Marols
Encyclopedia
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
spoken in Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
. Essentially it is a 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...
dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
incorporating many words of French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
origin as well as a sprinkling of Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
dating back to the rule of the Low Countries by the Habsburgs (1519-1713). Its name refers to a district of Brussels called Marollen
Marollen
Marolles or Marollen is an ancient district of Brussels, situated between the Law Courts of Brussels and the Brussels-South railway station. In the heart of Marollen can be found the Église de la Chapelle/Kapellekerk and the Place du Jeu de balle/Vossenplein...
(Marolles), a neighborhood in the central municipality of Brussels, not far from the Palace of Justice
Law Courts of Brussels
The Law Courts of Brussels or Brussels Palace of Justice is the most important Court building in Belgium, and is a notable landmark of Brussels. It was built between 1866 and 1883 in the eclectic style by architect Joseph Poelaert...
. The district takes its name from the former abbey
Abbey
An abbey is a Catholic monastery or convent, under the authority of an Abbot or an Abbess, who serves as the spiritual father or mother of the community.The term can also refer to an establishment which has long ceased to function as an abbey,...
of the nuns Maria Colentes (Marikollen). It was a working-class neighborhood, though now it has become a fashionable part of the city. Marols is described as "totally indecipherable to the foreigner (which covers everyone not born in the Marolles) which is probably a good thing as it is richly abusive."
The Théâtre Royal de Toone in Brussels puts on puppet
Puppet
A puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by an entertainer, who is called a puppeteer. It is used in puppetry, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre....
plays in Marols.
What is Marols?
There is much confusion about the meaning of Marols, which is considered by many people to be distinctive from Brussels Dutch. According to Jeanine Treffers-Daller, “the dialect has a tremendous prestige and a lot of myths are doing the rounds.”Examples
An example of Marols is:Marols and TintinThe Adventures of TintinThe Adventures of Tintin is a series of classic comic books created by Belgian artist , who wrote under the pen name of Hergé...
The Adventures of Tintin
The Adventures of Tintin is a series of classic comic books created by Belgian artist , who wrote under the pen name of Hergé...
, the author Hergé
Hergé
Georges Prosper Remi , better known by the pen name Hergé, was a Belgian comics writer and artist. His best known and most substantial work is the 23 completed comic books in The Adventures of Tintin series, which he wrote and illustrated from 1929 until his death in 1983, although he was also...
modeled his fictional languages Syldavian
Syldavian
Syldavian is a fictional West Germanic language created by Hergé as the national language of Syldavia, a small fictional Balkan kingdom that serves as a major setting in some Tintin stories. Hergé modeled the language on Marols, a dialect of Dutch spoken in and around Brussels...
and Bordurian
Bordurian
Bordurian is a fictional language, the national language of Borduria, a fictional Balkan dictatorship created by Hergé for the Tintin comics series. Little is known about Bordurian, as it is not extensively presented in the Tintin stories...
on Marols, and modeled many other personal and place-names in his works on the dialect (e.g. the city of Khemkhâh in the fictional Middle Eastern country of Khemed comes from the Marols phrase for "I'm cold"). Bordurian, for example, has as one of its words the Marols-based "mänhir", meaning "mister" (cf. 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...
"mijnheer"). In the original French, the fictional Arumbaya language of San Theodoros
San Theodoros
San Theodoros is a fictional Central American country in The Adventures of Tintin. It is a satirical version of a Latin American banana republic country under the yoke of military government.-History:...
is another incarnation of Marols.