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Flemish people make up the majority of Belgians, at about 60%. Flemish was historically a geographical term, as all inhabitants of the medieval County of Flanders in modern-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands were referred to as "Flemings" irrespective of their ethnicity or language. [ 5 ]
The term Flemish itself has become ambiguous. Nowadays, it is used in at least five ways, depending on the context. These include: An indication of Dutch written and spoken in Flanders including the Dutch standard language as well as the non-standardized dialects, including intermediate forms between vernacular dialects and the standard.
The Dutch language used in Belgium can also be referred to as Flemish Dutch or Belgian Dutch (Dutch: Vlaams Nederlands, Belgisch Nederlands).Dutch is the mother tongue of about 60% of the population in Belgium, spoken by approximately 6.5 million out of a population of 11 million people.
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.
Flanders (/ ˈ f l ɑː n d ər z / FLAHN-dərz [a] or / ˈ f l æ n d ər z / FLAN-dərz; [b] Dutch: Vlaanderen [ˈvlaːndərə(n)] ⓘ) [c] is the Dutch-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture ...
Because of the authoritative position that French enjoyed in Belgium and the misconceptions of Buls' plan, [66] many Flemish children were still sent to a French school to better master the language. [ 46 ] [ 60 ] This was made possible by the idea of "freedom of the head of household", which stipulated that parents were allowed to send their ...
For each of these subdivision types, the subdivisions together make up the entire country; in other words, the types overlap. The language areas were established by the Second Gilson Act, which entered into force on 2 August 1963. The division into language areas was included in the Belgian Constitution in 1970. [1]
The seat of the Flemish parliament is located in Brussels, which is an enclave within – but not part of – the Flemish region, being specified that the Brussels-Capital Region is established as an administrative region of Belgium in its own right.