languages. Berlin & New York: Walter De Gruyter. Lippi-Green, Rosina. 1997. English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimmination in the United States. London & New York: Routledge. Milroy, James & Lesley Milroy. 1985. Authority in Language: Investigation, Language Prescription and Standardisation. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Nevalainen, Terttu. 1999. Early Modern English lexis and semantics. In Roger Lass (ed.), The Cambridge History of the English Language. Volume III. 1476–1776, 332–458. Cambridge: Cambridge Univesity Press. Nobels, Judith & Marijke van der Wal. 2011. Linking words to writers. Building a reliable corpus for historical sociolinguistic research. In Nils Langer, Steffan Davies & Wim Vandenbussche (eds.), Language and History, Linguistics and Historiography, 343–361. Bern: Peter Lang. Put, Eddy. 1990. De cleijne schoolen. Het volksonderwijs in het hertogdom Brabant tussen Katholieke Reformatie en Verlichting (eind 16de eeuw–1795). Leuven: Universitaire Pers. Ruberg, Willemijn. 2005. Conventionele correspondentie: Briefcultuur van de Nederlandse elite, 1770–1850. Nijmegen: Vantilt. Rutten, Gijsbert. 2011. With the cooperation of Rik Vosters. Een nieuwe Nederduitse spraakkunst. Taalnormen en schrijfpraktijken in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden in de achttiende eeuw. Brussel: VUBPress. Rutten, Gijsbert & Rik Vosters. 2012. As many norms as there were scribes? Language history, norms and usage in the Southern Netherlands in the nineteenth century. In N. Langer, S. Davies & W. Vandenbussche (eds.), Language and History, Linguistics and Historiography: Interdisciplinary Approaches, 229–254. Oxford & Bern: Peter Lang. Vandenbussche, Wim. 2001. Nederlands als prestigetaal voor de Brugse upper class in de 19de eeuw? Verslagen en Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde 111. 129–146. Vandenbussche, Wim. 2004. Triglossia and pragmatic variety choice in nineteenth-century Bruges: A case study in historical sociolinguistics. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 5. 27–47. van den Toorn, M. C., W. Pijnenburg, J. A. van Leuvensteijn & J. M. van der Horst. 1997. Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse taal. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. van der Horst, J. M. 2004. Schreef J.B. Verlooy echt zo gebrekkig? Het 19de/20ste-eeuwse beeld van de 18de eeuw getoetst. Verslagen en Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde 114. 71–82. van der Sijs, Nicoline. 2004a. Berlaimont, N. van. In Wim van Anrooij, Ingrid Biesheuvel, Karina van Dalen-Oskam & Jan Noordegraaf (eds.), Bio- en bibliografisch lexicon van de neerlandistiek. Online publication in the dbnl ‘Digital Library of Dutch Language and Literature. . Accessed 13 December 2012. van der Sijs, Nicoline. 2004b. Taal als mensenwerk. Het ontstaan van het ABN. The Hague: Sdu. van der Sijs, Nicoline. 2005. Groot leenwoordenboek. Utrecht & Antwerp: Van Dale. van der Wal, Marijke, 1994. De Opstand en de taal: Nationaal bewustzijn en het gebruik van het Nederlands in het politieke krachtenveld. De Zeventiende Eeuw 10. 110–117. van der Wal, Marijke & Cor van Bree. 2008. Geschiedenis van het Nederlands. Houten: Spectrum.

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van der Wal, Marijke, Gijsbert Rutten & Tanja Simons. 2012. Letters as loot: Confiscated letters filling major gaps in the history of Dutch. In Marina Dossena & Gabriella Del Lungo Camiciotti (eds.), Letter Writing in Late Modern Europe, 139–161. Amsterdam & / Philadelphia: John Benjamins. van Hardeveld, Ike. 2000. Lodewijk Meijer (1629–1681) als lexicograaf. S.l., s.n. Vanhecke, Eline & Jetje de Groof. 2007. New data on language policy and language choice in 19th-century Flemish city administrations. In Stephan Elspaß, Nils Langer, Joachim Scharloth & Wim Vandenbussche (eds.), Germanic Language Histories ‘from below’ (1700–2000), 449–470. Berlin & New York: Walter De Gruyter. Vosters, Rik. 2011. Taalgebruik, taalnormen en taalbeschouwing in Vlaanderen tijdens het Verenigd Koninkrijk der Nederlanden. Een historisch-sociolinguïstische verkenning van vroeg-negentiende-eeuws Zuidelijk Nederlands. PhD dissertation Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Vosters, Rik, Gijsbert Rutten, Marijke van der Wal & Wim Vandenbussche. 2012. Spelling and identity in the Southern Netherlands (1750–1830). In Alexandra Jaffe, Jannis Androutsopoulos, Mark Sebba & Sally Johnson (eds.), Orthography as Social Action: Scripts, Spelling, Identity and Power, 135–160. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. von Polenz, Peter. 1994. Deutsche Sprachgeschichte vom Spätmittelalter bis zur Gegenwart. Band II. 17. Und 18. Jajrhundert. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter. Watts, Richard. 2000. Mythical strands in the ideology of prescriptivism. In Laura Wright (ed.), The Development of Standard English, 1300–1800, 29–48. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wils, Lode. 2003. Waarom Vlaanderen Nederlands spreekt. Leuven: Davidsfonds. Winford, Donald. 2010. Contact and borrowing. In Raymond Hickey (ed.), The Handbook of Language Contact, 170–187. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.

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Chapter 8 The use of languages in Maastricht in the nineteenth century: the press and family archives¹ 1 Introduction The city of Maastricht has often been the subject of research. Historians and archaeologists have studied its history, sociologists and psychologists have examined its inhabitants, and linguists have taken an interest in the origin and development of the Maastricht dialect. Nonetheless, the local dialect is (and was) not the only language variety frequently used in the city. Maastricht is located in the extreme south of the Netherlands, near the border with Belgium and the Belgian city of Liège, and when walking around Maastricht, one can commonly hear Dutch, French and “Mestreechs”, the Maastricht dialect. Nowadays, most of the French speakers in the city come from the nearby Belgian villages, but not so long ago, many of the inhabitants of Maastricht also spoke French. This was very clear in the nineteenth century, but the use of French gradually diminished, and Dutch became the main language beside the spoken dialect. Politically, the nineteenth century was a turbulent time: the annexation by France (1794) was followed by the reunion of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of The Netherlands (1815), followed by Belgian independence (1830). These rapid developments, along with the rising industrualisation and the development of organised labour, greatly influenced the lives of the inhabitants of Maastricht and their language use. This chapter sets out to study the use of the different languages and language varieties over the course of this eventful century. The case of Maastricht and the position of French in local society throughout the nineteenth century provide us with an interesting object of enquiry for various reasons. On an empirical level, a lot remains to be uncovered concerning the position of French in the Netherlands overall. As historians (cf. Frijhoff’s contribution to the present volume) have emphasised in recent years, the impact of French on Dutch culture and society in the Late Modern era was not as profound as has often been thought: French, of course, played an important role in a restricted number of very distinct domains (such as international diplomacy or scholarly

1 This chapter is based on Kessels-van der Heijde (2002).

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communication), but the number of inhabitants actually speaking the language fluently, even at the time when the Kingdom of Holland (1806–1810) was a vassal state of France, cannot be overestimated. Assumptions about the frenchification of society in past centuries were often based only on an incomplete image of the supply of prestigious cultural products such as French literature or philosophical writings, whereas the reception and actual readership of such cultural products were often more limited. Detailed empirical studies are thus called for, and Frijhoff (1989: 604), along those lines, urges us to pay close attention to how “language use is phased differently in each particular situation. If we wish to understand the complex representation of French culture in the context of the Netherlands, we must carefully reconstruct its development for each facet [of society] and according to the appropriate time scale”, ² with due attention to both the symbolic role of the language and its actual use in various contexts. On an empirical level, that is what this chapter sets out to do. By focusing on the city which has often been cited as a prime example of frenchification in the Netherlands, we will analyse the use of different languages in two distinct domains in Maastricht, discussing how macro-level historical developments over the course of the nineteenth century may have impacted on the city’s linguistic marketplace. From a theoretical perspective, the diminishing role of French in Maastricht provides us with an interesting case of language shift. We will discuss the question of whether or not nineteenth-century Maastricht can be characterised as di- or triglossic, as well as explore to what extent a domain-based approach, in the tradition of the language sociological work by Fishman (1972) and Dittmar (1973), can be useful in shedding more light on language use in the city. More specifically, we will examine language use in two crucial domains (media, in the form of newspapers, and family, mainly by means of private correspondence), investigating what changing language choices in the two domains over the course of the nineteenth century can tell us about the gradual domain loss from French to Dutch more generally. In section 2, I will briefly discuss previous historical work on language use in Maastricht, showing how different authors held different viewpoints on the degree of impact French may have had on Maastricht society. Next, in section 3, I will elaborate on the notion of diglossia and the related concept of linguistic domain, situating this study in a long tradition of research on language choice in (historical) language sociology. Section 4 then provides some additional historical background information on nineteenth-century Maastricht, before moving on 2 “Het taalgebruik is in elk[e] afzonderlijke [situatie] anders gefaseerd en wie iets van het complexe vertoog over de Franse cultuur in Nederlandse context wil begrijpen dient die ontwikkeling per facet en volgens de juiste tijdschaal exact te reconstrueren”.

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to the analysis of language choice in newspapers (section 5) and correspondence in family archives (section 6). This will finally lead us to several conclusions in section 7, where we will review the case of Maastricht within the larger context of frenchification in the Netherlands.

2 Changing viewpoints Several nineteenth-century authors can tell us something about the use of French in Maastricht. The first is Salie (1855) in Le Guide Impartial du voyageur à Maestricht. Salie was probably a schoolteacher in Maastricht, and he writes that French was spoken and understood nearly everywhere in the city. Franquinet (1881) later subscribes to this view in an article about the use of the Dutch language, stating that French had prevailed in judicial acts until the third decade of the nineteenth century. He also claims that the French language was widely regarded as the inspiring language of development and civilisation. Ten years later Habets (1891) tells us that French refugees had always liked to come to Maastricht because many of the city’s residents spoke their language. One might conclude from these nineteenth-century testimonies that the French language dominated in Maastricht and that it was appreciated as a language of culture. In the twentieth century, however, many authors had different opinions. Endepols implies in a speech in 1955 that the French influence was not as strong as had often been claimed in the nineteenth century. One of the reasons he mentions is the use of the Maastricht dialect, which was spoken by many inhabitants, even among the upper social classes. Tummers (1957), however, writes that French was used in higher social circles, whereas the lower people used their dialect. He nonetheless emphasises that the industry of Liège had a significant influence on the use of the French language. Alberts (1983) states that bilingualism was necessary for individuals to acquire a decent position, especially in the French period. Thus, bilingual competence was mainly found in the administrative sphere, but also in the press and in higher social circles. Ubachs (1994), like some of his predecessors, believes that the strong French influence in Maastricht is often exaggerated. In his opinion, the French province Nedermaas in the south of The Netherlands was essentially Dutch-speaking in the French period. He also doubts that the elite were really as enamoured of French culture and the modern ideas of French philosophers. Rather, he suspects that, although French books may have sold well, this was often more a matter of fashion and ostentation. He thus concludes that the frenchification was nothing more than a thin layer of

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veneer, and that we cannot really consider Maastricht in the nineteenth century to have been a bilingual city. The divergent and sometimes contradictory opinions and viewpoints on the linguistic situation in Maastricht, some of which are not based on empirical research, clearly stress the need for a (re)evaluation of the situation by means of a thorough and exhaustive study of the archival material and primary literature available for the nineteenth century (cf. Rutten, Vosters & van der Wal’s contribution to the present volume). In this way, we hope to achieve a better understanding of the interaction between and use of the different languages.

3 Multilingualism, diglossia and linguistic domains The language situation in nineteenth-century Maastricht was beyond any doubt highly complex. On the one hand, we need to distinguish between French and Dutch as competing languages, but on the other hand, Dutch and the Maastricht dialect also need to be set apart. The question arises as to whether or not we are thus dealing with a situation of bi- or trilingualism, and/or of di- or triglossia. Fishman (1972) elaborates on the difference between both concepts, but a detailed discussion of the terminology would lead us too far in the context of this chapter. We are inclined to label the situation as di- or triglossic with bi- or trilingualism, as Maastricht was a relatively small town where the different social groups certainly had regular contact with each other. Following Fasold (1984), we can probably even speak of “double overlapping diglossia”. In any case, in Maastricht, there were two higher language varieties, Dutch and French, and one lower variety, the dialect. Over the course of the nineteenth century, however, these languages may have varied in terms of prestige. This means that we cannot precisely capture the linguistic situation of nineteenth-century Maastricht in these sociolinguistic terms. A better option is to rely on the concept of linguistic domains, a term introduced by Fishman (1972) and Dittmar (1973). Fishman distinguished five key domains: family, friends, church, school and work. It is furthermore important to differentiate between formal and informal situations in which varieties of a language may be used. Dittmar, however, points out Fishman’s failure to examine the historical and social causes responsible for this differentiation in terms of language choice. Language communities have defined economic structures and balances of power, and their social values and requirements are in accordance with these structures. Moreover, there is often an overlap between these different areas.

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Such observations are important for our research. Nonetheless, languagesociological research is usually soundly empirical, with a strong focus on contemporary issues. For the subject of study, we can only rely on the archival records. As will become clear throughout this chapter, these sources have limitations. In many cases, we only encountered documents written by educated people in Dutch or French. Dialect is less used in writing, although this changes after the establishment of the Momus society in 1840. The question of whether people used the same language varieties in speaking as they did in writing largely and inevitably remains unanswered. Because of the historical research methodology, which was focused on the three language varieties and the use of the domain concept, the research reported on here differs from other publications on language relationships and language shift in the nineteenth century by authors like De Metsenaere, Vandenbussche and Willemyns. De Metsenaere (1988) examined the language situation in Brussels. She mainly used sources from around the 1842 census. She examined geographic and social components of the linguistic make-up of Brussels by conducting a factor analysis of street level processed census data, thus exploring the relationship between language and social class. The proportions of use between the French and Dutch languages were quite different in Belgium from the Netherlands, especially as after 1830, the de facto official language in the South was French and instruction was highly frenchified. Vandenbussche (1999) examined the language of the working class in Bruges in the nineteenth century. He used the archival minutes of meetings for relief assistance in professional organisations of apprentices and masters. In 2001, he also described the use of the Dutch language in a prestigious archers guild in Bruges, indicating that Dutch was more often used by the upper class than had often been assumed. In 2004, he furthermore deals with the roles and functions of dialect, Dutch and French, as used by Flemish upper-class writers in the nineteenth century. He argues against the common opinion that the linguistic situation at that time in Flanders can be characterised by rigid dichotomies such as formal French versus informal dialectal/regional Dutch, and/or upper class French versus middle and lower class (dialectal) Dutch. Analyses of original upper-class documents from various archives in the town of Bruges led to the assertion that the actual choices between the available linguistic resources were to a considerable extent dependent on contextual and pragmatic considerations. Examples taken from town council records, high society correspondence and election propaganda illustrate a close link between variety choice and the wish to include/exclude certain social groups in distinct communicative settings.

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Willemyns (2002) also sketches the linguistic situation in 19th-century Flanders and highlights the consequences of the two main linguistic phenomena of that time: language contact and language conflict. In both cases, the contact and conflict referred to are those between Dutch and French, on the one hand, and between a more Southern as opposed to a more Northern variety of Dutch, on the other hand (see also Willemyns’ contribution to this volume). Willemyns (2004) emphasises that it is important to go back to the sources to know more about the relations between languages, also pleading for an interdisciplinary research effort. This is exactly what the present research is aimed at. In Kessels-van der Heijde (2002), a domain-based approach was combined with a cultural historical view of the linguistic situation in Maastricht. Specifically, we examined the following domains: administration, education, written media, commercial establishments, family, theatre and social associations. Each period in the nineteenth century has its own relevant domains and related sources. The administrative domain renders interesting results until 1839, reflecting the various political power changes in the language used by officials, while after 1839, in a politically less eventful period, no major changes occurred. The commercial institutions only started to play a major role after 1839, when earthenware and crystal factories were founded in Maastricht. Education and the press remain essential throughout all these periods, while society life is more interesting after 1840, when the dialect starts to play a more dominant role after the establishment of the Momus society. Finally, family archives can give us some information about the language used in informal situations throughout the century. The central question in all these different domains is always whether language shift took place, how this could happen, and how it affected the complementary distribution between the different languages – in other words, which language was or was becoming more dominant at the expense of which other variety and how could a language gain or lose prestige? Was there a relationship between the changes in the macro-level historical developments (i.e. in the political, socio-economic, cultural and social conditions), and the changes in the city’s linguistic marketplace? In this chapter, I will focus on the domains of media (newspapers) and family (family archives). In order to properly contextualise the analysis, however, I will first provide a short summary of the linguistic and historical situation in Maastricht in the nineteenth century, before moving on to the analysis of language use in the two domains mentioned.

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4 Historical and linguistic overview of the nineteenth century situation in Maastricht 4.1 Before 1830 The French influence in Maastricht was already strongly noticeable in the eighteenth century. The upper class used French as a lingua franca. Fashion and theatre were focused on Paris. Moreover, one of the two sovereigns of the town was the prince-bishop of Liège (the other being the States General of the Netherlands). Because of its geographical situation, the notable citizens of Maastricht were most of all strongly influenced by the Walloon town of Liège, a mere 30 kilometres distant. Through progressive newspapers based in Liège, the ideas of the French cultural heritage and the Enlightenment came to Maastricht. On 4 November 1794, the town of Maastricht capitulated to the French army and the French period began. The French rulers pursued a vigorous frenchification policy. The entire administration was frenchified, and also education was organised along French lines. The press was subject to severe censorship, especially during the Napoleonic period (1804–1815). Numerous literary publications, newspapers and almanacs appeared in the French language. When the French left Maastricht in 1814 and William I became its sovereign, he, on the other hand, imposed laws to stimulate the use of the Dutch language. From 1823 onwards, all official documents and deeds had to be written in Dutch. In education, the language of instruction remained French after 1814, but the switch to Dutch was made in 1823, in accordance with the strict laws of the Dutch government. Gradually, beginning in the lower grades, the Dutch language started to be used by teachers at the athenaeum. At the state primary school (“Rijkslagere School”), the king had to allow French as a subject of study after considerable pressure from the parents. This is not surprising, as a basic knowledge of French was necessary for pupils who were going to work in the earthenware and crystal factories of Regout in Maastricht,³ because of the considerable number of Walloon experts and employees working there. The French language acquired a utilitarian function in this way and lost part of its prestige as a language of great cultural heritage. In the press, the change to the new Dutch government was hardly noticeable. Many books, pamphlets, and newspapers continued to be printed in French. Private correspondence reflects the same tendencies, with French documents outnumbering documents written in Dutch. Theatre remained frenchified as well.

3 See the archives of the Regout family in section 6.4.

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4.2 1830–1850 In the years leading up to 1830, protest against William I’s policies grew, most of all in West Flanders. These protests finally resulted in a genuine popular uprising in Brussels on 25 August 1830. The revolutionaries established a provisional government of nine members, who declared the independence of Belgium on 4 October 1830. During the autumn of that year, the province of Limburg chose to side with the Belgian revolutionaries. Dutch troops were expelled from the province, but in Maastricht, general B. C. J. Dibbets was able to maintain Dutch rule. Most Belgian revolutionaries wanted a constitutional monarchy, but not under the house of Orange, instead choosing Leopold of Saxen-Coburg as their king. On 2 August 1831, Dutch troops invaded Belgium and forced the Belgian army back in the so-called “ten-days campaign”. A truce followed on basis of the status quo ante and consequently the province of Limburg remained under Belgian rule, with the exception of Maastricht. On 19 April 1839, William I signed the official articles of separation between Holland and Belgium. Although Maastricht was under Dutch rule, the language situation did not change much. Dutch was the official language in the administration and education, but judging from the family archives and theatre life, French remained popular. In the press, however, Dutch rule was noticeable. From 1830 till 1839, no political papers were allowed to be published at all. The only paper in town was an advertisement and announcement paper, the Aankondigingsblad der Provincie Limburg.⁴ A major change, however, occurred with the establishment of the Momus society in 1840. This cultural society began as a carnival club and propagated the use of the Maastricht dialect. Among its members were doctors, lawyers, business people and army officers, such as P. Bemelmans (a brewer), A. Schaepkens (a painter), members of the Regout family, G. D. L. Franquinet (a poet) and Th. Weustenraad (a journalist). Many documents produced by the Momus society were written in dialect, including the constitution articles. The invitations for the carnival evenings and the carnival programmes were written in both French and dialect. During the carnival time, the Maastricht dialect was used in the society’s advertisements in the newspapers. The variety used most often by this society was the Maastricht dialect, while French was second best. Dutch was hardly found, only occurring in a few bills. From a carnival club, Momus developed into a cultural society with many departments including a theatre company. The members wrote prose and poetry in the Maastricht dialect. In this way, dialect literature was promoted and the written version of the Maastricht vernacular reached a

4 Cf. also section 5.3 Newspapers.

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higher cultural level than it ever had at the time of the burlesque almanacs. The increased use of the dialect in writing, even in literary texts, gradually diminished the prestige attached to French as the language of culture.

4.3 1850–1918 In the period 1850–1918, the French language was pushed still further back in favour of Dutch and the Maastricht dialect, mainly due to industrialisation Economically speaking, more and more inhabitants of Maastricht looked to the north of their country. The Regout factories had a great market there. Moreover, the mining industry increased enormously at the beginning of the twentieth century, as a result of which the upper class of the town came into contact with the Dutch engineers from the northern and western parts of the Netherlands. Consequently, the Dutch language gained prestige in the eyes of the inhabitants of Maastricht. French eventually disappeared as a language of culture. In the world of the press, Dutch became more and more dominant, but the newspapers were an exception, as we will see below.⁵ In the family archives, a change in linguistic usage was only noticeable at the end of the nineteenth century. Births, marriages and deaths were occasionally announced in Dutch, even by the nobility.⁶ Within the time space of approximately one century, Maastricht had experienced a language shift, as it had evolved from a society where French prevailed in the main domains into a town where Dutch was used in writing and the local dialect in the spoken language.

5 The newspapers The first real serial newspaper in the Netherlands was founded in 1618 and was named “Current uyt Italien, Duytslandt, & c .” As the title suggests, the newspaper mainly reported on foreign news (Italy, Germany, etc.). This was not only because these messages had the highest news value, but in this way conflicts with the local authorities could be avoided.⁷ Until 1848, when freedom of speech was announced, there was a strict censorship from the local government. In addition, the French invaders in the Netherlands introduced a special newspaper tax

5 See section 5.5 Newspapers. 6 See section 6.4 Family archives. 7 Online information of the Royal Library The Hague.

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at the beginning of the nineteenth century, which made newspapers only affordable to the rich. The real breakthrough of newspapers came in 1869 when this tax was abolished. This measure halved the price of newspapers, which resulted in a large increase in the number of subscriptions. Newspapers are a good source to investigate the use of the different languages in Maastricht. The City Library of Maastricht (SBM) holds a large number of newspapers from the nineteenth century.⁸ An obvious limitation of the study of newspapers relates to the fact that it is written material. This means that we mainly establish the use of Dutch and French, as the dialect was a variety spoken rather than written (with the exception of the announcements of the Momus Society). Although the circulation of subscribers was not very high, it is generally assumed that newspapers nonetheless had a considerable readership, as these papers were also available in coffee houses and social societies and were, moreover, circulated by people. For our purposes, the advertisements in the papers are most important, illustrating the way advertisers tried to reach their clients. The research work investigates into which historical, sociological, political and economic situations had an impact on the use of a particular language variety to recommend certain products, services and activities.

5.1 The end of the eighteenth century According to Bogers (1986), at the end of the eighteenth century public opinion in Maastricht was fed by the newspapers of Liège, such as L’Esprit des Journaux, Journal encyclopédique and Le Journal général de l’Europe, Politique, Agriculture. In response to these progressive newspapers, Le Journal Historique et Littéraire was issued. The editor was F. X. de Feller, a great supporter of the Ancien Régime and the Church. In this period, the following newspapers appeared in Maastricht: Courier [sic] de la Meuse and Gazette de Maestricht, both in French, and in Dutch Gazette van Maestricht, Maestrichter Gazette and Berichten uyt het adreskantoor te Maastricht. We only found some copies of these newspapers in the archives. It was interesting to see that one editor, Johannes van Gulpen, published both Dutch and French newspapers. In this period, the foundation was laid for the use of languages in the Maastricht press in the long nineteenth century. The upper classes appeared to be mainly interested in news that was written in the papers from Liège. These people were oriented towards the French language, French culture and French politics. 8 See the list of consulted newspapers at the end of this article. We wish to thank E. Ramakers, who works at the SBM and who is an expert on historical newspapers.

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In the newspapers published in Maastricht, publishers aim at both Dutch-speaking and French-speaking subscribers.

5.2 The French Period (1794–1814) As in the previous period, it was not uncommon for an editor to publish both Dutch and French papers. In 1796 Gijsbertus Bartholomeus van Gulpen, for example, published De Post van de Neder-Maas in Dutch, and in French Le Censeur Public du Département de la Meuse Inférieure. In the first paper, news from home and abroad was discussed. Its audience was very limited as the mayor of Maastricht wrote to the prefect on 10 March 1807 that the newspaper had only 40 subscribers (Bogers 1991: 163). The articles in the paper were very neutral, in the sense that no political affiliation was expressed. Almost all advertisements in the paper were in Dutch. Contrary to the politically neutral Dutch paper, the French paper was truly revolutionary. It paid much attention to the French legislature and to decisions of the French government. A Dutch-language opposite of Le Censeur Public was De onpartijdige Ex-Courrier van onder en boven de Maas, probably printed by Johannes van Gulpen. It clearly had an anti-French attitude. Under the heading “Vrankrijk” (France), an overview of the victims of the revolution was published, totalling up to of 234,000 people. The criticism in the newspaper was possible because there was a certain freedom of press in France after the fall of Robespierre. After the coup of the Directoire on 4 September 1797, however, freedom of the press was cancelled and the Ex-Courrier was prohibited (Luykx 1978: 166–167). The newspaper that had the longest life during the French period was the Journal du Département de la Meuse Inférieure. Domestic and foreign news was completely written in French. The only Dutch text in this paper was an advertisement of a notary from the town of Maaseik on 20 August 1806. Most advertisements in which young people were applying for a job mention a good command of French, which illustrates the economic importance of the language on the Maastricht job market and gives us at least some basic information on the linguistic competences of the city’s inhabitants. On 3 August 1810, the imperial decree was published that in each department only one political newspaper was allowed to appear. For the department of Nedermaas, this was the Journal du Département de la Meuse Inférieure. On 26 September 1811, Emperor Napoleon declared that no advertisements were allowed to appear in political magazines, but a separate advertisement paper would be published in the cities of Bruges, Kortrijk, Ghent, Liège and Maastricht. For Maastricht, this was the Feuille d’Affiches, annonces et avis divers de la ville de Maestricht. The decree also stipulated that in the so-called bilingual depart-

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ments, including Nedermaas, every newspaper had to be printed in French, possibly accompanied by a Dutch translation (Luykx 1978: 191). Such a translation was not published in Maastricht, probably because this was not necessary for the approximately 150 subscribers of the Journal, who were mainly intellectuals proficient in French. The absence of Dutch in both papers at this point is probably due to the strict censorship. The final issue of the Journal politique du Département de la Meuse Inférieure appeared on 21 January 1814 and that of the advertisement paper one day later. Just before the French capitulation, the newspaper appeared again, but now under the header Journal de Maestricht, Affiches, Annonces et Avis divers (Bogers 1991: 171). The editor was L. Th. Nypels, who had also published the original newspaper since 8 November 1810. It is not surprising that French was used so generally in this period. At first, government regulations were not so strict and a Dutch newspaper was allowed. From the two counterparts, the French-language Le Censeur Public and the Dutch-language Ex Courrier, it becomes clear that a political choice was reflected in the use of a particular language, which explains why the Ex-Courrier was prohibited soon after. In 1810, the only newspaper still published was a French one, which was not a problem for the readers in Maastricht, judging from the fact that a translation was not deemed necessary by the paper’s publishers or subscribers and thus did not appear. Given the political, cultural and economic prevalence of French, the degree of exposure to the language certainly allowed subscribers to read French papers. For the people who were less interested in the political situation, the newspaper was relevant because of the advertisements, which also appeared in French. In this way, French had an impact on a larger Maastricht audience, beyond the intellectual readership attested by the subscriptions. The prevalence of French in the press and on the job market in this period points to a diglossic situation and at least individual bilingualism in different layers of society.

5.3 The United Kingdom of the Netherlands and the separation of Belgium (1814–1839) On 1 January 1816, when the province of Limburg was already part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Journal de Maestricht changed into the Journal de la Province de Limbourg (Janssen 1977: 4, fn 34) Political news was written in French. In private advertisements, French and Dutch alternated. Matters relating to culture, fashion and education were mostly presented in French, but in the newspaper of 9 September 1825 there was a call for a teacher in Dutch. This, however, was an exception, probably due to the fact that the teaching medium in Maastricht had

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to be Dutch from 1823 onwards in accordance with the strict language policy of King William I. On 16 September 1827, a new newspaper appeared in Maastricht, issued by the widow Lefèbvre-Renard, i.e. L’Eclaireur, journal politique, commercial et littéraire (Janssen 1977: 4–5). The most important founders of this paper were J. Th. Weustenraad and J. L. Jaminé, liberal thinkers who had received their education in Liège. According to documents received by Governor Beeckman, the paper had a circulation of about 300 subscriptions (Beckers 1962: 57, fn 3). The paper soon got into difficulty due to its pronounced liberal ideas. On 24 March 1829, it was taken over by L’Eclaireur Politique, Journal de la Province de Limbourg. The publisher was once again L. Th. Nypels. With respect to the use of languages, this new newspaper was similar to its predecessors. It was discontinued on 12 October 1830 because there was a prohibition on publishing constitutional newspapers at the time of the Belgian Revolution and afterwards, which lasted well into the year 1839. At the end of 1833, Nypels obtained permission from General Dibbets to publish a bi-weekly newspaper under the Dutch name Aankondigingsblad der Provincie Limburg. It mainly contained advertisements and messages of the municipality. Dutch was used systematically for the State regulations and the messages of the Registration Service, whereas theatrical performances and concerts were announced in French, establishing a clear linguistic divide between the political and cultural sphere. Advertisements relating to the sale of houses and the offers of shopkeepers were found in both languages, but more in Dutch than in French. The Aankondigingsblad appeared until July 1839, when the state of siege was lifted and the Journal du Limbourg met the demand for a newspaper in Maastricht (Wingens 1964: 188). Politically speaking, the period from 1814 to 1839 was a turbulent time. The French rulers had left and Maastricht had become part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. The general public had little interest in the change of administration, but members of the upper classes often had liberal ideas, and therefore they had difficulty in accepting the strict language policy of King William I. Lawyers, notaries, teachers and officials had to use the Dutch language in their official papers, despite the fact that they were used to speaking and writing French. Many young people had received their education in the so-called French schools in Maastricht, and the older ones had often studied in Liège, where French was the medium of instruction, too. It is not surprising that newspapers also appeared in French. Only in the advertisements, however, do we see a change towards an increased use of Dutch. Businessmen apparently saw the economic necessity of addressing the general public in Dutch, at least for more common articles. In the years 1830–1839, when the rest of the province of Limburg was part of Belgium, the

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city of Maastricht remained under Dutch rule. Many intellectuals fled to Belgium, among them the editors of L’Eclaireur. In the Dutch advertisements paper (which counted a mere four pages), French was limited to the more exclusive and cultural sphere, as it only appeared in some advertisements for more expensive products and in the announcements of theatre plays and concerts. As such, this Aankondigingsblad seems to confirm a diglossic situation, as it was aimed at the general public in Maastricht, who understood Dutch better than French, rather than the upper class and cultural elite

5.4 The period 1839–1850 The first issue of the Journal du Limbourg appeared on 5 July 1839, printed by H. A. Bury-Lefebvre. The editors aimed at a readership of businessmen and merchants. The Journal du Limbourg became the mouthpiece of the liberal Momus-society (Janssen 1977). As a rule, the language of the Journal was French, except when the paper incorporated publications of the government. In the advertisements, both French and Dutch were used. Cultural issues were often mentioned in French. In 1845, however, we found a few Dutch cultural announcements, one by the theatre company “Ons Genoegen”,⁹ which performed Dutch plays such as “Robert en de struikrovers”,¹⁰ and one by the Momus society of Maastricht. On 5 October 1845, the Momus-society announced in the Maastricht dialect: “Proclamatie van Den Hoege Road van Elf van de euveral bekinde Mastreegter Momezij oan het Mastreegter fatsoenelik en onfatsoenelik Publiek.”¹¹ However, the listing of the upcoming meetings of the society was in French. At the end of 1843, a new French newspaper was issued, the Gazette du Duché de Limbourg. The printer was A. H. Roberts. Language use follows the same pattern as in the Journal du Limbourg: after 1845, Dutch advertisements appear more frequently. From October 1845 onwards, A. H. Roberts published another magazine beside the Journal de Maestricht, namely De Limburger. In the Journal de Maestricht the editors, perhaps the same as those of De Limburger, explained the motives that had led to the establishment of the Dutch magazine: “La feuille hollandaise, nous avons eu en vue de pourvoir à un besoin réel, à remplir un vide qui existait, à satisfaire au désir d’une classe de lecteurs qui ne lit que les journaux écrits dans notre langue maternelle. Voilà les motifs de l’apparition du

9 “Our Joy”. 10 “Robert and the robbers”. 11 “Proclamation of the Board of Elf of the well-known Momus-society” to the “general public”. See more information about Momus in section 4.

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journal hollandais.”¹² Given the intended audience, there clearly was a demand for more Dutch in print. Most columns in De Limburger were in Dutch, but in advertisements French and Dutch still alternated. The “Théâtre de Maestricht” announced plays and concerts in French. An advertisement for an assistant for a pharmacy was written in French, but “Holloway pills” from a quack were recommended in Dutch. For advertisements during the carnival period, however, the Maastricht dialect was used: “Café des Pays-Bas: Deensdag 12 februari, ‘s middags um 3 oore: Groete illuminatie en concertissimo, à la vocal et instrumentissimo; met Hollandse koffi en Franse wiin, zulle all kinisse welkom ziin bij N. Pierre …. zek het voorts es ug beleef.”¹³ On 23 October 1847, the first issue of the protestant weekly L’Aviso de la Meuse appeared. The main part of this weekly printed by Samuel Trouillart Hanssen was devoted to national news. When on 1 June 1849, the magazine became a daily newspaper, the main columns were in French. Dutch was used for the messages of the Registration Service and announcements of the city and state affairs. Advertisements were both in French and in Dutch. Compared to the previous period, many French papers were still published in Maastricht, but in the advertisements we see a growing tendency to use more Dutch, and the Maastricht dialect in particular. This is probably due to the fact that the Momus society stimulated the use of the dialect, as a result of which the prestige of the French language was reduced. The appearance of a political Dutch paper announces another period in the language relations in the city. The editors mention explicitly that many people would like to have a paper in their own language, i.e. Dutch. Because of a change of the economic situation in Maastricht, viz. the establishment of the earthenware and crystal factories, the social layer of merchants and businessmen expanded in comparison with the traditional upper classes. This is reflected by language use in the papers. That a particular language did not automatically index a political choice, can clearly be illustrated by the struggle of the Maastricht press around the separatist movement in the years 1848–1849, when some people in the Province of Limburg wanted to be united with Belgium, because of their resentment against the Dutch government. One might expect that a newspaper in the French language was more likely to side with Belgium when there were disagreements, and

12 “With this Dutch paper we want to fill a long-felt gap, a longing that has existed in the minds of a class of readers who only read newspapers written in their own language. That is the motive of the appearance of this newspaper.” 13 “Tuesday, 12 February, at 3 o’clock p.m.: great illumination and concert, vocal and instrumental; with Dutch coffee and French wine, all acquaintances will be welcome at N. Pierre’s …. Pass on this message please.”

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that a Dutch newspaper would have the same opinions as the Northern part of the Netherlands, but such a clear division is not to be found. In the case of separatism, it was the Dutch-language paper De Limburger that had to make compromises to please its intended audience. Only after a certain amount of conflict did the newspaper finally speak favourably about the Dutch government. In fact, the paper had been in favour of a union with Belgium. The French newspaper L’Aviso, on the other hand, was not at all inclined to side with Belgium, although we could have expected this judging from its language use. Finally, the French paper Journal du Limbourg sympathised with a connection to Belgium, but was not explicitly separatist.

5.5 The period 1850–1918 In the second half of the nineteenth century, Le Courrier de la Meuse was the most important newspaper in Maastricht. On 15 June 1854, Le Courrier was united with the Journal du Limbourg, while continuing under the first name until the end of 1892. The language of Le Courrier de la Meuse was French. All political affairs from home and abroad were published in this language. Municipal and judicial news, however, was published in Dutch. It is the language use in the advertisements that, once again, gives us more specific insights into language use in a more practical, day-to-day context. Initially, most plays, operas and concerts were announced in French, as well as luxury products, including jewellery, wine, cognac, champagne, musical instruments and more expensive fashion items. In the latter part of the century, Dutch was increasingly used in these advertisements as well. This was probably due to the larger readership of newspapers after the abolition of the newspaper stamp. However, advertisers could not expect this larger readership to master French, so they switched to Dutch. On the other hand, the Dutch daily newspaper De Limburger only withstood the competition of the French papers until 1 May 1860. It then appeared in three issues a week, and from 10 November 1860 it was reduced to a weekly. The reason for this decrease in popularity is not clear. Did the mainly Dutch Limburger suffer from the fact that Dutch advertisements could also be found in a French publication, or was it the result of a lingering prestige of French? It was certainly not due to a declining interest in the medium, as is illustrated by the appearance of another French paper on 1 May 1864: L’Ami des intérêts Limbourgeois. Feuille politique, commerciale, artistique et littéraire.The first title of this three-weekly publication edited by Jos Russell  – it was shortened to L’Ami du Limbourg on 1 January 1866 – suggests a cultural angle propitious to the use of French. Under the protection of Petrus Regout (the journal was probably his

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property, according to Maenen 1959: 106, 120–123), L’Ami du Limbourg became a daily newspaper on 1 October 1867 and continued until 1881. The main columns in this paper, including political and economic news, were written in French, the announcements of the city and the hinterland in Dutch. The advertisements appeared again in both languages. Advertisers knew what language to use, as can be illustrated by two advertisements by Petrus Regout in 1860. He used Dutch when advertising for letting a new house in the Boschstraat (a normal neighbourhood in the centre of the town, but not very special), but for dignified residences, he used French: “Château et villas à louer nommés Grande et Petite Suisse, Château Grand et Petit Vaeshartelt.”¹⁴ He clearly knew when to use one or the other language in order to attract tenants of a certain social class to his properties. From 1875 onwards, the use of Dutch increased considerably. More Dutch papers were issued, such as De Nieuwsbode and Dagblad van Maastricht. In these papers, we only found French in the advertisements for cultural items, but most advertisers used Dutch, even some people from Brussels and Liège. This is an indication that Maastricht was perceived as a Dutch-speaking town. De Volkstribuun, which appeared on 4 October 1890, was entirely printed in Dutch. This was not surprising, because it was a weekly paper for the working class. The paper was not very popular during the first six months of its existence. The reason for this was the opposition of the clergy, who became aware of the possible impact of the socialist movement on their working class flock. Through the support of hundreds of subscribers in the rest of the country, the paper could still be maintained until 1897, when Vliegen and Pieters, the paper’s editor and publisher, left Maastricht (Perry 1983). At the end of the nineteenth century, more Dutch papers were issued in Maastricht, but most of them did not last longer than a few years. This may have been partly due to the competition of the Limburger Kourier, a provincial newspaper, which was published in Heerlen. Just before the turn of the century, the printer Weijerhorst sold it to P. van de Wijer, who moved the Limburger Kourier to Maastricht because he expected to have more potential readers there than in the peasant town of Heerlen (Simoen 2000). In this way, the capital of the province of Limburg acquired a high quality daily newspaper, the very first to be written entirely in Dutch. The French influence in the Maastricht press was finally over.

14 “To let: castles and villas called Great and Small Suisse (Switzerland) and Great and Small Vaeshartelt.”

