French Flemish

This article is a part of the Dutch dialects series.
Languages of the Netherlands‎ Dutch dialects Meuse-Rhenish Low Franconian Brabantian Hollandic Zeelandic West Flemish French Flemish East Flemish South Guelderish / Low Rhenish Limburgish / Low Rhenish Low Franconian/Ripuarian Southeast Limburgish (including Aachen dialect / Eschweiler dialect) Low Dietsch Low Saxon Dutch Low Saxon Gronings / East Frisian Low Saxon
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French Flemish (Dutch: Frans-Vlaams, occasionally used in English) is spoken in the north of contemporary France and is considered part of the West Flemish dialect of the Dutch language. Placenames testify to the dialect having being spoken since the eighth century in the area that was ceded to France in the 17th century and which became known as French Flanders. Its dialect subgroup called French Flemish meanwhile became a minority dialect that survives mainly between Dunkirk (Duinkerke in Dutch), Bourbourg, Calais (Kales in Dutch), Saint-Omer and Bailleul (Belle in Dutch). Dutch influence can arguably also be found in present-day place-names further along the Normandy coast, such as Dieppe (diep = deep) or Fécamp (vis kamp = fish camp). French-Flemish has about 20,000 daily users, and twice that number of occasional speakers^[1]

Historic regression of Dutch in the Western periphery.
The blue line indicates the situation in the 7th-8th C.; the red line marks the situation during the 20th C.; the black line is the actual French-Belgian border.

See also

• Nord-Pas de Calais
• French Flanders
• Seventeen Provinces
• Burgundian Netherlands

External links

• Akademie voor Nuuze Vlaamsche Tale tries to regulate this language
• Flemish in France site UOC, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Open University of Catalonia), subsite Euromosaic - Research Centre of Multilingualism.
• http://fvlinhetnederlands.actieforum.com

West Flemish edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Footnotes