Talk:Flemish people

An seemingly important big chunk of text needs rewriting...

Seems important. Shame it is hard to follow...

"In 1830 the southern provinces of the United Netherlands proclaimed their independence. French-dialect speaking population, as well as the administration and elites, feared the loss of their status and autonomy under Dutch rule while the rapid industrialization in the south highlighted economic differences between the two. Under French rule (1794–1815), French was enforced as the only official language in public life, resulting in a Frenchification of the elites and, to a lesser extent, the middle classes. The Dutch King allowed the use of both Dutch and French dialects as administrative languages in the Flemish provinces. He also enacted laws to reestablish Dutch in schools.[8] The language policy was not the only cause of the secession; the Roman Catholic majority viewed the sovereign, the Protestant William I, with suspicion and were heavily stirred by the Roman Catholic Church which suspected William of wanting to enforce Protestantism. Lastly, Belgian liberals were dissatisfied with William for his allegedly despotic behaviour.[citation needed]

Following the revolt, the language reforms of 1823 were the first Dutch laws to be abolished and the subsequent years would see a number of laws restricting the use of the Dutch language.[9] This policy led to the gradual emergence of the Flemish Movement, that was built on earlier anti-French feelings of injustice, as expressed in writings (for example by the late 18th-century writer, Jan Verlooy) which criticized the Southern Francophile elites. The efforts of this movement during the following 150 years, have to no small extent facilitated the creation of the de jure social, political and linguistic equality of Dutch from the end of the 19th century.[citation needed]" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.162.35 (talk) 01:36, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Word “the” treaty without referent

“The modern Belgian province of Limburg was not part of the treaty” (fist paragraph under History)… but no treaty to be found in the text above. (In fact, no other occurrence of treaty in the page.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by DominiqueM (talk • contribs) 10:57, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

A word of thanks

I wish to thank Iryna Harpy and DisillusionedBitterAndKnackered among others for their contributions. In no way did I wish to start an edit war! My edits really were intended in good faith. Of course edits should go to the talk page, and I will do so in future. I was quite surprised that my ISP was changing my address so frequently. I hardly ever reboot my router and yet I see several different addresses on my edits. Very best regards to you all!— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a02:1811:429:f200:ad9c:54ff:4e85:4496 (talk) 23:43, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

French

Flemish people do not speak French as a native language. I am flemish myselve and I actualy can speak a bit of French beacause I learened it as a foreign language at school. There is no part of Flanders where French is nativly spoken, it is an official language in the Brussels capital region along with Dutch but Brussels isn’t a part of Flanders anymore and the native language spoken in Brussels used to be a Brabantian dialect of Dutch. Furthermore, Dutch is the sole official language of the Flemish comunity. Therefore, I have tried to edid the mistake in this article twice, but everytime I do someone reverted my edid. Due to this I opened this New talk page. I hope this way I can provide a sufficient argumentation to convince everyone. Falco iron (talk) 19:28, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

People in Brussels who don't speak Flemish natively cannot be ethnically Flemish? Sounds like some kind of ethnolinguist nationalist POV. You say Brussels is not part of Flanders any longer, but Flanders is a cultural region, not just administrative. I can't understand how you can argue people with Flemish ancestry living in Brussels who speak French are not Flemish plainly because of the language they speak. I don't see how they are any less Flemish then say French-speaking ethnic Luxembourgers are Luxembourgian. Rob984 (talk) 17:06, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

This is absolute rubbish both historically or ethnically. Historically there were significant native French-speaking populations in Flanders (see this article) and French was widely spoken as a lingua franca by the élite. This remains true in the various municipalities with language facilities in Flanders and, from experience, in many cities in Flanders. As mentioned above, there is also the fact that many Flemish-born people live in Brussels and Wallonia (and France) and speak French. Either way, one of the interesting things about Flemish identity is how porous it is and it seems serious WP:POV to talk about a Flemish ethnolinguistic group.—Brigade Piron (talk) 14:43, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Contemporary Flemish identity is indeed very much tied to the Dutch language. Anyone who has lived in Belgium will have experienced this. A (non-native Dutch speaking) French-speaker of Flemish ancestry wouldn't be considered Flemish, whereas a Flemish-Dutch speaker of Walloon or foreign ancestry would be considered Flemish. There is nothing strange or controversial about this. Morgengave (talk) 17:57, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