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5.6 Conclusion Looking back over the data presented in the previous sub-sections, I conclude that in the first decades of the nineteenth century the most important papers were published in French. It was not before 1845 that the first Dutch political newspaper, De Limburger, appeared, which existed for a shorter period of time than its French counterpart the Courrier. From around 1875 onwards, there were more Dutch papers than French. Various socio-historical developments seem to have contributed to the rise of Dutch in this particular domain, among them the fact that papers had become cheaper, as by the Law of 9 April 1869 the newspaper stamp was abolished. The link between governmental language use and the language in the newspapers is not obvious, as many French papers continued to exist even after the departure of the French troops in 1814. Moreover, after the period 1830–1839, during which the Dutch advertisements paper was more or less forced on to the public, new French papers appeared. Rather than politics, it may have been economic developments that played a more prominent role in the language shift, in particular the establishment of the earthenware and crystal factories of Regout in Maastricht around 1840. At first, the employees of the factories were dependent on colleagues from the Walloon district for their expertise, but when this was no longer the case, the businessmen looked to the north to find a market. As a result, the Dutch language became very important. In addition, businessmen and merchants became more important for the newspaper publishers than the nobility. Moreover, there were many technical inventions which made it possible to mass produce newspapers for a larger public, who could now read the political news in their own language, i.e. in Dutch. Seen from a sociological and cultural point of view, the greatest change in language use came from the Momus Society. The members promoted the Maastricht dialect and published literature in dialect, thus diminishing the prestige of the French language, formerly the language of culture par excellence. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the mining industry brought many engineers from the north and the west of the Netherlands to the province of Limburg. These migrants spoke Dutch. In the eyes of the general public in Maastricht, the Dutch language gained prestige. The upper classes also came into contact with these well-educated people and gradually began to use more Dutch than French. This will be confirmed in section 6, which discusses language choice as evidenced in family archives.

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6 Family archives The previous section focused on language use in the newspapers, which could be considered as the more formal mode of contact between the editor of the paper and the readers. As the evidence suggests, the language choice of the advertisers was determined by the targeted readers. In this section the emphasis will lie on the domain of the family, in particular the less formal correspondence between family members. The corpus consists of nineteenth-century family correspondence preserved in the Municipal Archives in Maastricht (GAM) and the National Archives of Limburg in Maastricht (RAL). The most considerable limitation of this source material is the fact that only correspondence of the upper classes has been preserved. As illustrated by the general historical background (section 4) and the analysis of the newspapers (section 5), the upper classes spoke French at the end of the eighteenth century. During the French period, their knowledge of French was certainly an advantage, but when Maastricht once again became part of the Dutch nation after 1814, one would assume that this was no longer the case. Our research questions are aimed at determining whether there was a gradual shift to the Dutch language. Did these families write in Dutch or French, what was the motivation of their language choice and if any, when did a language shift take place? Was the language use linked to specific addressees? Previous research on the social life and correspondences of the nineteenth century elite in the Low Countries is limited, but reveals at least two trends. Vandenbussche (2004) concludes that more people of the upper class in Bruges wrote and spoke Dutch than had previously been assumed.¹⁵ Ruberg (2005) examined the correspondence of the Dutch elite between 1770 and1850. She argues that the young people of the upper classes were taught how to write formal letters, love letters, etc., and that letter writing was a social convention rather than a distraction, and a way to maintain the reputation of the elite for future generations. Language choice is more important for my analysis than the actual content of the letters. The most striking documents in the corpus will be discussed in the following paragraphs. Table 1 contextualises the documents within the corpus, by giving an overview of the number of letters per family and per language for each period:

15 See section 3: Multilingualism, diglossia and linguistic domains.

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Table 1. Language choice in the family correspondence (F = French, D = Dutch)

1795–1815

1815–1839

1839–1850

1850–1918

Total (F/D)

Total (F/D)

Total (F/D)

Total (F/D)

Rouffaer

48 (2/46)

5 (2/3)

Dumoulin

37 (6/31)

6 (5/1)

Membrède

6 (4/2)

Behr

36 (35/1)

8 (8/0)

30 (30/0)

103 (71/32)

Bonhomme

9 (5/4)

Maurissen

38 (8/30)

De Thier

46 (30/16)

52 (42/10)

Pijls

66 (48/18)

Regout

90 (65/25)

Schaepkens

12 (6/6)

Total

37% / 63%

57% / 43%

83% / 17%

73% / 27%

6.1 The French period: 1795–1815 For the French period, the correspondence preserved is linked to the Rouffaer, Dumoulin, Membrède and Behr families. One might assume that one would find several French letters for this period, especially given the fact that all the families concerned were relatively wealthy, but this is not necessarily the case. The Rouffaer family was a wealthy merchant family. Their ancestors were from Hermal, near Liège, but Arnoldus, then head of the family, moved to Maastricht in 1718. Besides a wholesale company, the Rouffaer family owned a distillery. After 1793, Arnoldus’s correspondence contains several letters from his son Johan, all business letters written in Dutch. Arnoldus’s grandson also wrote letters to his grandparents in Dutch. Arnoldus probably spoke French in his youth in Hermal, but being a businessman, he adopted the language of his new Maastricht clientele, Dutch. The fact that both his son and grandson wrote to him in Dutch might indicate that the family spoke Dutch at home, or maybe even the local dialect. He received two official letters in French from the French government. The Dumoulin collection contains correspondence concerning the cloth trade in the years 1793–1809. These letters were written to Peter Francis Dumou-

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lin and came from different countries and places. Dutch letters were sent from locations as Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Den Bosch, but also from Sheffield, Birmingham, London, Düsseldorf and Koblenz. French letters also came from various locations, e.g. Brussels, Ostend, Mülheim and even Nottingham. Peter Dumoulin apparently had a good command of French, as can be derived from his letters addressed to “Monsieur le Marquis De Chasteler par Hanau à Warserlo” and “Monsieur le Baron De Buttheler chez Monsieur le Prince de Hessen-Cassel à son château à Rumpenhei”. In the letters of the Dumoulin family, who were international merchants, more French was encountered than was the case with the Rouffaer family. Probably French was used in international trade in a manner similar to English nowadays (see also Frijhoff 2010; Burke 1987). When addressing members of the nobility, Peter Dumoulin used French. The third letter collection for the French period is linked to the Membrède family. André Charles Membrède was “Député du Département de la Meuse Inférieure”¹⁶ and “Président du Tribunal Criminel à Maestricht”.¹⁷ The family archives contain some of his draft letters. Membrède was an ardent supporter of the French revolutionary ideas and given his administrative positions, it is not surprising that he wrote many letters in French. However, we identified his hand in two Dutch summaries of letters addressed to Membrède by the Minister of Internal Affairs in Paris, François de Neufchâteau and by mayor Monachon of Maastricht. These summaries were possibly meant for Membrède’s officials, who might not have had the same competence in French. The last family whose letters have been preserved for the French period is the Behr family. Most documents were addressed to Friedrich Ludwig Behr (1769– 1834), the descendent of a German nobleman active in the army of the sovereign of Waldeck-Pyrmont, in service of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. He married Elisabeth Thérèse de Milly (1776–1855) from Maastricht. Some letters received by Friedrich Ludwig Behr during the period 1792–1832 were particularly noteworthy. One is an undated letter written by his son Desiré (born in 1793) in a very childish hand. It was written in Dutch and began with “Mijn lieve Papa, Ik heb veel plesier gehad zedert dat gij vertrokken zijt”.¹⁸ In the letter, Désiré lets his father know that he is teaching his sister Mini French words. This is an indication that the family Behr used both French and Dutch, and promoted the use of both languages from a young age. This letter stands out, as letters written to Friedrich by his wife or other children for this period were usually in French. We found two undated letters by another son of his, Louis. The first was written in a 16 Representative of the Department of the Lower Meuse. 17 Chairman of the Maastricht Court of Justice for Criminal Affairs. 18 “My dear Daddy, I have had much fun since you left.”

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childish hand, with many spelling errors. On his progress in school, Louis commented: “Jaapris beaucou” (”J’ai appris beaucoup”) and “plu de jeografi” (“plus de géographie”).¹⁹ He ended with: “J’ai été fort contan qu mama arecu heir une laitre de vous et que vous vous portez bien. Adieu cher papa aimez un peu votre magermans qui vous aime de tout son coeur.”²⁰ It is striking that the affectionate nickname used for Louis, “magermans” (‘skinny man’), is Dutch. When compared to the letters studied by Ruberg (2005), these are clearly informal. They allow us to assume that both French and Dutch were used by the Behr family, but that French was considered to be more sophisticated.

6.2 The period 1815–1839 The period from 1815 to 1839 in the corpus is represented by letters from the Rouffaer, Dumoulin and Behr families, with documents from the Bonhomme and Maurissen families. After 1815, Johan Rouffaer received official letters written both in Dutch and in French. On 5 July 1816 he received a letter from Governor Charles de Brouckère about his appointment as a member of the Provincial Council. This document was bilingual and signed by the clerk of the state secretary on behalf of the Minister of Internal Affairs. A few years later the documents concerning these appointments (10 June 1823 and 6 June 1826) were entirely in Dutch, as stipulated by the language laws issued by William I (from 1 January 1823 all official documents had to be written in Dutch). The Dumoulin family is represented during this period by pharmacist Joseph Guillaume Lambert Dumoulin (1793–1870), who was married to Maria Sophia Frijns. He published books on his profession in French, French being the language of science. In his private life, he did not always use French as we can see from the fact that he delivered a statement of inheritance in Dutch after the death of his mother Anna Catherine van Gulpen on 6 July 1830. Among the documents in the archives is a fragment of a poem on the occasion of his marriage, which is an elegant example of code-mixing between French and Dutch:

19 “I have learned a lot” and “more geography”. 20 “I am very pleased that mother has received a letter from you yesterday and that you are keeping well. Goodbye, dear daddy, love your ‘skinny man’ a little, who loves you from all his heart”.

Press and family archives in nineteenth-century Maastricht   

Comment pour tenir bon ménage, Il faut que tout époux soit sage. Ja wijs en braaf moet elk dan zijn, Dan drinkt men nooit onklaren wijn.

   193

Aussi vertu, délicatesse, Doit s’allier à la tendresse. Dan is de trouw geen slavernij Maar eene blijde vrijerij.

The documents from the Bonhomme family are of a different nature. Nicholas Paul Bonhomme (1758–1815) worked as postilion holder (inspector of postal affairs) and left registration documents behind after his death. His work was continued by his widow M. C. Bonhomme-Nijsten, who was then succeeded by her son Matthew Gerard. The inspector of postal affairs checked the district every year, making notes. The notes preserved are written in French until 1829, after which only Dutch was used. The reason for this sudden language switch is unclear. It did not coincide with the language laws issued by William I in 1823. It is possible that general Dibbets, who was appointed Provincial Commander and who announced the state of siege in 1828, favoured Dutch, but it could just as well have been linked to the linguistic competence of the individual inspectors. The Behr family, meanwhile, was climbing the social ladder as can be seen from the collection for this period of a number of documents in Dutch, covering the naturalisation and raising to the peerage of Friedrich Ludwig. In his letters to the Dutch authority he dutchifies his name to Frederik Lodewijk. He was granted naturalisation, but his noble origin was not recognised. The letters sent to his wife Thérèse Elisabeth de Milly were now written in both French and Dutch. For instance, on 24 September 1824 she received a letter in Dutch from a friend from Gouda, while her son Emile wrote to her in French from Deventer on 19 November 1826. Emile was 12 years old when he wrote this letter. He corrected himself occasionally but clearly already showed a good mastery of French. The education of Friedrich Ludwig’s daughter Hélène might have been different, as illustrated by a letter her father wrote to her in Dutch on 5 February 1829 from the city of Middelburg. He even addresses her with an affectionate dialect word “Lief Vruike” (“Dear little woman”), ending with "van je beminnende vader”.²¹ Whether his language choice in this particular letter is due to his stay in Middelburg or to informal language use in the family is unclear. The documents concerning the legacy of canon Adriaan Maurissen are of a completely different nature, since they consist mainly of accounts and bills that his heirs received after the funeral. A notary, two doctors, a chemist and a jeweller write in French, whereas Dutch accounts come from a baker, a brewer, the sexton of the church and a third doctor.

21 “from your loving father”.

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The general tendency for this period seems have been a gradual rise in the use of the Dutch language. The official letters had to be in Dutch from 1 January 1823 onwards, which suggests that the notes left by the inspector of postal affairs were probably not considered to be official. Pharmacist Dumoulin wrote his scientific books in French, but in his private life he also used Dutch. That Dutch and French were commonly spoken in his family seems obvious from the code-mixing poem on the occasion of his marriage. The Behr collection contains more Dutch for this period than for the previous period, and even traces of Dutch dialect in Behr’s case, this can probably be linked to Frederik Behr’s naturalisation. Furthermore he died in 1834, and his wife received several Dutch letters of condolence. The Maurissen funeral accounts, on the other hand, seem to indicate that learned professionals (notaries, doctors) were still more likely to use French than others (e.g. bakers, brewers).

6.3 The period 1839–1850 Between 1839 and 1850, the Behr family continues to be present in the archives. This time, Friedrich’s and Thérèse’s children are represented by letters addressed to Hélène, Louise, Charles and the latter’s wife, Pauline Dubois. They were all clearly used to corresponding in French. Hélène received letters from friends (“amie Caroline” and a certain Henriette), Louise received an undated letter in French from “ta soeur Fanny”, whereas Charles and his wife Pauline wrote letters to each other in the forties, while Pauline resided in Liege to improve her health. These less formal letters were all written in French. The other family representing this period in our corpus is the De Thier family, living in the stately home of Neerkanne near Maastricht. Ignacio Baron De Thier received many accounts between 1830 and 1846. Between 1844 and 1846, the collection contains French accounts from a pharmacist, a lawyer and a champagne merchant, but also from a brewer, a stonemason, a carpenter, a locksmith and someone delivering soot. The locksmith lived in Liège, so using French with him seems logical, but the other workmen were inhabitants of Maastricht. They adapted their language use to the recipient of the document, who, as a Baron, was in a hierarchically higher position and thus used French. It is possible that they just copied a French account if they did not know any French, but one might presume some degree of practical bilingualism, as seems illustrated by the brewer, who in 1844 sent a French bill for wheat and barley, and a Dutch bill for beer. In any case, the difference in social status between the issuer and the recipient of the account did not always determine the language choice. The Baron also received Dutch accounts from a butcher, a shopkeeper in pots and pans, a smith

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and someone delivering soot. Thus it would seem the De Thier accounts represent a language shift in transition for this period.

6.4 The period 1850–1918 The last sub-section of our corpus covers the longest period – sixty-eight years to be precise – and it thus contains the most documents. Once again, the Behr family is well represented, this time alongside letters from the Bonhomme, Pijls, Regout and Schaepkens families. The letters of the Behr family for this period illustrate a systematic use of the French language. Louise Behr received a letter in French from her niece in The Hague in 1889, while her sister Fanny wrote to her from Liège. Announcements of engagements, marriages and deaths are still to be found in French. The Bonhomme collection contains the announcement of the engagement of Guillaume Bonhomme with Maria van Beneden in 1898, which is written in Dutch. The marriage announcement on 18 May 1899, however, was written in French, as was the nicely decorated card with congratulations in French from the office staff which the happy couple received on the occasion. In 1901, Guillaume Bonhomme addresses his mother in French in some telegrams. The Van Beneden family apparently preferred to use Dutch, as Leopold Thomas van Beneden (born in 1847) received this note from his grandson in 1906: “Lieve Bonpapa, Gelieve dit geschenkje aan te nemen uit liefde en dankbaarheid van Uw kleinzoon Leopold; Lang leve Bonpapa!”²² The nickname “Bonpapa” might be French, but the note is in Dutch. The language use of the Pijls family is mixed as well, although Dutch seems to be dominant. W. H. Pijls was mayor of Maastricht from 1861 to1867 and from 1873 to 1900. Many of the letters he wrote and received were in French. However, William writes to his aunt in Dutch on 12 March 1854,“Lieve Tante Pijls”.²³ The correspondence concerning articles in Le Courrier by Pijls, Van Osch America and Hollman illustrates the use of both French and Dutch, whereas the drafts for the articles were all written in Dutch. The Regout family used both French and Dutch in their correspondence. In 1867 Gustave Regout received some letters in French from Paris, all signed by Eugenie Coenegracht-Petry. Alex Regout received Dutch documents, e.g. on 4 January 1878 from Marie Hekking, a friend from The Hague and on 5 January 22 “Dear Grandfather, please accept this little present of love and gratitude from your grandson. Long live grandfather!” 23 “Dear Aunt Pijls.”

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1879 from his cousin Jeanette in Maastricht. In 1880 and subsequent years Edmond Regout wrote several letters (48) in French from his boarding-school at Katwijk. At that time writing letters in French was probably part of the education at a boarding school. The death certificate of Gustave Regout was drawn up in Dutch, whereas the 1857 wedding announcement of “Monsieur van der Does de Willebois, Commissaire du Roi dans le Duché de Limbourg avec Mademoiselle la Baroness Sophie de Crassier” was written in French. Half a century later, in 1918, a “déjeuner” was announced on the occasion of the wedding of Lady Johanna van der Does de Willebois with Viscount Charles Aefferden. The invitation was in Dutch, but the menu in French. The archives of the Schaepkens family contain visiting cards in French for Alexander Schaepkens (1815–1899), teacher of drawing at the Athenaeum. On 26 October 1898, Alexander wrote in Dutch to a Mr. Joosten: “Ik heb de eer U in commissie toe te zenden de navolgende teekeningen en schildereien om dezelve vervolgens uit te stallen ieder met prijs op de keerzijde tezamen 185 gulden.”²⁴ Alexander and his brothers wrote to each other in French. One of these brothers, Theodore, left a handwritten will in French dated 12 September 1882. In the second half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century the upper classes seem to have become gradually more inclined to using Dutch. This is very pronounced in the case of the Regout family, who, as the owners of earthenware and crystal factories, maintained trade relations with the northern and western part of the Netherlands and for economic reasons needed to use Dutch. The members of the Behr family, the Bonhomme family and the Schaepkens family kept using French in the correspondence with relatives, but sometimes used Dutch as well. Guillaume’s wife and family probably spoke Dutch at home. A similar case is Mayor Pijls, who used French in his more official letters, but who used Dutch at home. The general sociological trend seems to be that high society wanted to keep themselves apart as a group by using the French language. They wanted to exclude the lower classes, but if necessary they were able to descend to their level and speak Dutch (Vandenbussche 2004). The change to a more general use of Dutch in their circles occurred very slowly, as the wedding announcements of the Does de Willebois family in 1857 (all in French) and 1918 (invitation in Dutch) seem to illustrate. One clear political or historical cause for the change to Dutch cannot be pointed out. The change from a French to a Dutch government seems to have had little effect on the language use of the upper classes. Most probably language use was determined by a combination of different social and economic 24 “I have the honour to send you in commission the following drawings and pictures for exhibition, all of them with the price on the reverse, together 185 guilders.”

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developments, the analysis of which in our limited corpus could only point out a few, such as the disappearance of the newspaper stamp and the rise of the Regout factories. In order to unveil the motivation for individual language choice, more source-driven research in the archival records of other municipalities is necessary.

7 Conclusion The present chapter focused on language use in two domains: newspapers and family archives. Our analysis shows that the French language was used for a long time and that the change to Dutch was very gradual. The first proper political newspaper in Dutch, De Limburger appeared in 1845, but was only published as a daily paper until 1860. The abolition of the newspaper stamp in 1869 and technical innovations made producing newspapers cheaper, and the readership of newspapers increased, among them more people who could only speak Dutch. The editors and printers of the newspapers adapted themselves to these new subscribers and thus De Limburger Koerier, which was published in Maastricht just before the turn of the century, met the demand for a Dutch newspaper. The rise of the Regout factories exercised a considerable influence on language use, as the northern part of the country became gradually more important as a market and the tradesmen came into contact with people who were monolingual Dutch. Moreover, the French language was losing its prestige near the end of the nineteenth century due to the promotion of the Maastricht dialect by the Momus society and the arrival of Dutch engineers for the mining business. These economic, sociological and socio-economic factors contributed towards the disappearance of French from the newspapers of Maastricht. In the family archives a similar gradual change in the use of languages can be observed, but it was only around the turn of the century that the upper classes began to use Dutch in their public announcements of births, weddings and deaths. Families that were used to speaking and writing French kept on doing this for a long period. As we have seen, higher social circles tended to keep to themselves. One way of doing this was a continued use of the French language. The local dialect probably did not play such a great role for them, although some were members of the Momus society. However, when the mining industry brought well-educated engineers from the northern part of the Netherlands to Maastricht and when these began to mix with the upper classes, Dutch became more frequently used in the town, next to the dialect. Nowadays, if one were to speak of bilingualism in Maastricht, the two languages would be Dutch and “Mestreechs”.

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From a methodological point of view, the analysis of language choice in the two domains under investigation in this chapter has revealed that the process of language shift from French to Dutch was gradual and very domain-specific. Rather than assuming a strong or weak influence of French based on metalinguistic discourses or the absence or presence of selected prestigious cultural products, we based itself on a careful and extensive examination of all materials preserved in the municipal archives, using the wide-ranging primary sources available to reconstruct the timing and loci of the shift in actual language use. The analysis has shown how necessary it is to pay attention to the interplay of the symbolic role of language, based on the prestige associated with French on the one hand, and its actual use in various contexts on the other hand. Both these factors are in turn often affected by larger socio-historical and even economic developments over the course of the century. Only by combining all these elements, analysing instances of domain-specific language shift within a larger socio-historical context, can we come to a sound reconstruction of the linguistic marketplace in nineteenth-century Maastricht. This case study indicates that such an approach, going back to the original sources, can shed new light on what has too often been subsumed under the label “frenchication” without any further details, and calls for similar source-driven research in the archival record of other municipalities across the Netherlands, in order to arrive at a broader picture of the impact of French in the Netherlands in the Late Modern period.

8 List of abbreviations GAM Gemeente archief Maastricht (Municipal Archives of Maastricht) RAL Rijksarchief Limburg te Maastricht (National Archives Limburg in Maastricht) SBM Stadsbibliotheek Maastricht (City Library Maastricht) SHC Sociaal Historisch Centrum Maastricht (Social Historic Centre Maastricht) There was a fusion between the GAM and the RAL in 2005. The name is now Regionaal Historisch Centrum Limburg (Regional Historic Centre Limburg). Together with the Social Historic Centre Maastricht they are located in a former convent of the Minorites: Sint Pieterstraat 7, Maastricht.

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List of consulted newspapers Aankondigingsblad der provincie Limburg: volume 1834 and 1835 (SBM). Aankondigingsblad voor Limburg: volume 1840 (SHC). Ami des Intérêts Limbourgeois, L’: volume 1865 (SBM). Ami du Limbourg, L’: volume 1870 (SBM). Ami du Limbourg (bis), L’: 8 July 1880 (SHC). Aviso de la Meuse, L’: volume 1847 and 1850 (SBM). Berichten uyt het adresskantoor te Maastricht: 20 February 1778 (SBM). Censeur Public du Département de la Meuse Inférieure, Le: prospectus and four copies 1797 (SBM). Courier de la Meuse, 31 January 1783 and 14 July 1787 (SBM). Courrier de la Meuse, Le: volume 1851, 1855, 1860, 1865, 1870, 1875, 1880, 1885, 1890, 1892 (SBM). Dagblad van Maastricht: volume 1895 (SBM). Eclaireur, L’: volume 1827 (SBM). Eclaireur Politique, L’: volume 1830 (SBM). Feuille d’Affiches, annonces et avis divers de la ville de Maestricht : volume 1812 and 1813 (SBM). Gazette de Maestricht: 3 September 1787 (SBM) Gazette du Duché de Limbourg: volume 1845 (SBM). Gazette van Maestricht: fourteen copies from 1760–1783 (SBM). Intelligence, Nouveau journal du Limbourg: volume 1820, 1825 (SBM). Journal de la Province du Limbourg: volume 1820, 1825 (SBM). Journal de Maestricht: volume 1815 (SBM). Journal du Département de la Meuse Inférieure: volume 1800, 1805,1810 (SBM). Journal du Limbourg: volume 1839, 1840, 1845, 1850 (SBM). Limburger, De: volume 1850, 1855, 1860 (SBM). Limburger, De (Weekblad): volume 1868 (SBM). Limburgsch Nieuwsblad: 31 December 1892 (SBM). Maastrichtse Courant: 9 July 9 and 26 November 1890, 13 February 1895 (SBM). Maestrichter Gazette: 14 September 1785, 28 April 1792 and 9 March 1793 (SBM). Nieuwe Limburger, De: 13 January 1877 (SBM). Nieuwsbode, De: volume 1875, 1880, 1885 (SBM). Onpartijdige ex-courrier van onder en boven de Maas, De: 17 June 1797 (SBM). Post van de Neder-Maas, De: volume 1799–1800 (SBM). Ster, De: 2 February and 4 May 1884 (SBM) Volkstribuun, De: volume 1895 (SBM) Zuid-Limburger, De: volume 1900 (SBM).

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List of consulted Archives Gemeente Archief Maastricht (GAM) (Municipal Archives Maastricht). Behr family archives, inventory number 1: letters received by Friedrich Ludwig Behr, 1792–1832. Idem, inventory number 23: notes by Friedrich Ludwig Behr concerning his wife T. E. de Milly’s grandparents and parents and also the dates of birth of his children, ca. 1815. Idem, inventory number 24: passports received by Friedrich Ludwig Behr as a member of the commission of the line of demarcation between The Netherlands and France, 1816 and 1820. Idem, inventory number 25: missive of King William I to Friedrich Ludwig Behr as an Engineer of Mines, in connection with observations of subsidences near the St. Pietersberg, 12 February 1818. Idem, inventory number 27: correspondence received and written by Friedrich Ludwig Behr, as a member of the commission of the lines of demarcation between The Netherlands and France concerning the value of the decorations awarded by the king of France at the ratifications of the boundary treaty of 14 June 1820, 1820–1821. Idem, inventory number 29: authentic certified copy of the wedding of Friedrich Ludwig Behr and Thérèse Elisabeth de Milly of 5 August 1792, document of 4 August 1823. Idem, inventory number 32: documents concerning the naturalisation and raising to the peerage of Friedrich Ludwig Behr, 1827–1829. Idem, inventory number 38: letters received by Thérèse Elisabeth de Milly, 1793–1848. Idem, inventory number 41: book of recipes Thérèse Elisabeth de Milly, beginning 19th century. Idem, inventory number 49: letters received by Hélène Behr, 1833–1877. Idem, inventory number 57: letters received by Louise Behr, 1829–1901. Idem, inventory numbers 73 en 87: letters received by Charles Behr, 1817–1853 and by his wife Pauline, 1837–1853. Idem, inventory number 123: letters received by Francois Behr, 1810–1869. Bonhomme family archives, inventory number 1: register of Paul Nicolaas Bonhomme with notes concerning postilions, special events and complaints, 1804–1827. Idem, inventory number 16: personal correspondence of Guillaume Bonhomme about the death and funeral of Arnold Bonhomme, 1901. Idem, inventory number 21: personal documents and private correspondence of J. A. H. J. G. Bonhomme, 1892–1969. Idem, inventory number 27: documents concerning the steamboat company of Arnold Bonhomme, 1867–1930. Idem, inventory number 37: personal documents familiy Van Beneden, 1816–1901. Dumoulin family archives, inventory number 9: Fragment of a poem on the occasion of the marriage of Lambert and Maria Sophia. Idem, inventory number10: statement of inheritance by Lambert Joseph Guillaume Dumoulin, after the death of his mother A.C. Dumoulin-van Gulpen, 25 January 1831. Idem, inventory numbers 11, 12, 13 and 20: manuscripts concerning botany and chemistry by Lambert Joseph Guillaume Dumoulin, 1832–1860. Idem, inventory number 21: “cahier des romances”, manuscript, concerning French romantic songs belonging to Maria Sophia Frijns (wife of Lambert Dumoulin), 1825.

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Idem, inventory number 74: book concerning the cloth trade of Petrus Franciscus Dumoulin, 1793–1809. Heerlijkheid Neerkanne archives, inventory number 35N: accounts and receipts for Ignace, baron de Thier, 1830–1846. W. H. Pijls family archives, uninventoried documents concerning the legacy of Canon Adriaan Maurissen, 1822 and documents concerning the correspondence with W.H. Pijls. Regout family archives, inventory number 1: letters received by Gustave Regout, 1867. Idem, inventory number 7: letters received by Alex Regout, 1878. Idem, inventory numbers 9–11: letters written by Regout at the boarding school in KatwijkBinnen, 1880–1882. Idem, inventory number 67: deed of purchase of Castle Vaeshartelt, 1 december 1841. Idem, inventory number 267: documents of Edmond Regout, 1888–1926. Idem, inventory number 286: personal documents, 1857–1947. Suringar (Rouffaer) family archives, inventory number 52: letters received by Arnoldus Rouffaer, 1793–1818. Idem, inventory number 72: documents received by Johan Rouffaer concerning the appointment to the post of supervisor of the taxes in Maastricht, 1811–1815. Idem, inventory number 73: document received by Johan Rouffaer: decree of the mayor of Maastricht concerning the appointment of receivers of contributions for new uniforms for the garrison, 5 March 1814. Idem, inventory number 74: document received by Johan Rouffaer: placing on the list of the jury for the court session of 19 September 1814, 5 September 1814. Idem, inventory number 75: documents received by Johan Rouffaer as a member of the Commission for the Accommodation of the Passing Troops, 1814–1815. Idem, inventory number 76: documents received by Johan Rouffaer as member of the public assistance of Maastricht and Wijck, 1815. Idem, inventory number 77: documents received by Johan Rouffaer concerning the appointment to be a member of the Provincial States, 1816–1826. Schaepkens family archives, inventory number 1: letters and minutes of outgoing letters 1847–1848 received by Johannes Christianes, Antonius Alexander Schaepkens. Momus archief, inventory numbers 1–5: list of members 1846–1850. Idem, inventory number 65–1: constitution and revising of it, 1840 en 1879. Idem, inventory number 72–1: decisions of the “Hoeglustig Comité van Elf”, 1856–1927. Idem, inventory numbers 75–77 and 79: correspondence, 1857, 1872 and 1874 Idem, inventory numbers 198, 199, 203–207, 228 and 231: documents concerning the organising of yearly festivities by the Momus society, 1840–1841, 1841–1842, 1845–1850, 1872 and 1874. Idem, inventory number 332: documents concerning the performances organised by the Momus society, 19th and 20th century. Rijksarchief Limburg (RAL) Membrède family archives, inventory number 100: draft book by Membrède, “député du département de la Meuse Inférieure”, 1799–1807.

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References Alberts, W. Jappe. 1983. Geschiedenis van de beide Limburgen, beknopte geschiedenis van het gebied omvattende de tegenwoordige Nederlandse en Belgische provincies sedert de vroegste tijden II (1632–ca.1918). Assen: Maaslandse Monografieën 17. Beckers, R. 1962. Sporen van publieke opinie te Maastricht 1815–1830. Unpublished dissertation for licentiate in modern history. Leuven. Blauwkuip, F. 1920. De taalbesluiten van koning Willem I. Amsterdam: De Bussy. Bogers, A. W. M. 1986. De oudste Maastrichtse kranten (1746–1794). De Maasgouw 105. 79–96 and 118–129. Bogers, A. W. M. 1991. Maastrichtse kranten in de Franse Tijd, 1795–1814. Publications de la Société Historique et Archéologique dans le Limbourg (PSHAL) 127. 154–182. Burke, P. & R. Porter. 1987. The Social History of Language. Cambridge: Polity Press. de Certeau, M., D. Julia & J. Revel. 2003. Une politique de la langue. La Révolution française et les patois. Politix 16. 227–233. de Jonge, A. 1943. De taalpolitiek van koning Willem in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden 1814–1830. De genesis der taalbesluiten en hun toepassing. Sint-Andriesbij-Brugge: Darthet. de Metsenaere, M. 1988. Taalmuur=sociale muur? De negentiende-eeuwse taalverhoudingen te Brussel als resultaat van geodemografische en sociale processen. Brussel: VUB Press. de Metsenaere, Machteld & E. Witte. 1990. Taalverlies en taalbehoud bij de Vlamingen te Brussel in de negentiende eeuw. BMGN 105 part 2. 1–38. Dittmar, Norbert. 1978. Handboek van de sociolinguïstiek. Utrecht: Spectrum. Doppler, P. 1894. Krant te Maastricht. De Maasgouw 16. 83 & 95–96. Endepols, H. J. E. 1955. Taaltoestanden te Maastricht op het einde der 18de en in het begin der 19de eeuw. Verslagen en mededelingen van de Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Taalen Letterkunde. 605–617. Evers, Ingrid, M. H. 1982. De Momus. Maastricht: Stichting Historische Reeks. Fasold, Ralph. 1984. The Sociolinguistics of Society. Chapter 2: Diglossia, 34–60. Oxford: Wileyt-Blackwell. Fishman, J. A. 1981. Domeinen en de relatie tusren micro- en macrosociolinguïstiek. In G. Geerts & A. Hagen (eds.), Sociolinguïstische Studies 2, 124–141. Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff. Fishman, J. A. 1972. The Sociology of Language: An Interdisciplinary Social Science Approach to Language in Society. Rowley Mass.: Newbury House. Flament, A. J. A. 1887. Maastrichter en andere Limburgsche kranten in de Stadsbibliotheek en op het Rijksarchief te Maastricht. De Maasgouw 9. 166–168 & 173–174. Franquinet, G. D. L. 1881. Een brief over het gebruik der Nederlandsche taal 1814. De Maasgouw 3. 482. Frijhoff, W. Th. M. 1989. Verfransing? Franse taal en Nederlandse cultuur tot in de revolutietijd. BMGN 104. 592–609. Frijhoff, W.Th.M. 2010. Meertaligheid in de Gouden Eeuw: Een verkenning. Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen. Geurts, A. J. 1986. Historische aspecten van de provincie(s) Limburg 1815–1848. De Maasgouw 105. 49–79. Goossens, J. 1989. De evolutie van het taalgebruik in de beide Limburgen. In Eenheid en scheiding van de beide Limburgen, 213–237. Leeuwarden/Maastricht. Habets, J. 1891. De Fransche emigranten te Maastricht. PSHAL 28. 133–228.

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Habets, J. 1888. Joseph Russel: Necrologie. PSHAL 25. 439–441. Jansen, J. C. G. M. 1989. Industrie en mijnbouw in de beide Limburgen 1839–1989. In Eenheid en scheiding van de beide Limburgen, 13–69. Leeuwarden/Maastricht 1989. Janssen, J. P. 1977. Maastrichtse Pers 1839–1848. Een bijdrage tot de persgeschiedenis van Nederland in de 19de eeuw. Unpublished doctoral dissertation Catholic University of Nijmegen. Janssens, H. F. L. M. 1981. Momus 1840–1878. Een aanzet tot plaatsbepaling van de Maastrichtse sociëteit. Unpublished doctoral dissertation Catholic University of Nijmegen. Kessels-van der Heijde, M. C. A. 1996. Maastricht in de 19de eeuw: van Frans naar Nederlands. Onderzoek naar het taalgebruik in de Maastrichtse pers. Unpublished dissertation Open University, Oirsbeek. Kessels-van der Heijde, M. C. A. 2002. Maastricht, Maestricht, Mestreech. De taalverhoudingen tussen Nederlands, Frans en Maastrichts in de negentiende eeuw. Maastricht: Maaslandse Monografieën 65. Luykx, T. 1978. Evolutie van de communicatiemedia. Brussel: Elsevier. Maenen, A. J. F. 1959. Petrus Regout 1801–1878. Een bijdrage tot de sociaal-economische geschiedenis van Maastricht. Bijdragen tot de sociale en economische geschiedenis van het Zuiden van Nederland 7. Nijmegen. Nypels, G. 1964. Nog iets over het Aankondigingsblad, de Eclaireurs en de drukker Nypels De Maasgouw 83. 21–26. Perry, J. 1983. Roomsche kinine tegen roode koorts. Arbeidersbeweging en katholieke kerk in Maastricht 1880–1920. Amsterdam. Perry J. 1994. De voorman. Een biografie van Willem Hubert Vliegen 1862–1947. Amsterdam: Arbeiderpers. Ramakers, E. P. M. 1989. Charles de Brouckère (1757–1850), gouverneur van Limburg, 1815–1828, in: De gouverneurs in de beide Limburgen 1815–1989, 8–25. Maastricht. Roche, Emile. 1923. La censure en Hollande pendant la domination française (9 juillet 1810–10 novembre 1813. Den Haag: D. A. Daame & Paris: Arnette. Rogier, L. J. 1964. De Nederlandse pers van gisteren tot heden. Terugblik en Uitzicht I. 6–11. Rogier, L. J. 1964. Nederlands Limburg (1813–1963). Speech delivered on November 4th 1963 at Maastricht in an official memorial service presided over by dr. F. Houben, Queen’s Commissioner, De Maasgouw 83. 71–86. Rogier, L.J. and Spiertz, M.G., ‘Limburg in de Franse Tijd’, in: Limburg’s verleden (Maastricht 1967) 668–704. Ruberg, W. G. 2005. Conventionele correspondentie. Briefcultuur van de Nederlandse elite 1770–1850. Leiden: Vantilt. Rüter, A. J. C. 1949/1950. Rapporten van de gouverneurs in de provinciën 1840–1849. Volume I: 1840–1842, volume II: 1843 and volume III: 1844–1845. Utrecht. Salie, J. W. 1855. Le guide impartial du voyageur à Maestricht ou Indicateur Général de la ville et de ses habitants. Maastricht. Simoen, R. 2000. Tussen Koerier en Dagblad. Limburgs Dagblad (Saturday, 20 May 2000). Spiertz, M. G. 1964. Maastricht in het vierde kwart van de achttiende eeuw. Kerkelijke, politieke en sociale verhoudingen 1775–1801. Assen: Maaslandse Monografieën 1. Tummers, P. 1957. Tweetaligheid in Zuid-Limburg. Koninklijke Academie van Wetenschappen. 56–63. Amsterdam 1957. Ubachs, P. J. H. 1962. Van tricolore tot driekleur: Maastricht 1814–1815. Miscellanea trajectensia. 567–605. Maastricht.

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Ubachs, P. J. H. & Ingrid M. H. Evers. 1994. Ongewilde revolutie. Limburgs Maasland onder Frankrijk, 1794–1814. PSHAL 130. 1–251. Ubachs, P. J. H. 2000. Handboek voor de geschiedenis van Limburg. Hilversum: Maaslandse Monografieën 63. Vandenbussche, W. 1999. Het taalgebruik van ambachtsknechten en ambachtsmeesters in Brugge tijdens de vorige eeuw. Handelingen van de Koninklijke Zuid-Nederlandse Maatschappij voor Taal- en Letterkunde LII. 233–246. Vandenbussche, W. 2001. Nederlands als prestigetaal voor de Brugse upper class in de 19de eeuw. Verslagen en mededelingen van de Koninklijke academie voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde 111(2). 129–146. Vandenbussche, W. 2004. Triglossia and pragmatic variety choice in nineteenth-century Bruges: A case study in historical sociolinguistics. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 5(1). 27–47. von Busekist, Astrid. 1997. La Belgique. Politique des langues et construction de l’Etat de 1780 à nos jours. Louvain-la-Neuve: Boeck-Duculot. Willemyns, R. 2002. Liever Hollandsch dan Fransch? Taalcontact en taalconflict in het negentiende –eeuwse Vlaanderen. Verslagen en mededelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Taal-en Letterkunde 112. 381–425. Willemyns, R. 2004. Terug naar de bron(nen). Verslagen en Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Taal-en Letterkunde 114. 5–10. Wingens, Th. 1963. Een en ander over en uit het Aankondigingsblad der Provincie Limburg (1834–1837). De Maasgouw 82. 178–190. Wingens, Th. 1964. Het Journal du Limbourg in het eerste jaar na de traktaten van Londen van 19 april 1839. De Maasgouw 83. 181–190.

Part IV: The 20th and 21st centuries

Magali Boemer and Jeroen Darquennes

Chapter 9 Language conflict in the educational realm: Eupen-Malmedy in the interbellum period (1920–1940) 1 Introduction In the sociolinguistic literature at large and language policy literature in particular, descriptions of language conflict in Belgium tend to focus primarily on the “Flemish–Walloon” conflict. Language conflict in the German-speaking parts of Belgium is hardly touched upon. In their monographs on Belgian language conflict, McRae (1986) and Witte and Van Velthoven (1999, 2011), for example, only briefly discuss language issues in the German-speaking Community (henceforth GC), which comprises the districts of Eupen and St. Vith in the Belgian province of Liège. Even in sociolinguistic literature that specifically deals with language contact in the GC, language conflict is in general only marginally mentioned (cf., e.g., Riehl 2002 and Van Mensel & Darquennes 2012). A recent exception is the PhD by Vanden Boer (2011) in which language-related conflict issues in the GC as well as in the neighbouring district of Malmedy (where the German language enjoys certain rights) are discussed on the basis of a large sample study. However, set against the background of the political crisis that Belgium faced at the beginning of the new millennium, Vanden Boer’s PhD leaves the diachronic dimension of language conflict aside. By focusing on the time frame between 1920 (when the GC was declared a part of Belgium by the Council of the League of Nations) and 1940 (when the GC was annexed by the German Reich), the present chapter aims at instigating the systematic study of the evolution of language conflict in the above-mentioned German-speaking areas of Belgium. The chapter focuses on education as one of the domains that is susceptible to language conflict in minority language settings. It starts with a concise overview of the geography and history of the districts of Eupen, St. Vith and Malmedy. This overview is the background against which a description of the theoretical and methodological framework is then given. Inspired by the principles of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and McRae’s theoretical framework for analysing societal language conflict (cf. McRae 1983, 1986), the chapter then develops a contextualised analysis of the Belgian language legislation in the field of education as it was implemented between 1920 and 1940 in Eupen, St. Vith and Malmedy, and blends it together

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with a contextualised analysis of the reactions against this legislation as they were witnessed in the printed press media in those areas. As such, it attempts to contribute to a better understanding of the interplay between language, education and power in the history of the most eastern part of Belgium.

