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> Benoît Poelvoorde It looks like a very French first name and a very Dutch last name. Is that common in Belgium? Is there a significant overlap between the li
by smnrchrds 5y ago
> Benoît Poelvoorde
It looks like a very French first name and a very Dutch last name. Is that common in Belgium? Is there a significant overlap between the linguistic communities of Belgium?
- ddnb 5y agoYes there is, another example: Jean-Claude Van Cauwenberghe is a Walloon politician, Geert Bourgeois is a Flemish one.
- lovemenot 5y agoLet's not forget Benoit Mandelbrot, who may have discovered fractals while staring at a map of the Belgian border.
- cinntaile 5y agoIt depends on what you mean. There is no significant linguistic overlap. There are some exceptions such as if you live near the language border. But last names ending up in the other side of the country is not that uncommon, people move around and some end up getting kids there.
- gillesjacobs 5y agoThere's a significant overlap in naming and there's a lot of professional language contact. But culturally and politically, the linguistic communities are divided.
- sjrd 5y agoThose combinations are indeed quite common in Belgium. Another example: myself :-p (Sébastien Doeraene).
- smnrchrds 5y agoIf I may ask, what is the story behind your name? For example, is one of your parents francophone and the other one Dutch? Do you speak both languages natively?
- cinntaile 5y agoVery few people in Belgium speak both French and Flemish natively. It's one or the other, depending on which side of the language border you live on. In Flanders you have compulsory French classes while in Wallonia you don't have compulsory Flemish classes, but the compulsory classes don't get you anywhere near native proficiency. His last name doesn't sound very Flemish so his ancestors probably moved to Wallonia at least a few generations back. To me it even sounds like a Flemish version of a French name. The parent should correct me if I'm mistaken of course, deducting where someone is from based on their last or first name can be quite tricky in my experience.
- NicoJuicy 5y agoI don't agree. My French is good enough for talking to French canadians ( native dutch). And even french have trouble understanding the Quebec language. Some that learned it never use it, so they forget it though. But they don't need it professionally.
- cinntaile 5y agoGood enough is not even close to native though. He was wondering about native.
- NicoJuicy 5y agoWell, he was saying: > but the compulsory classes don't get you anywhere near native proficiency. And my proficiency is good enough work related and when I meet people. With no issues. What more would i need?
- cinntaile 5y agoThat's what I wrote. The original comment received a question "Do you speak both languages natively?". While not aimed at me, I addressed it for the general case. People aren't brought up with both languages and will not have a native understanding of both. 6 years of at most 3 to 5 hours a week of French in high school don't get you to native level. I don't doubt at all that it's sufficient for your needs, but the bar for native is much higher than communicating without issues when dealing with work or meeting people. Even if you were at native level, it still wouldn't mean that this is the general case. I hope the original poster replies as well, it would be interesting to know if he knows the history behind his last name.
- hinkley 5y agoSometimes it’s collectively referred to as Benelux, so a name that would fit in the Netherlands does not surprise me. It does throw me when some documentary interviews a Frenchman with a very German last name. Until I find out he lives in Alsace. That area traded hands so many times. There are some French names on the other side of the border too, I’m told. And isn’t “Austria” just a mistranslation of the German for “The outer lands”? But we don’t talk about that any more. Not since The War.
- karatinversion 5y ago"Eastern realm", actually. Wikipedia has some details - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria#Etymology
- csunbird 5y agoÖsterreich - The Eastern Empire (my limited german) Ost - East Öster - To the east, easter - relative to something Reich - Empire
- jaeh 5y agoDuring the second world war, Austria was called "Ostmark", not österreich. And yes, "we do not talk about that" since the war ended, the Myth that we were the "First Victim of the Nazis" still perpetuates, at least in the Generation of my Grandmother (who is 94). The only austrian resistance when the nazis entered in 1938 was a Group of International Brigades that had returned from the spanish Civil War and they all got slaughtered. You likely will not find that in a lot of history books either, somehow the ~80.000 international Volunteers of the Civil War in Spain are rarely mentioned anywhere. No Pasaran!