It's because Francophones in Northern Belgium have stopped identifying themselves as Flemings. Most native Francophones in Brussels are ethically Flemish but don't call themselves /feel Flemish. They identify themselves with (Frenchspeaking) Belgium. When Flanders was officially billingual Francophones in Flanders felt Flemish (and Belgian). In the Flemish region the Francophone elite reintegrated into the main population and only speaks French at home. In Brussels this reintegration failed and Francophone Flemings formed a new Brussels identity that was distinctly not Flemish and Francophone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:A03F:5449:3F00:6CC5:B648:8C46:C9F0 (talk) 21:02, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

I think this rather proves my point. Either the Flemish people "are a Germanic ethnic group native to Flanders" (as we currently proclaim in the first line) or they are "people (of mixed ancestry) who live in Flanders and predominantly speak Dutch". I agree with Morgengave that the latter is much more reflective of reality and the popular perception anywhere other than a Voorpost meeting. The rather weirdly racialist perspective we currently present derives, I suspect, from a reliance on American political science textbooks.—Brigade Piron (talk) 18:59, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

This may be a false contrast. Flemings - like a.o. the Dutch and Germans - are a (West) Germanic ethnic group in the sense of shared cultural, linguistic and historical roots. Like other Western identities, the Flemish ethnic group is generally open to all ancestries on condition that the shared identifiers are met (such as language). Nowadays, race or ancestry is generally not one of these identifiers (even though some far-right groups may disagree). Note that describing European ethnic groups in such manner is common practice on Wikipedia (Germanic, Romance, Slavic - see f.e. Germans, Romanians, Russians). Other descriptions such as "West European ethnic group" would be equally fitting. Morgengave (talk) 06:45, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

@Brigade Piron: It is not racialist in the slightest as the Flemish have considred themselves an ethnic group long before the society of modern Belgium came into its own in the 20th/21st centuries. It redefined itself a number of times but it is firmly stuck on ittoday being a Germanic ethnic group from Flanders who speak Flemish Dutch. This is why there is a divide in definition and why Flemings and Belgians and Flemings and Demographics of Belgium are separate articles. Belgium maintains to have minorities that do no identify as Flemings or Walloons. IF we were to say anyone from Flanders is ethnically Flemish, we'd be denying a lot of people their ethnic identity by sweepingly labelling them with only their nationality or new identity. Case in point are Belgian Turks or Belgian Moroccans, who are Belgians, possibly Flemish but still maintain to be Turks or Moroccans respectively first and foremost or alongside their other identities. If anything, grouping everyone into Flemings would be more of an American/French perspective of forced homogeneity. Voorpost on the other hand would have you believe that only pale white people could be Flemish which is entirely racist as many would and do have mixed backgrounds, not to mention the idea of reater Netherlands which many Flemings would abhor as they are not Dutch. The fact remains that there exists a group of people that identifies as Flemish with charachetristics of a Germanic ethnic group in langauge and culture who profess no other origin but that. (talk) 06:45, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

I know this is wildly untrue and it pisses me off

"when compared to the Netherlands most of these cultural and linguistic differences quickly fade, as the Flemish share the same language, similar or identical customs and (though chiefly with the southern part of today's Netherlands) traditional religion with the Dutch."

