Which has worse condition? Belgian Dutch or Afrikaans?

joolsey   Fri Jan 08, 2010 6:06 pm GMT
@ Parisen

Thanks for the clarification.
Those were questions I was making, by the way (at least I have the humility to ask if they were accurate instead of parading them as facts).

Cheers!
joolsey   Fri Jan 08, 2010 6:32 pm GMT
PARISIEN

Could you just clarify another thing, please?

<<The self-standardization of French took place fully independently of any political power, at the same time in the Kingdom of France (which was a narrow stripe of land back then) as well as neighbouring francophone Duchies like Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, Savoy etc. >>

OK, I get. But if we consider that those regions you have cited went on to become integral parts of the Kingdom of France, surely this adds at least an element of degree to the permeation of French in Walloon areas. Granted, French would have been used (according to you) as the language of ambition, commerce and high culture in Wallonia since the 12th century (with Walloon surviving as the spoken language for most people). But this leads us to my point (forgive me if I did not express it lucidly enough in my original post); Walloonia would (unlike those polities you have cited, Burgundy, Normandy etc) spend further centuries removed from political and intellectual developments across Europe that would increasingly see language and political boundaries as intertwining manifestations of collective identities. So a Champenois or a Poitvegin person might go to war, for his King & Nation, perceive an invasion of the king's realm (thought that be hundreds of kilometers away) as tantamount to an attack on his own village, resent any attempts to invalidate his written language (assuming he knew how to write- and then he would likely have employed French) when going about his daily business. But would this symbiosis have had the same resonance in Walloon territories before the early 19th C. foundation of the Kingdom of Belgium and the subsequent rise of ethno-nationalist consciousness across all Europe? Surely the sense of identity would not have had sufficient time to attach itself to the French language, or if it did, at least not to the detriment of Walloon - that is; Walloons identifying their native Oil language as a defining marker when set against the competing claims of neighbouring language group (i.e. the Dutch-speaking Flemings).
Would this not be the case?
opinion   Fri Jan 08, 2010 9:50 pm GMT
<<In Flanders, running a business in another language than Dutch is punished by the law. This law is never applied against Arabic, English, Turkish, Hebrew etc. — only against French, which is supposed to be Belgium's second national language.>>
Perhaps Flanders adopted law analogous to Toubon Law of France?
"The Toubon Law (full name: law 94-665 of 4 August 1994 relating to usage of the French language), is a law of the French government mandating the use of the French language in official government publications, in all advertisements, in all workplaces, in commercial contracts, in some other commercial communication contexts, in all government-financed schools, and some other contexts.[1]

The law does not concern private, non-commercial communications, such as non-commercial web publications by private bodies. It does not concern books, films, public speeches, and other forms of communications not constituting commercial activity. However, the law mandates the use of the French language in all broadcasted audiovisual programs, with exceptions for musical works and 'original version' films.[2] Broadcasted musical works are subject to quota rules under a related law whereby a minimum percentage of the songs on radio and television must be in the French language.
One broad provision of the law applying to workplaces is that "any document that contains obligations for the employee or provisions whose knowledge is necessary for the performance of one’s work must be written in French." Among other things, this means that computer software developed outside France must have its user interface and instruction manuals translated into French to be legally used by companies in France. The law includes an exception that "these provisions do not apply to documents coming from abroad", but this exception has been interpreted narrowly by the appellate courts. For example in 2006 a French subsidiary of a US company was given a hefty fine for delivering certain highly technical documents and software interfaces to its employees in the English language only, and this was upheld by the appellate court.[3][4]

Another broad provision of the law is that it makes it mandatory for commercial advertisements and public announcements to be given in French. This does not rule out advertisements made in a foreign language: it is sufficient to provide a translation in a footnote. This was justified as a measure for the protection of the consumer. Additionally, product packaging must be in French, though, again, translation in multiple languages can be provided.

A similar restriction, though implemented by primary legislation regulations and not as application of the Loi Toubon, applies to product labeling: product labels should be intelligible and in French, though additional languages may be present.[5] Some linguistic restrictions on product labeling were found to be incompatible with European law,[6] particularly the directives concerning the freedom of movement of goods within the European Union. The French government then issued interpretation notes and amended regulations in order to comply.[7]

In another provision, the law specifies obligations for public legal persons (government administrations, et al.), mandating the use of French in publications, or at least in summaries of publications. In France, it is a constitutional requirement that the public should be informed of the action of the government. Since the official language of France is French, it follows that the French public should be able to get official information in French.

Under the Toubon law, schools that do not use French as the medium of instruction are ineligible for government funding. This includes the Breton language schools of Brittany.[8][9]

Other restrictions concern the use of French in academic conferences. These are largely ignored by many public institutions, especially in the "hard" scientific fields.[10][11] The original restrictions on colloquia also applied to private bodies, but that was found unconstitutional prior to enactment,[12] on grounds that they violated freedom of speech, and the final form of the law was modified accordingly.

[edit] Enforcement against French subsidiaries of US-based organizations
In the mid-1990s, soon after the Toubon Law came into force, two French lobbying groups, the Association pour la Défense de la Langue Française and the L'Avenir de la Langue Française, filed a complaint against Georgia Tech Lorraine, which is a French branch of Georgia Institute of Technology, a large American university. At the time of the complaint, all classes at this Lorraine school were conducted in English, and all course descriptions on its French Internet web site were in English only. The complaint invoked the Toubon Law to demand that the school's web site must be in French because the web site was effectively a commercial advertisement for the school's courses.[13] Although the case was dismissed by the court on a minor legal technicality,[14] and the lobbying groups chose to drop the matter, the school was moved to offer its French website in the French language in addition to English, although classes continued to be in English only.[15]

In 2006 the French subsidiary of the US company General Electric Medical Systems was fined €500,000 plus an ongoing fine of €20,000 per day for not complying with the Toubon law.[3]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toubon_Law