The term Flemish has two meanings: a linguistic one, the language of the Flemings (noun), as well as a social/political one, namely everything that points at Flanders or to one or more individual Flemish persons or organisations (adjective).
An official or de facto standard Flemish language as such does not exist. However, the word "Flemish" may refer as an adjective to the many dialects and as a substantive to a few more generally used varieties of the Dutch language spoken mainly in Flanders and neighbouring regions.
These multiple definitions are used many times can result in confusion, especially when the non-Belgian reader notices that Flemish isn't an official term for the public language in Flanders (it would make no sense, as there is no such standard), for in Belgium the official languages according to the constitution are French, German and Dutch, which is the same as in the kingdom of the Netherlands.
Concentric linguistic meanings of Flemish
To the term Flemish, as a linguistic notion, several meanings can be given, in the order of increasing dialectism:
- the varieties of Dutch spoken in the present region Flanders (i.e. Dutch-speaking northern Belgium), as well as the non-standardized dialects.
- the non-standardized dialects of the former countship of Flanders, which once covered most of the provinces of West-Vlaanderen, Oost-Vlaanderen (Belgium), Zeeuws-Vlaanderen (Netherlands) and the northern French region of French Flanders.
- the non-standardized dialects of the provinces of West-Vlaanderen, Zeeuws-Vlaanderen and French Flanders.
Depending on the definition used, Flemish shows more or less differences with the Standard Dutch, as officially determined by the Nederlandse Taalunie. Deviations from the standard language, except as official (Belgian or Flemish) jargon, are mostly rejected in Flanders as dialectisms.
Differences from Dutch
One of these varieties is the standard Dutch spoken (especially written) in Belgium, which is slightly different from the standard in the Netherlands in vocabulary and idiom. This southern standard is largely of Brabantic origin, though this also shaped the northern standard since the Hapsburg persecution of protestants and Antwerp's decline because of the Dutch blockade of the river Schelde caused a mass emigration to the Netherlands. The Flemish people themselves often note some difference between standard Dutch, as spoken in the Netherlands, and "Flemish". This distinction is also recognised outside of Flanders, as can be seen by the fact that companies such as Microsoft have a setting for 'Dutch (The Netherlands)' and 'Dutch (Belgium)' in their software, even though they are the same. However, there is a single regulating body for the Dutch writing language, the Taalunie, in which the Netherlands and Belgium (in fact the Flemish region) participate as equal partners (in cooperation with South American associate member Suriname, where still other dialects exists).
The majority of Dutch-speaking Belgians (i.e. Flemings- there is only one autochthonous ethnic group, the French-speakers are generally descended from Flemings or more exotic immigrants) speak Dutch with a softer accent than the majority of Dutch-speakers in the Netherlands, not using an unvoiced g, v or z at the beginning of a word. Their language thus reflects the original written Dutch standard derived from the Brabantic. Flemish television networks often feel obliged to add Dutch subtitles to programming from the Netherlands proper, so that viewers can fully understand what is being said, especially when the speaker has a heavy Randstad accent. This practice is also used for true dialect speakers within Flanders; ironically when fictional TV characters supposedly speak dialect, it is usually a mix between Antwerp's (the Brabantic, largest city's and relatively easy to understand elsewhere) and standard Dutch. This is often compared to the relationship between American and British English (see American and British English differences), except that there is no written difference whatsoever.
Other Dialects
Another category of variants consists of the Dutch dialects spoken in Belgium. These "Flemish dialects", as they are often called by the layman, do not form a unity however: i.e. they are not more closely related to each other than to the dialects spoken in the Netherlands, instead there are several groups, rather corresponding to the feudal principalities; some are strictly cross-border, especially in the provinces that were created by separating the historical duchy of Brabant (North Brabant is Dutch, Antwerp and Vlaams-Brabant are Belgian) and the region of Limburg (both states have a homonymous province). The main dividing lines between the Dutch dialects run from north to south, not from west to east as the Belgian-Dutch state border does. Of course centuries of separate political life did generate quite some idiomatic differences in official language and various jargons, but hardly anything grammatical and not significantly more even in vocabulary than between say Austria, Switzerland and Germany (even within this federal country there are very distinct northern and southern groups, pre-Luther without a common standard even in writing). The fairytale that 'Flemish' was a 'language without a literature' separate from Dutch was maintained by Belgium's francophone ruling class to fence off any threat from growing cries for recognition among the Dutch-speaking majority.
Finally there are among these Dutch dialects also strictly Flemish dialects in the linguistic sense, that are spoken in the old county of Flanders (about a third of the Dutch-speaking region in Belgium), among which the most deviant subset is West Flemish, which is also spoken in Zeeuws Vlaanderen situated in Zeeland a province of The Netherlands alongside Zeeuws which can be seen as the link between Hollandic and West Flemish.
Language history
The Flemish dialects belong, just all other within Dutch, e.g. Hollandic, to the Continental West-Germanic languages and are spoken in an area roughly comprising the Belgian province of West-Vlaanderen. Standard Dutch is mainly formed from Brabantic dialects, with major inputs by Hollandic (as its forging happened largely when emigrants from Antwerp resettled in Amsterdam) and (countship-)Flemish dialects.
Classification
Flemish can be classified as followed:
Sources and references
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