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conuly
First Europeans, that is. Everybody thinks it was the Dutch, we even use their flag, but it was the Walloons, we beat the Dutch here by six somethings. Months. Hours. Whatever. Point is, we were here first. Second. Before them, anyway.
When you're the Belgian kid in a pretty insular family, you know this stuff. You drive all your teachers and classmates batty. This is how I spent high school. And intermediate school. And probably elementary school, too. Oh, yeah, and college. Somehow, the subject manages to come up, and then I end up having to tell people that, no, people don't speak Dutch, they speak Flemish, and no, French fries are from Belgium, and no, it's not the "Flemish and the French", heaven save us from such a fate.
It wasn't just me. Jenn did this stuff too in class. It's a wonder how it can come up in math, but it does.
When you're the Belgian kid in a pretty insular family, you know this stuff. You drive all your teachers and classmates batty. This is how I spent high school. And intermediate school. And probably elementary school, too. Oh, yeah, and college. Somehow, the subject manages to come up, and then I end up having to tell people that, no, people don't speak Dutch, they speak Flemish, and no, French fries are from Belgium, and no, it's not the "Flemish and the French", heaven save us from such a fate.
It wasn't just me. Jenn did this stuff too in class. It's a wonder how it can come up in math, but it does.
Walloons discovered NY?
Date: 2006-07-01 11:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 03:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 03:22 pm (UTC)It's got its own separate entry in the Ethnologue.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 03:42 pm (UTC)Furthermore, every single Flander I have spoken to has called the language Dutch. Dutch is the official language of Flanders. The language spoken in Flanders is Dutch, albeit a dialect of Dutch, just as there are a number of others. Not calling the language spoken in Flanders Dutch is the same as saying that in the USA, people don't speak English, but instead speak American.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 03:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 03:53 pm (UTC)The business of allowing governmental agencies to define what a language is has always seemed suspect to me.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 04:09 pm (UTC)And the situation of Mandarin and Cantonese does not apply here. I, as native Dutch speaker, can speak without a single problem with anyone who speaks Flemish. In fact, I also watch Flemish television every once in a while without problems. I've been on vacation there, and the people understood me and I understood them. There is absolutely no problem in communicating between the two.
It's not just governmental agencies that define the language this way. We almost always have a Flemish winner during the 'Great Dictation of the Dutch Language'. There's a quiz show here, best translated as 'A+ for Dutch' that features Flemish and Dutch celebrities together to see which of the two is better. Oddly enough, the Flemish are always better at questions that are all about, and I quote the show here, the Dutch language.
There may be people here looking for an artificial difference between the two languages, but not only have governmental agencies defined the language as such, in any practical way, the two are the same as well.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 04:21 pm (UTC)Language is how people define it. I've heard it defined as two languages. There are people who define them as two languages. There are people who define Scots and English as two languages, or Swedish and Norwegian as two languages. Mutual intelligibility doesn't always seem to be how it's defined. Ought to be, but isn't.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 05:53 pm (UTC)And yet in my high-school English classes, we spent a full month reading Scots poetry. Along with a month on English (as in British) poetry, and one on poetry-in-English-translation, and Canadian poetry ...
Maybe I'm just over-sensitive because I've both had to spend conscious effort to not let my English be contaminated by my husband's, and spend way too much time insisting to people that yes, interpreting for Hispanics in New Jersey was a perfectly adequate preparation for interpreting for Hispanics in New Mexico (and yes, the Mexicans I interpret for now can understand my Castillian accent just fine, in fact just as well as the Mexicans I interpreted for in New Jersey could). In other words, dialectal differences within a language are a subject near and dear to my heart.
I don't know Flemish/Dutch well enough to debate that specific point, but my impression has been that they're more similar than, say, Spanish/Portuguese (but less so than, say, English English/Scottish).
no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 03:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 03:58 pm (UTC)We lost our own language, why should we let the Flemish lose theirs?
Walloons discovered NY?
Date: 2006-07-01 11:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 03:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 03:22 pm (UTC)It's got its own separate entry in the Ethnologue.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 03:42 pm (UTC)Furthermore, every single Flander I have spoken to has called the language Dutch. Dutch is the official language of Flanders. The language spoken in Flanders is Dutch, albeit a dialect of Dutch, just as there are a number of others. Not calling the language spoken in Flanders Dutch is the same as saying that in the USA, people don't speak English, but instead speak American.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 03:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 03:53 pm (UTC)The business of allowing governmental agencies to define what a language is has always seemed suspect to me.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 04:09 pm (UTC)And the situation of Mandarin and Cantonese does not apply here. I, as native Dutch speaker, can speak without a single problem with anyone who speaks Flemish. In fact, I also watch Flemish television every once in a while without problems. I've been on vacation there, and the people understood me and I understood them. There is absolutely no problem in communicating between the two.
It's not just governmental agencies that define the language this way. We almost always have a Flemish winner during the 'Great Dictation of the Dutch Language'. There's a quiz show here, best translated as 'A+ for Dutch' that features Flemish and Dutch celebrities together to see which of the two is better. Oddly enough, the Flemish are always better at questions that are all about, and I quote the show here, the Dutch language.
There may be people here looking for an artificial difference between the two languages, but not only have governmental agencies defined the language as such, in any practical way, the two are the same as well.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 04:21 pm (UTC)Language is how people define it. I've heard it defined as two languages. There are people who define them as two languages. There are people who define Scots and English as two languages, or Swedish and Norwegian as two languages. Mutual intelligibility doesn't always seem to be how it's defined. Ought to be, but isn't.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 05:53 pm (UTC)And yet in my high-school English classes, we spent a full month reading Scots poetry. Along with a month on English (as in British) poetry, and one on poetry-in-English-translation, and Canadian poetry ...
Maybe I'm just over-sensitive because I've both had to spend conscious effort to not let my English be contaminated by my husband's, and spend way too much time insisting to people that yes, interpreting for Hispanics in New Jersey was a perfectly adequate preparation for interpreting for Hispanics in New Mexico (and yes, the Mexicans I interpret for now can understand my Castillian accent just fine, in fact just as well as the Mexicans I interpreted for in New Jersey could). In other words, dialectal differences within a language are a subject near and dear to my heart.
I don't know Flemish/Dutch well enough to debate that specific point, but my impression has been that they're more similar than, say, Spanish/Portuguese (but less so than, say, English English/Scottish).
no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 03:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 03:58 pm (UTC)We lost our own language, why should we let the Flemish lose theirs?