2 Eupen, St. Vith and Malmedy: A geographical and historical sketch As mentioned in the previous section, the districts of Eupen and St. Vith together constitute the German-speaking Community of Belgium. With a total number of approximately 75,000 inhabitants, the GC is the smallest of Belgium’s three language communities. In a total surface area of 854 km², it comprises nine municipalities that are, however, not geographically connected. There are four municipalities in the north (Eupen, Kelmis, Lontzen and Raeren, together constituting the administrative district of Eupen) and five municipalities in the south (Amel, Büllingen, Bütgenbach, Burg-Reuland and St. Vith, together constituting the administrative district of St. Vith). The northern and the southern municipalities are divided by a natural border known as the High Fens. The administrative district of Eupen is often referred to as the “Eupener Land” and contains approximately 45,500 inhabitants. The administrative district of St. Vith is usually referred to as the “belgische Eifel” and contains approximately 30,000 inhabitants.¹ Like the Flemish Community (which has approximately 6 million inhabitants)² and the French Community (approximately 4,3 million inhabitants),³ the GC has executive power and authority in matters relating to individuals as well as power over cultural matters and education. In contrast to Flanders, the Walloon part of the country and the 19 communities of the Brussels metropolitan area, the officially German-speaking part of the country does not constitute its own region. The GC forms part of the Walloon Region and, as a consequence, has fairly limited power over economic matters. The fact that the GC is part of the Walloon Region engenders French–German language contact in parts of everyday administrative life in the GC.⁴ French–

1 The numbers reflect the situation on 1 January 2011 (source: www.dgstat.be, last access on 16.08.2012). For more detailed demographic information we refer to www.dgstat.be. 2 Situation on 1 January 2010 (source: http://statbel.fgov.be) 3 Source: http://www.federation-wallonie-bruxelles.be 4 Cf. De Pelsmaecker et al. (2004) for an overview of the rules concerning the use of languages in administration and the problems related to the application of these rules.

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German language contact, however, also occurs outside of the bureaucratic realm. Due to the historical presence of a French-speaking minority in the GC (the size of which is estimated at approximately 5% of the GC’s total population, cf. Nelde and Darquennes 2000: 125), French enjoys certain rights in the GC. The French-speaking minority in the GC is entitled to so-called “language facilities”. This means that French-speaking inhabitants, upon request, enjoy the right to use French in their communication with the administration. In the same vein, the German-speaking minority in the municipality of Malmedy (the size of which, according to Bertl [2004: 266], amounts to approximately 10% of a total population of approximately 18,500) is entitled to “language facilities” in German. Malmedy used to be known as the “Walloon part of Prussia”. As a former part of Prussia, Malmedy’s history is closely intertwined with that of the neighbouring areas around Eupen and St.Vith. Following the Treaty of Versailles (signed on 28 June 1919 and coming into effect 10 January 1920), the Prussian Kreis (‘district’) of Eupen (i.e. the present-day administrative district of Eupen) and the Prussian Kreis of Malmedy (i.e. the present-day administrative districts of Malmedy and St. Vith) were ceded to Belgium. The newly acquired area of “Eupen-Malmedy” was given a special administrative status. Between 1920 and 1925 it was under the control of a so-called “caretaker” government, led by Lieutenant General Herman Baltia and referred to as the “Gouvernement Eupen Malmedy”. One of the main tasks of this government was the organisation of a Volksbefragung (‘referendum’) on the annexation of EupenMalmedy by Belgium. The referendum did not really turn out to be a success since only 271 people out of a population of roughly 33,500 turned out to vote. The Council of the League of Nations officially declared Eupen-Malmedy a part of Belgium on 20 September 1920 (cf. Pabst 1979: 25–26). However, it took five years for the Belgian government to complete the legal framework for the annexation of Eupen-Malmedy and to put an end to the caretaker government. With the decree of 6 March 1925 Eupen-Malmedy became an integral part of Belgium and would remain so until it was annexed by the German Reich at the beginning of World War II. After the war, the area was first subject to a process of linguistic assimilation before it was able to profit from the different state reforms in the 1970s and the 1980s that would lead to the creation of the German-speaking Community, the French-speaking Community (to which Malmedy now belongs) and the Flemish Community as parts of the Belgian state that officially became a federal state in 1993. Instead of focusing on the post-WW2 period (cf. Wenselaers 2008; Brüll 2010 for more details), the remainder of this chapter concentrates on the interbellum period in which conflicts between the Flemish and the Walloon part of the Belgian population were on the rise, law-making was heavily intertwined with

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discussions on language matters, and the foundations for a linguistic legislation based on the principle of territoriality were laid (cf. Witte and Van Velthoven 2011). However, discussions on language matters not only touched the Flemish and the Walloon part of the Belgian population in the interbellum period. They also concerned the population in Eupen-Malmedy. This is clearly evident from the discussions on language-in-education policy in the press. Before addressing these discussions in section 4, however, the next section approaches languagein-education policy and its relation to language conflict from a theoretical and a methodological point of view.

3 Theoretical and methodological issues Language-in-education policy is part of language policy in general. Inspired by Kaplan and Baldauf (1997: xi) and Ricento (2000: 23), language policy is understood here as a body of ideas, laws, regulations, rules and practices that aim at (re)affirming or changing the language dynamics in (a part or different parts of) society. It may be realised at a number of levels that range from very formal texts (laws, decrees, ministerial directives, etc.) to more informal statements of intent (i.e. the discourse of language, politics and society). Language-in-education policy is that part of language policy that intends to bring about change in the use and management of languages in education. It is promulgated by a government and/or other authoritative bodies or people and designed by a number of actors (such as formal elites, influential people and counter elites) who act in a specific socio-cultural and socio-political context and who have their own overt and/or covert agendas and motivations influencing the policy-making process (cf. Ager 2001). The policy is put into practice by means of specific language planning measures. The “design” and the process of implementation and institutionalisation of the language-in-education policy are accompanied by a more symbolic discourse (i.e. the above-mentioned discourse of language, politics and society), which plays a role in legitimising the policy). The success of a language-in-education policy is judged by its actual outcomes. From the sociolinguistic literature on linguistic colonialism or language spread in general we know that states that manage to extend their territory often tend to shape their language policy, in general, and their language-in-education policy, in particular, as a function of (greater) unification between their own language and the enlarged territory (cf. Ammon 2000). The literature on language contact in language minority settings in particular clearly reveals that languagein-education policies promoting the use of the majority language as a “language

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of instruction” or a “foreign language” in education almost always aim at contributing, albeit to different degrees, to a redistribution of the societal weight and use of languages that works in favour of the majority language. As in other domains of society, the social pressure which the majority language exerts on the minority language in the realm of education can give rise to language conflicts. In the case of such language conflicts, language serves as a symbol which reflects as well as obscures the social conflicts that are at the heart of it (cf. Nelde 1997: 292). Since these language conflicts tend to be “fought out” discursively (rather than in a non-verbal violent way), an obvious way to analyse them is to apply the method of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Apart from carefully examining the setting in which the selected texts originated, CDA allows us to uncover past beliefs, assumptions and discursive power elements accompanying decision-making processes leading to a language-ineducation policy. In the analysis of discourse, attention has to be paid to the language itself (i.e. to nouns, adjectives, subordinate clauses, discourse markers, etc.), but also to the production of a text in its time-frame. It is important to link “the evidence gained from the texts to the larger social context and the historical power relations” (Vetter 2003: 278) and to find out to what extent the texts reflect and/or go against certain tendencies in society and thus aim to bring about social change. One way of taking care of contextualisation is to make use of the “guideposts” that McRae identifies in his monographs on language and compromise in multilingual societies. In his research on language conflict situations, McRae (1983: 27–33) pays attention to (1) historical and developmental patterns of the communities under discussion, (2) the social structure of the language communities and the relations between language divisions and other social divisions, (3) the perceptions and attitudes of language communities and the expression of these attitudes in political life and (4) formal institutional arrangements concerning languages, including constitutional and legal provisions. A similar approach is revealed in the research framework developed by Rindler Schjerve and Vetter (2003) for the analysis of archived texts pertaining to language policy in the 19th century Habsburg Empire. The principles of CDA as described above provide the backbone of the discussion of language conflict in the educational realm in Eupen-Malmedy between 1920 and 1940 as presented here. The focus will be on discursive manifestations of language conflict in the local press. Our discussion is based on an analysis of a corpus of 92 newspaper articles that was established on the basis of archival research in the national archives of Brussels and Eupen as well as in the archive

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of the newspaper Grenz Echo in Eupen.⁵ Following the principles of corpus-design as presented in Busse and Teubert (1994: 14), we decided to focus on newspapers in German that were produced, published and read at the local level and collected articles that all dealt with language-in-education policy. Rather than offering a detailed technical analysis of our materials, the following section offers a synthesis of preliminary research findings.

4 Language conflict in the educational realm in Eupen-Malmedy: 1920–1940 The description of language conflict in the educational realm is subdivided into two sections. Section 4.1 describes the political and language political events that coloured the interbellum period in Belgium as a guideline. It serves as the background for section 4.2 in which we focus on the discursive manifestation of language conflict in the educational realm as it can be found in archived articles that appeared in the local press.

4.1 (Language) political background This subsection is again divided into three subsections, which cover the period of the caretaker government (September 1920–March 1925), the period between March 1925 (when Eupen-Malmedy was fully integrated into the Belgian state) and August 1932 (the eve of the proclamation of the language laws of 1932), and the period between the proclamation of the language laws and the annexation of Eupen-Malmedy by the Third Reich in May 1940.

4.1.1 First period: 1919–1925 In the decades before WW1, the Belgian State went through a period of intensive debates during which the seeds of mass democracy and a solid language legislation were sown. About two months before the outbreak of WW1, the Belgian government issued a law that heralded the democratisation of education: the “Law on the Introduction of Compulsory Education and Amending the Organic Law on

5 The data were collected in the archives in January, February and March 2012.

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Primary Education” from 19 May 1914 (published in the Belgian Official Journal of 21 May 1914).⁶ Named after the then minister of arts and sciences Prosper Poullet, the “Poullet Law” made education compulsory (Art.1) and free of charge (Art. 24) for children aged 6 to 14. This implied that parents had the opportunity to enrol their children in kindergarten (for children aged 3 to 6) and secondary school (with 4 grades for children aged 14 to 18). However, parents were obliged to send their children to primary school (with six grades for children aged 6 to 12) and middle school (with 2 grades for children aged 12 to 14). The “Poullet Law” was one of the first laws to be applied in the Germanspeaking municipalities that joined Belgium after WW1. It was put into force on 1 May 1922 and marked the transition of the Prussian to the Belgian school system. Concerning the language regime to be used in schools, Art. 15 of the “Poullet Law” states that it is up to the head of the family to declare which language a child uses as his/her mother tongue or usual language.⁷ In line with the fact that German in Eupen-Malmedy remained an official language (next to French, which had been added), the caretaker government tried to maintain German as the language of instruction in the districts of “Eupen” and “St. Vith”. In Malmedy, the caretaker government introduced French as the language of instruction from 1920 onwards because of the city’s Walloon background. German was taught as the first foreign language (Schifflers 1994: 4). With respect to the use of German as the language of instruction in Eupen and St. Vith, the Baltia government had to face two problems that interfered with its intentions: 1. The problem of teacher supply: Since teachers who did not live in the region before the outbreak of WW1 were expelled from the country and a couple of pro-German teachers chose to move to Germany, there were hardly any teachers left. The government tried to solve this problem by appointing teachers from the so-called Old-Belgian territories of Montzen and Arlon/Arel where German dialects were still actively used by parts of the population.⁸ It soon

6 In Dutch: “Wet tot invoering van leerplicht en wijziging van de organieke wet op het lager onderwijs”; in French: “Loi décrétant l’instruction obligatoire et apportant des modifications à la loi organique de l’enseignement primaire”. 7 In Dutch and French Art. 15 reads as follows: “De moedertaal of de gebruikelijke taal wordt door den vader aangeduid” ; “La langue maternelle ou usuelle est déterminée par la déclaration du chef de famille”. 8 “Altbegien” (‘Old Belgium’) is a term used to refer to the historically German-speaking areas around Arlon, Montzen and Bého that became part of Belgium when it was founded in 1830. In German literature and newspaper articles from the 19th and the early 20th century the term “Altbelgien” is often used. Today its use is restricted to historical and linguistic literature because it offers the possibility to distinguish the German-speaking areas that belonged to Belgium since

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became clear, however, that their knowledge of standard German was rather poor. The decision was made by the “Gouvernement Eupen-Malmedy” to open a “German department” at the teacher training college (the “école normale”) in the town of Verviers as early as 1921 (cf. Dries 2010: 141–142). The impact of this decision, however, was not immediate. Most students still preferred Catholic teacher training colleges (such as those in Bastogne and Carlsbourg which had no German department) over the state-run teacher training college in Verviers (Dries 2010: 142). It is no wonder, then, that on 7 November 1925 the Eupener Zeitung in its section “Aus Eupen und Umgegend” (‘News from Eupen and its surroundings’) reports that quite contrary to the language practices in administration, which had changed for the better since the start of the caretaker government, the situation in education was still subject to much improvement. The author of the article especially laments the quality of the German as used by the teachers.⁹ The problem that German-speaking children also needed access to higher education in Belgium, which was offered in French: The basic idea put forward by the caretaker government to solve this problem was to use German as a language of instruction and to offer schools the possibility of introducing the second language (i.e. French in Eupen and St. Vith) not only from the 5th year of primary education onwards (as foreseen by the Poullet Law for the rest of Belgium¹⁰) but as early as the 1st year onwards. In the transitional provisions accompanying the Poullet Law, the Baltia government also recommended repeating some of the content of subjects such as mathematics, geography and history in French when the German-speaking pupils entered middle school (cf. Fittbogen 1930: 148; Schifflers 1994: 3–4).

Belgian independence from those areas (Eupen, Malmedy and St. Vith), which joined Belgium after WW1. These areas are referred to in literature as “Neubelgien” (‘New Belgium’). 9 “Die Gegenwart drückt mit anderen Sorgen. In dem Verkehr mit den Behörden hat sich ja vieles gebessert; über die Schulverhältnisse hört man noch häufige Klagen sowohl in Malmedy als auch in Eupen; es fehlt an den genügend vorgebildeten Lehrkräften für den Unterricht in deutscher Sprache; […]” (Eupener Zeitung 07/11/1925, Section: “Aus Eupen und Umgegend”). [‘The present is loaded with other concerns. Whereas correspondence with the authorities has improved a lot, one can still hear frequent complaints about the conditions in the educational realm both in Malmedy and Eupen; there is a lack of teachers who are able to provide instruction in German; […]’.] Other, similar examples can be found in Stommen (1939: 48). 10 Exceptions were the Brussels area and bilingual communities located along the Dutch– French language border.

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Without going into detail, the situation in Eupen and St. Vith was such that many primary schools opted for the introduction of French as a second language at the very start of the period of schooling. Education then continued with French as a language of instruction at later stages. Pupils living in the area of St. Vith had no other possibility than to attend secondary schools in Malmedy (where French had replaced German as the language of instruction in 1920), for the simple reason that there were no such schools in St. Vith. In Eupen, secondary schools (at least the Catholic ones) decided to offer education in French. One of the main reasons behind that policy was that it allowed for a smooth transition to the next stages of higher education which most of students completed in Belgium, yet outside of the German-speaking territory. Another obvious reason was certainly the perceived need to contribute to the integration of the local population into the Belgian state by means of education. Not everyone was happy with the developments as they took place. As Schifflers (1994: 3) reports, some politicians were afraid that the – theoretically rather moderate  – assimilationist politics of Baltia would in practice lead to a total frenchification. They openly advocated a revision of the Treaty of Versailles.

4.1.2 Second period: 1925–1932 In the years following Baltia’s caretaker government, it could be seen how the polarisation of the political landscape and the polarisation of the press almost ran parallel (cf. tables 1 and 2 below). Both politics and the press were divided into a “pro-German” camp, on the one hand, and a “pro-Belgian” camp, on the other hand, by means of a discussion of reports on the “language questions” that were to emerge as one of the central topics in Eupen-Malmedy’s local press in the late 1920s. At the beginning of the 1920s, four parties dominated the political scene in Eupen-Malmedy. Next to a communist and a liberal party with a rather minimal influence, the political landscape was dominated by the Labour Party (which was strongly connected to the francophone Parti Ouvrier Belge) and the Catholic Party (the “katholische Partei” which had replaced the Prussian “Zentrumspartei” [‘Centre Party’]) (cf. Clemens et al. 2007: 227). However, towards the end of the 1920s, the Catholic Party faced an internal crisis. It eventually broke up into a proGerman “Christliche Volkspartei” (‘Christian People’s Party’ and a pro-Belgian “Katholische Union” (‘Catholic Union’). Whereas the “Katholische Union’ was backed by the Grenz Echo, the remaining papers in Eupen-Malmedy (including the socialist paper Die Arbeit) sided with the “Christliche Volkspartei”:

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Table 1. German-speaking pro-Belgian printed press from 1919–1940

Name

Year of first and last edition

Ideological background

Circulation

Frequency

Grenz-Echo

1927–1940; 1945–

Catholic (affiliated to the ? ¹¹ “Katholische Union”)

1927: once a week; 1932: daily

La Semaine

1848–1940

Catholic, bilingual German–French, for the Walloon minority

1,500

once a week

Die Arbeit

1921–1936

socialist

3,000

once a week

Die Fliegende Taube¹²

1848–1940

Catholic

2,500–3,000 from 1934 on: once a week

Aware of the gaps between theory and practice concerning language-in-education policy not only in the German-speaking municipalities but also in other parts of the country, Camille Huysmans, Minister of Arts and Sciences, launched a Decree on 28 April 1926 entitled Toepassing van artikel 20 der Schoolwet (voertaal van het onderwijs) – Onderrichtingen¹³ (published in the Communications of the Ministry of Arts and Sciences 1926–1). The Decree promises all native speakers of German, French and Dutch that the mother tongue principle would be observed carefully (chapter I). It stresses that the teaching of a foreign language in elementary schools should start orally at the 2nd level (3rd and 4th grade) and in writing from the 3rd level (5th and 6th grade) onwards (chapter II). It also contains the advice to teach one or two courses in the foreign language in the higher grades (4th level of the elementary school or middle school), provided that this happens as a revision of course content already taught in the mother tongue (chapter II).

11 No information could be retrieved on the circulation of Grenz-Echo before WW2, but secondary literature reveals that up to 12,000 papers were distributed freely before local elections (Warny 2007: 65). 12 From the 1930s onwards, Die Fliegende Taube served as the organ of the “Bund der DeutschBelgier” (‘the association of German Belgians’) (Pabst 2007: 198), an organisation that had been created by Heinrich Bischoff, a professor of German at the University of Liège. Bischoff demanded the recognition of all Belgian areas with a German minority as German. In these areas, he wanted to (re)introduce German, which in his opinion should have been recognised as the third national language in Belgium, as the language of instruction in schools and as the language used in administration (cf. Darquennes 2007: 349). 13 Application of article 20 of the Education Act (language of instruction in education).

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Table 2. German-speaking pro-German written press from 1919–1940

Name

Year of first and last edition

Ideological background

Circulation Frequency

Der Landbote Die Rundschau

1920–1937 1937–?

rural non-partisan

3,000

Eupener Nachrichten

1921–1944

Catholic, pro-German from 2,000 1925 on

daily

Eupener Zeitung

1921–1936

“all-party paper” till 1925 3,750 (bourgeois revisionist)

once a week

Catholic

twice weekly

(Malmedy-)St.Vither 1848–1940 Volkszeitung

3,000

twice weekly

4.1.3 Third period: 1932–1940 The Law of 14 July 1932 on language policy in the elementary and secondary schools (published in the Belgian Official Journal of 3 August 1932) is related to the law of 28 June 1932 on language use in administration, in which the principle of territoriality is introduced (i.e., broadly speaking, the division of Belgian territory into language areas). As a consequence of the law of 28 June 1932, the principle of the “mother tongue/habitual language” as a decisive factor in language use in education was abandoned in favour of the principle of territoriality. When one analyses the Law of 14 July 1932, it is interesting to note that the legislator (in Chapter 1, Art. 1) refers to the German language area as “de Duitschspreekende gemeenten” (‘the German-speaking Municipalities’¹⁴). Apparently the Belgian legislator had not yet made the decision to recognise a German language “area” next to a Dutch and a French language area. This does not, however, prevent the legislator from granting German the status as the main language of instruction and French the status of first foreign language in primary schools (Chapter 1, Art. 1). German is to be taught in all the grades, whereas the second language, i.e. French, can be taught from the 5th grade on, with not more than 3 hours a week of instruction in the 5th and 6th grades and not more 14 It is not explicitly stated in the Law which municipalities are concerned when using the term “German-speaking municipalities”. Yet we can exclude the municipality of Malmedy. Since 1920 the main language of instruction has been French there. German was taught as the first foreign language, which, according to the new law, should only be introduced from the 5th grade on. Even at that time Malmedy seems to have been considered as a part of the French language area.

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than 6 hours a week in the 7th and 8th grades. Second language instruction is, by the way, optional for the pupils whose parents did not ask for it (Chapter 1, Art. 3). Pupils who do not have German as a mother tongue but whose parents have Belgian nationality are given the opportunity to be educated in their mother tongue (either French or Dutch) if the schools and municipalities agree on this (Chapter 1, Art. 2). From the 2nd level onwards (3rd and 4th grade), they have to learn the language of the area as a second language to prepare for the higher grades of schooling (Chapter 1, Art. 4). Concerning secondary education, the law says that German is the main language of instruction in the German-speaking municipalities (Chapter 2A, Art. 8) and that at least 4 hours a week should be dedicated to the teaching of a second language (Chapter 2A, Art. 10). French as a main language of instruction is only possible in special minority language divisions that already existed before the new law, as long as there are enough students from one of the three following categories (Chapter 2A, Art. 9): (1) pupils who had already enrolled for this kind of programme before the new law; (2) pupils who were instructed in another language than German during primary education and/or part of their middle school/ secondary education and who did not acquire enough knowledge of the German language to follow the normal curriculum; and (3) pupils with a mother tongue other than German and who went to school in another language area (min. 8th grade). The minister also has the liberty to allow some schools a sort of CLILapproach avant la lettre (i.e. to teach some subjects other than French by making use of French as a language of instruction), if some private schools in the neighbourhood make use of this approach (Chapter 3, Art. 24).¹⁵ German is also the main language of instruction in middle school (7th and 8th grade) in the German-speaking municipalities (Chapter 2B, Art. 14). The possibilities for French as a main language of instruction are the same as mentioned above in relation to primary education. Looking at the first paragraphs of the Law of 14 July 1932, one notices how the language-in-education policy as outlined for the German-speaking communities (second language offered from the fifth year of primary education onwards) is in broad agreement with that outlined for the Dutch and the French language areas. Yet Art. 23 (Chapter 3) of the Law also recognises the fact that the Germanspeaking area, which only joined the Belgian state after WW1, has a special status and is therefore given the opportunity to deviate from the law by means of a royal

15 CLIL stands for Content- and Language-Integrated Learning, i.e. teaching some general subjects in the second language (cf. also Cenoz and Gorter 2012: 311). In the context of the Law of 14 July 1932 it is not clear to what extent it is possible to teach in French/German, which opens the door for different interpretations and explains that the practices vary from school to school.

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decree. Art. 23 urged the pro-Belgian forces in Eupen-Malmedy not to give up their plea in favour of an early introduction of French. The discussions prior to and following the language law of 1932 features prominently in the press in the early 1930s. However, things change somewhat in 1933. Most certainly in the pro-German press, the rather extensive attention given to language issues gives way to another topic: the rise of Hitler. Whereas the Nazis were still criticised by the home-based press in the first half of 1933 (mainly because they rejected Catholicism), the criticism faded in the second half of the year. The pro-German press became an instrument in Hitler’s propaganda and trivialised or denied negative news from Germany. This contributed to an even greater polarisation of the political and media landscape in this area. After Hitler’s take-over in May 1940, Eupen-Malmedy became a part of the Third Reich. This implied that the German system was re-introduced in the schools. German became the main language of instruction again. There was no room in the curriculum for French (cf. Schifflers 1994: 6 as well as Schärer 1975 for more details). When Eupen-Malmedy was given back to Belgium, it was subject to strong assimilation politics and even retaliation by the Belgian state that did not want to leave any room for a “pro-German” movement. Part of this assimilation policy was the introduction of French as the main language of instruction in the German-speaking municipalities. German shifted to the position of first foreign language and was taught as such.

4.2 Discussion In the following sub-sections, we provide a synthesis of the way in which language-in-education policy issues were discussed in the selected pro-Belgian and pro-German newspapers in the GC.¹⁶ In line with McRae (1983: 27–33) and Vetter (2003: 278), we link the evidence to the larger social, historical and political context as discussed in the previous section.

4.2.1 First period: 1919–1925 Despite the polarising political opinions, dissonant voices that openly questioned the caretaker government and/or Belgian politics were hardly found in the local press in Eupen-Malmedy at that time. In fact, inner-Belgian affairs as a whole 16 Cf. Section 3 for a description of the method and the corpus on which the discussion is based. Cf. Boemer forthcoming for a more detailed description of the corpus and the method of analysis.

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(including rather important ones such as the referendum [cf. section 2]) were hardly reported on (cf. Pabst 2007: 182). This was also the case for the application of the Poullet Law, which was not extensively discussed in the local newspapers. The main reason for this was that the local press, which mainly consisted of a number of local newspapers and advertisers (cf. tables 1 and 2 above), remained rather firmly rooted in the German “newspaper business” and concentrated more on local and German than on inner-Belgian affairs and, above all, was censored by the Baltia government in an often rather subtle way (by means of personal talks with journalists, for example) or was made to censure itself (cf. Pabst 2007: 205; Clemens et al. 2007: 227). The only periodical that was less subject to censorship “from above” was the socialist weekly Die Arbeit. As the paper of the members of the labour union, it had good ties with the chapters of the labour union and the Arbeiterpartei (the ‘labour party’) which were active in the rest of Belgium (Christmann 1974: 79) and were willing to back up the journalists of Die Arbeit. The other periodicals waited until the curtain had come down on the caretaker government to start voicing critical opinions, thereby profiting from the freedom of the press granted by the Belgian government. Those critical opinions included opinions on language matters.

4.2.2 Second period: 1926–1932 On 27 March 1926, about one year after the dissolution of the caretaker government and in line with the polarising politics and press, an appeal to support the establishment of a Heimatbund (‘homeland federation’) appears on the front page of the Malmedy-St. Vither Volkszeitung as part of the so-called Heimattreue (“allegiance to the homeland”, i.e. the “pro-German”) press.¹⁷ The Preparatory Committee of the Heimatbund, in a discourse that is typical of that time, pleads for the recognition and protection of the native language, culture and morals. The Heimatbund claims that its only goal is to make sure that the mother tongue and the moral values it incorporates are passed on to the next generation. At the same time, the Heimatbund also stresses that it does not intend to deny the advantages linked to learning French and Dutch. French and Dutch should just not be offered at the expense of German. The gist of the article in the Malmedy-St. Vither Volkszeitung reveals that the “pro-German” forces in Eupen-Malmedy feared a total frenchification. This fear 17 The newspapers that were distributed in Eupen-Malmedy in the 1920s and the 1930s consisted of 4 to 6 pages (one dedicated to the national and important news, one for the local news and the rest for advertisements and information on leisure activities).

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was fed by the sometimes huge discrepancies between the text of the law, on the one hand, and reality, on the other hand (cf. also Minke 1991: 221–223). According to Belgian law as it was in effect since the end of the caretaker government, the second language (which was French in the districts of Eupen and St. Vith, German in Malmedy) could only be introduced from the 5th grade onwards. In reality, the introduction of French in Eupen and St. Vith took place much earlier (cf. also Schifflers 1997: 5). This did not go unnoticed at the level of the central Belgian administration where Minister Huysmans launched a Decree on the application of the School Law in 1926. Unfortunately, no direct reaction of the written press to the Ministerial decree could be retrieved from the archives. The decree almost seems to have gone unnoticed, which is somewhat remarkable since quite a number of language-related articles were published in the 2nd half of the 1920s that allow us to corroborate Stommen’s remark (Stommen 1939: 44) that the language question was coming to the fore in Eupen-Malmedy’s written press at that time. In what follows, we discuss some indirect reactions to Huysmans’ decree as put forward in retrieved articles from the Eupener Zeitung and the Landbote (as part of the “pro-German” press¹⁸), on the one hand, and Grenz-Echo (as the only “pro-Belgian” newspaper in Eupen-Malmedy¹⁹), on the other hand: 1. On 17 March 1931 an article appeared in the Landbote in which the anonymous author voices the opinion that wir (i.e. ‘we’, most likely referring to the “pro-German” inhabitants of Eupen-Malmedy) hold on to the monolingualism of the German-speaking municipalities without infringing on the individual rights of people who have come to live in these municipalities and speak another language from people living in Malmedy.²⁰ Similar opinions can be found in articles which appeared in the Eupener Zeitung. In the article “Die Unterrichtssprache in den Volksschulen”²¹ (7 February 1930), dissatisfaction and anxiety towards the “invasion” of French in the schools of German-speaking municipalities is expressed. Articles such as “Die Psychologie

18 It should be noted here that the “pro-German” newspapers and advertisers as listed in table 1 collaborated closely. They exchanged articles and sometimes published the same content. 19 Die Fliegende Taube also was a pro-Belgian newspaper, yet this paper was published in Aubel, which is part of Old-Belgium. 20 The quote reads as follows: “Wir halten grundsätzlich an der Einsprachigkeit fest, wobei selbstverständlich den individuellen Rechten zugewanderter Anderssprachiger und den besonderen Verhältnissen in der Malmedyer Wallonei Rechnung zu tragen ist” [‘Fundamentally, we support monolingualism although account should obviously be taken of migrants with other languages and the special conditions of Walloon Malmedy.’]. It is taken from Stommen (1939: 44). 21 ‘The language of instruction in primary education’.

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des zweisprachigen Menschen”²² (12 March 1930) and “Über zweisprachige Erziehung”²³ (14 September 1931) highlight negative consequences of bilingualism. Relying on the results of a study of scholars in Marburg published by the Czech linguist and translator Paul Eisner in the Prager Presse, the author of the first article lists a number of general negative side-effects of bilingualism such as the use of false friends (“Die Kinder verwechseln die Worte, die sich gleichen und doch nichts gemeinsames haben.” [‘Children confuse the words that are similar and yet have nothing in common with one another’]), which would lead to a less accurate vocabulary in both languages, a weakening of the language instinct and an increase in uncertainty. Bilinguals who do not want to lose competence in their mother tongue would therefore have to invest constantly in mother tongue maintenance (“Er [der Zweisprachige] ist zu einer steten inneren Arbeit gezwungen, um sich seine Muttersprache zu erhalten”²⁴). The author concludes that all of these effects manifest themselves in the case of the children in the schools of Eupen-Malmedy, due to the fact that “bilingualism” (or rather the acquisition of a second language in primary school) is introduced earlier than it actually should according to the law. In the second article, the author reports on the situation in Luxembourg, where children are educated in two languages from primary school onwards. Based on a subjective assessment that is partly fed by non-elucidated testimonies of Luxembourgers the author writes that bilingualism has negative consequences on the pupils’ vocabulary and the mastery of their mother tongue. Grenz-Echo published an article on 7 May 1930 entitled “Französisch als 2. Sprache in den Elementarschulen Eupens”.²⁵ This article discusses the question of whether French should be taught as a second language in the elementary schools of the city of Eupen or not. According to the author of the article (who uses the initials F.R.) the parents’ opinion is that the children should have the chance to learn French as early as possible. He criticises the fact that in other countries where more than one language is spoken or even in the nearby city of Verviers, the teaching of the second language begins as early as the 2nd grade of the elementary school, whereas Minister Huysmans prohibited the use of French as a second language in education before the 3rd grade (oral use of French) and the 5th grade (written use of French) in his decree of

22 ‘The psychology of bilingual persons’. 23 ‘On bilingual education’. 24 “He [the bilingual person] is forced to use constant intellectual labour to maintain his mother tongue.” 25 ‘French as a second language in elementary schools in Eupen’.

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28 April 1926. One week after the publication of this newspaper article, the municipality of Eupen decided to introduce French from the 5th grade on. Following a readers’ letter in Grenz-Echo (14 May 1930) with the title “Sind alle Eltern Eupens mit der Einschränkung des französischen Unterrichts in den Elementarschulen einverstanden?”,²⁶ the reason for the new measures are to be sought in a decree from the Minister of Education that, according to the alderman for education, had been kept quiet about by the school inspectors. The letter essentially deals with the parents’ opinion as voiced during the last parents’ evening at school. The author, who is a parent himself, denies the existence of the above-mentioned decree and criticises the fact that the parents’ plea for an early introduction of French was brushed aside by the alderman for education. The author of the letter admits that the alderman’s critique vis-à-vis the use of French as a language of instruction is legitimate given the existing legislation on the use of languages in education. However, he does take the view that a late introduction of French is not the right option for Eupen-Malmedy since it is not logical to think that French can be learnt in two years (5 hours per week) while at the same time allowing pupils to leave elementary school without being fully proficient in their mother tongue. Adhering to the belief that it is much easier to learn languages in childhood, the author of the letter promotes early second language teaching. To sum things up one could say that the pro-Germans plea for monolingualism in the German-speaking municipalities is certainly not inclined to embrace a policy or measures that are more “lenient” towards the use of French in compulsory education. In the pro-Belgian camp, the advantages of an early introduction of French are celebrated. Both camps make use of (semi-)scientific arguments to back-up their position. Both camps also hope for a clear regulation in their favour that might help to rectify the discrepancy between theory (i.e. the legal framework) and practice to which the – apparently largely unnoticed – decree by Minister Huysmans had hardly contributed. However, at the beginning of the 1930s, the overall political climate in Belgium was anything but stable. Belgium faced a governmental crisis that was mainly caused by language-related quarrels. When politicians at the central Belgian level take up the discussion on new language legislation, Grenz Echo²⁷ seems to be convinced that – given some political good

26 ‘Do all parents in Eupen agree on the restriction of French teaching in elementary schools?’ 27 Article published on 1 August 1931

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will – a solution could be found within one month.²⁸ However, it took until the summer of 1932 for the new law to see the light.

4.2.3 Third period: from 1932 until 1940 On 4 October 1932 Grenz-Echo published an article entitled “Erlernung der französischen Sprache vom 3. oder 5. Schuljahre ab? Ein praktisches Beispiel”.²⁹ The article reports on how the issue of language use in education was broached at the occasion of a meeting of a confessional electoral association called “Liste 3” in Eupen. While the municipality of Eupen had agreed to introduce French from the 5th grade on, the top candidate of the list and, as stated by the author, other inhabitants of Eupen who had children would prefer to do so from the 3rd grade on. The main argument used by the parents is that the younger you are, the easier it is to learn a language. Sympathising with the parents, the author underlines that the municipality should respect the wishes of the parents and not those of some educationists.³⁰ The author argues that the introduction of the French language does not necessarily have to be interpreted as an action against one’s own mother tongue. He intends to take the edge off the repeatedly used pro-German argument that the journalists of Grenz-Echo are the enemy of their own mother tongue. In this respect, Grenz-Echo somewhat provocatively questions the advances made by the pro-Germans in their battle for the German language. The article “Um die deutsche Muttersprache”³¹ (7 October 1932) is quite illustrative of their arguments. In this article, the anonymous author states that the “Katholische Union” (i.e. the catholic party with which Grenz-Echo is heavily involved) has always been and will always be a pioneer in the battle for the German mother tongue, the customs and traditions of the German-speaking villages and the rights their inhabitants have acquired.³² The pro-Germans are portrayed as Heimkrieger

28 “… und wenn das Parlament will, dann werden diese verschiedenen großen Probleme innerhalb eines Monats ihre Erledigung gefunden haben, damit Ruhe und Frieden in Belgien einziehen können.” (Grenz-Echo, 01/08/1931, section “Brüsseler Brief” [‘Letter from Brussels’]) [“… And if Parliament is willing to do so, these different major problems will be settled within one month, so that peace and quiet can return to Belgium.’] 29 ‘Instruction of the French language from the 3rd or 5th grade on? A practical example‘. 30 The journalist writes: “Pädagogen mögen oder können eine andere Meinung vertreten, aber in erster Linie haben hier die Eltern zu entscheiden” [‘Educationists may or can have another opinion, but it is first of all up to the parents to decide’]. 31 ‘About the German mother tongue’. 32 “… die berufene Vorfechterin der deutschen Muttersprache, der Sitten und Gebräuche unserer Dörfer und der von uns wohlerworbenen Rechte gewesen ist und auch in Zukunft bleiben

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(‘home warriors’), politische Scharlatane (‘political charlatans’), Belgienfeinde (‘enemies of Belgium’), berufsmäßige Hetzer (‘political hecklers’), Herren Genossen (‘comrades’) and diese … Leute (‘these … people), who use the language issue as a means to reach a political goal.³³ The pro-Germans hardly reacted to the publication of the Law of 1932, as it was in line with their demands, i.e. the introduction of the second language from the 5th grade onwards. They did, however, react to a circular from the liberal Minister of Arts and Sciences, Maurice Lippens, which appeared in the aftermath of the publication of the law and the contents of which supported the claims made by the pro-Belgians. Making use of his advisory function towards the different municipalities and schools of the German-speaking area, Lippens formulates the advice to introduce French lessons as early as the third grade of the elementary school for three hours a week. The ministerial circular could not be retrieved from the National Archives, but there is evidence for this circular in secondary literature (see Minke 1991) and in a newspaper article³⁴ in the Eupener Zeitung of 18 August 1933. The anonymous author states that an early introduction of French would lead to a neglect of other subjects, especially mother tongue education.³⁵ He pleads for the thorough learning of the mother tongue, instead of the partial knowledge of two languages.³⁶ The author also notices a “cultural decline” in the Germanspeaking area since 1929 as a consequence of the weakened position of the mother tongue,³⁷ which is why he expresses the desire for the German-speaking munici-

wird.” [‘… has been the chosen front fighter of the German mother tongue, of the customs and practices of our villages and will remain so in the future.’] 33 “Wähler und Wählerinnen, habt den Mut, Tatsachen und Wahrheit von trügerischen Hetzreden und Lügen zu unterscheiden und wählt am nächsten Sonntag geschlossen nur die Liste der christlichen Wahlvereinigung mit dem Spitzenkandidaten Centner, die Liste Nr.3.” [‘Voters, have the courage to distinguish facts and the truth from deceptive rabble-rousing speeches and lies and vote for the list of the Christian Union next Saturday, with its top candidate Centner, list no.3’]. 34 The title of this article is “Der Angriff auf unsere Muttersprache” [‘The attack on our mother tongue’]. 35 “… auf Kosten der gründlichen Ausbildung in der Muttersprache” [‘… at the expense of the thorough instruction in the mother tongue’]. 36 “Der Einsprachige, der seine Muttersprache gründlich beherrscht, ist der Sorte von ‘Intellektuellen’ [stets] überlegen, die das Französische mehr oder weniger radebrechen, aber in Wirklichkeit keine richtige Kenntnis desselben haben.” [‘The monolingual who masters his mother tongue thoroughly, is [always] inferior to the sort of “intellectuals” who seem to speak a broken French, but who in fact do not have a thorough knowledge of this language.’] 37 “… daß ein Volk oder ein Volksteil tatsächlich in kultureller und geistiger Hinsicht vollständig verkümmert, wenn ihm die Muttersprache geraubt wird oder wenn sie auch nur von dem Eh-

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palities to obtain the same rights as those allotted to the Flemish language area: the recognition of the German language as an official language of the Belgian state. Furthermore, he laments the position of the German language in Old Belgium by referring to the situation of societal language shift in that region.³⁸ In an article that appeared one day earlier (“Ein Anschlag auf die deutsche Sprache”,³⁹ 17 August 1933), the author uses several arguments to show that he is displeased with the advice from the Ministry of Arts and Sciences to introduce French from the 3rd grade on.⁴⁰ He states, for example, that learning two languages at the same time at that age is too difficult⁴¹ and that the teaching schedule is already too tight. Secondly, he gives a historical argument by comparing the situation to that of Flanders one century before.⁴² However, the situation is not comparable, because in Flanders French had been introduced as the main language of instruction, whereas this is not the case for the German-speaking municipalities. Some of these arguments can also be found in the “Flemish movement” debate against the frenchification of Flanders during the 19th and early 20th century. The author uses a description of the warped linguistic situation in (catholic) Flanders to enforce his arguments against the ministerial circular. In doing so, the author probably wants to convince the inhabitants of the Germanspeaking area in general and the Catholic audience of the Eupener Zeitung in particular that any further “frenchification” through the means of education should be resisted. The warlike tone, the content and the line of argumentation that characterise the article are not exceptional for that time period.⁴³

renplatz herabsinkt, der ihr gebührt.” [‘…. that a people or part of a people could actually completely be atrophied in cultural and spiritual terms if their mother tongue is stolen from them/ or even only descends from the place of honour it deserves.’] 38 However, in the case of Old Belgium the author does not seem to take into account that the majority of the population did not (want to) claim any more rights for the German language (cf. Darquennes 2007). 39 ‘An assault on the German language’. 40 “Wogegen wir uns wenden, das ist der Beginn im dritten Schuljahr …” [‘What we are against is beginning [the instruction of French] from the 3rd grade on …’]. 41 “Nur eine Sprache können die Kinder gründlich erlernen und das kann nur die Muttersprache, in unserm Falle die deutsche Sprache sein.” [‘Children can only learn one language thoroughly, and that can only be the mother tongue, which in our case is German’]. 42 “Hat nicht das System … in Flandern in hundert Jahren jämmerlich Schiffbruch erlitten?” [‘Did the system … in Flanders a hundred years ago not become miserably shipwrecked?’]. 43 Other articles in the Eupener Zeitung, which follow the same line of argument and are written in the same warlike tone are: 26.07.1933: “Die Muttersprache an erster Stelle!” [‘The mother tongue comes first’]; 02.08.1933: “Nochmals: Die Muttersprache an erster Stelle!” [‘Once again: The mother tongue comes first!’]; 05.08.1933: “Der Kampf um die Muttersprache” [‘The battle for the mother tongue’]; 09.08.1933: “Nochmals: Das Problem der Muttersprache” [‘Once again:

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The warlike discourse as used by the pro-German press was to increase in the period following the political take-over by Hitler in Germany in 1933. In the first half of 1933, the pro-German press still criticises the Nazis (especially because they were not Catholic), but from the middle of 1933 on, the criticism stops, something which is probably due to the Reichskonkordat (‘Imperial Concordance’) between Hitler and the Pope (Pabst 2007: 185). The pro-German press becomes an instrument in Hitler’s propaganda and excels in trivialising, ridiculing or simply denying the negative news from Germany published in the pro-Belgian press. As such it contributes to an even stronger polarisation of the political landscape. The political weight of the pro-Germans increases. In 1935, the pro-Germans were united in the Heimattreue Front (‘Loyal Homeland Front’). The results of both the national elections of 1936 and the municipal elections of 1938 were largely in favour of the “Heimattreue Front”, even in Malmedy, where the success of the pro-German party “Christliche Volkspartei” was declining with respect to the proBelgian “Katholische Union” in 1929. Such results account for the influence the “loyal homeland” press must have had on the opinion of a large majority of the inhabitants of the German-speaking communities, who increasingly turned their backs on the Belgian State. With the pro-German press largely commenting on the (geo)political developments in Germany, the language issues fade into the background or disappear altogether. The debate on the use of languages in education only pops up again in 1937 when Pierre Van Werveke, former Secretary General of the transitional Baltia government, published a pamphlet entitled La Belgique et Eupen-Malmédy. Où en sommes-nous? (‘Belgium and Eupen-Malmedy. Where are we now?’). Among other things in this pamphlet, he attacks the two Catholic schools in Eupen (Schifflers 1994: 4–5) and demands French as the main language of instruction in secondary education. Dean Keufgens and the two headmasters, Ahn and Schoonbroodt, responded in a bilingual treatise entitled Eupen-Malmedy. Ein Problem ! Wie weit wir sind ! – Eupen-Malmédy. Un Problème! Où nous en sommes! (‘Eupen-Malmedy. A Problem! Where we are now’) and defends the right to receive instruction in the mother tongue. They only accept the use of French as the language of instruction from the 9th grade onwards and describe this proposition as not at all exemplary, The problem of the mother tongue’]; 10.08.1933: “Um die Muttersprache. Schützet die deutsche Sprache!” [‘On the mother tongue. Protect the German language!’]; 17.08.1933: “Ein Anschlag auf die deutsche Sprache” [‘An attack on the The German language’]; 18.08.1933: “Der Angriff auf unsere Muttersprache” [‘The attack on our mother tongue’]; 19.08.1933: “Ein letztes Wort zur Verteidigung der Muttersprache” [‘A final word on the defence of the mother tongue’]; 22.08.1933: “Mystizismus oder Selbstbehauptung? Um die deutsche Sprache in der Heimat” [‘Mysticism or self-assertion? On the German language in the homeland’]; 29.08.1933: “Schützet die Muttersprache” [‘Protect the mother tongue’].

