Straddling the cultural boundary between Germanic and Romance Europe, Belgium is linguistically divided. It has two main languages: 59% of its population, being 6.18 million people in the north, mainly in the region Flanders, speak Dutch (while Belgians of both major languages often refer to it as Flemish); French is spoken by 40%: 3.29 million in the southern region Wallonia and an estimated 0.88 million in the officially bilingual Brussels-Capital Region or 85-90% of its residents – thus a minority there speaks Dutch, its local language till the first half of the 20th century. Less than 1% of the Belgians, around 70,000 live in the German-speaking Community in the east of the Walloon Region. This linguistic diversity often leads to political and cultural conflict and is reflected in Belgium’s complex system of government and political history but generally works pretty well.
In Belgium the three languages are equally treated and all three are “official languages”.
Maybe the officials in Kiev should have a look at Brussels and get some advice there, regarding how to integrate different ethnic groups, with their individual languages, in a successful democracy.
Why do people always seem to have to look across the Atlantic when promising ideas exist so much closer.
6 Kommentare
16 04 07 um 17:32
I have also sought about the Belgian example for Ukraine. But is it really that good? I think, Belgium today is merely more than a ‘Staatenbund’ but not a ‘Bundesstaat’. But maybe it could work on the Dnjepr.
16 04 07 um 19:14
What’s the alternative ? Cheney wants to split Ukraine up. If he / they can’t have all of it, he / they rather split her up and “swallow” the West. The East can’t survive on its own. The “Belgian Solution” seems to be the most logical one.
17 04 07 um 19:38
Finland is another example: just 6 per cent of the population uses Swedish in their everyday life, still Swedish is the second official language of the country. And yes, Sweden also was the former colonial power of Finland.
20 04 07 um 07:08
I think one of the major mistakes the EU made is that it had NOT standardized on the official language.
In my opinion, the EU should have chosen one of the simple, logical, constructed languages (like Esperanto, for example) as the official language of the EU.
This would’ve simplified things significantly on many levels (labor market, communications, law, etc.), unite the EU member states on the language basis AND solve many language issues in the member countries, like Belgium.
20 04 07 um 13:29
@ Heribert: We are d’accord that the present situation in the Ukraine can not last for long without causing major damage to the country. A ‘Belgian solution’ could in fact be a good compromise.
@ Vollov: Latin!
20 04 07 um 17:08
Vegetius Renatus: “Latin!”
Yes, some form of simplified Latin is also a possibility. Personally, I like Esperanto better though, for Esperanto is a very simple and easy to learn language.
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