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Almost all of the inhabitants of the Capital region speak French as either their primary language (50%) or as a lingua franca (45%). [4] [5] Many Flemish people also speak French as a second language. Belgian French is in most respects identical to the French of France, but differs in some points of vocabulary, pronunciation, and semantics.
Official languages of Belgium: Dutch (yellow), French (red) and German (blue). Brussels is a bilingual area where both Dutch and French have an official status.. The position of Dutch in Belgium has improved considerably over the past 50 years at the expense of French, which once dominated strongly in political, economic and cultural life.
Its official languages are both Dutch and French. In the region ~75% speak French at home and ~25% speak Dutch, although a significant number of people combine these two languages. [11] The Brussels Capital Region contains only one administrative arrondissement, the Arrondissement of Brussels-Capital.
Historically Dutch-speaking, Brussels saw a language shift to French from the late 19th century. [39] Since its creation in 1989, the Brussels-Capital Region has been officially bilingual in French and Dutch, [40] [41] although French is the majority language and lingua franca. [42] Brussels is also increasingly becoming multilingual.
Today, the Brussels-Capital Region is legally bilingual, with both French and Dutch having official status, [5] as is the administration of the 19 municipalities. [6]Owing to migration and to its international role, Brussels is home to a large number of native speakers of languages other than French or Dutch.
It is often called an "in-between-language" or "intermediate language", intermediate between dialects and standard Dutch. [17] Despite its name, Brabantian is the dominant contributor to the Flemish Dutch tussentaal. It is a rather informal variety of speech, which occupies an intermediate position between vernacular dialects and the standard ...
The exact number of French-speakers in Brussels is hard to determine, but it is estimated that 85% of the people living in Brussels use French and 10% use Dutch in their households, as the sole language or secondary language, while Arabic is also largely spoken. See the Brussels article for more details. [27]
Brussels was originally a Dutch-speaking city (Brabantian dialect to be exact), [16] but it was francised in the 19th and 20th centuries and is now officially bilingual in French and Dutch [9] (although largely French-speaking in practice). [17]