Francization of Brussels
Post-1700s shift from Dutch to French in the Belgian capital / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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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] The main cause of this transition was the rapid, compulsory assimilation of the Flemish population,[6][1][7][8][4] amplified by immigration from France and Wallonia.[1][9]
The rise of French in public life gradually began by the end of the 18th century,[10][11] quickly accelerating as the new capital saw a major increase in population following Belgian independence.[12][13][14][15] Dutch – of which standardization in Belgium was still very weak[16][17][15] — could not compete with French, which was the exclusive language of the judiciary, the administration, the army, education, high culture and the media.[18][19][3][20][2] The value and prestige of the French language was so universally acknowledged[3][21][6][15][22][23] that after 1880,[24][25][16] and more particularly after the turn of the century,[15] proficiency in French among Dutch-speakers increased spectacularly.[13]
Although the majority of the population remained bilingual until the second half of the 20th century,[13][6] the original Brabantian dialect[26] was often no longer passed on from one generation to another,[27] leading to an increase of monolingual French-speakers from 1910 onwards.[21][28] This language shift weakened after the 1960s,[13][29] as the language border was fixed, the status of Dutch as an official language was confirmed,[30] and the economic center of gravity shifted northward to Flanders.[16][24]
However, with the continuing arrival of immigrants (most either from French-speaking countries or more familiar with French) and the post-war emergence of Brussels as a center of international politics, the relative position of Dutch continued to decline.[2][31][32][13][27] Simultaneously, as Brussels' urban area expanded,[33] a further number of Dutch-speaking municipalities in the Brussels Periphery also became predominantly French-speaking.[30][34] This phenomenon of expanding Francization (dubbed the "oil slick" by its opponents),[6][35][13] remains, together with the future of Brussels,[36] one of the most controversial topics in Belgian politics and public discourse.[24][19]