Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/804

* FLEMISH LANGUAGE. 720 ing centuries, down to the close of the middle period in the history of the language, at the end of the fifteenth century. During the sovereignty of the Dukes of Bur- gundy, which terminated in 1477, the language was subjected to French influence, which re- sulted not only in the introduction of a multi- tude of French words, but also in the loss of inflexional endings, and made the sixteenth century a period of linguistic confusion. The writers on language, of whom there were many at this time, endeavored each to make his own dialect the recognized literary form, and the dia- lect of Bruges, the East Flemish of Ghent, and the dialect of Brabant were in turn presented as forms of usage. Toward the end of the century, however, this had given way to the feeling that the common language should have inore general characteristics and should represent the whole rather than any particular part. Pontus de Heuiter, who published, in 1581, at Antwerp, his Nederduitse Orthographie, said of his own lan- guage that it is "set together out of the speech of Brabant, Flanders, Holland, Guelders, and Cleves," and this was ultimately the common attitude. The possibility of the development of a common literary language for the Netherlands and Bel- gium, which at this time, on account of the superior literary culture of Brabant and Flan- ders, bade fair to have a southern character, was definitely determined in the negative by the political events at the close of the sixteentti century. The northern provinces, in 1581, for- mally threw off their allegiance to the Spanish Crown, and, as the Dutch Republic, declared themselves an independent State. The centre of literary culture was presently shifted from the south to the north, and out of the dialect of the Province of Holland was developed the literary language of the Netherlands, called specifically Dutch.' The southern provinces were destined to a wholly different fate. After the taking of Ant- werp, in 1585, by the Duke of Parma, the Belgian Netherlands ( including Limburg. South Brabant, Antwerp. East Flanders and West Flanders, etc.) were separated from the northern prov- inces. They remained under Spanish supremacy until, in 1714. by the Peace of Rastadt, they were awarded to Austria. In 1794 they were conquered and annexed to France. During this whole period of foreign domination literature had sunk almost to its lowest possible ebb. The literary language, which at one time had made its influence felt over the whole of the Low Countries, remained fixed in its sixteenth- century form, and was on the point of degener- ating again into a mere dialect of the people. Its place as the language of the cultured classes, and particularly after the French occuption in 1794, had been taken more and more by French, already the sole language of (lie other Belgian provinces, Liege, Luxemburg, Namur, and llai- naut. The union of Belgium with Holland into the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in 1815. did not change existing conditions. Although tin' new sovereign, William of Orange, did his utmost to further the use <>f Low German in the plan' of French, his efforts were opposed both by the peo- ple, who. from the standpoint of their own dia- lect, regarded the language as a foreign tongue. FLEMISH LANGUAGE. and by the cultured classes, who would not thus differentiate themselves from the French speak- ing provinces of the south. The Revolution of 1830, which finally separated Belgium from Hol- land and in the end made it an independent European State, apparently settled for all time the fate of the Low German language. French became the single official medium; a literary lan- guage no longer existed in the Low German provinces, and the spoken dialects, with con- siderable local differences, alone held possession of the field. A movement, known as the 'Flemish Move- ment,' whose purpose was to rehabilitate Low German as the literary and official language, was, however, presently begun and has ultimately been successfully carried through. Jan Frans Wil- lems, who in the time of the United Kingdom had attempted without result to further the use of the native tongue, now set out in the light of the awakening of the new spirit of nationality, after 1839, to accomplish this end. Under the influence of this movement, poets like Karel Le- deganc, Theodor van Rijswijck and Prudens van Duyse, and _prose writers like Hendrik Con- science wrote Flemish, and an active propaganda was made to bring the language back again into the place in which it once stood in the estima- tion of all classes of the community. The Bel gian Government, by the three language laws of 1873, 1878, and 1886, gave to the movement the official sanction which was needed to complete it. By these enactments Flemish is made, with French, the legal and official language of the kingdom, the knowledge of which is required, and it is placed among the subjects of public instrue lion in the schools. The foundation of the Royal Flemish Academy [Koninklijke Vlaamsche Akn- demie), in 1886, was the final consummation of the movement. The territory of the Flemish language at the present time is, generally speaking, the Belgian provinces of Antwerp, Limburg, Brabant, East Inlanders, and West Flanders, the boundary be- tween French and Flemish being approximately a straight line drawn from Liege southward of Brussels to Calais, although French is spoken in some places to the north and Flemish to the south of such a line. The Flemish language does not differ materially from Dutch, with which in the earliest period, as we have seen, it was co incident. The three centuries during which there was little or no connection between the northern and the southern Netherlands, and in which each went its own way. brought about differences, how- ever, that, in spite of the unity that has been adopted in the orthography of Dutch and Flem- ish, still make the one readily distinguishable from the other. In addition to peculiarities of syntax, of idiom, and of the specific choice and meaning of words, Flemish is particularly char- acterized by the relatively large number of French elements in its vocabulary. Fi.kmish LITERATI BE. It is only with the Flemish movement, already mentioned, that the history of Flemish literature, in the strict sens.' of the word, begins. IVfore the nineteenth cen- tury the literature of Flanders was indistin- guishable from Dutch. (Sec the article Ditch LlTEBATUBE. ) The first real step toward a recognition of Flemish was made by I he Vcad- < • 1 1 1 of Brussels in 1772, which put this language