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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.
Bilingual French and Dutch street signs in Brussels Area where the Brabantian dialect is spoken. The Francization of Brussels refers to the evolution, over the past two centuries, [1] [2] of this historically Dutch-speaking city [1] [3] [4] into one where French has become the majority language and lingua franca. [5]
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 German language area; the bilingual Brussels-Capital area; All these entities have geographical boundaries. The language areas have no offices or powers and exist de facto as geographical circumscriptions, serving only to delineate the empowered subdivisions. The institutional communities are thus equally geographically determined.
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.
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.
Flemings speak Dutch (specifically its southern variant, which is often colloquially called 'Flemish'). It is the majority language in Belgium, being spoken natively by three-fifths of the population. Its various dialects contain a number of lexical and a few grammatical features which distinguish them from the standard language. [13]
The use of une fois ("once") in mid-sentence, especially in Brussels, is a direct translation of Dutch "eens". French people who want to imitate the Belgian accent often use a lot of "une fois" at the end of the sentences, often wrongly: "Viens une fois ici, literally from the Dutch "Kom eens hier" ("Come once here").