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but as a compromise between the demands of a healthy German education and practical considerations (Ahn et al. 1937: 30).

5 Conclusion In the present chapter, we have discussed the language conflict situation in Eupen-Malmedy between 1920 and 1940. This is a period of particular interest due to the fact that the population was thrown out of balance after the First World War and tried to come to terms with a new socio-political situation. First, the population was confronted with a period of transition under the caretaker government of Lieutenant General Baltia. During the first years of Baltia’s government, it was not yet entirely clear whether Eupen-Malmedy would eventually be incorporated into Belgium. This partly explains why the local printed press remained pretty much German-oriented. For certain, the (self)censorship as imposed by the caretaker government also made it hard to comment on the side-effects of legislative measures as they were introduced in the educational realm. With the end of the caretaker government in 1925, however, people began to show their discontent especially with respect to the ill-fated “Volksbefragung” (‘census’) as well as to the discrepancies between law and reality concerning the use of languages in education. On the topic of when to introduce French as a foreign language and whether or not to use it as a medium in primary education, a language conflict arose that discursively manifested itself in the written press. At that time, the written press, in line with the political scene in Eupen-Malmedy, was divided into a pro-Belgian and a pro-German camp. Based on an analysis of a self-established corpus of relevant newspaper articles, the contextualised discussion of this language conflict shows how this political division and more precisely the diverging political views on the situation and the future of Eupen-Malmedy in the Belgian state were at the heart of the language conflict. The diverging opinions on the early introduction of French in primary school mirrored the political cleavage that existed in Eupen-Malmedy in the interbellum period. The Belgian legislator attempted to neutralise the language conflict by means of language legislation. Minister Huysmans launched a decree in which the introduction of French was clearly settled. However, this decree was hardly noticed in EupenMalmedy (or perhaps even deliberately ignored). And as far as the second legislative initiative is concerned (i.e. the Law of July 1932), it might have helped to settle the language conflict over the introduction of French in education, but it contained an article that allowed for deviations in the German-speaking area given its particular status within the Belgian state. Rather than settling the language

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conflict, Minister Lippens’ initiative to use this article and to plea for an earlier introduction of French than foreseen by the law inflamed the language conflict “from above”. It gave the pro-German camp in Eupen-Malmedy the opportunity to keep on instrumentalising the language conflict in order to impose its political agenda, which finally came to the surface in a more prominent way in the period following Hitler’s take-over in Germany. It is remarkable how in the second half of the 1930s the discussions over the use of French in education almost fell silent. However, these discussions did not sink into oblivion. They were to backfire on the German-speaking communities immediately after WW2 when the Belgian government decided to develop an assimilationist language-in-education policy. This policy was destined to generate a language conflict, this time, however, not a language conflict that was battled out within the German-speaking area, but one that was discursively battled out both within the German-speaking area and between the central government and the German-speaking area. In 1963, the different language borders and language areas in Belgium were defined, which offered the German language increased official recognition and paved the way for a federalisation of a Belgian state in which the German-speaking community obtained full power over educational matters in 1989 and was allowed to regulate the language use in education, from 1997 onward.

References Ager, D. 2001. Motivation in Language Planning and Language Policy. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Ahn, E., H. Keufgens & V. Schoonbroodt. 1937. Eupen-Malmedy. Ein Problem! Wie weit wir sind! – Eupen-Malmédy. Un Problème! Où nous en sommes! Liège: Printing Co. Ammon, U. (ed.). 2000. Sprachförderung. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Belgian Federal Government. 2012. www.statbel.fgov.be. Bertl, J. 2004. Die öffentliche Stellung der deutschen Sprache in Belgien. Unpublished MA-thesis, Vienna University. Boemer, M. 2015. Beliefs and ideas about SLA in newspaper articles of the German-speaking Community of Belgium (1919–1963). Oxford/Bern/Berlin/Bruxelles/Frankfurt am Main/ New York/Wien: Peter Lang. Brüll, C. 2010. Hilf dir selbst, dann hilft dir Gott? Eine politische Geschichte der Deutschsprachigen Gemeinschaft Belgiens. In A. Begenat-Neuschäfer (ed.), Belgien im Fokus 3 – Die Deutschsprachige Gemeinschaft Belgiens. Eine Bestandsaufnahme, 27–46. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Busse, D. & W. Teubert. 1994. Ist Diskurs ein sprachwissenschaftliches Objekt? Zur Methodenfrage der historischen Semantik. In D. Busse, F. Hermanns & W. Teubert (eds.), Begriffsgeschichte und Diskursgeschichte. Methodenfragen und Forschungsergebnisse der historischen Semantik, 10–28. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.

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Cenoz, J. & D. Gorter. (2012). Language policy in education: Additional languages. In B. Spolsky (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Language Policy, 301–319. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Christmann, H. 1974. Presse und gesellschaftliche Kommunikation in Eupen-Malmedy zwischen den beiden Weltkriegen. München: Publisher unknown. Clemens, L., A. Fickers & M. Röther. 2007. Vom preußischen Amtsblatt zum heimattreuen Sprachrohr. In H.Warny (eds.), Zwei Jahrhunderte deutschsprachige Zeitung in Ostbelgien, 211–238. Eupen: GEV. Darquennes, J. 2007. Flirting at the fringe: Considerations on the impact of cross-border phenomena on the perceived status of the German varieties in Old Belgium South. In S. Elspaß, N. Langer, J. Scharloth & W. Vandenbussche (eds.), Germanic Language Histories “From Below” (1700–2000), 343–362. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter. De Pelsmaeker, T. 2004. Taalgebruik in bestuurszaken. Brugge/Brussel: Die Keure, Juridische uitgaven. Der vorbereitende Ausschuss: Heimatbund. In Malmedy-St.Vither Volkszeitung (27/03/1926). Dietrich, R. 2006. Language acquisition II: Second Language Acquisition in the 20th century. In S. Auroux, E. F. K. Koerner, H.-J. Niederehe & K. Versteegh (eds.), History of the Language Sciences, 2705–2728. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Dries, J. 2010. Schule, Ausbildung und Hochschule in der DG. In A. Begenat-Neuschäfer (ed.), Belgien im Fokus 3 – Die Deutschsprachige Gemeinschaft Belgiens. Eine Bestandsaufnahme, 139–167. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. F.R. 1930. Französisch als 2. Sprache in den Elementarschulen Eupens. In Grenz-Echo (07/05/1930). Fédération Wallonie Bruxelles: Données géographiques, retrieved on 28 January 2013 from www.federation-wallonie-bruxelles.be Fittbogen, G. 1930. Das Schulrecht von Eupen-Malmedy. Berlin: R. Hobbing. Heukemes, N. (ed.). 2012. Bevölkerung. DG Stat, retrieved on 13 April 2012, from www.dgstat. be. Kaplan, R. & R. Baldauf. 1997. Language Planning: From Practice to Theory. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. McRae, K. D. 1983. Conflict and Compromise in Multilingual Societies: Switzerland. Waterloo/ Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. McRae, K. D. 1986. Conflict and Compromise in Multilingual Societies: Belgium. Waterloo/ Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Minke, A. 1991. Schule und Unterricht in Eupen. In A. Minke (ed.), Geschichtliches Eupen, 211–228. Eupen: Grenz-Echo-Verlag. Nelde, P. 1997. Language conflict. In F. Coulmas (ed.), The Handbook of Sociolinguistics, 285–300. Oxford: Blackwell. Nelde, P. & J. Darquennes. 2000. German in Old and New Belgium. In G. Hogan-Brun (ed.), National Varieties of German outside Germany: A European Perspective, 121–138. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Pabst, K. 1979. Politische Geschichte des deutschen Sprachgebiets in Ostbelgien bis 1944. In P. H. Nelde (ed.), Deutsch als Muttersprache in Belgien, 10–38. Wiesbaden: Steiner. Pabst, K. 2007. Presse zwischen zwei Weltkriegen (1914–1945). In H.Warny (eds.), Zwei Jahrhunderte deutschsprachige Zeitung in Ostbelgien, 179–210. Eupen: GEV. Ricento, T. 2000. Perspectives in language policy and planning. In T. Ricento (ed.), Ideology, Politics, and Language Policies: Focus on English, 9–24. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

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Riehl, C. M. 2002. Schreiben, Text und Mehrsprachigkeit. Zur Textproduktion in mehrsprachigen Gesellschaften am Beispiel der deutschsprachigen Minderheiten ind Südtirol und Ostbelgien. Tübingen: Stauffenburg. Rindler Schjerve, R. & E. Vetter. 2003. Historical sociolinguistics and multilingualism: Theoretical and methodological issues in the development of a multifunctional framework. In R. Rindler Schjerve (ed.), Diglossia and Power, 35–66. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Schärer, Martin R. 1975. Deutsche Annexionspolitik im Westen. Wiedereingliederung von Eupen-Malmedy im zweiten Weltkrieg. Bern und Frankfurt/M: Peter Lang. Schifflers, L. 1994. 75 Years of Education in the German-speaking Area of Eastern Belgium: Progress from Minority Status to Autonomy in the New Belgian State. Bautzen: Educational Research Workshop on education for minorities. Stommen, A. 1939. Die Presse Eupen-Malmedys. Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Philosophischen Fakultät der Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität zu München. Düsseldorf: Dissertations-Verlag G.H. Nolte. Vanden Boer, A. 2011. Language and nation, the case of the German-speaking minority in Belgium. In N. Langer, S. Davies & W. Vandenbussche (eds.), Language and History: Linguistics and Historiography, 255–269. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Van Mensel, L. & J. Darquennes. 2012. All is quiet on the Eastern Front? Language contact along the French–German language border in Belgium. In D. Gorter, H. F. Marten & L. Van Mensel (eds.), Minority Languages in the Linguistic Landscape, 164–180. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Vetter, E. 2003. Hegemonic discourse in the Habsburg Empire: The case of education. A critical discourse analysis of two mid 19th century government documents. In R. Rindler Schjerve (ed.), Diglossia and Power, 271–310. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Warny, H. 2007. Erste Schritte im Nebel (Grenz-Echo 1926–1940). In H. Warny (eds.), Zwei Jahrhunderte deutschsprachige Zeitung in Ostbelgien, 11–79. Eupen: GEV. Wenselaers, S. 2008. De laatste Belgen. Antwerpen: Meulenhoff/Manteau. Witte, E. & H. Van Velthoven. 1999. Language and Politics: The Belgian Case Study in a Historical Perspective. Brussel: VUBPRESS. Witte, E. & H. Van Velthoven. 2011. Les Querelles linguistiques en Belgique, le point de vue historique. Bruxelles: Le Cri.

Primary Sources n.n. 1925. Aus Eupen und Umgegend. In Eupener Zeitung (07/11/1925) n.n. 1930. Die Unterrichtssprache in den Volksschulen. In Eupener Zeitung (07/02/1930) n.n. 1930. Die Psychologie des zweisprachigen Menschen. In Eupener Zeitung (12/03/1930) n.n. 1931. Über zweisprachige Erziehung. In Eupener Zeitung (14/09/1931) n.n. 1933. Die Muttersprache an erster Stelle. In Eupener Zeitung (26/07/1933). n.n. 1933. Nochmals: Die Muttersprache an erster Stelle! In Eupener Zeitung (02/08/1933) n.n. 1933. Der Kampf um die Muttersprache. In Eupener Zeitung (05/08/1933). n.n. 1933. Nochmals: Das Problem der Muttersprache. In Eupener Zeitung (09/08/1933). n.n. 1933. Um die Muttersprache, Schützet die deutsche Sprache! In Eupener Zeitung (10/08/1933).

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n.n. 1933. Ein Anschlag auf die deutsche Sprache. In Eupener Zeitung (17/08/1933) n.n. 1933. Ein Angriff auf unsere Muttersprache. In Eupener Zeitung (18/08/1933) n.n. 1933. Ein letztes Wort zur Verteidigung der Muttesprache. In Eupener Zeitung (19/08/1933). n.n. 1933. Mystizismus oder Selbstbehauptung? Um die deutsche Sprache in der Heimat. In Eupener Zeitung (22/08/1933). n.n. 1933. Schützet die Muttersprache. In Eupener Zeitung (29/08/1933). n.n. 1930. Sind alle Eltern Eupens mit der Einschränkung des französischen Unterrichts in den Elementarschulen einverstanden? In Grenz-Echo (14/05/1930) n.n. 1930. Brüsseler Brief. In Grenz-Echo (01/08/1931) n.n. 1932. Erlernung der französischen Sprache vom 3. oder 5. Schuljahre ab? Ein praktisches Beispiel. In Grenz-Echo (04/10/1932) n.n. 1932. Um die deutsche Muttersprache. In Grenz-Echo (07/10/1932) Belgisch Staatsblad (21.05.1914): Wet tot invoering van leerplicht en wijziging van de organieke wet op het lager onderwijs. Belgisch Staatsblad (29.06.1932). Wet van 28 juni 1932 op het gebruik van talen in bestuurszaken. Belgisch Staatsblad (03.08.1932). Wet van 14 juli 1932 houdende taalregeling in het lager en in het middelbaar onderwijs Decree. (28.04.1926): Toepassing van artikel 20 der Schoolwet (voertaal van het onderwijs). Onderrichtingen. In ‘Mededelingen van het Ministerie van Kunst en Wetenschappen 1926–1’

Kristine Horner and Jean-Jacques Weber

Chapter 10 Multilingual education and the politics of language in Luxembourg 1 Introduction With a population of 524,900 and a geographical size of 2,586 square kilometres, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is situated between Belgium, France and Germany and is one of the six founding member-states of the European Union (EU). Luxembourg is home to the highest proportion of resident foreigners in the EU (43.8%), the majority of whom are passport holders of other EU memberstates. With 16.2% of the total population, Portuguese passport holders currently make up the largest number of resident foreigners, followed by French (6.3%), Italian (3.4%), Belgian (3.3%), other EU (8.6%) and non-EU (5.9%) residents. The number of resident foreigners climbed steadily after World War II and increased dramatically from the 1970s until 2012 (Statec 2012). Luxembourg’s niche for international banking and special tax schemes has propelled economic prosperity since the late 1960s and this niche subsequently served as a buffer during the steel crisis in the 1970s. Together with the resident foreigners, 157,000 frontaliers (‘border-crossing commuters’) now make up a large proportion of the workforce in the Grand Duchy. Their significant presence is linked to the small geographical size of Luxembourg as well as EU regulations facilitating free movement of the EU workforce. About 80% of the frontaliers come from France and Belgium and nearly 20% come from Germany. Whilst many frontaliers possess multilingual repertoires, these repertoires do not necessarily match up directly with those of the long-term resident population in Luxembourg (Franziskus & Gilles 2012). In much of the academic literature published in the late twentieth century, the language situation in Luxembourg has been labelled as “triglossic” with specific reference to the three languages used in the education system and recognised by the 1984 language law: Luxembourgish, French and German (e.g. Berg 1993; Hoffmann 1996). The distinction between spoken and written language has been pivotal to understanding long-standing norms and patterns of language use in Luxembourg, with most spoken communication among the native-born taking place in Luxembourgish and written functions carried out primarily in standard French or German. Luxembourgish language varieties are Germanic and are similar to Moselle Franconian varieties (likewise Germanic) spoken in adjacent

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parts of Germany, Belgium and France. For this reason, basic literacy skills are taught via standard German in state schools. French is introduced as a subject in the second year of primary school, becomes a full subject in the third year and gradually replaces German as the main medium of instruction, particularly in the prestigious lycée classique or college preparatory secondary school. Based on the Education Act of 1843, the curricula of state schools have perpetuated elite bilingualism, or the valorisation of standard German and French (Davis 1994). French, brought to the fore because of its widespread use by frontaliers and resident foreigners, is now used as a (supplementary) home language – as opposed to a (mere) school language – by a larger segment of the population than ever before. In this context, there have been shifts in perceptions of French as a marker of prestige. It remains the case that the mastery of standard, written French is valuable in educational and professional contexts. However, the increased use of vernacular French is frequently stigmatised in the public sphere, where it is also widely used in contemporary Luxembourg (Horner 2007a; Weber 2009).

Figure 1. The location of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, pressure and support for the development of Luxembourgish grew. In 1984 a language law was passed, which for the first time officially recognised Luxembourgish as the national language and, in theory,

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as an administrative language. However, it can also be said that this legislation simultaneously reinforced aspects of the sociolinguistic status quo by designating French and German as legal, judicial or administrative languages, precisely the state of affairs prior to the ratification of the law even if it was previously de facto rather than de jure policy. The ratification of the 1984 law signals a shift towards explicit language policy, thus imparting on Luxembourgish a higher position in the hierarchy of languages (Horner & Weber 2008: 106–107). Luxembourgish is declared the “national language” in Article 1, while the expression “official language” is studiously avoided in the text of the law. This wording provides a springboard for language ideological debates (Blommaert 1999) which frequently revolve around the status and use of Luxembourgish. On the other hand, language ideological debates thematising education issues tend to focus on the “trilingual ideal” (Horner & Weber 2008: 87), i.e. the mastery of the standard, written varieties of German and French together with the presupposed (consistent) use of spoken Luxembourgish. According to Irvine (1989: 255), language ideologies constitute “the cultural system of ideas about social and linguistic relationships, together with their loading of moral and political interests”. Language ideologies inform discourses that are widely circulating in particular societies at particular times. In contemporary Europe and, more specifically, in Luxembourg, widespread discourses include those of ethnolinguistic essentialism, language endangerment and linguistic integration. With roots in the long nineteenth century and the rise of the nation-state, discourses of ethnolinguistic essentialism are underpinned by the one-nationone-language ideology and they serve to construct an inextricable link between ethnicity and language (cf. Gal & Woolard 2001). Discourses of ethnolinguistic essentialism remain prominent in the European context but have been recast in the late modern era in such a way that they often intersect with discourses on language endangerment and linguistic integration. The chapters in Duchêne & Heller (2007) show how the discourses of language endangerment have gained prominence since the mid-1990s and are prominent on a global scale. Discourses of language endangerment are based on the identification and categorisation of a particular “language”, so that it can then be split off from other “languages” on what is usually a linguistic continuum and, as a separate and discrete entity, can then be constructed as being in need of revitalisation. Discourses of linguistic integration, which are arguably most salient in the context of the European Union, are constructed around a restrictive definition of societal belonging that is mapped out onto degrees of proficiency in the “national” or official language (cf. Horner 2009). All three discourse clusters rely upon a conception of language as discrete, bounded entities and an assumption of monolingualism as the norm, thus illustrating what Clyne (2008) refers to as the “monolingual mindset”.

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In this chapter, we discuss language-in-education policies and debates – and the language ideologies underpinning them  – in Luxembourg from the nineteenth century to the present (see also Weber & Horner 2012). We emphasise the remarkable persistency of these policies, despite the demographic changes and the fact that the school population in many of today’s primary classrooms, especially in Luxembourg city, consists of a majority of children whose home languages include Romance (rather than Germanic) language varieties. This persistency may be due at least partly to the smallness of the country, in which issues of cultural and economic survival have been at the centre of narratives of national identity. We analyse a wide range of language-in-education policy documents as well as a recent language ideological debate and show to what extent they are informed by the discourses of ethnolinguistic essentialism, linguistic integration and  – though in much less detail  – language endangerment (for discussion of the discourse of language endangerment, see Horner & Weber 2010a). We also show how the European Union policy of multilingualism has corroborated Luxembourg’s language-in-education policies. We conclude that, in order to ensure the educational success of a wider range of students, the trilingual Luxembourgish school system needs to move in the direction of a more flexible multilingual education. But first we provide a historical overview in order to contextualise present-day developments in language-in-education policies.

2 Historical overview of language-in-education policies 2.1 The nineteenth century: constructing a national school system As a result of the redrawing of boundaries in northwestern Europe during the first half of the nineteenth century, the more francophone Province de Luxembourg (the so-called “quartier wallon”) of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg was incorporated into the newly established state of Belgium following the Belgian revolution of the 1830s. The remaining eastern territory remained the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Subsequently, Luxembourg became a de facto independent state in 1839, and an autonomous government was established in Luxembourg in the 1840s under the tutelage and sovereignty of the Dutch monarch. From this time, most of the inhabitants of the Grand Duchy tended to be more germanophone; furthermore, in 1842, Luxembourg joined the Prussian-controlled Zollverein (‘customs

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union’). Yet, in the Education Act of 1843, the government opted for a German/ French bilingual system of state education. Spizzo (1995: 172) traces the emergence of such a bilingual school system to what he calls the “protonationalism” of the new state, buffeted as it was by powerful French-speaking neighbours on one side and German-speaking neighbours on the other. The government felt the need to assert the specificity of Luxembourg and its difference from both France and Germany. In this way, the attempt at constructing a national school system was one of the first important acts of nation building (see Rohstock & Lenz 2011). Another powerful player was the Catholic Church, which William II (who had come to power at the end of 1840) did not want to antagonise, considering that this had been one of the main causes of the 1830 Belgian revolution. Hence, the 1843 Education Act grants the Church a lot of power and influence in the educational domain, with, for instance, teachers having to be approved by the clergy. The Church was more German-oriented, and its principal organ, the Luxemburger Wort newspaper, actually proclaimed Germany as the Vaterland (‘homeland’) of the Luxembourgers (in 1848; quoted in Spizzo 1995: 179). French, on the other hand, was the language of the bourgeoisie, of state administration and high culture. This allegiance to both German and French is reflected in the parliamentary debates of the 1843 Education Act, e.g. when Deputy Jurion defended the bilingual school system by referring to both German and French as the “national languages” of Luxembourg (quoted in Georges 1986: 22). A further quote from the 1843 parliamentary debates  – more precisely, the debate in the new Assemblée des Etats created by William II in 1841 – illustrates the at times difficult negotiations and somewhat precarious balance between German and French: – Les Etats ne pourront-ils pas en quelque sorte être soupçonnés d’une tendance à vouloir galliciser le Luxembourgeois allemand? – Chez nous le fonctionnaire et généralement tous ceux qui ont reçu quelque instruction, préfèrent le français à l’allemand. (quoted in Diederich 1973: 11) [– Could Parliament not be somehow suspected of intending to ‘gallicize’ Luxembourgish German? – Here in Luxembourg civil servants and generally all those who have received some education prefer French to German.] It should thus be clear that the social class distinction in nineteenth century Luxembourgish society was bound up with linguistic differences. As Calmes (1993: 20, 32) puts it, the upper class preferred to use French and “dédaignait parler le langage des pères, la langue de Schiller et de Goethe … alors que la classe inférieure de la population luxembourgeoise ne reniait pas … son ‘origine et son esprit allemand’” (‘contemptuously refused to speak the language of the fathers, the

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language of Schiller and Goethe … whereas the lower classes of the Luxembourgish population did not deny their “German origin and spirit”’). According to Huls (2002: 42–43), the 1843 Education Act allowed for the possibility of biliteracy, or simultaneous literacy, in German and French. She traced a Lehrplan (‘syllabus’) for the primary school dating back to 1844 or earlier, which in its Article 1 lists the following as compulsory parts of the curriculum: reading German and French, writing, as well as the “elements” of the two languages, without specifying a precise starting-point for each subject. It seems that the system was based on a certain amount of flexibility and teacher autonomy in that starting French in the first year of primary school was not compulsory but up to each teacher (Georges 1986: 58–59). At the same time, Article 1 of the Education Act added the proviso that “the Council of Government can allow schools to opt out of the teaching of French, if requested by the communal authorities for serious reasons”. This possibility of opting out of the teaching of French was rendered inevitable by the lack of availability of qualified bilingual teachers. In reality, therefore, there was very little teaching of French in most primary schools during the years following 1843. In this way, the primacy of German over French within the framework of the education system was clearly established in practice if not in theory. By the 1870s, the school system had changed to a more fixed sequential literacy approach, with German as the language of basic literacy being taught from the first year of primary school onwards and French normally taught from the third year onwards (as indicated in a syllabus for 1873, quoted in Georges 1986: 114). Interestingly, even the programme description for French is written in German, though titles are left in French (Huls 2002: 49); in addition, at that time French was usually taught through German, at least in the initial stages. This may reflect the increasing access to the schools of lower-class children who only used Germanic varieties (Luxembourgish) outside school and for whom French was a mere school language.

2.2 The twentieth century: constructing Luxembourgish as a language The end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries was a time of change, of industrialisation and immigration, especially in the south of the country. Thus, according to Calmes (1977: 118), the number of “foreign” children in the primary schools of the canton of Esch-sur-Alzette went up to 2,713 out of a total of 9,482 children, which amounts to well over a quarter of the school population. While some of these immigrants hailed from Prussia/ Germany, the

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majority of people immigrating to Luxembourg to work in the steel industries came from Italy. These shifting demographic patterns contributed to the rise of a Luxembourgish “cultural and linguistic nationalism” at that time (Spizzo 1995: 275–292). In 1910, Lucien Koenig founded the Lëtzeburger National-Unio’n, a racist and xenophobic movement inspired by the nationalism of Maurice Barrès. Their nationalist ideology stressed the importance of the Luxembourgish language, as well as soil, religion and democratic values (Spizzo 1995: 289). It was in this rather nationalistic atmosphere that the coalition government of liberals and social-democrats  – the so-called bloc de la gauche (left-wing block)  – passed the new Education Act of 1912 against the fierce opposition of the cléricaux (clerical right-wing movement). Its primary aim was to restrict the power and influence of the Catholic Church on the education system and to allow for the Protestant and Jewish faiths of many of the Prussian/ German immigrants by introducing more of a separation between the religious and the “profane” elements in the school curriculum. However, there was no such opening in matters of language for the Italian migrant children. On the contrary, we will see that what happened was just the opposite: namely, a new emphasis on Luxembourgish. The clergy and the Catholic press had organised a virtual “witch-hunt” against the new law, which they considered to be utterly hostile to (the Catholic) religion (Spizzo 1995: 258). While the religious aspects of the new law were fought over with great vehemence, another change went through almost unnoticed. And yet this is the aspect for which the 1912 Education Act is mostly remembered nowadays: namely, the addition of Luxembourgish as a subject to the curriculum, thus initiating a slight shift in the framework of the educational system from a bilingual towards (what is nowadays seen as) a trilingual one. Social-democratic Deputy Spoo proposed an amendment to this effect, arguing for it on the basis of three main reasons: – to emphasise the beauty of the Luxembourgish language and literature – to move beyond the reigning confusion in the area of spelling – to teach students to love and care for the special characteristics of Luxembourgish people The right-wing opposition expressed the fear that the addition of another linguistic subject to the curriculum might prove too much for many students, but they were reassured that it would just be a matter of reading some prose and poetry by the best Luxembourgish authors, and so the amendment was passed (Diederich 1973: 75). The long-term influence of this decision has been far reaching: it has contributed to the now common perception that Luxembourgish and German are two separate languages, and it has served as a key reference point in endeavours to

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promote Luxembourgish. Nowadays, Luxembourgish is more and more perceived as the one and only mother tongue of the Luxembourgers, while German and French are looked upon more and more as foreign languages. Yet this change of awareness did not take place immediately after the passing of the 1912 Education Act. To show this, we briefly look at a Ministerial Circular about the teaching of French published in 1922 (significantly, in the aftermath of World War I). It is this circular that organises the teaching of French the way it is still structured nowadays: pupils start to learn French in a more ludic way during the second half of the second year of primary school, and it becomes a major part of the curriculum from the third year onwards. The justification for this “light” introduction to French in year 2 of primary school is given as follows in the above-mentioned circular: Il s’ensuit encore que ces premiers exercices de langage devront tirer le plus de profit possible du vocabulaire français préscolaire des enfants – plus riche que l’on ne l’admet généralement et surtout d’un usage très courant … Bref, il importe d’user de tous les moyens pour gagner, dès les premières semaines, l’intérêt de l’élève pour le français, que nous disons notre seconde langue maternelle. Il faut lui montrer, dès le début, que celle-ci n’est ni si difficile que les grammairiens l’ont faite, ni si étrangère qu’elle en a l’air, et que l’on ne saurait parler luxembourgeois sans parler un peu français. (Wagener 1930: 412–413) [It also follows that these first language exercises will have to draw as much as possible on the children’s pre-school French vocabulary – richer than usually acknowledged and above all widely used … In short, it is essential, right from the beginning, to use every possible means to raise the children’s motivation to learn French, which we call our second mother tongue. Right from the beginning, they have to be shown that French is neither as difficult as the grammarians have made it out to be, nor as foreign as it seems to be, and that one cannot speak Luxembourgish without at the same time speaking a little French.]

Here French is not seen as a foreign language; on the contrary, it is stated that “we” – the Luxembourgers – refer to it as “our second mother tongue”. It needs to be made clear that this implies that German is still considered as the Luxembourgers’ first mother tongue and that Luxembourgish is still perceived as a regional variety of German. In this way, we see that the addition of Luxembourgish as a school subject ten years earlier has not yet led to a widespread awareness of Luxembourgish as a language separate from German. The same conclusion can be drawn from the textbook in use for Luxembourgish in primary schools, Nikolaus Welter’s Das Luxemburgische und sein Schrifttum. In its ninth edition for 1929, for instance, Luxembourgish is referred to as Luxemburger Deutsch (‘Luxembourgish German’; Welter 1929: 8, 10), and compared and contrasted with Schriftdeutsch (‘written German’) and Hochdeutsch (‘standard German’; Welter 1929: 12). Similarly, Wagner & Davies (2009: 127) mention

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that the 1948 edition of the textbook Luxemburger Lesebuch (‘Luxembourgish Reader’) distinguishes between writings in Mundart (‘dialect’) and Hochdeutsch (‘standard German’). Hence, the awareness of Luxembourgish as a language separate from German did not emerge during or immediately after World War II either, despite many claims to this effect by Luxembourgish historians and language experts. Wagner & Davies conclude their discussion of what they call the “myth” of the importance of World War II in the development of Luxembourgish as a national language as follows: The fact that the indigenous language variety of Luxembourg is here referred to as Mundart (‘dialect’) may indicate that the overall perception and acceptance of this variety as a language had not yet been established in 1948, three years after the end of World War II. The fact that these textbooks used for reading and comprehension exercises in primary schools did not contain more Luxembourgish texts, that the number of Luxembourgish texts they did contain did not rise after World War II, and that no clear curriculum for the teaching of Luxembourgish was established, are more indicators that claims for the role of World War II in the change of the status of Luxembourgish have been exaggerated. (Wagner & Davies 2009: 127)

In fact, we have to wait for the economic and demographic changes of the 1970s onwards for such an awareness to fully emerge. As Horner & Weber (2008) have argued, this is largely a reaction to increased levels of immigration in the wake of globalisation and Europeanisation. And so, for example, the 1990 textbook Lëtzebuergesch Texter (‘Luxembourgish Texts’) draws a clear line between Luxembourgish, the language of the “Luxembourgers”, and the languages used by people in neighbouring countries and/or spoken by resident “foreigners” in Luxembourg (in a text actually written in Luxembourgish): Déi meescht Lëtzebuerger kënnen haut, nieft hirem Lëtzebuergesch, och nach Däitsch a Franséisch, muncher och Englesch. An dat soll och esou sin! Mir sin op eis Noperen ugewisen, fir mat Friemen an d’Gespréich ze kommen, musse mir hir Sprooche kennen. Mir hun bal 30% Auslänner bei eis am Land wunnen, mat dene mer eis wëlle verstoen. (Rasquin et al. 1990/1994: 22) [In addition to their Luxembourgish, most Luxembourgers today know German and French, and many also English. And that is the way it should be! We are dependent on our neighbours; in order to have conversations with foreigners, we must be able to speak their languages. We have almost 30% foreigners living in our country, with whom we want to make ourselves understood.]

It is not just the role of German but also French which is affected by these changing language attitudes and ideologies: French, the language of state administration and high culture, is now widely used by resident foreigners and cross-border

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commuters and, as a result, mixed and contact varieties of French have spread rapidly. The consequence of this has been a loss of prestige of (at least certain varieties of) French and, more particularly in the area of education, the demotion of French to the level of a foreign language, the promotion of Luxembourgish primarily within pre-school education and a “fixing” of the trilingual system with German as the language of basic literacy (and medium of instruction throughout primary school; see Horner & Weber 2010b).

3 Present-day developments in language-in-education policy 3.1 From identification with bi/trilingualism to monolingual identification with Luxembourgish? We have seen how the boundary between German and Luxembourgish has shifted: whereas in the nineteenth century, Luxembourgers tended to refer to their varieties as “our German” or “Luxembourgish German”, they now tend to perceive Luxembourgish more and more as a wholly separate language from German  – in line with the 1984 Language Law which officially recognises Luxembourgish as the “national language” of Luxembourg. The gradual transformation of the status of Luxembourgish from a “dialect” to a “language”, separate from German, also implied that the traditional bilingual German–French education system metamorphosed into a trilingual Luxembourgish–German–French system. At the same time, through having its status upgraded, Luxembourgish also came to be perceived as an endangered language. Many people began to feel that the “small” language was in need of standardisation and promotion, and suggestions to ensure its survival include inserting a language clause in the constitution, promoting Luxembourgish to the level of a European Union working language (at the moment, French is the EU working language for Luxembourg) and introducing it into the education system as a full subject or as the medium of basic literacy. Many of these demands have been formulated by Actioun Lëtzebuergesch, an association founded in 1971 to “promote the cause of everything that is Luxembourgish, especially the language” (fir alles anzetrieden, wat lëtzebuergesch as, apart fir d’Sprooch; Actioun Lëtzebuergesch 1978: 63). In a recent publication, Actioun Lëtzebuergesch builds upon the new status of Luxembourgish as a lan-

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guage (wholly separate from German) in order to argue that monolingualism is natural and that every human being can only have one “mother tongue”: Jidfer “gestackte” Mëttel-Lëtzebuerger huet eng eenzeg Sprooch, an deer hie fillt, bannewänneg “fir sech” schwätzt, dreemt … Et ass déi Sprooch, déi an engem “normale” Lëtzebuerger Elterenhaus geléiert a geschwat gëtt; den Ausdrock “Mammesprooch” ass an deem Sënn ze verstoen. Haut wësse mir, datt de Puppelchen ewell banne bei der Mamm Geräicher an op d’mannst den Tounfall vun deer Sprooch matkritt, déi rondrëm geschwat gëtt … an dat ass e ganz anere Klank wéi deen däitschen a franséischen. (Roth 2011) [Every “rooted” Luxembourger has one and only one language, in which he [sic] feels, talks to himself, dreams … It is the language which is learned and spoken in a “normal” Luxembourgish home; the expression “mother tongue” is to be understood in this way. Nowadays we know that the baby even before being born hears noises and at least the tone of the language which is spoken around him … and that is a very different tone from that of the German or French language.]

This is a perfect illustration of what Clyne (2008) describes as the monolingual mindset, which regards monolingualism as the norm and multilingualism as “exceptional, deviant, unnecessary, dangerous or undesirable” (Clyne 2008: 348) or even – as in the extreme version of it in this newspaper article – as theoretically impossible: Ee kann e puer Sprooche GEBRAUCHEN, ower jiddereen huet nëmmen eng “Mammesprooch”, an zwar déi éischt (primär), an deer hie begraff, verstan a geschwat huet! … Dat kimm dann am déiwe Sënn drop eraus, datt et keng absolutt ‘Méisproochegkeet/ Polyglossie’ gëtt. Och net fir d’Lëtzebuerger! Mir léieren a GEBRAUCHEN – ee Gléck! – vill Däitsch, Franséisch, vläicht och nach Englesch, mä mir sinn net “dräisproocheg”. (Roth 2011; capital letters in original) [One can USE a few languages, but everybody has only one “mother tongue”, namely the first (primary) language in which he understood and spoke! … This would mean in a deeper sense that there is no absolute “multilingualism/ polyglossia”. Not even for Luxembourgers! We learn and USE – fortunately! – a lot of German, French, maybe also English, but we are not “trilingual”.]

The implication here is that if “even” Luxembourgers – who are assumed to be (near-) perfect language learners – are not multilingual, then nobody is. In this way, monolingualisation is taken to its extreme, to the point where even the possibility of growing up bilingual becomes inconceivable.

