Francization of Brussels

• Brussels is located in the Brabant dialect region of the Dutch language area.

The Frenchification Brussels (Dutch Verfransing van Brussel, French Francisation de Bruxelles ) refers to the place in Brussels conversion of an originally almost pure Dutch language in a bilingual or even multilingual city with French dominant lingua franca. Although initially mainly in Brussels Brabant dialects were spoken, the linguistic situation has changed drastically over the last two centuries. One of the main reasons for the rise of the French was - in addition to immigration from France and Wallonia - the language assimilation of the Flemish population. In the former Belgian Dutch society was regarded as socially inferior and had a weak position as a competing standard language, which has as a world language even reinforced by the attraction of French.

The language shift began gradually in the 18th century and accelerated in the expansion of the city after the Belgian independence from the Netherlands. The actual transition to the French began in the second half of the 19th century: From 1880, there was a trend towards a partial bilingualism, to the detriment of the Dutch monolingualism. Dutch was not transmitted to future generations, whereby the share -only -speaking French has risen sharply since 1910.

Since the 1960s, due to the definition of the language border and the economic development of Flanders Frenchification has come to an end. During the second half of the 20th century, many immigrants and many employees of international organizations met (eg, the European Union and NATO ) and company to Brussels, which mainly favored French as a lingua franca, to the detriment of the Netherlands. At the same time, more and more Dutch-speaking municipalities in the Brussels outskirts were predominantly French-speaking as a result of urbanization. The Flemish speak in this context of the " French-speaking oil patch " of, in addition to the political future of Brussels, one of the main sources of tension between the north and south of the country.