Language use in the Vlaamse Rand

 

Tensions between the city and its hinterland are reported frequently and this is also the case for Brussels and the Rand. Both the economic and the demographic evolution inevitably leave their marks in the Rand. Especially linguistic differences regularly entail political and social tensions. However, linguistic dynamics do not let themselves be locked up within administrative limits. That is why the Government of Flanders approved on 9 November 1994 a memorandum defining the 'Vlaamse Rand'. The 19 Flemish municipalities bordering the Brussels-Capital Region and the six municipalities with facilities became the subject of a preventive policy to 'safeguard and promote the Dutch language and culture'.[1] The heterogeneous population composition and the internalisation have already been discussed at length (see among others Degadt and others, 2012); however, it was only until the starting-up of the BRIO language barometer study that language diversity was mapped out scientifically.

 

Figure 1 provides an overview of the languages that are most commonly known in the Rand and compares them with the situation within the Brussels-Capital Region. French is the most widely known language, followed by Dutch, English and German. These last three languages score significantly higher in the Rand than in Brussels in terms of knowledge, which underlines the international character.

However, the fact that French is the most widely known language does not imply that the majority of the inhabitants has grown up in a French-speaking environment. Nearly half of the inhabitants grew up in a unilingual Dutch-speaking family and nearly 20% in a monolingual French-speaking family. The fact that most Dutch speakers and a large part of the non-Dutch speakers who do not speak French at home, have a good knowledge of it as a second or third language, explains this first place. One quarter of the present inhabitants was born in Brussels. Half of those who were born abroad, first lived in Brussels as well. Consequently, for them, French is more evident as an everyday language. Table 1 provides an overview of the home language, the language with which the inhabitants of the Rand have grown up and with which they have also developed an emotional bond. Next to the general figures, the table also shows the present home language. Here too, as in Brussels, the intergenerational language transfer leads to more families combining Dutch with another language. Over a quarter of the families in the Rand speaks more than one language at home.

Table 1 Home language of inhabitants of the Vlaamse Rand

Dutch is the most widely spoken language in the public sphere. The language is spoken even by those who do not know it very well. The chart below shows that - with the exception of conversations with the neighbours - the number of Dutch speakers is higher than the number of people who have a good knowledge of the language.

 

The inhabitants of the Rand identify themselves in the first place as Belgians (49.8%), inhabitants of the municipality (37.7%) or Flemings (26.2%). Those who grew up in a monolingual Dutch-speaking family see themselves in the first place as Flemings, others as Belgians, with the exception of non-Dutch speakers who rather consider themselves Europeans. Whereas the political debate mainly focuses on the contrast between French and Dutch speakers, the BRIO study shows that the discrepancy in the field links much more with the dichotomy Fleming versus inhabitant of Brussels and Dutch speaking person versus a bilingual Rand. This dividing line also runs through the group of Dutch speakers who identify themselves either with an urban or with an urban peripheral vision. A comparable discrepancy between an urban and a community vision can also be found among Dutch-speakers in Brussels (Janssens, 2013).

---

Rudi Janssens, 10 December 2014
(Translation June 2015)

[1] Actieplan van de Vlaamse Regering voor de Vlaamse Rand rond Brussel. Elementen voor een globale en gestructureerde aanpak voor het zuidelijk deel van Vlaams-Brabant. Approved by the Government of Flanders on 26 June 1996.