- zinclozenge 5y agoIt's kind of a meme in Belgium that flemish people have french last names and walloons have dutch last names.
- TacticalCoder 5y ago> Is that common in Belgium? Jean-Claude Van Varenberg (the real name of Jean-Claude Van Damme). It is incredibly common. I've got many several french speaking belgian friends, with a french name but a dutch family name. > Is there a significant overlap between the linguistic communities of Belgium? I would say not anywhere near what the name / family names may suggest. The north/south separation in Belgium is quite clear and although mixed french/flemish couples are by not means rare, I'd say the overlap is still not huge. Even in Brussels native flemish speaking people are only 6% of the population.
- markvdb 5y agoI initially started writing half an encyclopedia here, but I scrapped that. Some random bits: - There's rather limited contact between the linguistic communities of Belgium. - Knowledge of nl is generally extremely limited in Wallonia. I have a feeling it's improving a bit, even if nl is not obligatory in education there. - Knowledge of fr is clearly worsening with the youngest generation in Flanders, even if fr is obligatory in education there. - Mixed nl/fr work environments used to be fr. - Friends from outside Belgium often tell me they notice absurd humor as a common trait. - Lots of interesting things to say about language community history too. Long story short, the language border hardly moved the last few hundred years, except for Brussels turning majority nl-> fr in the last ~100 years [0]. - Did you know Belgium has large ar, ber, de (official language!), it, ku, ln and tr communities too? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francization_of_Brussels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francization_of_Brussels P.S. If you like Poelvoorde, watch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brand_New_Testament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brand_New_Testament .
- smnrchrds 5y agoThank you for this information. What are ber, ln, and ku?
- anticensor 5y agober: Berber ln: Bantu Lingala ku: Kurdish
- ghaff 5y agoIn a prior life (i.e. 25 years or so ago), I was in Brussels for a work event where there were various speeches. The way it worked is that you either spoke English or you spoke alternating French/Flemish.
- glandium 5y ago20 years or so ago, I went to the movies in Brussels. A movie in English with subtitles. Both in French and Flemish at the same time, and in many cases the subtitles were taking close to half the height, it was ridiculous.
- NicoJuicy 5y agoA lot of people in the north of france spoke Dutch/were Belgian. Some old people in french speaking still speak dialect dutch. Not the "new" generation. French Flanders: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Flanders https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Flanders Additionally, Wallonië is also french speaking and not dutch. So my guess is that it's pretty common ;)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- vimy 5y agoWhen Flanders was poor a lot of Flemings moved to Wallonia, at the time it was the wealthy part of Belgium, to find work. They stayed and their kids grew up learning French and then their kids did as well, only their last names reminding them of where their ancestors came from.
- Mvandenbergh 5y agoYes, specifically it's more common that way around than the other due to the large influx of Flemish workers who moved to the coal and iron regions in Wallonia during the industrial revolution. Most people with FR first name and Dutch last name are Walloons who probably do not speak Flemish.
- jacquesm 5y agoThat's also common in the Netherlands and even Germany. French first names are simply popular all throughout Europe (ditto Italian and English names).
- Bayart 5y agoA lot of Flemish folks migrated to French speaking areas back in the days because of the mines. Belgian mines powered the industrial revolution, which explains a lot of the British involvement and Belgium's historically awkward international status.
- agumonkey 5y agotalking about dutch-belgian-french, I recently got into Dick Annegarn His first album "Sacre Geranium" is a strange kind of masterpiece. Naive, comical, poetic, and strangely complex musically at the same time (all that mostly as a solo acoustic guitar voice act) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xx4Au2Tchqw&list=OLAK5uy_kBImZc9ipcCgBuyX8zQEgA-UkXAC08w1c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xx4Au2Tchqw&list=OLAK5uy_kBI...