Apropos of my post yesterday urging lack of sentimentality regarding the extinction of languages check out this article about Flemish separatism in Belgium. The salient bits:
But Leterme proved anything but a unifying figure. He created a political uproar when he told the French newspaper Liberation that Belgium was "an accident of history." And he criticized the king for not speaking Dutch well enough. ... The French-speakers of Wallonia, a name some translate as land of valleys, dominated both politics and the economy in Belgium for decades. The south's coal reserves and steel industries fueled national prosperity while the Flemish region in the north remained largely agricultural. In recent years, the regions' fortunes have been reversed. The Flemish are in the majority with about 58 percent of the population, and their economy has exploded with high-tech companies and international trade, while the south is languishing with obsolete factories, high unemployment and an expensive welfare state.
Particular details are important here, the French speaking population produced the elite of Belgium until World War II (the monarch has traditionally spoken French). At one point when I dug into the literature I found reports of Flemish farmers being asked to speak French in courts in the heart of Flanders when they knew no French. But with the economic decline of Wallonia and the rise of Flanders after World War II this situation was no longer tenable, and a new modus vivendi arose where Flemish was given greater parity in national life, at least notionally. Nevertheless history still remains on the scene as a ghost, from what I have read it seems that Flemings are more likely to be bilingual, while Walloons still manifest sentiments which seem to derive from the assumption that they remain the stewards of Belgian high culture. From wiki:
This issue of Regards économiques is devoted to the demand for knowledge of languages in Belgium and in its three regions (Brussels, Flanders, Wallonia). The surveys show that Flanders is clearly more multilingual, but the difference is considerable : whereas 59% and 53% of the Flemings know French or English respectively, only 19% and 17% of the Walloons know Dutch or English. The measures advocated by the Marshall Plan go towards the proper direction, but are without doubt very insufficient to fully overcome the lag." (This particular 2006-2009 'Marshall Plan' was deviced in 2004 and published in 2005 to uplift the Walloon economy.[60]) Within the report, professors in economics Ginsburgh and Weber further show that of the Brussels' residents, 95% declared they can speak French, 59% Dutch, and 41% know the non-local English. Economically significant for a further globalizing future, among people under the age of forty, in Flanders 59%, in Wallonia 10%, and in Brussels 28% can speak all three forementioned languages....
Granted, English and Flemish are close cousins, but I don't think that accounts for all the difference. It seems that present socioeconomic circumstances and past preconceptions operate and cross-purposes, to the point where the nation is being torn apart.
