Brussels English: the international city versus Belgium

Brussels is an international hub of correspondents, diplomats and political aficionados. It is easy enough to forget where Brussels is; for all intensive purposes, it could be located just about anywhere, given the global scope of the governmental bodies and non-profit groups that populate the city. It has been, and continues to be, the midway land between a whole bunch of other places; someone is always traipsing across Belgium on their way to somewhere else. In doing so, one comes across many languages and people, as well as a funny pervasiveness of “Brussels English” amongst them all.

Unilingualism

Linguistic differences have continually been a source of conflict in Belgium. It is, in fact, the reason its prime minister quit his post last week for the second time since 2007. Belgium has seen four governments in the past three years, partially a result of its language divide.

The country is split into two major linguistic areas, with a little German chunk often overlooked off to the east. To the north, in Flanders, you have Flemish, a dialect of Dutch,. To the south, in Wallonia, you find French.

Brussels, although located in Flanders, was declared bilingual in 1993 as a compromise to the French-speaking majority residing here. At first glance this lends to such trivial problems as printing public signs in two languages and the dilemma of what to call a person from Brussels (“Brusselaar” or “Bruxellois”?).

To what extent does the current contention stem from this linguistic divide? Belgium is divided into both language communities and regions that govern their respective provinces. The electoral districts to vote for the Belgian Parliament Chamber are constituencies that overlap the provincial boundaries. The Brussels area is an exception. It is in the electoral and judicial district known as “BHV”, or Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde.

The BHV constituency is a lump formed from bilingual (in reality a French-speaking majority) Brussels and the surrounding Flemish Halle-Vilvoorde in the Brabant province. What this means is that a Francophone candidate from Halle-Vilvoorde can run for election there, but a Flemish individual living in a different language region cannot enjoy the same privilege and run for election.

The effects are larger than just representation in the Chamber. At the Senate and European levels, it means that a Francophone party can receive votes from a Flemish-speaking area, but a Flemish party cannot do the same in a French-speaking area. The electoral district was declared unconstitutional and discriminatory in 2003, but has nonetheless remained unresolved.

There have been talks since 2000 to split the province so that Brussels would be a separate constituency. However, only the Flemish want to pursue this course of action. French-speakers and parties in Halle-Vilvoorde are adamantly against such a move as this would deprive Francophone parties votes in the Brabant province.

A foreign affair

From my naive outsider’s perspective, the problem has another face to it, because the region has so many international dwellers. When I first ventured into the Flemish-speaking region of Belgium, I was advised not to try to putter along in French, but to simply speak English, as doing otherwise would cause offense. I received the same advice when going the opposite direction. The distilled fact then is that absolutely every person I have encountered during my four months living in Belgium has been capable of speaking English.

I attribute this in part to the presence of the European Union. The affairs of the EU had previously been almost entirely conducted in French, but all this changed with the 2004 addition of 10 countries, where second language skills were more likely to be English than French.

A 2007 Economist article on the subject concluded:

“the expansion of the European Union has let English not just edging ahead of the two other working languages, but in a position of utter dominance. The union now boasts 27 members and 23 official languages, but the result has been the opposite of a new tower of Babel. Only grand meetings boast interpreters. At lower levels, as it turns out, when you put officials from Berlin, Bratislava, Bucharest and Budapest in the same room, English is by far the easiest option.”

For a journalist, the ability to find a common language currency among many different people is essential.  The EJC office is a case in point.  The first day of my internship, I watched avidly as Greek, Italian and Macedonian colleagues chatted together in English. The three all speak French - not to mention a few other languages - with the ease and grace of native speakers, but the office typically conducts conversations in English. They joke that they speak “Brussels English”, or the English of non-native speakers who work together in the city.

As my Portuguese colleague explained, one could comfortably live in Brussels for years and never speak a word of any of the official languages because most people work in English and then speak whatever their national language is in private settings.

Dealing with fractions

A new Belgian prime minister cannot take office until the BHV issue is resolved, the Belgian justice system declared this month. As Brussels considers its options, it should perhaps investigate an even lower common language denominator.

A public poll could determine what portion of the population speaks English in the BHV. If the majority does, then this could serve as grounds for an altogether different compromise. True, it is a lose-lose situation, but the lose-win choices have yet to make much headway. I admit, this is a cultural poke in the eye to both groups. But if the country cannot proceed, it needs some new plan on the heretofore stalemate table. If this plan fails, at least Belgians can feel a new sense of unity amongst their brethren in a collective dislike of the English language (and/or me).

The Belgian government has been evaluating this issue since its creation nearly two hundred years ago. But as the German-speaking region has demonstrated, it is feasible to function while speaking a separate official language. To make Brussels and the surrounding area an English hub, creating a “BHV English” in effect, might not be so unreasonable. It might also mean little to no linguistic transition for the city.

Whether Belgium decides to become an official language qua-fecta or eventually arrives at a decision to split, the country will have to use its historically strong skills of compromise to finally find a solution to its linguistic predicament.

—-
Flickr images from users MorBCN, Simon Blackley, mcfarlandmo, batigolix

Posted on May 3, 2010 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Filed under blogging.