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3.2 The eradication of French from pre-school While Actioun Lëtzebuergesch may represent a somewhat extreme position, yet the new emphasis on Luxembourgish is also reflected in language-in-education policies from the 1990s onwards – though within the framework of the traditional trilingualism of Luxembourgish education. Thus, for instance, in the Luxembourgish Ministry document Pour une école d’intégration, it is acknowledged that French is frequently used as a lingua franca in schools: Dans les écoles à pourcentage élevé d’enfants étrangers, la langue de communication entre élèves en dehors des heures de classe est souvent le français. En classe, il arrive que l’enseignant soit obligé d’avoir recours au français pour se faire comprendre … Les grandes concentrations d’enfants étrangers dans certaines écoles sont un des principaux facteurs empêchant l’intégration. Le phénomène de ‘l’immersion linguistique’ ne fonctionne pas, ou alors il fonctionne en sens inverse: les enfants luxembourgeois communiquent en français avec leurs camarades non-luxembourgeois. (MENFP 1998: 8, 12) [In the schools with a high percentage of foreign children, the language of communication between the children outside the classroom is often French. In the classroom, it can happen that the teacher is forced to use French so that the children can understand him/ her … The large numbers of foreign children in some schools are one of the main factors impeding integration. The phenomenon of ‘linguistic immersion’ does not work, or works in the opposite direction: Luxembourgish children communicate in French with their nonLuxembourgish friends.]

The widespread presence of French in the classrooms of the 1990s is seen as a problem, an impediment to “integration”: instead of migrant students learning Luxembourgish through contact with Luxembourgish-speaking peers, it is the latter who learn French through contact with the former. One might have thought that, from a perspective of educational “integration”, this would be seen as a welcome development: after all, success within the trilingual Luxembourgish school system, at least at the higher levels, depends much more on a mastery of French than of Luxembourgish. Yet what prevails in the Ministry discourse is a nationalist ideology, similar to that found in the discourse of Actioun Lëtzebuergesch, which looks upon the Luxembourgish language as the sole icon of Luxembourgishness. In this ideology, French is seen as a threat and hence needs to be eradicated, at least from pre-school education. In order to achieve this, the authors of the Ministry document, as we will see, present an argument in favour of mother tongue education. The document is informed by the discourse of ethnolinguistic essentialism, seeing Luxembourgish as the one and only mother tongue of Luxembourgish children and Portuguese as the one and only mother tongue of luso-descendant children – even though in reality many of the children in both

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groups are bi- or multilingual. In this way, the official language-in-education policy does not build upon the whole of the children’s home linguistic resources; instead, it simplifies the children’s complex multilingual use of language and reduces it to monolingualism (in the “mother tongue”). In the case of luso-descendant children, pre-school education thus aims at developing only their competence in Luxembourgish (while at the same time respecting their assumed “mother tongue”, i.e. Portuguese), as a result of which many of them fail to develop their knowledge of French, which they then learn in its standard version as a foreign language from year two of primary school onwards. This policy, based on the mother-tongue ideology, also involves bringing in Portuguese “mother-tongue” assistants, which might seem to be a progressive measure but which is explicitly justified here as allowing the pre-school teachers to cut out French and focus on Luxembourgish: Un intervenant portugais collabore avec l’enseignante luxembourgeoise dans la classe pendant trois heures par semaine. Cette mesure a des effets très positifs à plusieurs points de vue: … – l’enseignante luxembourgeoise n’est plus obligée de recourir au français pour se faire comprendre par les enfants, ce qui a pour effet que les enfants étrangers peuvent se concentrer sur l’apprentissage du luxembourgeois, unique langue parlée par la titulaire de classe, tout en gardant les repères avec leur langue d’origine. (MENFP 1998: 9) [A Portuguese assistant works together with the Luxembourgish teacher in the classroom for three hours per week. This measure has a number of very positive effects: … – the Luxembourgish teacher is no longer forced to use French so that the children can understand her; as a consequence, the foreign children can concentrate on the learning of Luxembourgish, the only language spoken by the teacher, while at the same time keeping in touch with their heritage language.]

Behind the essentialist discourse of respect of the “mother tongue”, the aim here is ultimately assimilationist: the children are taught to speak Luxembourgish and later they learn standard German and French mostly for writing purposes – which, as has already been suggested above, corresponds to the traditional “trilingual ideal” of Luxembourgish society and education. In other words, societal assimilation is here considered to be more important than successful “integration” into the school-system (in the sense of providing students with the best possible chances of educational success). Indeed, if the primary concern were success within the school-system, then the children’s home resources in vernacu-

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lar French would be valued and built upon in pre-school education as a preparation for primary and secondary education.

3.3 The construction of Luxembourgish as the “language of integration” In this way, Luxembourgish, which is frequently perceived as a key marker of national identity, has also been promoted as the language of integration and its role within the education system has been reinforced. The increased use of Luxembourgish has been hailed as a solution to the perceived problem of societal heterogeneity and as a way of achieving the vaguely formulated goals of “integration” and “social cohesion” (see Horner 2009). As Luxembourgish is still a spoken much more than a written language, it is dominant in the context of pre-school education, where it has replaced vernacular French, which had been widely used by the increasing number of romanophone children. This has created a fracture between educational policy and actual language practices, in that Luxembourgish is constructed as the sole language of integration in schools, while many migrant children live in areas where French is a widely used lingua franca. Pre-school education consists of one optional year of précoce (for children aged three) and two obligatory years of préscolaire (from age four upwards). In the Ministry of Education document L’Education précoce: Plan-cadre, it is assumed that children who do not already speak Luxembourgish will acquire it through “natural” interaction with other pupils and teachers. It is hoped that the teaching and use of Luxembourgish during three years of pre-school will help these children to “integrate” and prepare them for the German-language literacy programme of the primary school: Les groupes d’Education précoce comprendront des enfants luxembourgeois et des enfants qui ont appris une autre première langue. Il est clair que l’objectif de l’Education précoce et préscolaire est de faire acquérir une bonne maîtrise de la langue luxembourgeoise, car cet apprentissage est considéré, dans notre système scolaire, comme un tremplin efficace vers l’apprentissage ultérieur de l’allemand, langue de l’alphabétisation à l’école primaire. (Ministère de l’Education Nationale 2000: 20) [Education précoce groups will include both Luxembourgish children and children who have learnt another L1. It is clear that the aim of Education précoce and préscolaire is to get children to acquire a good mastery of the Luxembourgish language, for this is considered, within our school system, as a powerful stepping-stone towards the later acquisition of German, the language of literacy in primary school.]

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This text emphasises learning and promotion of Luxembourgish, which is simply assumed to be the (one and only) mother tongue of all the “Luxembourgish children”. At the same time, the close linguistic relatedness of Luxembourgish and German is used to justify the maintenance of the German-language literacy programme. In this way the text attempts to maintain a somewhat precarious balance between monolingual identification with the mother tongue and trilingual identification with the three languages used in the educational system: Luxembourgish, German and French (though French is not explicitly mentioned here, the official text is actually written in French). The cultural model of Luxembourgish national identity allows for an oscillation between these two poles: identification with Luxembourgish versus identification with the trilingual ideal (Horner 2007a, 2007b). Horner’s detailed analyses illustrate how official, international, as well as educational discourses often tend towards the latter option, whereas internal or popular discourses are frequently informed by the former. However, the recent emphasis on Luxembourgish as the “language of integration”, which – as we have just seen – is even beginning to colonise the educational domain, has shifted the balance in favour of the “monolingual identification with Luxembourgish” model. In these discourses, “linguistic integration” only refers to knowledge of Luxembourgish, and (for instance) Portuguese-origin residents who have learnt French are not seen as having taken a first step towards integration.

4 The Walferdange bilingual school project The Luxembourgish trilingual education system is based on the premise that the children have Luxembourgish as a home language: they acquire literacy in standard German, which is linguistically closely related to Luxembourgish, and then learn French as a second or foreign language from the second year of primary school onwards. However, since the 1970s, there has been an ongoing and dramatic change in the school population, to the point where nowadays only about one third of primary children have Luxembourgish as (one of) their home language(s) (L’Essentiel 10-06-2011). Many of these children have Romance languages as their home languages, including French, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish and Cape Verdean Creole. Often, because they fail to achieve the required level of mastery in standard German, they cannot access the elite lycées classiques and are oriented towards the more vocational lycées techniques, or they complete secondary education in schools in nearby Belgium and France. In the vocational lycées the focus is more on “technical” subjects, and a rather low number of hours are devoted to language teaching and learning; as a result

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these students’ acquisition of English, which is only taught at secondary level, is often limited to a rudimentary level. They are thus deprived of an important job qualification on both the national and the European employment market. Indeed, Klein (2007) has shown that English is the most important language (along with French) facilitating access to the Luxembourgish labour market. In fact, it has become so important that he concludes his paper with the suggestion that, in Luxembourg among others, the EU language policy of mother tongue plus two other languages (MT + 2) should be “guided by a ‘MT + English + 1’ slogan”, though he adds that, on the one hand, this means “prioritiz[ing] economic rather than cultural considerations and, on the other hand, the advantages of commanding English will tend to diminish when these competences become more and more abundant” (Klein 2007: 278). In this way, there is an increasing disjuncture between the employment market (where French and English are the most important languages) and language-in-education policy (where German is the language of basic literacy and medium of instruction). As a way of increasing the chances of educational success of romanophone students who have difficulty with German – and by the way also those of Luxembourgish-speaking students who have difficulty with French – a group of primary school teachers put together a school project involving parallel French and German literacy. They taught in the francophone primary school of Walferdange, a residential suburb of Luxembourg city, which was unique in that it was the only state primary school offering a French-language literacy programme. It had been opened in 1968 for the children of expats working for a number of international companies in the area, especially NAMSA (NATO Maintenance Supply Agency, renamed NATO Support Agency in 2012). It was targeted for closure by the Ministry of Education from 2007 onwards and was eventually closed down on 1st July 2013. In order to fight against the threat of closure and to keep their school alive either in its existing site or another one, the teachers put together an innovative proposal for a bilingual school project (Pettinger 2009), which has come to be known in the media as the Walferdange bilingual school project. In the proposed school, the curriculum was to be organised differently from all other state schools with their compulsory German-language literacy programme, in that students would work in parallel sections, one with German as the language of literacy and French taught as a foreign language, and the other with French as the language of literacy and German taught as a foreign language, with intensive links between the two sections. The objective would be the development, through immersion education techniques, of high levels of fluency in both German and French, with the sections being fully merged after a number of years. One important issue for the teachers was how to avoid ghettoisation of one or the other section. They pointed out that, just as the group of migrant students is

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not homogeneous, the group of Luxembourgish-speaking students is not homogeneous either. While many Luxembourgish-speaking parents might choose to put their children in the germanophone section, there are also many mixed marriages with one francophone parent, who might prefer to enrol their children in the francophone section. Similarly, while the majority of migrant students may be romanophone, there are also many immigrants from Central and Eastern European countries who might find it easier for their children to attend the germanophone section. In this way, both sections would comprise a mix of mainstream children and children with a migration background. The local authorities of the city of Luxembourg showed great interest in the project, looked upon it as necessary in the light of the changing school population and expressed readiness to implement it in one of their primary schools. However, the project was rejected somewhat summarily by the Ministry of National Education in April 2010. As a consequence, some opposition Members of Parliament tabled a parliamentary question enquiring about the reasons for the Ministry’s rejection of this project. In their response, the Ministry of Education argued as follows: En ce qui concerne l’accroissement continu du nombre d’élèves non-luxembourgeois sur le territoire national, la majorité des élèves de langue étrangère sont lusophones et non pas francophones, provenant du Portugal, du Cap-Vert ou du Brésil. (MENFP 2010) [As far as the continuously growing number of non-Luxembourgish children on the national territory is concerned, the majority of these foreign language speakers are lusophone and not francophone, originating from Portugal, Cape Verde or Brazil.]

This is a typical instantiation of the discourse of ethnolinguistic essentialism, which is informed by the one nation–one language ideology and, moreover, sees languages as discrete and bounded entities with nothing in common between them. As such, it fails to adequately describe the full complexity of these children’s sociolinguistic reality. Thus, Weber’s (2009) ethnographic study of a number of Portuguese-origin families in Luxembourg city has shown that all the families surveyed are highly multilingual, using mostly Portuguese and French, often also Luxembourgish (as well as some other languages), with frequent occurrences of code-switching, code-mixing and lexical borrowing. This complex reality is ignored in the Minister’s statement, which has the effect of imprisoning these children in fixed, essentialised identities. Based upon the one nation–one language ideology, the assumptions are that they are ethnically Portuguese (or Cape Verdean or Brazilian), that therefore their home language is Portuguese and only Portuguese, and an education in another language (French) as the language of literacy cannot help them. Indeed, what the Ministry has done is some token

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promotion of their assumed “mother tongue” (Portuguese) through the introduction for these children of a two-hour per week course taught in standard Portuguese throughout primary school. But otherwise, there has been no change in the language learning and teaching regime of primary school, with German still used as the language of literacy for everybody. In the parliamentary debate about the proposed “bilingual school” project, the Ministry was also quoted in the newspapers as stating the following: Toutes les écoles au Luxembourg sont au moins bilingues, sinon multilingues. (L’Essentiel 13-07-2011) [All the schools in Luxembourg are at least bilingual, if not multilingual.]

The argument here is that there is no need to create a bilingual school as advocated in the proposed project, since all Luxembourgish schools are already bilingual (German–French) or even multilingual (Luxembourgish–German–French, plus a special course taught in Portuguese for lusophone students, plus some other languages – especially English – taught as subjects at secondary level). Indeed, Luxembourg’s educational system is often presented as a “model” of multilingual education, even by academics (e.g. Baetens Beardsmore 1993: 105; Garcia 2009: 268). It lives up to the dual European ideal of protecting small autochthonous languages (such as Luxembourgish) and teaching a number of additional standard languages (MT + 2), thus both helping to preserve the European cultural heritage and turning its students into multilingual citizens. In a sense, the Ministry of Education is drawing upon this widespread “multilingualism is automatically progressive” ideology as a way of justifying their argument that there is no need to create the newly proposed bilingual school or to change the language regime of the school system.

5 Conclusion We have seen how Actioun Lëtzebuergesch and the Ministry of Education, while apparently defending very different goals, with the former promoting monolingualism and the latter multilingualism, actually rely upon the same assumptions and discourses, in particular the discourse of ethnolinguistic essentialism. Moreover, we have seen that the existing multilingual school system is a highly fixed system, with all children forced to go through the same language regime with German as the language of literacy. This is even the case for romanophone students whose home languages include mostly French and Portuguese and who

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hardly ever use or even come across German, except in the classroom (Weber 2009: 92). But this linguistic reality is ignored or erased by the Ministry of Education, which for decades has failed to change the language teaching and learning regime and to set up a more flexible system building upon all the children’s actual (vs. assumed) linguistic resources. The proposed “bilingual school” project would have introduced at least some degree of flexibility into this rigid system. Thus, a fixed multilingual school system such as the Luxembourgish one ignores the needs of large numbers of students, in a way very similar to a monolingual system. We can conclude that the important distinction is not between monolingual and multilingual school systems but between fixed and flexible multilingual systems: only a flexible multilingual system potentially builds upon all (or most) of the children’s linguistic needs and resources, and ensures better opportunities of educational success. In Luxembourg, on the other hand, the multilingual school system is informed by a monolingual mindset, and by the discourses of linguistic integration and ethnolinguistic essentialism. Underlying these discourses and assumptions, there is also a concern with language endangerment or, more specifically, a fear that, if the position of German is weakened, this might affect the role and status of Luxembourgish, because of their close linguistic relatedness. This in turn links to a broader fear that Luxembourg might eventually turn into a French-speaking country, due to the continuing high level of in-migration from romanophone countries. In short, there is a fear of Luxembourgish dying out and of Luxembourgers becoming a minority in “their own country”. Hence, there is an urgent need to re-focus the societal debate, away from this issue of power and privileges, and upon the key question of how to construct an education system that puts children first and their needs and interests, rather than a particular language.

Acknowledgements We would like to thank our colleagues Christian Schulz and Holger Pansch (University of Luxembourg) for providing the map in figure 1.

References Actioun Lëtzebuergesch. 1978. Statutten. Eis Sprooch 9. 63. Baetens Beardsmore, H. 1993. European models of bilingual education: Practice, theory and development. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 14. 103–120.

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Berg, G. 1993. “Mir wëlle bleiwe, wat mir sin”: Soziolinguistische und sprachtypologische Betrachtungen zur luxemburgsichen Mehrsprachigkeit. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Blommaert, J. (ed.).1999. Language Ideological Debates. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Calmes, C. 1977. Au fil de l’histoire. Vol. 4. Luxembourg: Editions Saint-Paul. Calmes, C. 1993. 1890–1913: Germanité et francité au Luxembourg. Nos Cahiers 14. 13–33. Clyne, M. 2008. The monolingual mindset as an impediment to the development of plurilingual potential in Australia. Sociolinguistic Studies 2. 347–365. Davis, K. A. 1994. Language Planning in Multilingual Contexts: Policies, Communities, and Schools in Luxembourg. Benjamins: Amsterdam. Diederich, V. 1973. Notre loi scolaire. Aperçu publié à l’occasion du soixantenaire de la loi du 10 août 1912 concernant l’organisation de l’enseignement primaire. Luxembourg: Association des Instituteurs Réunis. Duchêne, A. & M. Heller (eds). 2007. Discourses of Endangerment: Ideology and Interest in the Defence of Languages. London: Continuum. Franziskus, A. & P. Gilles. 2012. “Et le präis direct etikett?” Non-overlapping repertoires in workplace communication in Luxembourg. Sociolinguistica 26. 58–71. Gal, S. & K. A. Woolard. 2001. Constructing languages and publics: authority and representation. In S. Gal & K. A. Woolard (eds). Languages and Publics: The Making of Authority, 1–12. Manchester: St Jerome Press. Garcia, O. 2009. Bilingual Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Georges, S. 1986. Der Französisch-Unterricht in den luxemburgischen Primärschulen 1843–1912. Politische und pädagogische Aspekte. Teacher training dissertation. Luxembourg. Hoffmann, F. 1996. The domains of Lëtzebuergesch. In G. Newton (ed.), Luxembourg and Lëtzebuergesch: Language and Communication at the Crossroads of Europe, 123–141. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Horner, K. 2007a. Global challenges to nationalist ideologies: Language and education in the Luxembourg press. In S. Johnson & A. Ensslin (eds), Language in the Media: Representations, Identities, Ideologies, 130–146. Continuum: London. Horner, K. 2007b. Language and Luxembourgish national identity: Ideologies of hybridity and purity in the past and present. In S. Elspaß, N. Langer, J. Scharloth & W. Vandenbussche (eds). Germanic Language Histories “from Below” (1700–2000), 363–378. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Horner, K. 2009. Language, citizenship and Europeanization: unpacking the discourse of integration. In G. Hogan-Brun, C. Mar-Molinero & P. Stevenson (eds), Discourses on Language and Integration: Critical Perspectives on Language Testing Regimes in Europe, 109–128.Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Horner, K. & J.-J. Weber. 2008. The language situation in Luxembourg. Current Issues in Language Planning 9. 69–128. Horner, K. & J.-J. Weber. 2010a. Small languages, education and citizenship: the paradoxical case of Luxembourgish. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 205. 179–192. Horner, K. & J.-J. Weber. 2010b. The Luxembourgish system of education between inclusion and exclusion. In M. Pauly (ed.), ASTI 30+, 30 ans de migrations, 30 ans de recherches, 30 ans d’engagements, 302–308. Luxembourg: Editions Binsfeld. Huls, C. 2002. Mädchenbildung in Luxemburg im 19. Jahrhundert: Das Mädchenschulwesen der Stadt Luxemburg. Teacher training dissertation. Esch/Alzette.

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Irvine, J. T. 1989. When talk isn’t cheap: Language and political economy. American Ethnologist 16. 248–267. Klein, C. 2007. The valuation of plurilingual competences in an open European labour market. International Journal of Multilingualism 4. 262–281. L’Essentiel (10 June 2011) La mixité du Luxembourg, une réalité de cour de recré (page 4) L’Essentiel (13 July 2011) L’école franco-allemande ce n’est pas pour demain (page 4) Ministère de l’Education Nationale et de la Formation Professionnelle (MENFP). 1998. Pour une école d’intégration: constats – questions – perspectives. Luxembourg: MENFP. Ministère de l’Education Nationale, de la Formation Professionnelle et des Sports (MENFPS). 2000. L’Education précoce: Plan-cadre. Luxembourg: MENFPS. Ministère de l’Education Nationale et de la Formation Professionnelle (MENFP) (2010). Réponse à la question parlementaire no. 614 du 27 avril 2010. Luxembourg: MENFP. Pettinger, P. (Chef de projet). 2009. Projet d’école luxembourgeoise développé par les enseignants de l’école primaire francophone de Walferdange: Ecole primaire luxembourgeoise bilingue à double alphabétisation (allemand – français). Walferdange: Ecole primaire francophone (unpublished document). Rasquin, F., J. Rinnen, J. Schmit & P. Schumacher. 1990/1994. Lëtzebuerger Texter. Luxembourg: Ministère de l’Education Nationale. Rohstock, A. & T. Lenz. 2011. The making of the Luxembourger: Histories of schooling and national identity in the Grand Duchy. Encounters on Education 12. 61–76. Roth, L. 2011. Si mir dräisproocheg? Eng Klack fir eis Sprooch (no. 168). Luxemburger Wort, 5 March 2011, page 28. Spizzo, D. 1995. La nation luxembourgeoise. Genèse et structure d’une identité. Paris: L’Harmattan. Statec. 2012. Le portail des statistiques. Luxembourg. http://www.statec.lu. Wagener, J. 1930. Enseignement primaire. Recueil des textes 1843–1929. Luxembourg: Imprimerie Beffort. Wagner, M. & W. Davies. 2009. The role of World War II in the development of Luxembourgish as a national language. Language Problems and Language Planning 33. 112–131. Weber, J.-J. 2009. Multilingualism, Education and Change. Frankfurt/ Main: Peter Lang Verlag. Weber, J.-J. & K. Horner. 2012a. Introducing Multilingualism: A Social Approach. Abingdon: Routledge. Weber, J.-J. & K. Horner. 2012b. The trilingual Luxembourgish school system in historical perspective: progress or regress? Language, Culture and Curriculum 25. 3–15. Welter, N. 1929. Das Luxemburgische und sein Schrifttum (9th edition). Luxembourg: Soupert.

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Chapter 11 In contact and/or in conflict? Ethno-cultural markers, language and schooling in post-war Brussels 1 Introduction Language, one of the cultural/ethnic markers of nations and nationalism (McCrone 2006: 240), is a tool of power (Baetens Beardsmore & Witte 1987: 7) and as such is intertwined with the policies developed by governmental agents (Witte & Van Velthoven, 2011). This is certainly an issue in countries or regions where official language use is related to political cleavages (Lijphart 1984). In any case, the politico-linguistic divide has proved to be one of the fundamental cleavages within the post-1945 Belgian political system (Witte et al. 2009). Socalled “structural problem zones” in particular (Louckx 1980: 197) have generated intense political conflicts. More specifically, they involve language use in various domains such as public space, administration and education (Witte & Van Velthoven 2011). The relevance of the latter comes as no surprise since the educational system, especially at secondary school level, is considered to be a decisive factor in national mobilisation (Hroch 2006: 29). We will analyse the development of the educational system in Brussels after the Second World War, especially with regard to the position of the Dutch-speaking minority. We focus on the role of education in the process of ethno-cultural (language) identification. Did the educational policy promote or inhibit contact between the two traditional language groups (French and Dutch)? Furthermore, have recent societal and institutional transitions altered or realigned this traditional cleavage? We will argue that globalisation and its inherent influx of multilingual or allophone immigrants has influenced the traditional politico-linguistic cleavage, due to the relationship between language, ethnicity and social boundaries (Olzak 1992: 25). This is certainly the case for the most recent years given the numbers of immigrant groups involved: currently representing over 50% of the population of Brussels (Deboosere et al. 2009). Additionally, we will look at the impact of the process of federalisation and the reshaping of the nation-state (Deschouwer 2009) and especially the role of Brussels within the framework of the politico-linguistic conflict (Witte et al., eds. 1999).

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To come to grips with this issue, we focus on two interrelated dimensions (see Kulyk 2011). On the one hand, we analyse the “institutional and public discourses and policies” (Kulyk 2011: 628) involved. How do the different public authorities in Brussels’ fragmented political system address the educational system in the Belgian capital, especially in relation to the language issue? What kind of interaction patterns vis-à-vis the French-speaking pendant were developed for the Dutch-medium schools in Brussels (did they emphasise cooperation, conflict or negotiation?) and how did policy makers respond to the transitions imposed by globalisation and state federalisation? On the other hand, we pay attention to the “reception” of this conflict by the social groups involved and thus on “personal and group attitudes and disparities” (Kulyk 2011: 628). We will argue that the current sociolinguistic situation in Brussels no longer coincides with the bilingual and dual monolingual institutional framework that was developed earlier. As such, transitions in metropolitan governance and the socio-demographic background of its inhabitants have strained the current Brussels model, implying a realignment of the traditional politico-linguistic cleavage or at the very least an impetus for change.

2 Brussels: its traditional politico-linguistic cleavage and complex institutional architecture Brussels is often presented as the main focal point of the politico-linguistic conflict in Belgium. The predominantly Dutch-speaking city of Brussels was frenchified in the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century (De Metsenaere 1990), a process in which the educational system was an active tool (Van Velthoven 1981: 385). Apart from some controversial experiments regarding bilingual education in the late 19th century (see Van Velthoven 1987), French was the dominant language of instruction. Faced with the dominance of French as the language of the Belgian elite and thus the language of elevated social status, Flemish activists and policy makers initially tried to defend their interests and expand their base by using language legislation (Witte & Van Velthoven 2011). The actions of Flemish policy makers and activists were mainly oriented towards establishing legal measures fostering the position of Dutch in relationship to two issues: bilingualism in the public space, on the one hand, and use of the language as the language of instruction in primary and secondary education on the other hand. Often policy measures were part of a broader “package deal”, a compromise combining several concessions, which was a typical instrument of the pacification democracy model (Lijphart 1984) used by Belgian policy makers in

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the 20th century. As such, policy options regarding the educational system were influenced by the broader politico-linguistic conflict and the political compromises on which they were based. A good example of this practice is the “language border” that was established in 1962 and which determined the official language used in administrations by creating monolingual territories (Dutch in Flanders, French in Wallonia). Brussels was officially given a bilingual status (French and Dutch on an equal basis), the implementation of which, however, proved difficult (Louckx 1980: 147). Recognition of this difficulty led to increased attempts to find alternative options. For this reason, the political-institutional debate in the 1960s crystallised in the devolution of power from the national level to the sub-state echelons, which allowed for more local control over certain tools regarding “cultural” and “economic” policies. As Ghai has put it: “Autonomy is a device to allow ethnic or other groups claiming a distinct identity to exercise direct control over affairs of special concern to them, while allowing the larger entity those powers which cover common interests” (Ghai 2000: 24). Very much aware of the role and function of education as a socialisation tool, Flemish policy makers focused on getting control over the educational system (Witte & Van Velthoven 2011), which became part of a broader political compromise. In fact, two centripetal forces gained momentum as the Flemish demands for autonomy over educational and cultural affairs coincided with Walloon action for specific economic tools (Witte et al. 2009). The impact of the process of federalisation of the Belgian State, starting from 1970, cannot be underestimated. Through its language policies, governmental actors among others determine the “ethno-linguistic vitality” (Baetens Beardsmore & Witte 1987: 9) and function as agents for the construction of “subjectivities” that mould the interactions and power relations between the (traditional) language groups in their social settings (Kavadias & Stouthuysen 2011). The claims on Brussels, however, proved to be a key problem in reshaping the Belgian State. Dutch-speaking politicians in the north favoured a national structure with two sub-state entities (Flanders and Wallonia) thereby reducing the status of Brussels to a special subordinate status; while French-speaking politicians in the south and the capital itself defended the option of a Belgian State with three sub-state actors (Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels), thus regarding Brussels as a “full” and autonomous entity. The German-speaking community in the south-east of the country was usually neglected in the political and public debate. In short, an option of “Belgium with two” opposed a model with “Belgium with three”. The actual settlement implied a very complex institutional design, featuring two types of federated entities with partly overlapping territories (Deschouwer 2009). Regions act in domains such as transport, economy, employment and local government, and Communities have jurisdiction over matters such as education, culture and social affairs. Thus, three sub-state actors

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became active in the Brussels arena: one bilingual Region named the Brussels Capital Region (hencefort BCR) and two monolingual Communities named the French Community and Flemish Community. The Region granted Brussels selfrule for certain competences, while cultural, educational and social affairs were developed by the Communities with a locus of power situated in Flanders and Wallonia following a shared rule model (Hooghe 1993). How did this model affect the educational policy in Brussels?

3 Education in a (politically) contested context? Phases in the evolution of the Dutch-medium education in Brussels Schooling has been defined by Janusz Tomiak and Andreas Kazamias (1991, 1), as the “institutionalisation of education … the educational intentions and courses of action of the politically dominant political actors towards the non-dominant ethnic groups and the educational reactions and activities of the latter …”. Which institutional and public discourses and policies (Kulyk 2011: 628) regarding Dutch-medium education in Brussels were developed after 1945 and how does this relate to the French-speaking counterpart? Currently, two different systems co-exist independently of one another in Brussels: one French and one Dutch. The result could be described as a non-hierarchical bi/multilingual model, since there is no longer a legal distinction between the two official languages involved (Janssens et al. 2009). The first of several issues related to this question is discretionary power. Local public authorities in Belgium have an organising power in the educational domain as well. Apart from the publicly-funded schools run by private organisations, labelled as “free” and most of which have a Catholic orientation, both the State and local government run schools themselves. Thus, for Dutch-medium schools at the primary education level, Brussels municipalities enrolled 28.27% of the student population in 2010–2011, while the Flemish Community institutions enrolled 28.93%. In other words, 57.20% of the pupils in the Brussels Dutch-medium schools at the level of primary education were enrolled in publicly run schools that depend on local government or on supra-municipal entities. Policy makers wanting to intervene in educational affairs, thus have certain discretionary powers. Besides having the power to run Dutch-medium schools in Brussels, the Flemish Community was highly focused on by the numbers enrolled at Dutchmedium institutions and the overall position vis-à-vis the French-medium system.

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It is clear that several factors affected the student population in Brussels. Apart from the choices parents make in selecting the Dutch- or French-medium system, other factors also play a role in determining the number of pupils enrolled as well. Until recently, Brussels faced depopulation combined with a process of predominantly middle-class suburbanisation. From a demographic point of view, Brussels was facing a decreasing birth-rate and an increasing urban flight. This suburbanisation process, however, did not prevent parents from sending their children to school in Brussels. As a result, at the end of the seventies 33% of the pupils in primary educational Dutch-medium schools in Brussels had their residence outside the Brussels agglomeration. However, the share of commuting pupils dropped to 16% of the pupil population (Dutch-medium primary education) in 2012. The figure below illustrates the evolution of the number of pupils enrolled in Dutch-medium school at nursery and primary level from 1960 onwards. Three overall trends become obvious: a slight increase until 1967, a steep and continuous decrease between 1968 and 1981 and a steady revival from 1982 onwards. The relative position of the Dutch-medium schools vis-à-vis their French-speaking counterparts follows the same patterns. In 1960, the Dutch-medium institutions enrolled 22.29% of the pupils at nursery and primary level, but only 11.71% in 1977, one of the lowest years. Currently, the Dutch-medium educational system at nursery and primary level has passed the absolute number of pupils of the 1960s, although in relative terms the 2009 level (18.47%) is situated slightly under that














































































  





Figure 1. Number of pupils enrolled in schools of the Dutch-medium educational system in Brussels (absolute numbers for nursery and primary education)

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of 1960. The secondary schools in the Dutch-medium system hold the weakest position, currently some 17% of the overall pupil population (2010). When looking at the organisation of Dutch-medium education in Brussels in the post-war period, we can discern three different sub-periods, the first of which is featured by intense political conflict (1945–1971).¹ This period was characterised by collective action with massive demonstrations. Moreover, Belgian political life in the 1950s was dominated by a “school war”. Although the latter had to do with the position of State education vis-à-vis the dominant Catholic system, schooling in Brussels was an issue as well. Dutch-medium education in Brussels was certainly under pressure in the immediate post-war period. We have already indicated that schools were used as a tool in the process of frenchification of citizens. This period did not witness any Brussels schools in which Dutch was the only medium of instruction at secondary level. Education was either monolingual French or bilingual with Dutch clearly in a subordinate position. There was often a small “Dutch section” in the officially bilingual schools (Verkouter & De Metsenaere 1998: 198). In any case, Dutch, both in terms of the number of pupils and the infrastructure, was characterised by its weak position in Brussels schools in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1954, there were no Dutch-medium preparatory classes and only 129 pre-school units. With 26 units in secondary education, the Dutch-medium system was very weakly embedded in Brussels. Policy makers tried to remedy this situation by modifying the so-called “norms” determining the number of pupils per educational unit resulting in the lowering of the quantitative threshold (Louckx 1980: 198–200). It comes as no surprise that Dutchspeaking politicians pushed for the expansion of the Dutch-medium infrastructure in Brussels. The potential impact of Dutch-speaking politicians on the State educational policy in Brussels was limited since the number of State-run schools was restricted (see Tyssens 1993 for background information), thus reserving the bulk of units for the “free” schools and the Brussels municipalities. The latter were dominated by French-speaking politicians. As a result, in 1954, nine of the 19 Brussels municipalities did not provide education in Dutch (Louckx 1980: 200), a number that remained almost unchanged (eight) as late as 2008 (Janssens et al. 2009: 2). We have already mentioned that Flemish activists and policy makers tried to increase the impact of the presence of Dutch in both the state school system and the subsidised privately run schools by using “language legislation”, the first

1 Highlights are the so called “Royal Question” (the position of the King after the Second World War) and the linguistic regime in administrative and educational settings (the split of the University of Louvain; the boycott of the 1960 language census, the 1961 and 1962 “Marches on Brussels”, etc.).

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measures being limited in scope, such as providing 8 hours of Dutch per week in State-run secondary schools as of 1883 (De Metsenaere 1990). An important milestone was the discussion on language use in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The law of 30 July 1963 implemented the provision of education in the language of the region, meaning Dutch in Flanders and French in Wallonia. Brussels and some municipalities situated at the language border were exceptions since bilingualism was introduced under the form of bilingual or dual monolingual services. For educational matters, this implied a so-called “blind model” with two monolingual systems. Thereby, the language of education in Brussels was determined by the mother tongue of the child. Each father had to submit a declaration of language use within the family, which determined the language of instruction at school, either Dutch or French. Furthermore, a language inspectorate was established in order to verify the language forms submitted by the fathers (Witte et al. 2009). Hence, the mother tongue of the parent became the main cultural/ethnic marker, implying an imposed identity (Kulyk 2011). Furthermore, language use was considered to be a binary zero-sum game, e.g. omitting bilinguals, the largest language group in immediate post-war Brussels according to the much contested 1947 language census (see Van Velthoven 1987). At the same time, the 1963 political compromise featured the last attempt to resolve this conflict through language legislation within the traditional pacification democracy (Witte & Van Velthoven 2011). Indeed, the 1960s were dominated by debates regarding the creation of separate political arenas, also in the domain of education, in order to manage the politico-linguistic conflict (Hooghe 1993). The process of federalisation of the Belgian State took a first important step with the first State Reform Agreement of 1970, thus invoking a second phase for Dutchmedium schools in Brussels. Education was a major component of the debates, not in the least regarding the policy of “imposed identity”, which forced parents to choose between the two language medium systems. Under the symbol of “liberty for the head of the family” interest groups and politicians campaigned against this principle. Responsibility for education was transferred to the Communities, one of the two sub-state actors created by this first State Reform. The devolution of power from the national State implied the establishment and reinforcement of a double monolingual system, since French-medium and Dutch-medium institutions depended on either the French Community or the Flemish Community. As of 1971, parents were again free to decide where to enroll their children. As such, it is not the individual citizens but only the institutions that are members of only one of the two Communities. This makes the situation in Brussels an original form of personal federalism (Jans 2001), while the design excludes any reference to the concept of sub-nationality as a specific feature of citizenship (see Dumont & Van Droogenbroeck 2011). In other words, parents are allowed to shop between the

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services provided for by the two Communities competent for education in Brussels and are permitted to switch over time or to send their children to schools of either system. The option to abolish imposed identity on the basis of the child’s mother tongue allowed parents to choose between the two language systems. However, as part of the political compromise, Dutch-speaking policy makers were allowed to compensate for their minority position by extra infrastructure and financial investments. As a consequence of this new input, the number of Dutch-medium school units in Brussels increased between 1954 and 1979, varying according to the level of education (secondary education +58% , nursery school +149% although primary education –26%). At the same time factors such as financial stress for publicly funded and publicly run schools, decreasing birth-rates and increasing suburbanisation put strains on the Dutch-medium educational system in Brussels and confronted the Dutch-medium schools in Brussels with a decreasing number of pupils (Louckx 1980: 200–201). The politico-linguistic cleavage certainly added to the difficulties the Brussels educational system faced at this stage. On a national level there was a period of governmental instability between 1968 and 1981 (Dewinter & Dumont 2006), while in Brussels specifically, the continued existence of some schools within the Dutch-speaking system was challenged. The most cited case is the closing down in 1978 of the only municipal Dutch-medium school in Schaerbeek, a municipality dominated by the Francophone party FDF party (see Delwit et al. 2011) and for several decades a prime example of the French–Dutch political conflict in various aspects of language use in local administration and education (Witte et al. 2009). It was not until 2011 that a new municipal Dutch-medium school in Schaerbeek opened. (Other Dutchmedium schools in this municipality were run by the National State/Flemish Community or private institutions, though.) At the same time, this case offers a fine example of the broader, non-linguistic problems faced by several Brussels municipalities during this period. In 1980 the municipality of Schaerbeek examined the transfer of its entire municipal educational system and thus not only its Dutch-medium institutions, to supra-municipal entities so as to cope with the financial stress it was facing in a period of severe economic crisis (Vaesen 2008: 271). Confronted with decreasing numbers of pupils in its Dutch-medium institutions in Brussels, Dutch-speaking policy makers started to open them up by launching PR campaigns promoting bilingualism (Martin & Parmentier 1987). Indeed, under the label of “Devenez bilingue – Become bilingual” Dutch-medium schools in Brussels no longer appealed to monolingual Dutch-speakers. Furthermore, with the economic increase of mainly Dutch-speaking Flanders in the post-war period, a mastery of Dutch became an asset in the labour market as well

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(Witte & Van Velthoven 2011): for some 30% of the vacancies in Brussels, fluency in both French and Dutch is required (Janssens 2007). Finally, the impact of the State Reform of 1988/9 inaugurated a new and third chapter to the situation of Dutch-medium education in Brussels. This third phase in the federalisation process of the Belgian State confirmed the primary role of the Communities in the field of education (article 127 of the Constitution²). As such, the current situation does feature a division of the Brussels educational basin into two parallel independent monolingual systems. The French Community is in charge of organising French-medium schools and the Flemish Community organises and finances Dutch-medium schools (though some competences of each are confined to decentralised agents called Community Commissions). Exceptions are non-subsidised and non-acknowledged schools and the international and European Schools, containing some 4% of pupils at the moment. At the same time, this 3rd State Reform Bill also implied the establishment of definitive “Regional” institutions in Brussels after almost a decade of uncertainty and provisional arrangements. The functioning of the bilingual BCR, as opposed to the two monolingual Communities competent in Brussels, is important since it implied a depolarisation of the politico-linguistic conflict among Brussels politicians. The result was an increase in mutual understanding within the Brussels political arena (Delcamp 1993; McAndrew 2010). Moreover, the BCR, as a sub-national entity, began displaying its own institutional logic, and thereby expanded its own powers as is typical of similar governmental actors in federal states (Vaesen 2008). Today, the debate regarding education in Brussels is crystallising around issues of dysfunctions of the current model, which have at least two sets of intermingling causes. In the first place there is a lack of cooperation between the two sub-national entities competent for this matter in Brussels. Indeed, the Flemish Community and French Community have mainly displayed a parallel and nonintegrated policy so far, in such a manner that even sufficient information and data exchange between the institutions are lacking. Even pressing capacity problems did not lead to mutual agreements or closer cooperation between both Communities (Janssens, Van De Craen & Carlier 2009). The functioning of the

2 Currently, a very limited number of competences remain at the National/Federal Government level (namely discretion regarding the start and end age of mandatory education, minimal conditions of diplomas and the pension regime of teachers). Institutions that do not resort exclusively to either of both unilingual Communities are subject to the National/Federal Government. As such, the organisation and financing of bilingual schools comes from the latter. However, the intensity of the debates and conflicts regarding the politico-linguistic cleavage has prevented many common or bilingual initiatives.

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system of the Communities “living apart together” clearly implies several challenges. Furthermore, the policy developed by the BCR also played a crucial role. Some policy makers and researchers referred to the anxiety of Brussels becoming framed between the conflicting interests of the Communities, whose main locus of power are situated in the peripheries (Flanders and Wallonia) (De Coorebyter 2005). Confronted with the budgetary problems of the French Community and an alleged “abandonment of responsibility” by both Communities,³ the BCR decided to invest in schools and teachers from its very beginning in 1989. Using concepts such as “holistic approach” and an “integral and integrated policy” as conceptual underpinnings, the regional decision makers directly and indirectly tackled policy domains beyond their own competences or at least situated in the grey areas created by the partition of competences, notably in the field of education. As early as 1989, the first operational year of the BCR, the Brussels Regional Executive decided to earmark a budget for the employment of extra school personnel; 494 mandates were granted. Due to the bilingual nature of the BCR, a distribution formula was used in order to divide the mandates over both languagemedium systems, in this specific case 73% for French-medium schools and 27% for Dutch-medium schools. The investment in extra school staff was maintained in the following years with slightly fluctuating numbers (Vaesen 2003: 187). The case of the extra staff for Brussels schools via the BCR budget is not a stand-alone phenomenon. Investments in cultural infrastructure, social projects, measures against school drop-out and absenteeism were also funded. According to some politicians, this transgression is worth some €250 million annually (Vaesen 2008: 233), or 30–50% of the extra budget claimed by the BCR in the negotiations regarding the 6th State Reform (see Cattoir et al. 2009). In this specific case, the partition of competences was by-passed by the fact that former unemployed citizens were used to fill in the vacancies given that employment policy is a “Regional” competence. In general, the BCR acted in two ways to circumvent the transgression of its competences. Initially the local governmental layer, disposing of broad competences, was engaged for this matter. In a subsequent phase, the so-called Community Commissions, local agents of the Communities and thus competent for certain cultural, educational and social affairs, were integrated in BCR policy, e.g. in the field of urban renewal (Vaesen 2008). The latter comes as no surprise since the political personnel of the BCR and the Community Commissions overlap

3 See, for example, the discussion regarding the question of André Drouart (Ecolo) vis-à-vis Minister-President Charles Picqué (PS) in the Brussels Capital Assembly on June 13, 1989, p. 811 and further.

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completely (see Swenden & Brans 2006) through the accumulation of political mandates. Within the Brussels political arena, the holistic policy developed by the BCR has generated limited debate and conflict. The interference of the Region in educational affairs induced only a limited number of questions and interpellations in the regional assembly. However, in recent years, a clear transition has become obvious, caused by the current demographic boom. The steep increase of pupils instigated a crisis, putting the issue of school infrastructural capacity at the centre of political debate; the educational infrastructure deficit generated a more visible and thus more contested policy reaction from the BCR. The BCR put aside a budget that was transferred to other local and other sub-state governmental institutions in order to by-pass restrictions. Thus, in 2010–2011, the BCR government decided to budget 12.2 million Euros in order to create 3,836 additional places in Brussels schools, both in French-speaking (75%) and Dutch-speaking (25%) institutions by again using the municipalities as executive administrative agents.⁴ In 2007, a similar intervention was put forward regarding nursery institutions. Referring to the transgression of competences, the Government of the Flemish Community, as well as private actors, reacted by introducing appeals to the Council of State and the Constitutional Court in order to annul the budget articles of the BCR regarding nursery and educational infrastructure. Before the Constitutional Court, the BCR referred to the investment in school infrastructure as a tool of the employment policy, a competence of the Region, in order to legitimise its policy (cf. decision 67/2012, dated May 24, 2012). The conflict between the BCR and the Flemish Community is fundamental. It refers to the organisation and functioning of the Belgian federal model and the role of the federated entities in general and Brussels in particular. Will Belgium evolve into a (con)federal State with two (Flanders and Wallonia), three (Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels) or even four (Flanders, Wallonia, Brussels and the German-speaking territories) equal entities? The current model, a combination of the first and second option, is being called into question by the holistic policy developed by the BCR. In other words, will Brussels politicians expand their discretionary power over the capital territory to the detriment of Flanders and Wallonia, by intervening in Community policy? In any case, the ruling of the Constitutional Court (decision 67/2012, dated May 24, 2012) in the appeal introduced by the Flemish Community confirmed that education remains an exclusive competence of the Communities implying that the BCR has no authority to expand school infrastructure within its territory. However, the Constitutional Court did not annul

4 Brusselnieuws: “Gewest creëert 951 plaatsen in Nederlandstalig onderwijs”, November 9, 2011.

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the BCR’s current investments. Furthermore, an intervention by the BCR via the Community Commissions is still possible through additional funding, while the accumulation of political mandates to a full extent between the former and the latter provides a pragmatic solution to the institutional and judicial limitations. As such, the case of education in Brussels provides a fine example of what Jans describes as “institutional engineering … [offering] a number of context-specific solutions, which may appear highly complex but which do work” (Jans 2001: 225).

4 Towards multilingual citizens? Personal and group attributions and disparities in Brussels The eras of both traditional polarisation (1945–1989) and depolarisation (1989–) in post-war Brussels raise questions regarding personal and group identification of the inhabitants and their motivations. These motivations, whether individual or of a group, obviously do not only involve rational choices but also address the “need to belong” as well. Therefore, when embedding this issue in the framework of ethnic/cultural markers, identification refers to “the non-rational, emotional and unaccountable nature of nationalism” (Conversi 2004: 9). How do citizens of Brussels position themselves when it comes to the politico-linguistic conflict? Can one speak of a “discrepancy between … [the] complex social reality [of city life in Brussels] and the way in which the political elite interprets this reality and builds its own strategy on it” (Witte 1987: 48)? Although some researchers stress the negative effect of administrative boundaries, such as the linguistic frontier in Belgium on inter-language migratory fluxes, Brussels is at the same time considered to be a centrepiece (Schoumaker, Dal & Poulain 1999). Even more, Laurence Mettewie (2012) stresses the role of education in Brussels as the only area of contact between the members of both traditional language groups in Belgium. Despite its relevance, analysing the identity and personal and group attributions of the inhabitants of Brussels is far from obvious, given the lack of specific data and the often emotional reactions related to ethnolinguistic enclosure surveys. This is intimately connected with the methodology and results of the so-called 1947 language survey, which was so strenuously contested by Flemish policy makers that the tool was abandoned and then eventually prohibited in 1961. Public, semipublic and private actors consequently relied upon a series of other sources, such as the language of identity cards, telephone or telegram invoices, telephone calls for certain services, etc. (see Van Velthoven 1987; Louckx 1987). These all have a weak methodological basis, and it comes as no surprise that the results showed a tendency to vary widely (Louckx 1987). Furthermore, these

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language-use indicators do not take into account the complexity of language use, which can vary over time and place (at work, at home, with family and peers, in recreation, etc.). Language use in Brussels can no longer be seen as a confrontation between Dutch and French-speaking citizens. Indeed, the large group of biand multilingual people is often neglected in the mainstream public discourse on Brussels (Janssens 2001 & 2007). Education in Brussels provides a fine example of both the sensitivity and complexity of language use and personal and group identification. Despite its potential importance in promoting contact between members of the traditional language groups, well-founded data on various dimensions of education in Brussels have been lacking (Louckx 1980: 197). Even today, data on the linguistic/ cultural background of pupils in the Brussels French-medium schools are not collected or published (Janssens et al. 2009). The Flemish Community Commission (henceforth VGC) in Brussels, however, has collected figures regarding the ethnic-cultural background of the pupils in the Brussels Dutch-medium schools since the end of the 1970s, more specifically the language spoken at home. In 1979, 85.9% of the pupils of Dutch-medium elementary schools in Brussels came from monolingual Dutch families. In 10.1% of the cases, both Dutch and French were spoken at home. Thus, only a small minority of the pupils did not speak Dutch at home, 2.3% of monolingual French and 1.7% of allophone families. By 2012, this situation had changed fundamentally. The number of pupils speaking only Dutch at home dropped to 9.9%, thus reducing the position of monolingual Dutch-speakers to the smallest of the four language categories identified by the VGC. This was compensated to a certain extent by the number of pupils combining Dutch and French at home (24.7%), which had more than doubled its share of this category in 1979. The largest groups, however, were formed by pupils who did not speak Dutch at home at all. Leading this group were students from monolingual French families (29.9%) of the Dutch-medium basic school population in 2012. Their number was exceeded only by the group of pupils speaking other languages than Dutch and/or French at home (see table below). Both categories were attracted by factors such as the perceived quality of Dutch-medium schools in Brussels and access to the labour market, which promoted bilingualism as an asset (Janssens 2001; Janssens et al. 2009).

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Table 1. Share of pupils from 4 language group categories (discerned the VGC) in Dutch-medium schools in Brussels, 1979–2012 (data Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie⁵)

Level

1979

1984

1989

1994

1999

2004

2009

2012

Dutch

85.9

69,6

52,1

35,4

24,9

15,5

10,8

9.9

DU + FR

10.1

18,5

25,4

30,4

27,2

23,3

26,2

24.7

French

2.3

6,6

22,5

21,7

27,7

30,9

31,6

29.9

Other

1.7

5,4

12,5

20,2

30,3

31,4

35.5

Dutch

74,4

58,7

38,9

30,1

24,6

DU + FR

16,1

20,4

27,6

25,8

28,9

French

6,2

12,2

16,8

22,5

24,3

Other

3,4

8,7

16,7

21,5

22,2

Primary

Secondary

The ethno-linguistic background of the pupils is not only relevant when looking at the traditional language groups in Brussels; recent survey research based upon a random representative sample of the Brussels population indicated that language is not the only and/or most important category of personal/group identification. Dutch-speaking inhabitants of the Belgian capital who identify themselves as “Flemish” in the first place counted only for 16.8% of the Dutch-speaking language group, putting this identification category in only third place after the number of Dutch-speaking inhabitants identifying themselves with Belgium (38.2%) and Brussels (24.3%). Indeed, some 8% of them held very negative connotations with “Flemish” due to the often precarious relationship between Brussels and Flanders. French-speaking and bilingual (French-Dutch) citizens of Brussels, also identified themselves in larger numbers in the categories of Belgium, Brussels and Europe than with their language group (Janssens 2007). At the same time, it is clear that the changing linguistic background of the pupils in Brussels schools transcends the binary scheme of the two traditional language groups. In 1979, 96.40% of the school population at the basic educational level was attributed the “Western” background label used by the VGC, although only a vague and broad definition was given. By 2012, this percentage

5 http://www.vgc.be/Onderwijs/Onderwijsbeleid+van+de+VGC/Over+het+Brussels+Nederland stalig+ onderwijs/cijfers.htm

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had dropped to 47.2%.⁶ This fundamental evolution reflects the deep transition the population has undergone in the past few decades. Indeed, immigration and the position of Brussels as a small world city mean that more than 50% of the inhabitants issuing from recent (post-1945) immigration waves, today stem from every continent (Deboosere et al. 2009), while 33% still possess a non-Belgian nationality.⁷ The above figures underline the recent attractiveness of the Dutchmedium schools in Brussels, currently recruiting pupils far beyond the scope of their own ethno-cultural group. This situation has provoked a paradox of success; the issue of school capacity deficit certainly added to the debate. Some right-wing policy makers polemically questioned whether the goal of Dutch-medium education in Brussels was to bring education to the Flemish inhabitants of Brussels or to function as a tool of development aid,⁸ referring to the number of pupils stemming from the social and economic lower classes typical of immigrants. At all events, the situation that the Dutch speaking minority in Brussels became a further minority within its own educational system provoked a policy reshuffle that focused on a so-called priority policy of pupil inscription based on their mastery of Dutch. As of 2010, pupils could only be enrolled in basic educational institutions if they had attended at least one year in a Dutch-medium nursery school. Furthermore, 55% of the capacity was reserved for Dutch-speaking pupils, a category loosely defined on the basis of the language of the diploma of one of the parents and/or a language test. Thus, although the concept of imposed identity was not re-introduced, language was used as an ethno-cultural marker facilitating access to Dutch-medium education in Brussels. It is clear that socio-demographic shifts in Brussels and the socio-cultural background of pupils in Brussels Dutch-medium education challenge the current model. Allophone citizens in Brussels do not identify themselves with the two traditional language groups. They rather focus on Belgium and Brussels as main categories of positive identification, thereby supporting a territorial city–regional approach over an ethno-cultural (linguistic) one. This transition has also influenced the debate regarding educational organisation in Brussels and especially the current functioning of two monolingual independent systems. Thus, the current diverse sociolinguistic reality clashes with the official bilingual or rather double monolingual educational setting in Brussels. Along with depolarisation within the Brussels political arena, the holistic policy implemented by the BCR and the identification of Dutch- and French-speaking inhabitants on the basis of

6 Source: VGC http://www.vgc.be/Onderwijs 7 Source FOD Economie http://statbel.fgov.be/nl/statistieken/cijfers/bevolking/ 8 Intervention of Boudewijn Bouckaert in the assembly of the VGC, 25 February 2010, p. 2.

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territory and city-region over language groups implied challenges for the policies developed by the two competent Communities. This depolarising shift is reflected in the attitude towards multilingualism at school: 71% of the parents of pupils enrolled in French-medium schools in Brussels are in favour of a multilingual educational system (Janssens 2007), the implementation of which has so far been limited although some experiments in Belgium did take place in the 1980s. Van Velthoven (2011: 303/4) classified three options with regard to the Dutch-medium system: extra lessons in Dutch promoting the language and remedying problems; an enhanced language policy at school, rendering some components of the curriculum in another language (possibly) as refresher courses; bi- or multilingual education offering one or multiple courses entirely in another language. The latter option is clearly not an obvious solution for numerous Flemish policy makers, certainly given the historical minority position of Dutch-medium education. As of 2001 language stimulation projects (labeled STIMOB) have been launched in several Dutch-medium schools in Brussels, mainly at primary school level. In 2007, some pilot projects, limited to 9 for the entire Flemish Community, were launched using the CLIL system (Content and Language Integrated Learning: see Van De Craen et al. 2012). The CLIL system, however, could not be applied to Dutch-medium secondary schools in Brussels, until 2012, since policy makers argued for the necessity to start by teaching first of all comprehension of the Dutch language in the educational system in Brussels prior to extending Dutch into other subjects. In 2012, for the first time, a publicly funded and publicly run Dutch-medium secondary school offered a CLIL package, although it focused on English as a second language. The French Community, on the other hand, had already changed its legislation in 1998 (cf. article 12 of the so-called Onckelinx Decree dated 13 July, 1998), thereby enabling the organisation of “immersion-type” education. Currently, some 250 schools at primary and secondary level are involved, 16 of which are situated in Brussels, 2 belonging to the publicly funded and publicly run French Community schools and 14 to publicly funded and privately run institutions (Wayens, Janssens & Vaesen 2013). At the same time, it is clear that inhabitants favouring a multilingual approach are situated in the younger age groups and the higher socio-economic classes (Janssens, Vaesen, Segers & Ressman 2013). The abovementioned political and socio-demographic transitions in Brussels indicate that a new double inter-related cleavage based upon the traditional politico-linguistic divide is emerging. It is no longer a confrontation between French- and Dutchspeaking policy makers and inhabitants, but it is instead one between territorial orientation (i.e. the city–region and the policy developed by the monolingual Communities) and contrasting multilingual and monolingual mindsets and policy solutions.

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5 Conclusion Situated at the core of language contact and conflict in contemporary Belgium, Brussels and its educational system have proven to be a major politically divisive issue. At the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, schools were considered to be a frenchification machine (Van Velthoven 1987). Flemish activists and policy makers tried to secure Dutch-medium education using an initially limited system of national language legislation. The most intrusive tool was perhaps the regime of “imposed identity” (1963–1971), in which a student’s school was determined to be either French-medium or Dutch-medium education based on the mother tongue of the parent(s). Despite these language legislation measures, Dutch-medium education in Brussels in the immediate post-war period was in a precarious position, in terms of both infrastructure and number of pupils. The former was exemplified by the existence of only a few Dutch-medium classes or sections in French-dominated schools, with, certainly at the secondary school level, a poor presence of the Dutch-speaking minority; the latter was affected by the broader processes of depopulation and suburbanisation in Brussels and the stiff and intense polarisation and contestation due to the politicolinguistic conflicts, inhibiting, for instance, the implementation of language legislation. In a subsequent phase, direct control over educational matters was favoured through the establishment of sub-national entities, labelled as Community, within the process of re-shaping the Belgian national State. It led to the creation of a non-hierarchical organisation of education where school institutions belonged to either the Dutch-medium or the French-medium system. As part of a set of broader political compromises, investments in Dutch-medium schools were made to boost infrastructure capacity, although the number of pupils enrolled decreased until the beginning of the 1980s. With the event of third State Reform of 1988/9 the political context changed, intermingling with a transition of the socio-demographic and socio-cultural background of the Brussels population. Indeed, a depolarisation of the traditional politico-linguistic conflict within the Brussels arena implied not only a better mutual understanding among Brussels politicians but also a holistic policy proposed by the BCR, which challenged the system of shared rule through the French and Flemish Communities. At the same time the influx of multilingual or allophone immigrants (currently over 50% of the Brussels population) induced a complex social reality that is no longer addressed by the double monolingual system of the current Brussels educational model. The Dutch-speaking minority in Brussels became a minority in its own Dutch-medium system; a system that was highly appealing to pupils and parents outside of the Dutch ethnolinguistic group and at the same time fostered the knowledge of Dutch in the

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Belgian capital. These intermingling political, demographic and socio-cultural transitions seem to have given birth to new cleavages; a territorial city–regional identification versus a language group focus, on the one hand, and multilingualism versus monolingualism on the other hand. As such, Brussels is once more a laboratory of transitions and experiments with a far-reaching impact given its lynchpin-function within the Belgian political-institutional model.

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Epilogue

Richard J. Watts

Chapter 12 Conceptualising “language borders”, “language contact” and “language conflict” 1 The closing encounter The closing encounter in this volume is between a native speaker of English – the present author – and the eleven prior chapters in this collection – and with that, their authors. There are no language borders to delineate and no language conflicts to be negotiated in this epilogue, but there is certainly language contact, as there is in any emergent instantiation of socio-communicative verbal interaction, whether in the written or the oral medium. In the genesis of the current book, a suitable title certainly involved negotiation between the editors and myself (representing the two editors of the LSP series, Richard J. Watts and David Britain), but I would hardly classify it as “language conflict”. The result was that the main title should be Past, Present and Future of a Language Border, which stresses the general significance of the notion of “language border” in contact linguistics and, more significantly, the fact that borders, like human language itself, change across time. This specifically places the volume within the burgeoning field of historical sociolinguistics and socio-historic language study, and the authors do justice to this orientation in their contributions. The sub-title, Germanic–Romance Encounters in the Low Countries, explicitly recognises that all instances of emergent verbal social practice constitute interpersonal encounters of one kind or another and, through those encounters, the use of different languages or language varieties. However, the editors have deliberately confined the encounters to the two Germanic languages Dutch and German (and in chapter 10 Lëtzebuergesch, i.e. Luxembourgish) and the Romance language French (or varieties of French, e.g. the dialect of Picardy). Their reason for doing so was that the section of the Romance–Germanic “language border” running through the Low Countries has, through the course of time, raised a welter of problems in relation to the use of language in a wide range of social institutions from family through to government, many of which have remained unsolved. It has also generated an equally wide range of language attitudes, identities and prejudices related to language use in those institutions and deriving from mythbased language ideologies (see Vogl’s contribution in chapter 4). The reader may thus wish to pose the following question: “Why was there a restriction to the Low Countries to the detriment of looking at the whole of the Ger-

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manic–Romance border from the Low Countries through to the South Tyrol”? The honest answer is that to do that, and to do it well, would have been a mammoth task involving sociolinguists from four countries in addition to Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands.¹ And to do it from the perspective of historical sociolinguistics would be even more complex, involving social historians, sociologists, educationists, economic geographers, urban historians, political scientists, demographers, and many more.² The aim of the present collection is to help clear the way towards taking on such mammoth tasks. In so doing, it raises significant issues involving language and politics, language and education, language standardisation and ideological discourses on language that have at various points in the history of the Low Countries become discourse archives (for the term “discourse archive” see, e.g., Foucault 1972; Blommaert 2005; Watts 2011). As a result, in my encounter with each of the 11 previous chapters I aim not only to assess its contribution to the whole volume but also to provide a critical theoretical analysis of the terms central to this book: “language border”, “language contact” and “language conflict”. I offer my thoughts on these issues in a critical spirit and in the hope that they may engender the necessary debate to help researchers retain a focus on both the present and the past, with the future always in mind. This can only be done, however, on the basis of an honest reanalysis of the concept of “a language”, i.e. the essentialisation of an individual linguistic system on the basis of our understanding of the human language faculty in general. To put it briefly, I wish to demonstrate in section 2 the importance of a socio-cognitive focus on how the individual but social use of forms of human language crystallise socio-culturally through time into the essentialist notion of “a language”. In section 3 I shift the focus to the most significant concept in the volume, “language border”, in an effort to flesh out how it may be conceptualised in a historical sociolinguistic approach to language contact and language conflict along the lines suggested by Vogl in chapter 4, Willemyns in chapter 3 and Rutten, Vosters and van der Wal in chapter 7. In section 4, I offer the controversial point of view that all emergent socio-communicative verbal practice is at basis an act of social contact involving varieties of human language. This is an obvious fact, but it is all too often conveniently overlooked by (socio)linguists, and it forms the basis for what we understand as “language contact”. To illustrate the need to bear

1 It would also involve sociolinguists from France, Switzerland, Italy and Austria. 2 That is not to say that a European research project on this scale should not be attempted. That goes without saying, but there are many other linguistic fault-lines in Europe that also merit the same treatment, e.g. the Germanic–Slavic language border or the Romance–Slavic border centrally involving Romania.

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in mind the obvious while tackling the not-so-obvious, I present an extended, but not yet fully developed version of the idea of “communicative space” for language contact as originally sketched out in chapter 4 of Watts (2011: 98). Section 5 then discusses Nelde’s hypothesis that language conflict in emergent social practice is not really conflict between languages but conflict between speakers of different languages, and that the conflict itself is locatable elsewhere.³ The discussion will hinge on Darquennes’ outline of the theoretical issues in language conflict research in chapter 2. The final section will make a number of suggestions for further research on language borders in the future. The perspective highlighted in this chapter is that of the self-reflexive researcher who takes the terms that s/he uses seriously and is prepared to admit to the necessarily metaphorical nature of all abstract concepts in human thought. Without the ability to project basic concrete physical experiences onto abstract experiences as the only means we have of understanding the latter, we cannot “language” our worlds and reach out to others who “language” them differently. Metaphors are socio-culturally constructed and are thus highly likely to differ across cultures, but this does not make them right in one culture and wrong in another. As researchers, we cannot think unideologically, but we still need to recognise the ideologies within which we work as ideologies, and we have an obligation to question the validity of the basic precepts of those ideologies.

2 “Human language” and “Language X” There is a wide divergence in the ways in which linguists have theorised about the language faculty, and the number of models that have been constructed to describe and explain how it functions is equally large and divergent.⁴ But all of those theories are grounded in the one indubitable fact that the language faculty itself is uniquely individual and at the same time uniquely social. Barring tragic physical disabilities that impair or prevent the acquisition of language, there is no way any human being can avoid acquiring some form of human language, and the sounds, the constructions, the words that an infant acquires in the primary and secondary social groups into which s/he grows will form a natural means of constructing social connections with others, identifying with those social groups

3 This, of course, does not exclude the simple fact that using different languages may be a significant factor in generating the conflict in the first place. 4 The reader is reminded here of the James McCawley’s book Thirty Million Theories of Grammar (1982).

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and locating oneself in the social world. Infants are able to sort out and categorise which sounds, constructions and words are appropriate in every emergent instance of social practice, regardless of whether the utterances have come from a radically or just slightly different linguistic system, and they are also capable of discarding those that they may not need at later points in the course of their lives. Small children know when their interlocutors, who are using constructions from another linguistic system, nevertheless understand what they are saying, and they may choose not to switch to the use of those constructions.⁵ From a very early age on, probably from the time when they begin to acquire language actively (at around 1 year 3 months), they become aware of “difference”. Depending on the degree to which they are exposed to the discursive realisations of two cognitive frames in their immediate environment, that of social practice, in which the forms of language used are systematically constructed through interaction in the social group, and that of the features of the social group, in which certain kinds of linguistic behaviour are socially sanctioned and others encouraged, children will begin to adopt attitudes towards language varieties. In some cases a child may explicitly learn early in life that “x speaks English” but “y speaks Dutch”, and depending on which language variety is more highly regarded in the primary social group into which the child is being socialised, s/he will construct attitudes towards “English” or “Dutch”. Alternatively, a child may never hear any explicit categorisation of the variety of language s/he speaks, i.e. the name of a language (English, French, Dutch, German, etc.) until a much later age. The essentialist hypostasisation of a language variety rather than simply human language may occur very early on in a child’s life. On the other hand, an awareness of difference and the need to categorise it by giving language varieties a label may not emerge until considerably later in a child’s socio-psychological development. Regardless of when the notion of “a language” develops in an individual language user, however, the following five interrelated points are significant: 1. The conceptualisation of a language variety as an important identity marker for an individual in a social group is the result of a gradual discursive process of socialisation into that group, i.e. it is acquired socio-cognitively and socio-culturally. 2. The discursive process always results in the socio-cognitive construction of language ideologies shared with others and believed in by the whole group.

5 My godson was raised in a family of English speakers within an extra-familial environment of Swiss German speakers. His elder sisters very often used Swiss German amongst themselves, but whenever my wife, his godmother, spoke Swiss German to him, he refused to use anything but English.

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3.

Those ideologies depend crucially on the prior existence of myths about language, many of which are either of a universal nature, i.e. they pertain to the acquisition of the notion “a language”, rather than simply “human language”, or of a more local nature. 4. If the social group has developed an ability to transfer language to the written medium, the need then arises to distinguish that language variety from others as “Language X”.⁶ 5. Language X becomes emblematic of a social grouping which inevitably extends beyond the contact limitations of the individual her/himself, i.e. it may easily extend to the level of the nation-state. Many of the chapters in this volume express an awareness of the ideological significance of “Language X” in discussing “language borders”, “language contact” and “language conflict”, but the inevitability of this process in societies in which written forms of language have been developed from oral communication might have been focused on in a little more detail. For example, Peersman shows in chapter 5 that “the link between language and identity” (p. 98) historically predates the data with which she is working from the 14th century, i.e. it appears well before the emergence of the concept of the “nation-state”. But the very nature of historical data is precisely that they are – and before the advent of sound recordings can only be – written (handwritten at first and then from the 15th century on also printed). In other words we will always have evidence of what Vogl in chapter 4 calls “the ideology of the hierarchisation of varieties” and “the ideology of correctness”, even without the presence of a standardised form of “Language X”. Both ideologies are derived from different but interrelated language myths, above all “the myth of purity” and the “myth of contamination through contact”.⁷ In addition, we will always have evidence of a “complaint tradition” (cf. Milroy and Milroy 1985) – again with little or no evidence of standardisation processes – as can be seen in relation to English as early as 1125 from comments made by William of Malmesbury, and again more clearly and extensively in Ranulf Higden’s Polychronicon from the first quarter of the 14th century. It is therefore far from true that “elements of the standard language ideology … provide the conceptual basis” of 6 Some of the language myths in English that go back at least as far as William of Malmesbury’s Gesta pontificum Anglorum in 1125, e.g. the myth of language purity, the myth of contamination through contact and the myth of barbarians not having a proper language, relate to the distinction between the written and the oral media (Watts 2011). As a consequence we can find frequent references to “Englisc”, “Ænglisc”, “þa ænglisc spræc”, etc. throughout the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles from the time of Alfred the Great in the late ninth century. 7 These in turn are derived from the overriding “myth of homogeneity”, as are so many of the language myths dealt with in Watts (2011).

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the discourse of correctness, purity and hierarchisation (chapter 4, p. 111). The standard language ideology did not even begin to gather momentum in Europe till, at the very earliest, the 15th century. It is of course undeniable that standardisation, once it has begun, gathers momentum in a teleological effort to produce a perfect (the “myth of perfection”), homogeneous (the “myth of homogeneity”) and unchanging (the “myth of immutability”) Language X, but the myths are present well before standardisation begins. It could be argued that they help to propel the standardisation process once it has begun. It might even be the case that they are ultimately responsible for its emergence in the first place, but much more focused research into the historical development of European languages in their written form is necessary before more light can be shed on such issues.⁸ It certainly seems clear that long before standardisation sets in, and possibly even before the development of a written form of the linguistic variety, Language X is perceived by its speakers as being distinct from other linguistic varieties. The stage is set for the metaphorical projection of positive human physical and moral qualities onto Language X such as “purity”, “strength”, “superiority”, “health”, “nobility”, etc. and of negative human qualities onto other “languages”, e.g. “corruption”, “barbarity”, “infection”, “inferiority”, etc. This accounts for the findings in Peersman’s data that “identity, on both sides, is implicitly but strongly linked to language, or rather to specific usages of the ‘other’ language within clearly defined contextual boundaries” (chapter 5, 145). When we reach the late 18th and 19th centuries, all of these notions come into play to strengthen the “one-language-one-nation” ideology, which functions as one of the major pillars of the nation-state concept that is still in existence today. The constitutional erasure of other languages to the benefit of the one “national language” has created the impression that states such France and the Russian Federation have no internal language borders at all (cf. Willemyns, chapter 3), not even dialectal borders. The one and unique legitimate language becomes the standard, and speakers of that standard should avoid any language contact, particularly with other “powerful” languages like French and English, for fear that the legitimate language should be contaminated and weakened by influence from those other languages. But once again, the “myth of contamination through contact” precedes the standardisation process, in English by at least two centuries (cf. again Higden’s Polychronicon). The fact that it is a hugely influential myth

8 Questions of correctness and perfection, however, are not restricted to ideologies of the standard, i.e. they are not restricted to written forms of language. There is ample evidence from speakers of Swiss German dialects of the fear of dialectal decay and impurity from inter-dialectal contact.

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driving a strong language ideology is evident in Frijhoff’s chapter 6 and Kesselsvan der Heijde’s chapter 8, in which different phases in the so-called frenchification of Dutch are dealt with in great detail. But it also lies behind French efforts in the 1980s to avoid the “contamination” of French by English which culminated in the (infamous?) Loi Toubon in 1990, and it generated work in German linguistics of the 1960s and 1970s also warning against English borrowings.⁹ It would seem, then, that, beyond the age of around 5, as lay users of language we are locked into the ideological prison of seeing only “standard languages”, rather than “language varieties”, and if we are not standard language speakers, but speakers of dialectal varieties, of developing resentment at being regarded as socially “inferior” and not legitimate speakers of Language X. As sociolinguists, however, we know that even standard languages are open to variety, change and heterogeneity, and we also know that speakers are aware of even the slightest differences in the phonology, morphology and lexical use of other speakers. How those differences are evaluated and interpreted socially in instances of emergent social practice is significant to us – at least if we are involved in Third Wave Variation Studies – in indexing how interlocutors position themselves and others in social interaction, how they identify with social groups, and how they construct social worlds through language. As historical sociolinguists working with linguistic data prior to the age of sound recordings, we are concerned to reconstruct such acts of identity, social group construction, social discrimination, social resistance and social enregisterment wherever we find them in the data, and to extrapolate from written to oral communication. As we have seen in the chapters in the present volume, examining all of this along a “language border” constrains us to project back and forth from the large picture of state institutions (government, policing, education, welfare, taxation, transport, and so on) to the isolated instances of social practice. In doing so, we are much more likely to observe conflict than cooperation. Before we move to contact and conflict, however, the following section is devoted to a closer look at what we mean by a “language border”.

9 At least in the case of German there was no thought of legally outlawing English, but, whichever way we look at things, English has clearly taken over from French in Europe as the dangerous contaminating “bogeyman”.

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3 Language borders In chapter 3 Willemyns gives a brief but helpful overview of current research into contact and conflict along the whole of the Romance–Germanic border and then, in the spirit of this volume, focuses closely on earlier and current problems on the border between French and Dutch. Apart from noting the considerable attrition in the use of Dutch in French Flanders in the Département du Nord around Dunkirk and Hazebroek, he makes the general comment that, from a historical point of view, “demarcation lines between different languages, or dialects, can remain remarkably stable over centuries” (see also Peersman, chapter 5) and that this has generally been the case along the Dutch-speaking–French-speaking border (chapter 3). However, in the second half of the sentence in which this statement is made he also expresses the qualification that “changes in the political and/ or social constellation may account for dramatic alterations leading to language shift and eventually language loss”. Willemyns thus implicitly adopts two perspectives on the term “language border”, and those two perspectives are in evidence in most of the chapters in the present volume. On the one hand, from a demographic point of view, an area of territory in which speakers of Language X confront speakers of Language Y, even within the same nation-state constitutes a language border. This border can be traced geographically on a map, and it does not necessarily coincide with the political border between two states. If, as sociolinguists, we point out that the only European states in which there are no state-internal language border(s) are tiny states such as Liechtenstein, San Marino, Malta or Monaco,¹⁰ we are liable to come into conflict with lay persons and politicians who are caught within the immensely powerful discourse archive of the nation-state.¹¹ On the other hand, dramatic alterations may be effected by political decisions relating to state institutions such as government and, in particular, education (see chapter 10 by Horner and Weber and chapter 11 by Janssens and Vaesen), which indicates that language borders may have little to do with geographical territory, and a great deal more to do with social domains and individual speakers. In this respect all three countries involved in the research in this volume, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, are no exception to global migration movements arising from open economies in the global market. To suggest that the language of the Neth-

10 We might want to add certain “new” nation-states such as Montenegro and Slovenia, possibly also the Czech Republic, i.e. states that arose precisely as a result of the one-nation-onelanguage ideology, after the break-up of Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia. But I am perfectly willing to be corrected on this score. 11 See Willemyns’ comments on the state erasure of other languages than French within France.

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erlands is Dutch, those of Belgium are Dutch, French and German and those of Luxembourg are French, German and Lëtzebuergesch would constitute a crass disregard of the multilingual nature of society in all three states beyond the four “official” languages. The problem, however, lies both with governmental decisions on a regional and national level in Belgium and with an inability to deal with the multilingual nature of society in the education systems of all three countries (see again chapters 10 and 11). Over the course of time, therefore, language borders may be internal to social groups, may be dependent on language use in various social domains and institutions and may even be internal to individual speakers. The major problem with the term “language border”, however, is that it usually evokes  – and perhaps even promotes  – a belief in ethnic differences, a reliance on monolingualism and the construction of “otherness”, and in that respect it follows the lead given by the ideological nation-state discourse (“one nation/one territory/one political system/one language”, and on occasion “one religion” and “one ethnicity”). The pervasiveness of this discourse archive is such that, even in situations where national borders are drawn across a dialect continuum area, e.g. that between the Netherlands and Germany, or that between Switzerland and Germany, speakers on either side of the border tend to insist on the use of Dutch and High German or Swiss German and Southern High German. In the latter case this is even more surprising when we consider that both the Swiss German dialects on the Swiss side of the border and the Swabian/Badensian dialects on the German side of the border are Alemannic and are mutually comprehensible. “Language border” thus becomes a deictic term constructing speaker perspectives to the effect that the “we”-side of the border is positively charged with respect to the “they”-side. The danger of this dichotomy, as Willemyns shows with respect to the Belgian situation, is that “the overall result of change and shift has been such that we are now in the presence of a firmly monolingualised country, divided into autonomous communities based on linguistic homogeneity and determined to reduce the political consequences of language contact at their borders to a strict minimum” (chapter 3, p. 48). It is feasible to argue that the problematic language situation in Belgium has arisen within the historical framework of the nation-state discourse from the early 19th century to the present. The “solution” to the language problem in Belgium has turned out to be less than satisfactory because a top-down political decision to turn a nation-state into a federal state by invoking the linguistic principle of territoriality has effectively created monolingual autonomous communities. The Swiss situation is very different. Since the end of the 13th century – since well before language standardisation and the ideology of the nation-state emerged – Switzerland has constructed an identity for itself on the basis of a loose confederation of independent cantons

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in which the concept of linguistic territoriality developed naturally and was not used as a means to impose a federal structure from the top down. The federal constitution of 1874 (revised in 1999) states which languages are official (German, French and Italian), i.e. used in parliament and in dealings with the people, and which semi-official (Rhaeto-Romansch), i.e. not used in the federal parliament but open to use in dealings with the people. It contains no clause determining linguistic territoriality, as this issue is left to the individual cantons (or states) which make up the federation. Each bi- or trilingual canton determines the relationship between language and territory in its own constitution. This is not to say that there are no language conflicts in Switzerland, but it certainly does mean that whenever those conflicts threaten to become politicised, they are neatly deflated by referring the issue in question to the cantonal rather than the federal authorities. Geographical and political language borders, therefore, may lead to monolingual communities in which there is little or no cross-border communication, but this need not be the case. In a richer conceptualisation of “language borders”, they can be understood as delineations between social classes, between different domains and genres of social interaction, between different communities of practice, etc., and they may actively lead to bilingualism (even multilingualism). This is particularly the case if individual speakers have proficiency in Language X and Language Y, i.e. that they have their own internal language borders – and are able to use those proficiencies in accordance with different types of social interaction. Both Frijhoff (chapter 6) and Kessels-van der Heijde (chapter 8) show that certain sections of society, but generally the middle and upper middle classes, were able to use both French and Dutch equally well from the 18th to the beginning of the 20th century. But they also show that there is a danger in this kind of border crossing that one of the two languages, usually French, enjoys a great deal more social and/or international prestige than the other (Dutch). As Frijhoff points out: … [the use of French] also had to do with France’s still dominant position as an economic and political superpower. French was the language of international diplomacy, it still dominated scientific exchange and the international book trade, and it remained of great importance in commerce. This, however, was not the reason why French was learned as a semimother tongue by the aristocracy. That had much more to do with the development of the European balance of power and with the attitude of the aristocracy towards the exercise of power. French was indeed the language of power. (chapter 6, p. 128)

The charge that this led to the “frenchification” of Dutch, which runs almost like a mantra through the majority of the chapters tends to ring a little like a complaint. But the forms of hybridisation that this might entail – and for English most definitely did entail for a period of around 400 years after the Norman Conquest – do

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not necessarily lead to an impoverishment of Dutch. They are simply the inevitable evidence of language change and heterogeneity.

4 Language contact and communicative space The assumption that the term “language contact” refers to situations in which two or more linguistic systems (languages or language varieties) come into contact is certainly a valid way of understanding it, but ultimately, the term itself is grounded in the essentialist conceptualisation of “Language X meets Language Y” or on contact between different varieties (dialectal, social, register-specific) of Language X (or Language Y). As sociolinguists, however, we need to be aware of the fact that languages themselves do not make contact whereas human interlocutors using those languages/language varieties do. In Watts (2011: 97) I begin a discussion of “language contact” by stating that the participants involved in an instantiation of social practice who can be said to “speak the same language variety” are nevertheless in contact through language. If that is the case – which it undoubtedly is – each individual version of that language variety is in contact with other versions. This implies the following: … that all instantiations of emergent social practice involving language are characterised by a shared negotiation of meanings, that all human language is reconstructed and reproduced in emergent interaction and therefore, strictly speaking, that no two interlocutors ever speak the same language, although of course they may share it. (Watts 2011: 97)

From this I conclude that languages or language varieties are “second-order cognitive construct[s] from the emergent use of human language” (cf. section 2), and also that “every instantiation of emergent social practice in which human language is used [constitutes] a language contact situation”. This perspective on language contact is adopted here. Whenever we indulge in socio-communicative verbal interaction with other interlocutors, the interaction takes place in a communicative space for language contact, and, in accordance with a provisional set of parameters listed below, “the shared negotiation of meanings” in which we are involved is easier or more difficult to achieve. The greater the difficulty in negotiating meanings communally, the greater is the likelihood that we will generate or have recourse to discursively constructed attitudes, identities and prejudices related to language use. It is unclear just how many social and linguistic parameters are needed to characterise any communicative space for language contact, but I suggest that at least the following are necessary:

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1.

