Belgicism
Encyclopedia
The word belgicism refers to a word, expression, or turn of phrase that is uniquely Belgian French
, or Belgian Dutch. Even though the French spoken in Belgium
is closer to the French spoken in France than the French spoken by Québécois
, there are a considerable number of words and phrases that have disappeared from common usage in other Francophone
nations that remain common in everyday Belgian speech.
Certain words used in Belgium that are not used in Standard French are also found in Northern France and in Switzerland
, for example chicon (endive
) and septante (seventy, unlike the ventigesimal soixante-dix, or sixty-ten, used in France.) In these cases, these words are sometimes not classified as being solely belgicisms.
s, and consequently, the French spoken in the French part of Belgium is considerably under the influence of the languages of the other Belgian regions, and is also enriched by vocabulary from the languages of neighbouring countries, mainly Dutch
, but to a much lesser extent German
and English
as well.
Belgian French is also enriched by vocabulary from other regional Romance languages
, such as Picard
, Walloon, Lorrain
and Champenois
. Belgicisms directly influenced by Walloons
are specifically called Wallonisms.
that are nearly exclusively used in Belgian Dutch.
Belgian French
Belgian French is the variety of French spoken mainly in the French Community of Belgium, alongside related minority regional languages such as Walloon, Picard, Champenois and Gaumais. The French spoken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi, which were formerly Belgian...
, or Belgian Dutch. Even though the French spoken in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
is closer to the French spoken in France than the French spoken by Québécois
French-speaking Quebecer
French-speaking Quebecers are francophone residents of the Canadian province of Quebec....
, there are a considerable number of words and phrases that have disappeared from common usage in other Francophone
Francophone
The adjective francophone means French-speaking, typically as primary language, whether referring to individuals, groups, or places. Often, the word is used as a noun to describe a natively French-speaking person....
nations that remain common in everyday Belgian speech.
Certain words used in Belgium that are not used in Standard French are also found in Northern France and in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, for example chicon (endive
Endive
Endive , Cichorium endivia, is a leaf vegetable belonging to the daisy family. Endive can be cooked or used raw in salads.-Background:Endive is also a common name for some types of chicory...
) and septante (seventy, unlike the ventigesimal soixante-dix, or sixty-ten, used in France.) In these cases, these words are sometimes not classified as being solely belgicisms.
Origins of Belgicisms
Belgium has three national official languageOfficial language
An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration. However, official status can also be used to give a...
s, and consequently, the French spoken in the French part of Belgium is considerably under the influence of the languages of the other Belgian regions, and is also enriched by vocabulary from the languages of neighbouring countries, mainly Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, but to a much lesser extent German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
and English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
as well.
Belgian French is also enriched by vocabulary from other regional Romance languages
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
, such as Picard
Picard language
Picard is a language closely related to French, and as such is one of the larger group of Romance languages. It is spoken in two regions in the far north of France – Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardy – and in parts of the Belgian region of Wallonia, the district of Tournai and a part of...
, Walloon, Lorrain
Lorrain
Lorrain may refer to:* Claude Lorrain , a 17th-century French artist of the baroque style* Lorrain language, a Romance dialect spoken in Lorraine region in France and Gaume region in Belgium- See also :* Lorain...
and Champenois
Champenois
Champenois is a language spoken by a minority of people in Champagne in France and in Wallonia in Belgium. It is one of the langues d'oïl. It is classified as a regional language of France, and has the recognized status of a regional language of Wallonia....
. Belgicisms directly influenced by Walloons
Walloons
Walloons are a French-speaking people who live in Belgium, principally in Wallonia. Walloons are a distinctive community within Belgium, important historical and anthropological criteria bind Walloons to the French people. More generally, the term also refers to the inhabitants of the Walloon...
are specifically called Wallonisms.
Different types of belgicisms
One can point to:- phonetic belgicisms, which are not written differently from standard French words, but are pronounced differently:
- Many Belgians pronounce
/ɥi/ like /wi/, unlike French speakers of French. Most French individuals notice a difference between the two sounds, but many Belgians do not. Another difference in pronunciation stems from how loan words with the letter 'w' are pronounced. Belgian Francophones tend to always pronounce w as /w/ in words like wagon /waɡɔ̃/ whereas in Standard French, this would be pronounced /vaɡɔ̃/, since French Francophones generally pronounce /w/ like /v/. - The distinction between the nasal vowels /ɛ̃/ and /œ̃/ is upheld, whereas in many regions of France, these two sounds have merged. Thus, although for many French people, brin (stalk) and brun (brown), are homophones, for Belgians they are not.
