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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 1429

Part of General Paper Session (Other abstracts in this session)

University towns as centres for social language planning agency: the Flemish case in the 19th century

Authors: Germeys, Kim
Submitted by: Germeys, Kim (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium)

The present-day area of Flanders witnessed a series of geo-political changes during the early 19th century with important sociolinguistic consequences. After 80 years of French domination, the Southern Low Countries became part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1814. In this new state Standard Northern Dutch met (alleged) ‘dialectal’ and ‘non-standardised’ Southern Dutch.

In 1830 Flanders became the northern part of bilingual Belgium. In this new nation, ‘second rate’ Southern Dutch, fit to be spoken by laborers and farmers had to compete with ‘prestigious’ French. Social inequality started to coincide with the linguistic divide. To fight off social stratification, elaboration of a standard variety of Dutch in Flanders was needed. On the level of variety selection this implied a choice between the existing Northern (and alleged “protestant”) standard versus establishing a Southern (“catholic”) one stressing local Flemish identity.

Academia has played an important role in the process of social rehabilitation of the Dutch-speaking population through standardisation measures for the Dutch language. My research focuses on academic life in three Belgian university towns, being Brussels, Leuven and Ghent.

Philologists participated in social and scholarly networks in these urban contexts and acted in the socio-political sphere by constructing a philological discipline of Dutch, choosing norms and debating about the status of Dutch in Belgium.

Leerssen (2005: 14) recognises the importance of “city cultures (civic academies, reading societies, newspapers)” as starting points for “the infrastructure of sociability which provided a platform for early cultural nationalism”.

Despite many detail studies and contributions from neighbouring disciplines, this interaction of the academic world with the sociolinguistic struggle in 19th century Flanders has never been explored before in a coherent and encompassing sociolinguistic project.

I will present the newest insights from a case study of the situation in 19th century Brussels. These results will be integrated in the further outline of the project, looking at two other university cities (as mentioned above) in and beyond Belgium.

This project is part of the ongoing research on Dutch in 19th century Belgium carried out by the Vrije Universiteit Brussel’s sociohistorical linguistics team.

References:

Leerssen, J. 2005. ‘The Cultivation of Culture.’ Working Papers, European Studies (2). Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam.