The municipalities of Flemish Brabant that circle Brussels, known collectively as de Rand (the periphery), are becoming more international every day. They are home to people from no fewer than 114 countries. Four out of every 10 children under the age of 11 in de Rand have foreign roots; more than one-quarter of all pupils speak no Dutch at home. These are just some of the numbers presented at a recent colloquium on the internationalisation of the periphery.

This internationalisation is caused by two major movements: People moving in from abroad to work in the European institutions or one of the many large companies in and around Brussels, and people moving out of the capital. It is also very diverse: While the so-called facility communes attract many French speakers, the area to the south of Brussels sees many northern and western Europeans moving in, often attracted by the international school there. Southern Europeans, Moroccans, Turks and eastern Europeans dominate to the northeast of Brussels.

English, please

“Many of these people see no difference between Brussels and the periphery,” says Rudi Janssens of the Brussels Free University (VUB) research institute Brio. There is a difference, though: Brussels is officially bilingual, but, as the periphery is in the Flemish region, its official language is Dutch – no matter how many languages its inhabitants may speak.

Janssens has studied the attitudes of the traditional expats – the wealthier sector of de Rand’s new inhabitants – extensively. “These attitudes hardly differ from those of the expats in Brussels. The main difference is that in the capital, expats tend to use French in the public sphere, while in Flanders this is mostly English. Many of them appreciate the fact that they can use English here.”

So where does that leave Dutch? “Most expats have a positive attitude towards Dutch,” says Janssens. “They believe it is important to speak the language of the area where they live. People who take Dutch courses do so of their own free will, not because they need Dutch for work or because the government asks them to.”

The distinguishing factor as to whether an expat will learn Dutch, he says, “is the length of time they have been living here or think they will stay. With the exception of the older generation, people who have been here for more than five years tend to be the most likely to learn Dutch.”

Does this help them blend in to their cities? Janssens has his doubts. “People who know Dutch will attend cultural events more often, but the reality is that most expats do not need Dutch to get around. They often meet up with people who speak their own language or use English or French. In fact, they are not all that different from the Flemish in that: They keep to themselves.”

Competing languages

At the Leuven colloquium, Geert Bourgeois, Flemish minister for integration and for the Rand, stressed the government of Flanders’ intention to preserve and even strengthen the Dutch-speaking character of the periphery. “This is just as obvious as it would be for Paris and Berlin to assume that the presence of a foreign population will not detract from their French and German character respectively,” he stated. “Our starting point is mutual understanding, which begins by comprehending each other. The easiest way to do this is with Dutch as a lingua franca. But we must admit that it is darned hard to compete with languages that are more international, such as French and English.”

Interestingly, when Janssens did find negative attitudes towards Dutch, it was in response to official attempts to impose its use. The wooncode, for instance, which asks a commitment from tenants of social housing to learn Dutch, has not been well received, and neither have signs at the town hall indicating that only Dutch is spoken.

“Expats find information on measures like these mostly from the French-speaking press, which reports on them in a negative light,” says Janssens. “Also, many of these people have learned English so they could function in an international environment. They see no reason to learn Dutch, too, especially because the European Union has different rules on language use. Many of them live here only temporarily.”

Except for the communes with facilities for French speakers, Dutch is still the language to use in any official contacts, but Janssens found that there is a way around that. “Many expats say they use English at their communes. Strictly speaking, civil servants are only allowed to use Dutch, but most of them speak other languages if they need to. It is a public service, after all. Somehow, they always find a middle ground.”

And that plantrekkerij, or making things work, makes the expats more Flemish than they would ever have imagined.