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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.
The region was ceded to the Kingdom of France, and became part of the province of Flanders and Hainaut. The bulk became part of the modern French administrative Nord department, although some western parts of the region, which separated in 1237 and became the County of Artois before the cession to the French, are now part of Pas-de-Calais.
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.
French enjoys a limited official recognition in a dozen municipalities along the borders with French-speaking Wallonia, and a large recognition in the bilingual Brussels Region. French is widely known in Flanders, with 59% claiming to know French according to a survey conducted by UCLouvain in Louvain-la-Neuve and published in June 2006. [24] [25]
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
Map showing the political situation in the Low Countries between 1556 and 1648. In 1500, the Seventeen Provinces were in a personal union under the Burgundian Dukes, and with the Flemish cities as centers of gravity, culturally and economically formed one of the richest parts of Europe. During the course of the century the region also ...
It is one of the most densely populated regions of Europe with around 500/km 2 (1,300/sq mi). The Flemish Region is distinct from the Flemish Community: the latter encompasses both the inhabitants of the Flemish Region and the Dutch-speaking minority living in the Brussels-Capital Region. It borders the Netherlands and France.
[46] [53] The French occupation laid the foundations for a Francization of the Flemish middle class aided by an exceptional French-language educational system. [ 54 ] At the beginning of the 19th century, the Napoleonic Office of Statistics found that Dutch was still the most frequently spoken language in both the Brussels arrondissement and ...