Degree of linguistic similarity or difference: situated on a cline of intelligibility ranging from total intelligibility of the linguistic constructions used by the interlocutors to total unintelligibility. 2. The social status of the interlocutors: situated on a number of clines, e.g. (a) the power differentials between the interlocutors, (b) the degree of authority exercised by certain interlocutors over others, and (c) the types of social control that the use of certain linguistic constructions, or certain languages or language varieties rather than others, can generate. 3. The demographic status of groups in the overall population: situated on a cline with respect to the demographic strength or weakness of the groups to which the speakers belong, i.e. the political and socio-economic significance of those groups as well as their size. 4. The type of social interaction in which the interlocutors are engaged: situated on a cline from a high degree of informality in which the social interaction is carried out to a high degree of formality. 5. The frequency of the interaction type in which the interlocutors are involved: situated on a cline of frequency of and thereby familiarity with the procedures, linguistic and/or social, needed to complete the interaction engaged in. 6. The medium in which the interaction is carried out: situated on two clines, (a) adequate or inadequate use of the written standard language, (b) ability to differentiate structures appropriate to oral or written communication. The number of parameters that constitute the communicative space of a language contact situation may be increased or reduced, but the relations between them will be in a constant state of flux through time. This makes it almost impossible to represent the historical development of language contact in two-dimensional terms. For instance, in the historical sketch of the development of language contact in the Netherlands from the 17th to the 19th century given by Frijhoff in chapter 6, the demographic presence of French speakers will have been considerably weaker than in Belgium and will have declined throughout that period of time, but the international demographic significance and prestige of French remained considerable. So there must have been a need for Dutch speakers in the upper classes of society to use French both orally and in written form amongst themselves and with native French speakers by displacing themselves from the Netherlands and doing a “grand tour” of France. But the overwhelming and increasing preponderance of lower-class monolingual Dutch speakers in the 19th century in the Netherlands will have weakened the frequency of linguistic contact possibilities. At the same time, though, many lexical, and possibly structural, borrowings entered the language and stayed, i.e. “became Dutch”. Dutch was not “frenchified”; it simply

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became a little more hybrid than it had been previously, thus enriching the communicative strength of the language in official, written domains. The major difficulty with this “model” of communicative spaces for language contact, of course, is whether there is any way of measuring the values of the parameters statistically in concrete situations. If they could be expressed statistically, current methods are available to assess (a) the significance and the reliability of the results, (b) the probability of occurrence of any combination of elements, (c) the correlations between the results and (d) implicational scales to determine what conditions are necessary to predict new language contact situations. As Rutten, Vosters and van der Wal suggest in chapter 7 efforts should be made to “[move] away from anecdotal and possibly ideologically motivated observations about the state of the language as a whole and towards more corpus-driven empirical analyses”. They pave the way towards more empirical studies by discussing the influence of French suffixes on Dutch in the North (the Netherlands) and in the South (Flanders). They use letter corpora representing “a perspective ‘from below’ on the history of multilingualism and intercultural communication” (Peersman, Rutten and Vosters, chapter 1), and in doing so they effectively take into account all six of the parameters listed above. Their statistical results are solid and give evidence of a change in the linguistic constructions of Dutch from the 18th to the end of the 19th century. Nevertheless, the historical development of the communicative spaces available to speakers and writers of both Dutch and French during this period still need to be traced out to give a clearer picture of the problems that remain to be solved in the present. Horner and Weber in chapter 10 concern themselves with the present situation of the three languages of Luxembourg (German, French and Lëtzebuergesch) in the education system of the Grand Duchy, and Janssens and Vaesen in chapter 11 investigate the school system in post-War Brussels, a crucial area in the present political stalemate in Belgium created by the top-down transformation of the Belgian nation-state into a federal state along linguistic lines. In both cases, the types of interaction can be assessed as being of a more formal nature concerning the written and oral media of language practice, but in neither case does there seem to be proper consideration of the current demographic make-up of Luxembourg or the Brussels area of Belgium. Horner and Weber make the following point: Discourses of linguistic integration, which are arguably most salient in the context of the European Union, are constructed around a restrictive definition of societal belonging that is mapped out onto degrees of proficiency in the “national” or official language (cf. Horner 2009). All three discourse clusters rely upon a conception of language as discrete, bounded entities and an assumption of monolingualism as the norm, thus illustrating what Clyne (2008) refers to as the “monolingual mindset”. (chapter 10, p. 235)

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Janssens and Vaesen define their aim in chapter 11 as follows: We will argue that globalisation and its inherent influx of multilingual or allophone immigrants has influenced the traditional politico-linguistic cleavage, due to the relationship between language, ethnicity and social boundaries (Olzak 1992: 25). (chapter 11, p. 255)

Not surprisingly, they come to the same kinds of conclusion in relation to the educational system as Horner and Weber. If empirical studies were able to evaluate interaction types in the school setting along all six parameters outlined above, a number of glaring social and linguistic inequalities would emerge which any efficient school system should aim to eradicate.¹² The major problem in dealing with material from the past is still our lack of direct access to oral language contact situations before the beginning of the 20th century. As Kessels-van der Heijde rightly states, “[t]he question of whether people used the same language varieties in speaking as they did in writing largely and inevitably remains unanswered” (chapter 8, p. 175), but this constrains us to look carefully in the data available for signs of oral language usage in the linguistic constructions of a written or printed text, for what I have called signs of “inscribed orality” (Watts 2011), or what Elspaß (2015) calls the “language of immediacy”. We are more likely to find that kind of evidence in contact situations between or involving speakers from the lower social orders, and this is presented in the introductory chapter as a major challenge: One of the greatest challenges for a renewed investigation of situations of language contact and conflict along the Romance–Germanic language border is the recognition of the implications of such a perspective “from below” on the history of multilingualism and intercultural communication … (Peersman, Rutten and Vosters, chapter 1, p. 14)

Before I review further issues that need to be tackled in language contact/language conflict situations along language borders, we need to look in the next section at the final key term of the present volume, viz. language conflict.

12 Having said that, however, the power exerted by industry and big business on cantonal school systems in Switzerland has resulted in the introduction of early English from the second grade of schooling on regardless of the huge costs and the obvious inability of the small number of English lessons a week and the insecurity of the teaching staff to produce learners with near native-speaker competence. Only now has this huge mistake in the assumption of what young children can and cannot achieve through the introduction of an L2 so early in the school curriculum begun to dawn on teachers and politicians alike. Whether they will be able to resist the arguments of the business lobby, however, is another question altogether.

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5 Language conflict The premise that a language contact situation is any situation in which two or more interlocutors engage in an emergent instantiation of socio-communicative verbal interaction may not be universally acceptable, but it is surely the case that when such an interaction evolves through time, relationships develop among the interlocutors that may be described as “intimate”, “friendly”, “competitive”, “cooperative”, “conflictual” and so on. If the linguistic parameter of the interaction within the range of parameters that determine the communicative space of a contact situation is close to “total intelligibility”, it would be erroneous to attribute the perception of conflict between the interlocutors to different language varieties used to perform the interaction. It would certainly not be erroneous to suggest that the choice of linguistic constructions, phonology and prosody and lexical items made by the interlocutors is directed towards generating conflict, and the same is true when two or more language varieties or languages are put to use in the communicative space of language contact. In fact, the greater the range of language varieties and languages at the disposal of the interlocutors, the more extensive are the opportunities for expressing (or interpreting) conflict and competition and the more unlikely it becomes that the socio-communicative verbal interaction will become intimate or friendly – although this is, of course, not impossible. So the greater the communicative space for language contact, the more likely it is that any conflict or competition generated among and perceived by the interlocutors will be attributed to language, class differences (parameter 2), differences in the degree of formality of the interaction (parameter 4), adequate or inadequate command of the standard or written language (parameter 6) and/or ethnic differences (parameter 3).¹³ The most salient feature here is language, precisely because of the difficulty in generating mutually comprehensible meanings in a monolingual interaction involving differential competence in two or more languages. Boemer and Darquennes (chapter 9, p. 211) refer to Nelde’s idea that language conflict simply reflects underlying social conflicts: In the case of such language conflicts, language serves as a symbol which reflects as well as obscures the social conflicts that are at the heart of it (cf. Nelde 1997: 292).

13 This is particularly evident in a Europe in which widespread internal European migration and global immigration involving other (often less prestigious) languages characterises the demographic composition of a nation-state, and in which ethnic and linguistic differences can often be correlated with social class differences and wide differential levels of education.

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Although I agree with this conclusion, I also wish to suggest that conflict and competition are generated through a number of other differentials in the communicative space of language contact, which then become focused, in our own discourse archives, on language differences. Language contact/conflict researchers are certainly aware of this fact, as is implied by Darquennes’ statement in chapter 2 (p. 32) that “[t]he role of the different actors in language conflict settings, for example, deserves to be analysed in more detail.” This can be interpreted to suggest that, within large communicative spaces, a more detailed analysis of language contact situations involving different languages or language varieties and their histories should be brought into the present-day or historical occurrences of language contact, one in which ethnic, social class, educational, political and economic differences are given as much weight as language differences. And the places in which these differences can be found are in the history of borderline discourses on politics, education, ethnicity, economics and even international prestige, as we have seen throughout the present volume. All too often language differences are used as a smokescreen to obscure the generation of cooperation or conflict in these other areas. For instance, when Darquennes says in chapter 2 (p. 25) that “the study of language conflict [can be] seen as the study of differences of opinion or incompatibilities between two or more opinions on language in society”, he is, in effect, implying that these differences of opinion or incompatibility are grounded in social discourses and perhaps even frozen in discourse archives. At the end of chapter 8, Kessels-van der Heijde (p. 198) concludes her historical study of shifts between Dutch, the Maastricht dialect of Dutch and French in Maastricht during the 19th century by stressing the necessity to “pay attention to the interplay of the symbolic role of language, based on the prestige associated with French on the one hand, and its actual use in various contexts on the other hand”. In other words, the symbolic role of French as an international language will determine its use by middle-class citizens in certain social domains, but not in others.

6 Desiderata for further research The present volume gives us food for further thought in language contact and conflict situations and certainly justifies the restriction of its focus over the whole length of the Romance–Germanic language border to the borders between Dutch and French and German and French in the Low Countries. A detailed interdisciplinary study of the whole border is most certainly my first desideratum, as it would bring to light many of the issues raised in section 5. But as a simple exem-

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plification of the notorious difficulties in sorting out what might be going on in real-life contact situations, I trust the reader will excuse me for indulging in a short personal narrative that will, I hope, illustrate these difficulties. From 1999 till 2011, before moving down to the south of Switzerland, my wife and I lived in a French–Swiss German language border area. The little town in which we lived was situated at the southern end of the Lake of Biel, which was Swiss German-speaking, and going southwest to reach the town of Neuchâtel (obviously French-speaking), one could either go through a Swiss Germanspeaking village or, alternatively turn west, crossing a canal constructed in the 19th century between the Lake of Biel and the Lake of Neuchâtel and passing through a French-speaking village. The canal, in other words, was, from a historical point of view, relatively new, but where it was built had always been the “border” between Swiss German and French, and the canal simply “cemented” that border more clearly. Whenever we went across that canal, we automatically switched from speaking Swiss German to speaking French, which from our point of view was a logical thing to do. However, whenever people from west of the canal came across to “our” side to do their shopping, which was a frequent occurrence, they never switched to Swiss German.¹⁴ Swiss German-speaking shopkeepers and others immediately spoke French to them, and their French was good. My wife and I often discussed why this was so, and we were convinced that either the French speakers had received lessons in German at school but did not feel confident enough to use it (the “kind” interpretation) or that they had no intention of using it in the first place (the “unkind” interpretation). We were not interested in going into the matter in more detail, as life went on relatively smoothly either in French or in Swiss German, and that was not what I was researching on at the time anyway. But we have an interesting situation here, which, as far as I can judge, is confirmed at several other points along the Romance–Germanic border, at least as far as French is concerned, and it raises a number of important historical and also present-day issues. In the Low Countries Dutch speakers (and German speakers in Belgium, cf. chapter 9 by Boemer and Darquennes) have always felt under pressure by the presence of French. But in Switzerland things are, partly at least, the other way round. French speakers in the Canton of Vaud were under the domination of the Bernese till 1803, and the Canton of Neuchâtel passed from French to German domination throughout its history. Before 1814, when it finally joined the Swiss Confederation, it was in the hands of the kings of Prussia. The Canton of Fribourg joined the Swiss Confederation in 1481, and although it is bilingual, it has always had more French speakers

14 In 12 years living in the border area I only heard this happen once.

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than German speakers. This seems to indicate the significance of a loose association of states with the Swiss Confederation prior to the 19th century, each canton having a very “local” history, and with that its own local history of a language border and border encounters. Yet the behaviour of citizens of Neuchâtel when shopping in the Canton of Bern might indicate that French speakers, wherever they are along the border and whatever the local histories of domination might have been, are affected by a discursively instilled concept of French as the dominant language of Europe till the 19th century, the language of diplomacy, the language of government, the language of art and literature, the language of imperialism. This, of course, does not sound particularly flattering, but the constantly returning (on roughly a ten-year cycle) desire for French to be given more significance within Switzerland, particularly in the cantonal education systems, and the constant complaints that the Swiss Germans do not use “le bon allemand” indicate a strong belief in that imperialist French discourse archive in which French is somehow “better” than other languages, and it also belies a firm belief in the standard language as being the only legitimate means of communication. This is a hypothesis. It can never be proved or disproved, but on a small scale, research should try to prise out the language attitudes, beliefs and ideologies that emerge from looking at the language discourses of individual speakers of French – such as our French shoppers in the Canton of Bern. My second desideratum, therefore, is that much more detailed research should be carried out on the communicative spaces of language contact. My third desideratum is that this work should investigate the connections between the language use of individuals and their relationships between language (or language variety) and politics, education, the media, the family, ethnicity, social class, etc. both historically and in present time. The fourth desideratum is that an international data base containing the results of such research along the whole length of the Romance–Germanic language border should be set up and should be made accessible to sociolinguists and others interested in this field. I cannot think of a better place to keep such a data base than Brussels. My fifth and final desideratum is that, the next time such a volume is produced, we should hear the voices of French researchers along the language border.

References Babington, Churchill (ed.). 1865. Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden Monachi Cestrensis: Together with the English Translations of John Trevisa and of an Unknown Writer of the Fifteenth Century. 7 vols. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts and Green. Blommaert, Jan. 2005. Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Elspaß, Stephan. 2015. Private letters as a source for an alternative history of Middle New High German. In Anita Auer, Daniel Schreier & Richard J. Watts (eds.), Letter Writing and Language Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fauconnier, Gilles and Mark Turner. 2002. The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities. New York: Basic Books. Foucault, Michel. [1969] 1972. Archaeology of Knowledge. Transl. A. M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Vintage Books. Koch, Peter. 1997. Orality in literate cultures. In Clotilde Pontecorvo (ed.), Writing Development: An Interdisciplinary View, 149–171. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson. 2003. Metaphors We Live By. 2nd. ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson. 1999. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Philosophy. New York: Basic Books. McCawley, James. 1982. Thirty Million Theories of Grammar. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Milroy, James & Lesley Milroy. [1985] 2012. Authority in Language: Investigating Standard English. London: Routledge. Nelde, Peter H. 1997. Language conflict. In Florian Coulmas (ed.), The Handbook of Sociolinguistics, 285–300. Oxford: Blackwell. Swanton, Michael. 1996. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. London: J. M. Dent. Watts, Richard J. 1988. Language, dialect and national identity in Switzerland. Multilingua 7(3). 313–334. Watts, Richard J. 2000. Mythical strands in the ideology of prescriptivism. In Laura Wright (ed.), The Development of Standard Engliah 1300–1800: Theories, Descriptions, Conflicts, 29–48. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Watts, Richard J. 2011. Language Myths and the History of English. New York: Oxford University Press. William of Malmesbury. 2007. Gesta Pontificum Anglorum. Vol. 1: Text and Translation. Ed. and transl. by M. Winterbottom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Index Bold page numbers indicate figures; italic indicate tables.

1302, canonisation of 92–98 Aachen 47 Aankondigingsblad der Provincie Limburg 183–184 Absillis, Kevin 72n 13 académies 127 action-oriented system of beliefs 69 Actioun Lëtzebuergesch 242–243, 250 actors, varied roles of 32, 292 administrative functions, languages for – in Belgium 52, 208–209, 217 – French in Europe generally 294 – in the Land van Overmaas 47, 51 – in Luxembourg 52, 235, 237, 241–242 – in Maastricht 173, 176, 183 – and minority languages generally 28, 30 – in the Netherlands 71, 74, 116, 118, 121, 124, 147, 149 advertisements (in newspapers) 180–187 AG (Annales Gandenses) 94–95, 95n 15, 96, 97, 98n 25, 100, 101–102, 105, 107, 108 Agar, Michael 68n 9 age, as variable in suffix-loan study 161–162 Ager, D. 210 Ahn, E. 228 Ainsworth, P. 106 n44 Alberts, W. Jappe 173 Algemeen Nederlands [‘Common Dutch’] 72n 12, 73 Alsace 13, 41, 56 Altbelgien/ Old Belgium 47, 51, 56, 213–214, 221n 19, 226 Ami des intérêts Limbourgeois/ du Limbourg, L’ 186–187 Ammon, Ulrich 22, 40, 52, 210 Amsterdam – cosmopolitanism 133 – and English 121–122 – and frenchification 160, 163n 21, 165 – publishing 117–118 – representation in letter corpora 155

Ancien Régime 2, 47, 51, 180 Antwerp 50, 119, 121, 124 – Fall of Antwerp 63, 73, 77 Arbeit, Die 216, 220 aristocracy, see elite groups Arlon/ Arel 213 “artificial language conflicts” 22 assimilationist policies 215, 219, 229, 245 asymmetrical vs. symmetrical multilingualism 11, 23–24 Aubel 221n 19 “Ausbau” languages 27 “Ausgleich” 29 Austria 77, 144, 147, 278n 1 authenticity, and language standardisation 26 autodidactic language learning 120–121 autonomy, principles of 257 Aviso de la Meuse, L’ 185, 186 awareness, linguistic, see perception, linguistic Bachrach, A. G. H. 118 Badensian dialect 285 Baetens Beardsmore, Hugo 50, 250, 255, 257 Bakel, Jan van 155 Baldauf, R. 210 Balkan region 62 Baltia, Herman 209 Basque-Spanish language conflict 22 Batavian Republic 135, 137 Battle of Courtrai/ Battle of the Golden Spurs 6, 91, 92–98 Bayle, Pierre 117, 127 Beal, Joan 147 Beckers, R. 183 Behr family 191–192, 193, 194, 195 Belgium – Antwerp 50, 119, 121, 124 – Belgian Revolution 144, 178, 183 – Decree (Huysmans’) 216, 221, 222–223 – depolarisation 266, 269–270, 271

298   

   Index

– Dutch-French border 42, 44–51, 80 – education 207–229, 255–272 – Eupen-Malmedy 207–229 – as example of state-wide language conflict 28 – federalisation 255, 256, 257, 261, 263, 265, 271, 285–286 – as focus of much previous work 1–2, 3 – Franco-Flemish conflict (1297–1305) 91–112 – German-speaking Belgium 51–52, 207–229 – independence 171, 178, 182–184 – “language border” (Belgium, 1962) 257 – language census 45–46, 50, 175, 228, 261, 266 – language riots 24–25 – Liège 8, 47, 52, 173, 177, 180, 183, 207 – New Belgium/ Old Belgium 51–52 – Old Belgium/ Altbelgien 47, 51, 56, 213–214, 221n 19, 226 – political conflict (post-war) 255 – “Poullet Law” 213, 214, 220 – and sociolinguistic vs. geographic borders 55 – super-diverse Belgium/ Brussels 81–82 – territoriality principle 4–5, 39–40, 45, 49, 52, 56, 79–80, 210, 217, 257, 285–286 – see also Brussels Berkvens-Stevelinck, Christiane 118 Berlaimont, Noël de 145 Bernardus of Ypres 96, 97 Bertl, J. 209 Biel/ Bienne 28 Biemans, J. A. A. M. 92n 4 bilingualism – bilingual cities and language conflict 28 – bilingualisation 5, 56 – in Brussels 48–49, 79–81, 82, 256–270 – criticisms of 222 – diglossia 7, 30, 172, 174–176, 182, 184 – the individual in language conflict studies 21–22 – in Luxembourg 234, 237, 238 – in Maastricht 173–174, 181–182, 194 – and monolingualisation 56 – and a richer conceptualisation of “language borders” 286 – in South Tyrol 42

– in Switzerland 293–294 – Walferdange bilingual school project 54, 247–250 – see also code-mixing; code-switching; multilingualism; trilingualism biliteracy 238, 248 Bischoff, Heinrich 216n 12 Bister Broosen, Helga 41 Blommaert, Jan 69, 235, 278 Boekholt, P. Th. F. M. 145, 146 Boemer, Magali 10, 11, 40, 219n 16, 291 Boendale, Jan van 93n 7, 95n 18 Bogers, A. W. M. 180, 181, 182 Bonhomme family 193, 195 book trade 128, 130, 131, 132, 133, 137 Booy, E. P. de 145, 146 “borders” – conclusions on the concept of 284–287 – demarcation lines 54–56, 80, 284 – difficulty in defining 54–56 – internal language borders 282, 284–285, 286 – “language border” (Belgium, 1962) 257 – national vs. linguistic 284–285 – as site of language contact and conflict 1–2 – sociolinguistic vs. geographic borders 55 – typology of language borders 54–56 borrowing – borrowing scale 20 – conventionalisation of loanwords 153 – empirical study into French loanwords into Dutch 8, 152–166 – and frenchification 116–117, 132, 143, 148–149, 288 – imitation vs. adaptation (in borrowings) 153 – and language conflict studies generally 20 – and language “contamination” 283 – and linguistic purism 76, 283 – in Luxembourg 249 – as markers of language attitude 99, 101–104, 108, 111 – opposition to 148 – unborrowable linguistic features 20 Bots, Hans 118 Bourchenin, Pierre-Daniel 127 Brabant 48, 51, 93n 7, 104n 40, 124

Index   

Brabantsche Yeesten 93n 7, 95n 18 Brans, M. 265 Braunmüller, K. 2 Bredero, Gerbrand Adriaensz 117 Bree, Cor van 66, 73, 75, 78, 79, 81, 82, 117, 146, 149, 150 Briels, J. G. C. A. 119 Britain, David 277 BRL (Branche des royaux lignages) 94, 96, 97, 98n 25, 102, 106, 107, 108 Browne, Samuel 123 Bruges – Bruges Matins 92, 99, 102, 104, 105, 111 – Dutch in the upper classes 189 – working class language in 175 Brussels – and bilingualisation 56 – Brussels Capital Region (BCR) 258, 263–265, 271 – the Brussels suburban region (Randegemeenten) 48–49 – contact vs. conflict, in post-war Brussels 255–272 – Dutch-French bilingual community 44 – education in 255–272 – and frenchification 151 – as multilingual city 39, 44, 48–51, 175 – Schaerbeek riots 24 – and standard language ideologies 73, 74, 79–81 – super-diverse Belgium/ Brussels 81–82 – uprisings against language laws 178 Buchon, J.-A. 99n 29, 100, 109, 110 buffer-zones 125, 144 “Bund der Deutsch- Belgier” 216n 12 Burger, Peter 66 Burgundian era 116, 149 Burke, Peter 61, 145, 147, 191 Burkhardt, Armin 74n 15 Bury-Lefebvre, H. A. 184 Busby, K. 12, 14 Busse, D. 212 CA (Chronique artésienne) 93–94, 96, 97, 98, 106, 107, 108 Cajot, José 153n 8 Calmes, C. 237, 238

   299

Calvet, Louis-Jean 19, 28 Calvinism 122, 123–124, 127 Caraccioli, Marquis of 134 Carlier, D. 263 Castel de Saint-Pierre, Abbé CharlesIrénée 131 Catalan-Spanish language conflict 22, 40 ‘catchwords’ 74n 15 Catholicism 110, 123–124, 127, 215, 219, 226–227, 237, 239, 258 Catterall, Douglas 121 Cattoir, Ph. 264 CC (Continuatio Claromariscensis) 96, 96, 97, 98n 25, 100, 105n 43, 107, 108 Celtic 41 Censeur Public, Le 181, 182 censorship 118, 132, 177, 182, 228 census, language 45–46, 50, 175, 228, 261, 266 Charles V, Emperor 144 Charrière, Isabelle de 128 Chesterfield, Earl of 134 child language acquisition 280 Christmann, H. 220 Chronique métrique (CM) 95–96 Claes, F. 148n 2 Clemens, L. 215, 220 CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) 270 Clyne, Michael 20, 243 CM (Chronique métrique) 96, 97, 98, 106, 107, 108, 109 coastal areas, and frenchification 159–160 code-mixing 148–149, 192–193, 249 code-switching – in Brussels 82 – historical code-switching research 14 – and language conflict studies 20 – in Luxembourg 249 – as marker of language attitude 99, 108–110, 111 – in medieval Flanders 12 – morpho-syntactic constraints on 20 codification 26, 61–62 Coetsem, Frans van 2, 153, 154 cognitive linguistics 68–69, 287 colonialism, linguistic 210

300   

   Index

commerce/ trade, languages for – English 122–123 – French 8, 116, 119, 128, 129, 133, 145, 146, 177, 191, 196 – in Luxembourg 233 – in Maastricht 176, 177, 179, 183, 185, 188, 190–191 ‘Common Dutch’ 72n 12, 73 “communication disruptions” 22 – see also language conflict “communicative space” 279, 287–290, 291–292 Community Profiles 31 competence, multilingual 53, 63, 68, 72 complaint tradition 143, 281 Congress of Vienna 51, 144 Conrad, Sarah Jane 28 Contact and Conflict conferences 19 contamination, fear of 281, 282–283 Conversi, D. 266 Cooper, Robert L. 29, 33 Coornhert, Dirck Volckertszoon 148, 149n 4 Corneille 135 corpora – creating new ways to analyse texts 106 – and the discourse analytical approach 65 – empirical study into French loanwords into Dutch 152, 155–156 – family archives 189–190 – lack of spoken corpora 175, 290 – letter corpora 155–156, 289 – need for more corpus-driven analysis 289 – newspapers in Eupen-Malmedy 211–212, 219–228 – newspapers in Maastricht 180 – textbooks on the history of Dutch 65–82 corpus policy and planning 29–30 correctness, ideology of 62–65, 69, 72–73, 76, 281 cosmopolitanism 130–135 Council of Europe 30 Council of the League of Nations 207, 209 Courrier de la Meuse, Le 195 Critical Discourse Analysis 5, 10, 32, 65, 98n 26, 207, 211 Croatian 27 Croenen, G. 106 n44

culture – and French 131–133, 136, 149, 150–152, 173, 177, 183, 237, 241, 294 – inter/ intra-cultural communication 21–22 – Maastricht dialect used for 178–179 “cultureme” theory 21–22 Czech 145 Dal, L. 266 Daniëls, Wim 67, 71, 74, 75, 77, 78, 81, 82 Darquennes, Jeroen 1, 2, 3, 10, 11, 26, 30, 40, 52, 207, 209, 216n 12, 226n 38, 279, 291, 292 Das Gupta, Jyotirindra 28 database of research on Romance-Germanic border 294 Davies, Winifred V. 62, 64, 148, 240–241 de Baar, Mirjam 120 Deboosere, P. 255, 269 de Bot, Kees 24 ‘decay stories’ 70–78 Decloedt-Pincon, D. 92 De Coorebyter, V. 264 Decree (Huysmans’) 216, 221, 222–223 De Eglantier (‘The Eglantine’) 149n 4 De Hemptinne, T. 93n 8 De Keere, Kobe 1, 83n 22, 91 Delcamp, Alain 263 Delft 121 Délices de la Hollande (de Parival, 1651) 120 De Limburger 184–185, 186, 197 Delisle, L. 94n 11, 102, 103 Delwit, P. 262 demarcation lines 54–56, 80, 284 De Metsenaere, Machteld 45, 46, 49, 175, 256, 260, 261 democracy – pacification democracy model 256–257, 261 – and standard language ideologies 64–65, 69 demographic status of groups 288, 289–290 Deneckere, Marcel 151 De Pelsmaecker, T. 208n 4 De peregrinatione Gallica utiliter instituenda tractatus (Erpenius, 1631) 126

Index   

depolarisation (in Belgium) 266, 269–270, 271 De Ridder, Paul 147, 151 de Ridder Symoens, Hilde 126 derivational morphology 8, 153–165 Der Landbote 217, 221 Deschouwer, K. 48, 255, 257 De Schryver, Reginald 46, 48 De Smet, J. J. 93, 95n 15, 102n 34, 108 Detant, A. 48 De Their family 194 Deumert, Ana 26, 29, 64 Deutschsprachige Gemeinschaft 52 De Vlaamse Leeuw 97 De Volkstribuun 187 De Vriendt, Sera. 49 de Vries, John 32 De Wailly, N. 94n 11, 102, 103 Deweerdt, Marc 46 Dewinter, L. 262 De Witte, K. 48 dialects – in Alsace 41 – dialect continuum areas 285 – dialectisation 149, 150 – dialect synthesis 29 – Dutch dialect in Brussels 50 – Dutch in Netherlands 71, 149, 150, 151 – Flemish 43–44 – in German-speaking areas of Belgium 51 – in Luxembourg 40 – Luxembourgish (not) dialect of German 240–242 – Mestreechs (Maastricht dialect) 171, 173, 178–179, 185, 188, 197 – Moselfränkisch dialect 40, 233 – negative attitudes to 76 – and social prestige 50 – and social vs. geographic variables 54–55 – and standard language ideologies 62–63, 283 – written dialects 179 – and written sources 175 – see also varieties diasystems 21–22, 25, 27–28 Dibbets, B. C. J. (General) 178, 183, 193 Dibbets, G. R.W. 149

   301

Dibon, Paul 119, 126 dictionaries – grammars and dictionaries 61, 122, 145, 149n 4, 151 – purist dictionaries 148 dictionaries and grammars 61, 122, 145, 149n 4, 151 Die Arbeit 216, 220 Diederich, V. 239 Die Fliegende 216, 221n 19 Die Rundschau 217 diglossia 7, 30, 172, 174–176, 182, 184 diplomacy, languages for 1, 7, 116, 128, 145, 146, 294 direct speech, in medieval sources 108–110, 111 discourse analytical approaches, see Critical Discourse Analysis discourse archives 278, 284, 285, 292, 294 discourse models, and standard language ideologies 65, 68–69, 70–82, 83–84 discreteness, of languages 61, 63–64, 68, 76, 82, 235, 240–242 Dittmar, Norbert 172, 174 Dodde, N. L. 145 Does de Willebois family 196 domains of language use 78, 144–147, 147–152, 171–172, 174–176 – see also specific domains e.g. education, commerce Dordrecht 121 double overlapping diglossia 174 Dries, J. 214 Drouart, André 264n 3 Dua, Hans Raij 24, 25 dual monolingual education services 256, 261, 263 Duchêne, A. 235 Duchhardt, Heinz 131 Dufournet, J. 103n 38 Duke of Anjou 123 Dumbrava, Vasile 32 Dumont, H. 261 Dumont, P. 262 Dumoulin family 190–191, 192, 194 Dunbabin, J. 95n 21 Dunkirk 12, 43, 284

302   

   Index

Durand, U. 96n 22, 105n 43 Dutch – Algemeen Nederlands [‘Common Dutch’] 72n 12, 73 – in Belgium 42–51, 216, 217–219, 220 – in Brussels 9, 256, 258–266, 267, 268, 269–270, 271–272 – Dutch-French border 4–5, 8, 24, 42–51, 69–82, 284 – Dutch-German border 285 – dutchification 79 – in the early and late modern Dutch Republic 146–152, 286 – in the early modern Dutch Republic 115, 118–119, 130 – in French Flanders 12 – in German-speaking areas of Belgium 51–52 – as language of scholarship 134, 136 – in Maastricht 171, 173, 177–179, 179–198, 286 – Middle Dutch in medieval Flanders 93, 95, 96, 99–103, 104n 40, 105, 108–110 – Schaerbeek riots 24 – in Southern Low Countries 63 – textbooks on the history of Dutch (as corpus) 65–82 – see also frenchification Dutch: Biography of a Language (Willemyns 2013) 67n 7, 83 Dutch Revolt 144 Eclaireur, L’ 183–184 ecolinguistics 19, 23, 31 Edict of Nantes 123, 127 Edict of Villers-Cotterêts 129 education – acquisition policy and planning 30–31 – in Brussels 50–51, 255–272 – and “communicative spaces” 289–290 – in the early/ late modern Dutch Republic 119–121, 122, 129–130, 145–146, 151, 161 – Eupen-Malmedy 10, 207–229 – immersion education 244, 248, 270 – and language borders generally 284 – in Luxembourg 53–54, 233–251

– in Maastricht 176, 177, 182–183 – and nationhood 233–251 – see also language-in-education policies; language of instruction; secondary school education Ehlich, Konrad 22 Eichinger, Ludwig 41 Eisner, Paul 222 elaboration (stage in language planning model) 26–27 Elchardus, Mark 1, 83n 22, 91 elite groups – and frenchification 125–129, 131–135, 136–137, 145, 150, 151 – and French in Brussels 256 – influence on language choice 49 – in Luxembourg 52, 53, 234 – in Maastricht 173–174 – nobility 124, 131–133, 155 Elmiger, Daniel 28 Elsevier 117 Elspaß, Stephan 63, 290 emergent social practice 279, 283, 287, 291 emotion, in language conflict situations 26, 28 endangered languages 149, 235, 236, 242, 251 – ‘decay stories’ 70–78 Endepols, H. J. E. 173 Engelberts, Rev E. M. 134 England 119, 121–123, 126, 134, 136 English – in Brussels 51, 82 – as “contaminant” of French 283 – in the early/ late modern Dutch Republic 121–123, 130, 137, 145 – English-French border 22, 28 – hybridisation 286 – Irish-English language conflict 22 – language myths about 281, 282–283 – loanwords 148 – in Luxembourg 53, 241, 248 – Middle English 94n 13 – in Switzerland 290n 12 English Tyranny, The 136 Enlightenment 177 – see also Republic of Letters

Index   

Epistola de Tolerantia (Locke, 1685) 123 erasure, and language ideologies 62 erosion, language 55–56 Erpenius, Thomas 126 essentialist notion of a language 6, 280–283, 287 ethnicity – ethno-cultural markers 255 – ethnolinguistic essentialism 11, 235, 244–245, 249, 250–251, 285 – ethnolinguistic identity 10–11 – not necessarily linked to language 81–82 Eupen 10, 207–229 Eupener Nachrichten 217 Eupener Zeitung 214, 217, 221, 225 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages 30 European focus of book 23 European Union 22, 54, 233, 235, 242, 248 Evans, Edward 122 Ex Courrier 181, 182 explicit language perceptions/ judgements 98–100 faciliteiten (linguistic facilities) 46, 48, 81, 209 Fahenwort 79 Fall of Antwerp 63, 73, 77 family life, language for 176, 179, 189–197 Fasold, Ralph 174 federalisation (of Belgium) 255, 256, 257, 261, 263, 265, 271, 285–286 Fehlen, Fernand 52–54 Feller, F. X. de 180 femmes savantes 120, 128 Ferguson, Charles 30, 31 Ferraresi, G. 2 finance, languages for 129, 233 Fishman, Joshua A. 26, 28, 172, 174 Fittbogen, G. 214 Flanders – and the Dutch-French border 42, 43, 44–45, 46, 48, 49–51, 55 – and the Fall of Antwerp 63 – and federalisation of Belgium 265–266 – Flemish Community in Belgium 208, 209, 258–259, 263–265, 267–268, 271–272

   303

– Franco-Flemish conflict (1297–1305) 91–112 – French Flanders 12, 43–44, 284 – and frenchification 77–78, 159–160, 165 – language education in 226 – language laws 81 – and linguistic domains 175, 176 – medieval vs. modern borders 91n 3 – monolingual Flanders 78–82, 257 – multilingualism 12 – and standard language ideologies 68 – and treaties with France 124 – and tussentaal (‘intermediate language’) 72–73, 84 Flemish – and the Dutch-French border 42, 43 – Flemish Community in Belgium 209 – Flemish Movement/ Flemish activism 45, 50, 78, 151, 226, 256, 257, 260–261, 271 – Flemish Rim 81 – Franco-Flemish conflict (1297–1305) 91–112 – Het verhaal van het Vlaams (Willemyns and Daniëls, 2003) 67 – identity as Flemish in Brussels 268 – schild en vriend (Flemish shibboleth) 92n 6, 99, 102, 104, 105, 111 – and standard language ideologies 73, 76 Fliegende, Die 216, 221n 19 foreign language teaching – in Brussels 270 – and the Dutch-French border 44, 53 – in the early modern Dutch Republic 117, 120 – in Eupen-Malmedy 211, 213, 214–215, 216, 217–218, 221–223, 224–228 – in the late modern Dutch Republic 145 – in Luxembourg 234, 239 – and multilingualism 14 – in Switzerland 290n 12 formality/ informality, and variety choice 72n 13, 174, 175, 176, 192, 193, 288 Foucault, Michel 278 France – Alsace 41 – Dunkirk 12, 43, 284 – and the early/ late modern Dutch Republic 135–137, 144 – Franco-Flemish conflict (1297–1305) 91–112

304   

   Index

– French occupation of the Netherlands 75, 93, 135, 137, 144, 161, 171–172, 177 – French Revolution 43 – and the grand tour 122, 125–128, 133, 136, 288 – Huguenots 14, 118, 122, 124, 127–128, 129, 133, 145 – Paris 126, 133, 134 – political power of 123–125, 128–129 – and the Romance-Germanic border 39 francomania/ Franschdolheyd 75, 147, 150 francophilia 134, 150 Frank-van Westrienen, Anna 126 Franquinet, G. D. L. 173 Franziskus, A. 233 Frederick II, King (of Prussia) 134 freedom of speech 179 “freedom of the head of the family” principle 50–51 Freemasonry 133 French – in Alsace 41 – in Belgium 42–52, 73, 208, 213–219, 220, 221–223, 224–228 – in Brussels 9, 256, 258–259, 262, 264–265, 267, 268, 270, 271–272 – and culture 131–133, 136, 149, 150–152, 173, 177, 183, 237, 241, 294 – Dutch-French border 4–5, 8, 24, 42–51, 69–82, 284 – in the early modern Dutch Republic 115–137 – English-French border 22, 28, 283 – French-German border 42n 3, 208–209 – as international language 116, 128–130, 133–135, 191, 292 – as language of the “other” 6–7, 109 – in Luxembourg 40, 52–54, 233–234, 237–251 – in Maastricht 171, 173, 177–179, 179–198 – Old French in medieval Flanders 93–94, 95, 96, 100, 101, 102–103, 104–106, 108–110, 111 – Picard French 12, 93, 108n 48, 277 – in Switzerland 41, 293 – for trade/ commerce 8, 116, 119, 128, 129, 133, 145, 146, 177, 191, 196

French Community (Belgium) 258, 263–264, 270, 271–272 – see also Wallonia frenchification – in Belgium 51–52, 215, 220–221 – as ‘bilingualisation’ 56 – in Brussels 48–49, 50, 256, 260, 271 – and the Dutch-French border 43, 47–49 – vs. dutchification 79 – in the early/ late modern Dutch Republic 7–8, 73–77, 115–137, 143–166, 286, 288–289 – in Flanders 226 – in Maastricht 171–198 – and metalinguistic identity work 11 – “mythical strands” 151 – need for more research on 13 – opposition to 148–149, 150 – and standard language ideologies 77–78 French occupation of the Netherlands 75, 93, 135, 137, 144, 161, 171–172, 177 French Schools 119, 145, 146, 183 French Tyranny, The 135–137 Fresco, Marcel Franz 128 Friesland 24–25, 40 Frijhoff, Willem 7, 13, 78, 115n 1, 116, 118, 126, 127, 129, 130, 131, 144, 145, 146, 150, 151, 155n 14, 171, 172, 191, 283, 286, 288 Frisian 25, 144 frontaliers (‘border-crossing commuters’) 233, 242 Funck-Brentano, F. 93, 94n 9, 95n 16, 101, 102, 105 Furly, Benjamin 123 future research – code-switching and language mixing 13–14 – “communicative spaces” 294 – comparative research 13 – corpus-based empirical analysis 13, 106–107, 289 – database of research on Romance-Germanic border 294 – desiderata 292–294 – French Flanders 12 – frenchification 13, 165 – individual language user(s) 13, 21–22, 196, 198, 294

Index   

– interdisciplinary research 176, 292–293 – language conflict 32–33 – larger European perspective 13 – multilingualism in medieval Flanders 12 – perspective “from below” 14 – societal multilingualism 13 – source-driven research into individual language choice 196, 198 – standardisation process 282 – standard language ideologies 83–84 – this book paves the way for 278 – voice of French researchers 294 Gal, Susan 61, 62, 69, 71n 11, 235 ‘Gallic’ 105 gallophilia vs. francophilia 134 gallus amicus, non vicinus 125 Garcia, O. 250 Gardeazabal, Javier 32 Gazette du Duché de Limbourg 184 Gee, James Paul 65 Geeraerts, Dirk 68, 69 Gelderblom, Oscar 119 genesis of the language border 40–41 geolinguistics 19 Georges, S. 237, 238 German – in Alsace 41 – Badensian dialect 285 – Dutch-German border 285 – in the early/ late modern Dutch Republic 122, 130, 137, 144, 145 – and English 283n 9 – French-German border 28, 42n 3 – German-speaking Belgium 40, 51–52, 207–229, 257 – High German 51, 53, 120, 285 – in Limburg 42 – loanwords 148 – in Luxembourg 40, 52–54, 233–234, 237–251 – separation from Luxembourgish 239–240 – in South Tyrol 41–42 – status in Belgium 40 – Swiss German 42n 3, 282n 5, 282n 8, 285, 293 German Empire 125, 127, 129, 136

