The Role of Language in Modern Belgium

Belgium is another country that has experienced a history of language-related political conflict. Belgium is located near the border dividing the Germanic and Romance branches of the Indo-European family. Politically, the country is divided between Dutch-speaking Flanders to the north and west and French-speaking Wallonia in the south and east (Figure 4-13).

Figure 4-13 The Language Regions of Belgium. Belgium is divided into Dutch- and French-speaking regions. Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia have highly autonomous local assemblies. In each region, government business is conducted in the local language

Belgium first became an independent country in the early nineteenth century. At that time, Wallonia held the balance of political and economic power. Dutch speakers in Flanders became concerned that their right to use their language was becoming eroded, and political conflict ensued. Conflict focused on the rights of individuals to speak and transact business in their own language.

In the twentieth century, language conflict within Belgium shifted from the rights of individual speakers to regional language rights. In the 1930s, the government enacted a series of laws establishing official language regions. Over the years, each language region was granted increasing autonomy. Today, Flanders and Wallonia elect separate legislatures. Each has considerable discretion over policy within its language region. The capital city of Brussels is located in Flanders, although French is the language of the Belgian monarch) and its traditional ruling elite. Both Dutch and French are used in official government business in Brussels, and Belgian law allows the city to elect its own regional assembly.

Bilingualism and Language Education. In today's world, many people learn more than one language. A person fluent in two languages is said to be bilingual. A multilingual person is fluent in two or morelanguages.

Most educated Europeans know several languages, as do most residents of countries in which two or more languages are recognized as official. Multilingualism outside the United States is reinforced by substantial foreign-language requirements in schools. Austrian students are required to complete eight years of modern foreign languages and four years of Latin before entering a university. In Iceland, high school students study Danish, English, and either French or German.

The study of several foreign languages is required in many non-European countries as well. Students in Cameroon must study both French and English from elementary school through the university level. Graduates of universities in Madagascar, a former French colony, must be fluent in French and pass examinations in English, Spanish, and German.

Unlike people elsewhere, relatively few native-born Americans are multilingual. Nor do as many American students study foreign languages. Arkansas is the only state that requires high school graduates to have studied a foreign language.

In recent years, some prominent educators, politicians, and business leaders have criticized Americans’ lack of knowledge of foreign languages. But is American ignorance of foreign languages necessarily bad? We have seen that English is becoming the world's lingua franca. On the other hand, critics argue that Americans’ refusal to study foreign languages places the United States at an economic disadvantage.

American executives who do not speak the languages of the countries in which they do business may not be able to compete with multilingual European or Japanese executives. Moreover, the State Department, the Foreign Service. and other government agencies that do business overseas suffer from a chronic shortage of personnel who speak other languages, especially those outside the Indo-European family.