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French Flemish (Fransch vlaemsch, Standard Dutch: Frans-Vlaams, French: flamand français) is a West Flemish dialect spoken in the north of contemporary France.. Place names attest to Flemish having been spoken since the 8th century in the part of Flanders that was ceded to France at the 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees, and which hence became known as French Flanders.
It is one of the three national and state languages of Belgium, together with French and German, and is the only official language of the Flemish Region. The various Dutch dialects spoken in Belgium contain a number of lexical and grammatical features that distinguish them from the standard Dutch.
Some of these dialects, especially West and East Flemish, have incorporated some French loanwords in everyday language. An example is fourchette in various forms (originally a French word meaning fork), instead of vork. Brussels is especially heavily influenced by French because roughly 85% of the inhabitants of Brussels speak French. The ...
French Flanders (French: Flandre française [flɑ̃dʁ(ə) fʁɑ̃sɛːz]; Dutch: Frans-Vlaanderen; West Flemish: Frans-Vloandern) is a part of the historical County of Flanders, where Flemish—a Low Franconian dialect cluster of Dutch—was (and to some extent, still is) traditionally spoken.
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]
French is still a lingua franca in most Western and Central African countries and an official language of many, a remnant of French and Belgian colonialism. These African countries and others are members of the Francophonie. French is the official language of the Universal Postal Union, with English added as a working language in 1994. [46
The second-most spoken primary (Belgian) language, used natively by approximately one third of the population, is French. [3] It is the official language of the French Community (which, like the Flemish Community, is a political entity), the dominant language in Wallonia (having also a small German-speaking Community), as well as the Brussels ...
Flemish people also emigrated at the end of the fifteenth century, when Flemish traders conducted intensive trade with Spain and Portugal, and from there moved to colonies in America and Africa. [28] The newly discovered Azores were populated by 2,000 Flemish people from 1460 onwards, making these volcanic islands known as the "Flemish Islands".