- Another unusual aspect of Belgian French is the clear difference between the pronunciation of 'ai' and 'ais' at the end of a word. Belgians pronounced the first like an /e/ and the second like an /ɛ/. As a consequence, Belgians rarely confuse the future tenseFuture tenseIn grammar, a future tense is a verb form that marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future , or to happen subsequent to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future .-Expressions of future tense:The concept of the future,...
and conditionalConditionalConditional may refer to:*Causal conditional, if X then Y, where X is a cause of Y*Conditional mood , a verb form in many languages*Conditional probability, the probability of an event A given that another event B has occurred...
when writing. - Belgian speakers pronounce the final T in certain words that some French do not: for example, huit (eight) and vingt (twenty) are pronounced /wɪt/ and /vɛ̃t/ respectively.
- Many Belgians pronounce
- Archaic belgicisms that come from the foreign rule over Belgium in the past. Belgium has been occupied by Dutch, English, Spanish, Austrian, French and German powers, and all of which have indubitably laid a footprint on Belgian French. Also worth mentioning is the use of 'septante' and 'nonante' for 70 and 90 respectively. Although these words are used in SwitzerlandSwitzerlandSwitzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
and in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the rest of the Francophone world, the ventigesimal 'soixante-dix' and 'quatre-vingt-dix' are used.
- Belgicisms that were manufactured by the Belgian government. Like France and Québec, Belgium too has an administration in place to prescribe language use. Belgium undertook a series of measures to combat linguistic sexism by creating feminine versions of masculine gender occupations. For example, professeur and docteur had no feminine-gender equivalent words, even though many women had these occupations. In March 1989, the Belgian administration prescribed that all jobs would have a grammatically masculine and feminine form (le docteur could be la doctoresse.) This feminization of words has no official equivalent in metropolitan France.
- Belgicisms of Germanic origin such as the word bourgmestre which comes from the DutchDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
Burgemeester and refers to the chief magistrate of a village.
- Belgicisms with different meanings to other variants of French. Some words have a different meaning in Belgium from those in other Francophone countries:
- La cassonade in Belgium is a light or dark brown sugarBrown sugarBrown sugar is a sucrose sugar product with a distinctive brown color due to the presence of molasses. It is either an unrefined or partially refined soft sugar consisting of sugar crystals with some residual molasses content, or it is produced by the addition of molasses to refined white...
extracted from beets; in Québec, it is a brown cane sugar. - outre-QuiévrainQuiévrainQuiévrain is a Walloon municipality located in the Belgian province of Hainaut. On 1 January 2006, the municipality had 6,559 inhabitants. The total area is 21.22 km², giving a population density of 309 inhabitants per km²....
is used to refer to Belgium by the French, and to France by the Belgians; Quiévrain is the border crossing point on the old main Paris-Brussels railway line.
- La cassonade in Belgium is a light or dark brown sugar
Some examples
| Belgicism | Dutch | Metropolitan French | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| à tantôt | tot later | à tout à l'heure | see you later |
| aller à la toilette | naar het toilet gaan | aller aux toilettes | to go to the toilets |
| astruquer | verslikken | s'étrangler | to choke drinking something |
| au matin | deze morgen | ce matin | this morning |
| auto-scooter | botsauto | auto-tamponneuse | bumper car |
| boiler | boiler | chauffe-eau | boiler |
| brosser un cours | brossen, spijbelen | sécher un cours | to skip class |
| canadas | aardappels | pommes de terre | potatoes |
| canule | slechte voetballer | (No French equivalent) | terrible football player |
| carabistouilles | stommigheden | bêtises | folly, silly things |
| carrousel | draaimolen, carrousel | manège forain | carrousel |
| chicon | witloof, chicon | endive | endive |
| co-koter | samenwonen | partager un logement (généralement pour étudiants) | to have a roommate |
| couque | koek | brioche | brioche |
| dikkenek | dikkenek (literally: fat neck) | vantard | boasting, boastful |
| divan | sofa, zetel | canapé | sofa |
| douf ("Il fait douf!") | heet | chaleur étouffante ("il fait très chaud") | asphyxiating heat |
| drache | stortregen | très grosse pluie | heavy rain |
| écolage | opleiding | apprentissage | training |
| fraiser | kloppen | frapper | to knock |
| GSM | gsm | téléphone portable | mobile/cell phone |
| kot | kot | petit studio d'étudiant | digs; student residence |
| (avoir des) krolles | krullen hebben | (avoir les) cheveux frisés, bouclés | (to have) curly hair |
| nonante | negentig | quatre-vingt-dix | ninety |
| septante | zeventig | soixante-dix | seventy |
| spéce | speciaal, ongewoon | spécial | special; unusual |
| toquer | "nen toek geven", kloppen | frapper | to knock |
| torchon | dweil | serpillière | floorcloth |
| volle gaz | volle gas | rapidement | quickly (full steam ahead) |
Dutch Belgicisms
The word "Belgicism" is also used to describe words in the Dutch languageDutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
that are nearly exclusively used in Belgian Dutch.