   305

Germanic-Slavic border 13, 278n 2 Geschiedenis van het Nederlands (Van der Wal and Bree, 1992) 66, 67–69, 73 n14 Ghai, Y. 257 Gilles, Peter 52, 233 globalisation 255, 256 Goossens, Jan 47, 51 grammar – and code-switching 109–110 – derivational morphology 153–166 grammars and dictionaries 61, 122, 145, 149n 4, 151 grand tour 122, 125–128, 133, 136, 288 grassroots/ bottom-up language standardisation 31 Great Britain 121–123 Greek 120, 129 Grenz-Echo 212, 215, 216, 221, 222–223, 224–225 Grondelaers, Stefan 84 Groof, Jetje de 68n 8, 151 group identity 6, 8, 10 Gubin, Elise 45, 50 Guenée, Simonne 127 Guiart, Guillaume 94, 95n 19, 97, 100, 103 guild membership 146, 175 Gulpen, Gijsbertus Bartholomeus van 181 Gulpen, Johannes van 180, 181 Haarmann, Harald 19, 21, 31 Habets, J. 173 Habsburg period 2, 77–78, 144, 149 Hachepé 108n 49 Hague, The 117, 118, 122, 123 Haks, Donald 136 Hanssen, Samuel Trouillart 185 Hardeveld, Ike van 148n 3 Hasquin, Hervé 147n 1 Haugen, Einar 19, 26, 31 Hazard, Paul 131 Hazebroek 43 Heerlen 187 Heimatbund (‘homeland federation’) 220 Hélary, X. 95n 18, 95n 19, 95n 21, 96 Heller, M. 235 Helmers, Jan Frederik 135 Hemsterhuis, François 128

306   

   Index

Henry IV, King (of France) 123 Héraud, Guy 52 Het Nederlands vroeger en nu (Janssens and Marynissen, 2003) 66, 67–69 Het verhaal van een taal (De Vries, Willemyns and Burger, 1993) 66, 67–69 Het verhaal van het Vlaams (Willemyns and Daniëls, 2003) 67, 77 hierachisation of varieties, ideology of 5, 62–65, 71, 73, 76, 235, 281 Higden, Ranulf 281, 282 High German 51, 53, 120, 285 Hillenius, François 122 historical sociolinguistics, book’s place in 2, 3, 277, 278, 283 historiography, language 61–65, 84, 92–98, 150 Hitler, rise of 219 Hofman, H. A. 119 Hofman, Johan 148n 3 Holland – and the Dutch-German border 42 – Dutch Republic (early modern) 115–137 – and frenchification 7, 115, 116, 120, 137, 146, 155, 159–160, 171 – Kingdom of Holland 172 – Napoleonic Kingdom of Holland 137, 144, 177 – separation from Belgium 178 – see also Netherlands Hooft, Pieter Cornelisz 117 Hooghe, L. 258, 261 Hooghe, Romeyn de 135 Hornberger, Nancy 29 Horner, Kristine 1, 8, 10, 40, 53, 54, 234, 235, 241, 246, 247, 284, 289 Horst, Joop van der 72n 12 Horst, Kees van der 72n 12, 151 Howell, Robert 146, 154 Hroch, M. 255 Huguenots, French 14, 118, 122, 124, 127–128, 129, 133, 145 Huls, C. 238 humanism 128, 129 Hungarian 145 Hüning, Matthias 63, 81n 20 Huydecoper, Balthazar 64

Huygens, Christiaan 146 Huygens, Constantijn 117, 118–119, 146 Huysmans, Camille 216, 221, 222, 223, 228 hybridisation 286, 289 idealised homogenous varieties 150 ‘ideal’ speakers 68 identity – and conceptualisation of a language variety 6, 280–281 – in the early modern Dutch Republic 118 – ethnic and national identity and language conflict 22 – ethnolinguistic identity 10–11, 81–82, 235, 244–245, 249, 250–251, 285 – Franco-Flemish conflict (1297–1305) 6, 91–112 – group identity 6, 8, 10 – ‘imposed identity’ regimes 244–245, 247, 261–262, 267, 271 – language as ethno-cultural marker 255–272 – metalinguistic identity work 11 – ‘otherness’ 6–7, 109–110, 111, 282, 285 ideologies – complaint tradition 143, 281 – vs. discourse models 68–69 – ethnolinguistic essentialism 11, 235, 244–245, 249, 250–251, 285 – and frenchification 150–152 – ideology of correctness 5, 62–65, 69, 72–73, 76, 281 – ideology of hierachisation of varieties 5, 62–65, 71, 73, 76, 235, 281 – liberal ideologies 84 – “multilingualism is automatically progressive” 250 – one-nation-one-language principle 5, 49, 62, 64–65, 69, 80–81, 235, 249, 282, 284n 10 – and the self-reflexive researcher 279 – socio-cultural construction of language ideologies 280–281 – standard language ideologies 61–65, 235, 281–282, 283 Illustrious School 127 imitation vs. adaptation (in borrowings) 153 immersion education 244, 248, 270

Index   

immigration, see migration impediments/ blocks, in language conflict situations 21–22 implementation (stage in language planning model) 26 implicit textual markers of language attitude 98–99, 100–110, 111 ‘imposed identity’ regimes 244–245, 247, 261–262, 267, 271 individual language user(s), as research focus 21–22, 294 industrialisation 43, 179, 238 informal language 72n 13, 174, 175, 176, 192, 193, 288 Inglehart, Robert 19 “inscribed orality”, signs of 290 institutionalisation 27 insults 98–99 integration, discourses of 235, 246–247, 251 interdisciplinary research 3, 19, 176, 292–293 inter/ intra-cultural communication 21–22 internal language borders 282, 284–285, 286 international languages – English as 248 – French 116, 121, 128–130, 133–135, 191, 292 – lingua francas 115, 121, 125, 130, 177, 244, 246 intuitive consensus 55 Irish-English language conflict 22 Irvine, Judith 62, 69, 235 islands, language 41 isoglosses 43, 55 Israel, Jonathan I. 123 Italian – in the early modern Dutch Republic 120, 122, 129 – in Luxembourg 239, 247 – in South Tyrol 41–42 – in Switzerland 41 Italy – and the grand tour 126 – Italian migrants in Luxembourg 239 – Ladin in 29 – Romance-Germanic border extends to 13

   307

– as source of civilisation 133–134 – see also South Tyrol iter gallicum 125–128 Jahr, Ernst Håkon 26 Jaminé, J. L. 183 Jans, M. T. 261, 266 Jansenism 133 Janssen, J. P. 182, 183 Janssens, Guy 66, 67, 70, 73, 74, 75, 76, 82, 149, 150, 260 Janssens, Rudi 9, 10, 39, 50, 51, 81n 21, 258, 263, 267, 268, 270, 284, 289, 290 Jaspers, Jürgen 81n 21 Jaucourt, Louis de 136 Jernudd, Björn 28 Jesuits 133 Jewish communities 133 Jourdan, Annie 137 Journal de la Province de Limbourg 182–183 Journal de Maestricht, Affiches, Annonces et Avis divers 182, 184 Journal du Département de la Meuse Inférieure 181–182 Journal du Limbourg 183–184, 186 Joy, Richard J. 19 Jurieu, Pierre 117, 127 Kamusella, T. 13 Kaplan, R. 210 Kaufman, Terrence 21 Kavadia, D. 257 Kazamias, Andreas 258 Keblusek, Marika 123 Keere, Kobe de 1, 83n 22, 91 Kelly, Helen 1 Kessels-van der Heijde, Marina C. A. 1, 7, 13, 47, 171n 1, 176, 283, 286, 290, 292 Kestemont, M. 93n 7, 95 Klein, C. 248 Kleinhenz, C. 12, 14 Kloss, Heinz 27 “kneppelfreed” (“truncheon Friday”) 24–25 Knooihuizen, R. 12, 43 Koenig, Lucien 239 koinë languages 53 Kretzer, Hartmut 128

308   

   Index

Krysmanski, Hans Jürgen 24 Kulyk, V. 256, 258, 261 Labrie, Normand 23, 32 Ladin 26, 29–30 Laitin, David 25 Lamarcq, D. 2 Lambert, V. 96, 97n 24, 99n 27 L’Ami des intérêts Limbourgeois/ du Limbourg 186–187 Landbote, Der 217, 221 Land van Overmaas 47, 51 Langer, Nils 64, 148 “language border” (Belgium, 1962) 257 language choice 2, 8, 14, 144–147 language conflict – conclusions on the concept of 291–292 – contact vs. conflict, in Brussels 255–272 – Dutch-French conflict 69–82 – in German-speaking areas of Belgium 207–229 – “latent” vs. “manifest” language conflict 24, 33 – management of language conflict 28–31 – stratification of language conflict 11 – theoretical research 19–33 language contact – and communicative space 287–290 – conclusions on the concept of 278–279 – and language conflict studies 20–21, 23, 33 – “myth of contamination through contact” 281, 282–283 – speakers contact not languages 287 language death, see language endangerment language ecology 19, 23, 31 language endangerment 43–44, 71, 149, 235, 236, 242, 251, 284 – ‘decay stories’ 70–78 – see also frenchification language faculty 279–283 language historiography 61–65, 84, 92–98, 150 language-in-education policies – in Brussels 9, 255–272 – in Eupen-Malmedy 10, 210–212, 216, 217–218, 222–228, 229

– immersion education 244, 248, 270 – in Luxembourg 9, 233–251 – as major research tradition 9 – “Poullet Law” 213, 214, 220 language legislation – 1823 language laws (William I of the Netherlands) 177, 183, 192, 193 – 1932 language law in Belgium 45, 212, 217–219, 225, 228–229 – 1963 language law in Brussels 261 – 1984 language law in Luxembourg 233, 234–235, 242 – in Belgium 45, 46, 50, 52, 81, 212–213, 216–217, 221, 222–223 – in Brussels 256–257, 260–261 – Decree (Huysmans’) 216, 221, 222–223 – in Netherlands 177–178, 182–183, 192 – protests against language laws 24, 178 – in South Tyrol 42 – in Switzerland 41 – see also language planning language loss/ language death 43–44, 71, 149, 284 language mixing 14, 80 – see also code-mixing “language of immediacy” 290 language of instruction – in Belgium 213–215, 219 – in Brussels 256, 260, 270 – in Eupen-Malmedy 216, 217–218, 222–228 – and frenchification 146 – in the Land van Overmaas 47 – in Luxembourg 53, 234, 238 – in Maastricht 177, 182–183 – in the Netherlands 119 language planning – acquisition policy and planning 30–31 – in Belgium 46–47, 48–51 – and demarcation lines 55–56 – and language conflict 26, 28 – and language-in-education policy 210 – language shift reversal 30 – LPP (language policy and planning) 28–29 – in Luxembourg 1, 40, 233–251 – and societal multilingualism generally 1 – in South Tyrol 41–42 – in Switzerland 41

Index   

– theoretical research 19–33 – see also language-in-education policies; territoriality principle language policy – in Brussels 256–257 – and language conflict 28 – LPP (language policy and planning) 28–29 – in Luxembourg 235 – in Maastricht 177–178, 182–183, 192, 194 – in Switzerland 41 – see also language-in-education policies; language legislation; language planning language(s) – as cause or symbol of language conflict 23 – demarcation lines 54–56, 80, 284 – and discourses of endangerment 235, 236, 242, 251 – discreteness of 61, 63–64, 68, 76, 82, 235, 240–242 – essentialist notion of a language 6, 278, 280–283, 287 – as ethno-cultural markers 255 – as focal points of language conflict 25–28 – “human language” and “language X” 279–283 – as identity markers 92, 101–104 – language as focus of research in language conflict studies 20–21 – referring to 101–104 – what a language “is” vs. what is “has” 25–28 language shift – and the Dutch-French border 43 – and French Flanders 12 – language repertoire shifts 84 – language shift reversal (planning) 30 – in Maastricht 172, 176, 179, 198 – in Old Belgium 226 – and relocation of borders 55 – resulting in erosion 55 language spread 210 language survey, see census, language Lantern, The (political club) 123 Laplanche, François 128 La Semaine 216 “latent” vs. “manifest” language conflict 24, 33

   309

Latin – in the early modern Dutch Republic 115, 116, 118–119, 120–121, 122, 129, 130 – in the genesis of the Romance-Germanic border 41 – Latin schools 145–146 – loanwords into Dutch 156, 156n 16 – in medieval Flanders 93–95, 96, 99, 100–101, 103, 107–108, 109–110 – as model for other languages 61 – Neo-Latin phase 128 L’Aviso de la Meuse 185, 186 law, language of the 116–117 lay persons’ discourse 83 L’Eclaireur 183–184 Le Courrier de la Meuse 186, 195 Le Guide Impartial du voyageur à Maestricht (Salie, 1855) 173 Leiden 117, 120, 121, 128, 136 Lenz, T. 237 Leopold of Saxen-Coburg, King (of Belgium) 178 letter corpora 155–156 Letters as Loot corpus 152n 5, 154n 12, 155 Lëtzebuergesch, see Luxembourgish Lëtzeburger National-Unio’n 239 Levine, Marc C. 28 lexical borrowings, see loanwords liberal ideologies 183–184 Liechtenstein 284 Liège 8, 47, 52, 173, 177, 180, 183, 207 Lijphart, A. 255, 256 Limburg 42, 47, 178, 182, 183, 185 Limburger, De 184–185, 186 Limburger Kourier 187 lingua francas 115, 121, 125, 130, 177, 244, 246 linguistic facilities (faciliteiten) 46, 48, 81, 209 linguistic integration, discourses of 235, 246–247, 251 linguistic profiling 31–32 Lippens, Maurice 225, 229 Lippi-Green, Rosina 150 loanwords – borrowing scale 20 – conventionalisation of loanwords 153

310   

   Index

– empirical study into French loanwords into Dutch 8, 152–166 – and frenchification 116–117, 132, 143, 148–149, 288 – imitation vs. adaptation (in borrowings) 153 – and language conflict studies generally 20 – and language “contamination” 283 – and linguistic purism 76, 283 – in Luxembourg 249 – as markers of language attitude 99, 101–104, 108, 111 – opposition to 76, 148, 283 – unborrowable linguistic features 20 Locke, John 123 Loicq, J. 40 Loi Toubon 283 Loonen, P. L. M. 122 Louckx, F. 255, 257, 260, 262, 266, 267 Louis XIV, King (of France) 135, 136 lower classes – in Brussels 49–50 – and frenchification 129, 151, 152, 163–165, 288 – lack of data from 14, 290 – in letter corpora 155–156, 163 – in Luxembourg 238 – in Maastricht 187 – and the Napoleonic Soldiers corpus 156, 165–166 – working class language in Bruges 175 luso-luxo-French pidgin 53 Luxembourg – creation of 51 – education in 8–9, 222, 233–251 – in the Kingdom of the Netherlands 144 – and the Romance-Germanic border 40, 52–54 – and standard language ideologies 65 Luxembourgish/ Lëtzebuergesch 27, 53–54, 233, 234–235, 238–243, 244–250 Luxemburger Lesebuch 241 Luxemburger Wort 237 Luykx, T. 181, 182 Maastricht 7–8, 47, 171–198 McAndrew, M. 263 macaronic writing 14

McCawley, James 279n 4 McCrone, D. 255 Mac Giollà Chríost, Diairmait 19, 31 Mackey, William F. 19 McRae, Kenneth D. 10, 19, 23, 28, 39n 2, 45, 207, 211, 219 Maenen, A. J. F. 187 Maerlant, Jacob van 95, 99n 27 Maitz, Péter 63 Malines 124 Malmedy 10, 207–229 Malmedy-St. Vither Volkszeitung 217 Malmesbury, William of 281 Margolin, Jean-Claude 126 Mariette, D. 48 Marnix, Phillippe de 129 marriages, mixed 13, 75, 79, 123, 249 Martène, E. 96n 22, 105n 43 Martens, P. 45, 46 Marynissen, Ann 66, 67, 70, 73, 74, 75, 76, 82, 149, 150 Mary Stuart 123 Mattheier, Klaus J. 19, 23, 27 Maurissen, Adriaan 193, 194 media, as language domain 176, 177, 179–188 Meijer, Lodewijk 148n 3 Melica, Claudia 128 ‘melting’/ ‘merging’ of language communities 80, 82 Membrède family 191 Mestreechs (Maastricht dialect) 171, 173, 178–179, 185, 188, 197 metalinguistic identity work 11 metalinguistic markers 101–102 metaphors 279 Mettewie, Laurence 51, 266 Meyers-Scotton, Carol 20 micro-sociolinguistics 22 micro-toponymic method 40 Middelburg 121 middle classes – in Brussels 49–50 – and French 146 – and frenchification 118, 120, 163–165 – and the Letters as Loot corpus 155 – multilingual proficiency 286

Index   

Middle Dutch, in medieval Flanders 93, 95, 96, 99–103, 104n 40, 105, 108–110 Middle English 94n 13 migration – and Brussels 49, 255, 269 – in the early/ late modern Dutch Republic 115, 116, 119, 121, 122–123, 129, 144–145, 146 – and language borders generally 284–285 – and language conflict as social conflict 291n 13 – and language shift 43 – and Luxembourg 53–54, 233, 238–239, 244, 248 – in Maastricht 188, 197 – and standard language ideologies 62, 74 Mill, John Stuart 64 Milroy, James 61, 62, 63, 64, 71n 11, 143, 150, 281 Milroy, Lesley 62, 64, 143, 150, 281 Minke, A. 221, 225 minority languages – in Belgium 45–46, 50, 51 – European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages 30 – in Flanders 43–44 – in France 39 – and language conflict situations 28 – and language standardisation 27 – and standard language ideologies 62 mixed marriages 13, 75, 79, 123, 249 Momus society 7, 175, 176, 178–179, 184, 185, 188 monolingualism – assumption of monolingual norms 235, 243, 247, 261 – in Belgium 39, 48, 55, 56, 222–223, 257 – in Brussels 267 – dual monolingual education services 256, 261, 263 – and language conflict situations 27 – monolingual Flanders 78–82 – monolingualisation 5, 56 – monolingual mindset 9, 10, 235, 243, 251, 270, 285, 289 Montandon, Alain 126 Montenegro 284n 10

   311

Montreal 28 Montzen 213 morality, and frenchification 132, 133–135 morphology, derivational 8, 153–166 Moselfränkisch dialect (Lëtzebuergesch) 40, 233 mother tongues – in Belgium 213, 216, 217–218, 220, 222 – in Brussels 51, 261–262, 267, 271 – and EU policies 248 – French as second mother tongue 128–129 – and language standardisation 63–64, 70, 72–73, 75 – in Luxembourg 40, 53, 240, 243, 244–245, 247, 249–250 – maintenance of 222, 225–226 – and the monolingual mindset 235, 243 – mother tongue principle 216, 217 – parental language 213, 245, 261, 269, 271 Moulin, Claudine 52 Muchembled, R. 126 Muisit, Gilles le 102n 34 multidisciplinary approaches 3, 19, 176, 292–293 multilingual guides/ self-help manuals 14, 145 multilingualism – asymmetrical vs. symmetrical 11, 23–24 – in Brussels 81–82, 266–270 – and “communicative spaces” 291 – competence 53, 63, 68, 72 – diglossia 7, 30, 172, 174–176, 182, 184 – double overlapping diglossia 174 – Dutch Republic (early/ late modern) 115–137, 144–147 – goes beyond “official” languages 285 – in Luxembourg 53 – in Maastricht 171–198 – in medieval Flanders 12 – vs. the monolingual mindset 9, 10, 235, 243, 251, 270, 285, 289 – multilingual education in Luxembourg 233–251 – multilingual fragments as markers of attitudes 98, 99, 107–110 – and a richer conceptualisation of “language borders” 286

312   

   Index

– in studies of language contact 2 – see also code-mixing; code-switching Munsters praetie pamphlet (1648) 125 mutual comprehensibility 144, 285, 291–292 ‘mythical strands’ (of frenchification) 151 mythification processes 93, 96 myths – “myth of contamination through contact” 281, 282–283 – “myth of homogeneity” 281n 7, 282 – “myth of perfection” 282 – “myth of purity” 281 names, personal 98, 99, 100–101, 106 Napoleonic Kingdom of Holland 137, 144, 177 Napoleonic Soldiers Corpus 153n 9, 154n 11, 155–156 nationalism, linguistic 26–27, 151, 239, 244, 255, 266 national vs. regional official status 40 nationhood – and cosmopolitanism 132, 134 – in the early modern Dutch Republic 130 – and essentialist notions of a language 281 – language conflict borders not necessarily state borders 284 – and language in Belgium 255 – one-nation-one-language principle 5, 49, 62, 64–65, 69, 80–81, 235, 249, 282, 284n 10 – as principle theme of book 10 – and standard language ideologies 64–65 Nazism 219, 227 Nederduitse scholen ‘(Nether-)Dutch schools 145–146 Nederlandtsche Woorden-schat 148 Nedermaas province 173, 181 Nelde, Peter H. – “artificial” vs “natural” language conflicts 22 – on the benefits of language conflict 33 – conflict is between speakers not languages 279 – on dialect identification 51 – foundational scholarship of 1 – German-speaking Belgium 209

– language conflict is social conflict 211, 291 – “latent” vs “manifest” language conflict 24 – main areas of focus of conflict studies 20 – as major contributor to language conflict studies 19 – metalinguistic identity work 11 – Nelde’s Law (language contact = language conflict) 4, 10, 24, 69n 10 – on status and acquisition planning 30 – stratification of language conflict 11 – “surface” vs “deep” structure of language conflict 28 Neo-Latin phase 128 Netherlands – Amsterdam 117–118, 121–122, 133, 155, 160, 163n 21, 165 – Dutch Revolt 144 – and the Fall of Antwerp 63 – frenchification 115–137, 143–166 – The Hague 117, 118, 122, 123 – history of Dutch in 67–68 – independence 178 – Leiden 117, 120, 121, 128, 136 – Limburg 42, 47, 178, 182, 183, 185 – Maastricht 7–8, 47, 171–198 – Middelburg 121 – Nedermaas province 173, 181 – Orange, House of 118, 124, 131, 146, 178 – Republic of the Seven United Netherlands 144 – Rotterdam 117–118, 121, 122, 123, 127 – United Kingdom of the Netherlands 51, 144, 171, 182–184 – Utrecht 121, 125 – Zeeland/ Zealand 120, 121, 155, 159–160, 163n 21 Nevalainen, Terttu 147, 153 newspapers, language in 10, 179–188, 211–212, 219–228 “new speakers” 27 Nijenhuis, Andreas 120 Nobels, Judith 163 nobility 124, 131–133, 155 Norwegian 26, 144 N-VA (Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie) 91 Nypels, L. Th. 182, 183

Index   

Ockerse, Willem Anthony 135 Octoglotton, ou Phraséologie en Huict langues (Piélat, 1673) 122 official status languages – in Alsace 41 – in Belgium 229, 257 – and discourses of linguistic integration 235 – in Luxembourg 235, 242 – regionally official status 40, 42, 52 – in Switzerland 286 – and the territoriality principle 39–40 – see also language planning oil stain metaphor 81 Old Belgium/ Altbelgien 47, 51, 56, 213–214, 221n 19, 226 Oldenbarnevelt, Joan van 124 Old French, in medieval Flanders 93–94, 95, 96, 100, 101, 102–103, 104–106, 108–110, 111 Olzak, S. 255 Onckelinx Decree 270 one-nation-one-language principle 5, 49, 62, 64–65, 69, 80–81, 235, 249, 282, 284n 10 Orange, House of 118, 124, 131, 146, 178 O’Rourke, Bernadette 27 ‘otherness’ 6–7, 109–110, 111, 282, 285 Overmaas area 47 Pabst, K. 209, 216n 12, 220, 227 pacification democracy model 256–257, 261 parental language 213, 245, 261, 269, 271 Paris 126, 133, 134 Paris, le modèle des nations étrangères ou l’Europe française (Caraccioli, 1777) 134 Parival, Jean-Nicolas de 120 parody 93, 105, 108n 49 Passio Francorum secundum Flemyngos (PF) 93, 94n 14, 95 Peace of Rastatt and Baden 131 Peace of Utrecht 125, 131 Peace of Westphalia 117, 144 Pée, Willem 43, 55 Peersman, Catharina 6, 11, 14, 93n 8, 102n 32, 281, 282, 284, 289 Peled, Yael 64

   313

perception, linguistic 98–99, 100–101, 111, 119 perfection, myths about 282 Perry, J. 187 personal federalism 261 personality principle 39n 2, 79 personal names 98, 99, 100–101, 106 Pertz, G. H. 94n 13 Pettinger, P. 248 PF (Passio Francorum secundum Flemyngos) 96, 97, 98, 100–101, 104–105, 106n 47, 107, 108 Philip II, King (of Spain) 123, 144 Picard French 12, 93, 108n 48, 277 Picqué, Charles 264n 3 Piélat, Barthélemy 122 Pijls family 195 ‘Pilgrim Fathers’ 122 Plakkaet van Verlatinghe “Act of Abjuration” 144 Plurilingua 19 Pluvinel, Antoine de 126 Polish 145 politics – in Belgium 1, 44–45, 48–49, 215, 227, 229 – in the early/ late modern Dutch Republic 123–125, 128–130, 135–137, 144–147 – and frenchification 119, 150–152 – and language conflict generally 11, 285–286 – and languages as ethno-cultural markers 255–272 – in Luxembourg 54, 233–251 – in Maastricht 171, 181, 182, 183–184, 185–186 – monolingual Flanders 79 – and the Northern-Southern Netherlands split 150 – and sociolinguistic vs. geographic borders 55 – and standard language ideologies 64 – state borders vs. language borders 43 – see also territoriality principle Polychronicon (Higden) 281, 282 Portuguese 122, 144, 145, 244–245, 247, 249 “positive discrimination” 30

314   

   Index

postcolonialism 62 Poulain, M. 266 “Poullet Law” 213, 214, 220 power relationships – and asymmetrical multilingualism 11 – in Brussels 256–257 – and Critical Discourse Analysis 98n 26 – and French 128–129 – and language standardisation 26 – and linguistic domains 174 pre-schools in Luxembourg 244–246 press, language for the – in Eupen-Malmedy 211–212, 219–228 – in Maastricht 176, 177, 178–179, 179–188 prestige – and asymmetrical multilingualism 11 – in Brussels 49–50, 73 – Dutch 71 – English in Luxembourg 53 – and French generally 286, 288, 292, 293–294 – and frenchification 116, 117, 124–125 – and language conflict 23 – in Luxembourg 53, 234, 242 – in Maastricht 174, 177, 179, 185, 186, 188, 194 – and standard language ideologies 74–75, 77, 283 Prevenier, W. 93n 8 pronunciation 102, 105, 108n 48 propaganda 227 Protestantism 127, 146, 239 protests, against language laws 24, 178 “protonationalism” 237 Prussia 51, 209 publishing – book trade 128, 130, 131, 132, 133, 137 – in the early modern Dutch Republic 132, 145 – English publishers in The Hague 123 – French-language publishing in Dutch Republic 117–118, 177 purity – and language standardisation 26, 61 – “myth of purity” 281

– purist activities and linguistic purism 64, 76, 148–149 Put, Eddy 151 Quebec 22 Quechua 29 Ramallo, Fernando 27 Randegemeenten (Brussels suburban region) 48–49 Rash, Felicity 41 Reboullet, André. 116 regionally official status 40, 42, 52 Regout, Petrus 186–187 Regout family 195–196 Reichskonkordat (‘Imperial Concordance’) 227 religion – in Belgium 51 – Catholicism 110, 123–124, 127, 215, 219, 226–227, 237, 239, 258 – and frenchification 121–122, 127–128, 146 – Jansenism 133 – Jewish communities 133 – in Luxembourg 237, 239 – Protestantism 127, 146, 239 Republic of Letters 118, 121, 131–132, 145–146 Republic of the Seven United Netherlands 144 Ressman, N. 270 Rhaeto-Romansch 286 Ricento, Thomas 32, 210 ‘rich points’ (ethnography) 68n 9 riding academies 126 Riehl, C. M. 207 Riemens, K. J. 116 Rindler Schjerve, Rosita 2, 19, 23, 25, 32, 211 riots, language 24 Rivarol, Antoine de 134 Rivet, André 117, 118, 128 Roberts, A. H. 184 Rogge, M. 2 Rohstock, A. 237 Romance-Slavic border 13, 278n 2 Romansch 41 “roofing” languages 27

Index   

Rotterdam 117–118, 121, 122, 123, 127 Rouaffer family 190, 192 Ruberg, Willemijn 151, 189, 192 Rundschau, Die 217 Russell, Jos 186 Rutten, Gijsbert 8, 13, 14, 63, 68n 8, 76, 149, 151, 155n 13, 163, 174, 278, 289 Ruys, Manu 45 Ryckeboer, Hugo 43 St. Vith 10, 207–229 St. Vither Volkszeitung (Malmedy-) 217, 220 Salie 173 Sardinian 26 Saumar academy 127–128 Schaepkens family 196 Schaerbeek – closure of Dutch-medium school 262–263 – language riots 24 Schärer, Martin R. 219 Schendl, H. 14 Schifflers, L. 213, 214, 215, 219 schild en vriend (Flemish shibboleth) 92n 6, 99, 102, 104, 105, 111 Schmid, Heinrich 29 scholarship, languages of 7, 118, 129–130, 134, 136, 171 Schoumaker, B. 266 Schurman, Anna Maria van 118–119, 120 science, languages of 115, 128, 136, 192, 194 Scotland 121 Scots 121 secondary school education – in Brussels 255, 261, 268, 270 – in Eupen-Malmedy 213, 215, 217, 218 – in Luxembourg 53–54, 234, 247–248, 250 – in the Netherlands 119, 145 second language teaching, see foreign language teaching Sedan academy 127–128 Segers, K. 270 self-tuition 120–121 Semaine, La 216 separatist movements 185–186 Serbian 27 Sewel, William 122

   315

SH (Spiegel Historiael) 96, 97, 98, 100, 101, 103–104, 105, 107, 108 “shared linguistic sphere” 64 “shared negotiation of meanings” 287 shibboleths 92n 6, 99, 102, 104, 105, 111 Sijs, Nicoline van der 64, 145, 149, 150, 153, 156, 156n 15, 156n 16 Simoen, R. 187 Simons, Tanja 155n 13, 163 Slavic-Germanic border 13, 278n 2 Slavic-Romance border 13, 278n 2 Sleiderink, R. 12, 95n 20, 99n 27 Slovenia 284n 10 social class, see elite groups; lower classes; middle classes; social mobility (upward); upper classes social cohesion 246 socialism 187 social mobility (upward) – in Belgium 55 – and the Dutch-French border 44, 50 – and frenchification 124–125, 129, 163–165 – in German-speaking areas of Belgium 52 – and standard language ideologies 64, 69 society – as focus of research in language conflict studies 22 – social nature of language faculty 279–283 – societal language conflict 23–31 – societal multilingualism 14, 19 socio-historic language study, book’s place in 2, 277 sociolinguistics – “applied sociology of language” 28 – as part of multi-disciplinary focus of book 3 – sociolinguistic vs. geographic borders 55 Southern Europe, overlooked in historiography of languages 61–62 South Tyrol – and bilingualisation 56 – and Ladin 29 – regionally official status languages 40 – and the Romance-Germanic border 41–42, 278 sovereignty 123–124, 178 Spain 22, 77, 78, 123–124, 125, 135, 144, 147 Spanhemius, Fredericus 118

316   

   Index

Spanish 78, 122, 247 Spanish Tyranny, The 135 Spectator (Addison and Steele, 1711) 131 spelling, consistency of 63 Spiegel, Hendrik Laurensz 149n 4 Spiegel Historiael (SH) 95 Spies, Marijke 146, 155n 14 Spizzo, D. 237, 239 spoken vs. written language usage 71, 175, 180, 233, 281, 283, 288, 290 stability, and standard language ideologies 64, 76 stadholders 116–118, 123, 124, 146 standardisation, language – and frenchification 149, 150–152 – and language myths 281–282 – and language policy and planning 28–31 – standard language ideologies 5, 61–84, 150 – and structural properties of language in conflict situations 26–27 States General of the Northern Netherlands 147 status policy and planning 30–31 Stevin, Simon 64n 3 Stigmawort verfransing, see frenchification STIMOB (language stimulation projects) 270 Stommen, A. 214, 221 Stouthuysen, P. 257 structural properties of a language, in language conflict situations 26–27 Sturkenboom, Dorothée 132, 134 suffixes, French-Dutch loans of 153–166 super-diverse Belgium/ Brussels 5, 83–84 supralocal varieties 149 supranational communication networks 130, 133 “surface” vs. “deep” structure of language conflict 28 Swabian dialect 285 Swenden, W. 265 Swiss German 42n 3, 282n 5, 282n 8, 285, 293 Switzerland – and the Romance-Germanic border 13, 39, 40, 41, 42n 3, 293–294 – and standard language ideologies 65

– and the territoriality principle 285–286 symbolic role of language 198, 292 ‘ten-days campaign’ 178 territoriality principle – and Brussels 56, 257 – and the Dutch-French border 4–5, 39–40, 45, 49 – and Eupen-Malmedy 210, 217 – and German-speaking Belgium 52 – and monolingual Flanders 79–80 – and Switzerland 285–286 Teubert, W. 212 textbooks on the history of Dutch (as corpus) 65–82 theatre 177, 183, 184, 185 Third Reich 219 Third Wave Variation Studies 283 Thomason, Sarah Grey 20, 21 Tomiak, Janusz 258 Toorn, M. C. van den 150 toponymy 98, 99, 100–101 trade/ commerce, languages for – French 8, 116, 119, 128, 129, 133, 145, 146, 177, 191, 196 – in Luxembourg 233 – in Maastricht 176, 177, 179, 183, 185, 188, 190–191 transitional zones 54–55 translations 181–182 Trask, Robert L. 64 travel guides 126 Treaty of Münster 144 Treaty of Nijmegen 43 Treaty of Versailles 209 Treffers-Daller, Jeanine 1 triglossia – in Belgium 51 – in Luxembourg 233 – in Maastricht 7, 172, 174–176 trilingualism – in Brussels 51 – in Luxembourg 52–54, 233, 235, 239, 242, 244, 245–246 – in Maastricht 174 – in medieval Flanders 93–94 Trio, P. 91n 3, 94n 12, 96, 97n 24

Index   

“truncheon Friday” 24–25 Tummers, P. 173 tussentaal (‘intermediate language’) 72–73, 84 ‘typical stories’ 65 typology of language borders 54–56 Tyssens, J. 260 Ubachs, P. J. H. 173 unborrowable linguistic features 20 uniformity, and standard language ideologies 63 United Kingdom of the Netherlands 51, 144, 171, 182–184 universities 120–121, 127–128, 136, 214 upper classes – and the Dutch-French border 49 – and frenchification 120, 124–125, 125–128, 128–129, 145, 146, 152, 163–165 – and French in Brussels 237 – and French in Maastricht 173 – in German-speaking areas of Belgium 52 – and letter corpora 155–156, 189 – liberal ideologies 183–184 – multilingual proficiency 286 – and newspapers 179–181 – purist activities and linguistic purism 148–149 – use of Dutch 175, 196 – use of Maastricht dialect 173 Utrecht 121, 125 Vaesen, Joost 9, 10, 39, 50, 263, 264, 270, 284, 289, 290 Vale, M. 92n 5 Van Beneden family 195 van Berkhey, Johannes Le Francq 134–135 Van Boendale, Jan 93n 7, 95n 18 Van Bree, Cor 66, 73, 75, 78, 79, 81, 82, 117, 146, 149, 150 Van Coetsem, Frans 2, 153, 154 Van De Craen, P. 263, 270 Vanden Boer, A. 207 Vandenbussche, Wim 26, 29, 64, 68n 8, 78, 146, 151, 175, 189, 196 Van der Horst, Joop 72n 12 Van der Horst, Kees 72n 12, 151

   317

Vanderkerckhove, Reinhild 72n 13 Van der Linden, H. W. 104, 108 Vandermeeren, Sonja 47 Van der Sijs, Nicoline 64, 145, 149, 150, 153, 156, 156n 15, 156n 16 Van der Wal, Marijke J. 8, 13, 14, 63, 66, 73, 75, 78, 79, 81, 82, 117, 146, 147, 149, 150, 155n 13, 163, 174, 289 van Dijk, Suzan 128 Van Droogenbroeck, S. 261 Van Durme, Luc 40, 41, 57 van Hamelsveld, IJsbrand 135 Vanhecke, Eline 68n 8, 151 Van Hout, Roeland 84 Van Loon, Jozef 40 Van Mensel, Luk 51, 207 van Stam, F. P. 128 Van Velthoven, Harry 2, 28, 45, 50, 78 n17, 207, 210, 255, 256, 257, 261, 263, 266, 270, 271 Van Werveke, Pierre 227 varieties – and “communicative spaces” 287, 291–292, 294 – in emergent socio-communicative practice 278, 280, 287–288 – and formality 174 – idealised homogenous varieties 150 – ideology of hierachisation of varieties 5, 62–65, 71, 73, 76, 235, 281 – and the individual language user 21, 24, 53 – in language conflict situations 11, 25–27, 291 – in language contact 287, 291–292 – and language standardisation 29, 61, 62–65, 71, 73, 76, 280, 282–283 – in Luxembourg 236, 238, 242 – as second-order cognitive constructs 287 – as source of conflict in monolingual communities 27 – and spoken vs. written language 175, 235, 290 – and the super diverse Belgium/Brussels model 81–82, 84 Velthem, Lodewijk van 95, 96, 97, 99, 101 Verdediging van de eer der Hollandse natie (Engelberts, 1763) 134

318   

   Index

verfransing, see frenchification Verhoeven, Gerrit 126 Verkouter, Myriam 260 Verlooy, J.B. 75 vernederlandsing (dutchification) 79 Versailles Treaty 52 Vetter, Eva 32, 211, 219 violence, in language conflict situations 24–25, 42 Vlaamse beweging, see Flemish Movement Vlaamse Rand 81 Vocabulare (Berlaimont, 1527) 145 Voerstreek 47, 55 Vogl, Ulrike 5, 6, 62, 81n 20, 91n 1, 91n 3, 92, 277, 278, 281 Volkstribuun, De 187 Voltaire 133, 135 Von Busekist, A. 2 Vondel, Joost van den 135 von Polenz, Peter 147 Vooys, C. G. N. de 150 Vosters, Rik 8, 13, 14, 63, 68n 8, 76, 149, 151, 174, 278, 289 Vries, Jan de 64n 3, 66, 71, 72, 73, 75, 78, 80, 81–82 Wagener, J. 240 Wagner, M. 240–241 Wal, Marijke J. van der 8, 13, 14, 63, 66, 73, 75, 78, 79, 81, 82, 117, 146, 147, 149, 150, 155n 13, 163, 174, 289 Walferdange bilingual school project 54, 247–250 Wallonia – and Brussels 257 – and the Dutch-French border 42, 44–45, 46, 47, 49 – and federalisation of Belgium 265–266 – and frenchification 116, 127–128, 146 – and German-speaking Belgium 51–52, 208 – and Maastricht 177 – and monolingual Flanders 79 Waquet, Françoise 118 Warny, H. 216n 11 Watts, Richard J. 12, 22, 277, 278, 279, 287, 290

Wayens, B. 270 Weber, Jean-Jacques 8, 10, 40, 53, 54, 64, 235, 236, 241, 249, 251, 284, 289 Weber, Peter J. 32 Weinreich, Uriel 21 Welter, Nikolaus 240 Werlen, Erika. 22 Werve, Jan van de 148n 2 Western European bias 61–62 Weustenraad, J. Th. 183 ‘Whig histories’ of languages 61 Wijer, P. van de 187 Willemyns, Roland 1, 4, 12, 13, 42, 44, 49, 50, 54, 66, 67n 7, 67, 71, 74, 75, 77, 78, 81, 82, 83, 91n 1, 92n 5, 150, 175, 176, 278, 282, 284, 284n 11, 285 William I, King (of Netherlands) 177, 178, 182–183 William II, King (of Netherlands) 237 William of Malmesbury 281 Williams, Colin H. 19 Wils, Lode 151 Winford, Donald 154 Wingens, Th. 183 Witt, Cornelius de 126 Witt, Johan de 117, 126–127 Witte, Els 2, 28, 45, 48, 49, 50, 78 n17, 210, 255, 257, 261, 263, 266 Wölck, Wolfgang 20, 29, 31 women – education of 119–120 – and frenchification 163n 21 Woodward, Margaret 19 Woolard, K. A. 235 working classes – in Brussels 49–50 – and frenchification 129, 151, 152, 163–165, 288 – lack of data from 14, 290 – in letter corpora 155–156, 163 – in Luxembourg 238 – in Maastricht 187 – and the Napoleonic Soldiers corpus 156, 165–166 – working class language in Bruges 175 Wright, Sue 1

Index   

written dialects 179 written standards, development of 26, 29 written vs. spoken language 71, 175, 180, 233, 281, 283, 288, 290

   319

Zeeland/ Zealand 120, 121, 155, 159–160, 163n 21 Zijlmans, Jori 123 Zoete dict Haulthain, Guillaume de 124 Zollverein (‘customs union’) 236–237 Zuylen, Belle van 128, 150–151