I can't read the source, I wouldn't be surprised if this is made up, especially the "traditional religion" thing, what's that even supposed to mean? What does "quickly fade" mean? The "language" is quite different, the customs differ widely. Flemish customs are quite different from Walloon customs, but they're more similar to Walloon customs then they are to Dutch customs, to which they are widely different, with some exceptions, like the work ethic is quite strong in both Flemish and Dutch people, but then you could also say that when compared to Germany, differences in customs "quickly fade". You could probably count the exclusive similarities between Flemish and Dutch culture with one hand (language, Zwarte Piet, that's all I can think of). There's also this map of presumably the Medieval dialects of Dutch going around on Wikipedia, and people use it -and the map itself is named- as if it's the current linguistic situation, which is simply not true.

Of course Wikipedia isn't about the truth but rather about sources, however most of these sources aren't able to be read online and thus I can't check if they're even correctly cited. I'd love to create a more descriptive environment on Flemish culture on Wikipedia, but I can't. Can someone help me? I don't know how to fix this without spending literally weeks, months or even years on it, I've been wanting to fix this for years now, but I'm not an academic, I have a life, and I can't take on such a massive undertaking on my own. Please contact me if you'd like to help me out, some suggestions on what I can do for example would be much appreciated. Dapperedavid (talk) 19:06, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Your plan really sounds like a massive undertaking that would demand a lot of work and a lot of time. If you don't have the time to do all the work needed, then the only option, it seems to me, would be to proceed one small step at a time. For example, take the first reference that is supporting something that doesn't seem right and can't be checked, and find a better source that can be checked. And so forth. That seems to be to me, actually, the only good way in which an encyclopedia can ever be improved. One small but solid step at a time... I would be probably checking your edits here. Good luck, and enjoy every little step that is solidly accomplished. warshy ^(¥¥) 21:29, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that sentence or the source mentioned. Traditional religion refers to Catholicism, which Flanders shares with the Southern Netherlands; despite the number of adherents dropping steadily in both countries. Regards, Vlaemink (talk) 12:32, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 14 January 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Favonian (talk) 20:35, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

---

Flemish people → Flemings – Google Ngram shows that 'Flemings' is more widely used. It is the most concise as well. What do you think about my proposal? Srapa (talk) 20:59, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. The Google Ngrams also show that "Flemish" is much more common than "Flemings".[1] So "Flemish people" is a much better alternative. Rreagan007 (talk) 23:18, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
  • But "Flemish" is ambiguous, you should compare "Flemish people" vs "Flemings". --Srapa (talk) 09:17, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes, "Flemish" alone can be ambiguous, which is why we add "people" to it as a natural disambiguation. But like the comment below, I find it very difficult to believe that "Flemings" is a more common name for the people than "Flemish". There is a previous requested move discussion about this article's title that goes into greater detail. Rreagan007 (talk) 20:43, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose There are also many variants like "the Flemish", "Flemish opinion" and generally the use of Flemish as an adjective, that this ngram doesn't allow for. I personally find it extremely hard to believe that 'Flemings' is more widely used in modern English! It has a very 19th-century air to me. I notice this is Day 3 for this user name. Johnbod (talk) 13:40, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
• Rreagan007 and Johnbod, thank you for your reactions. Actually, I do not insist on my proposal, I had just wanted to hear other opinions. Therefore let us wait for a couple more days or a week yet and if there are no other opinions here, then the discussion may be closed as not moved. --Srapa (talk) 21:29, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose The title is clear enough and unambiguous, in my view. It is also clear it is referring to a group of people, while the alternative proposed does not make immediately clear what the concept is referring to. I would rather leave it as is, as it is good enough, in my view. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 23:00, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose, the "Flemings" NGram is often not about the Flemish people so is misleading (not delibereately so). When I look at the actual Google Books results for "Flemings" (21st century only), none of the first 10 results are about the Flemish people, but about people with the surname Fleming or Flemings! Fram (talk) 10:04, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose I might only consider supporting this move if it was actually the more common form in normal conversation. I've never even remotely considered calling them "Flemings" rather than "the Flemish" in English. I tend to read "Fleming" as a family name (as per Fram), and where it is used for Flemish speakers, as an anachronism. Trigaranus (talk) 10:14, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. While the term is used, I think Flemish is much more common. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:55, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.