Pluricentric principles in the standardization of 19th century Dutch

Abstract

As the official language of Belgium and The Netherlands Dutch is in a so-called pluricentric position. After the political split of the Netherlands at the end of the 16th century, French had become the prestige language of the southern Netherlands, later to become Belgium. From 1830 onwards, the year Belgium officially came into existence, a so-called Flemish Movement tried to improve the position and the status of Dutch. Several problems emerged simultaneously, one of them being that the Dutch language as it had been preserved in the southern parts was not at all prepared to assume the functions its advocates had in mind. Among other things it needed standardization, and the inevitable consequence seemed to be a steady rapprochement with the northern norm. Yet, not all Flemish activists agreed on the fact that strengthening the ties with the Dutch was a necessary, or even a desirable, evolution. Two factions may be discerned: those advocating domestic standardization (on the basis of the local dialect varieties), called particularists, and those insisting that the Flemings should take over as much as possible the standard language norms existing in the North. They are called the integrationists. Two interesting events, the so-called orthography debate and the first “Dutch Congress” in Ghent 1849 marked decisive victories for the integrationist tendency. Particularism, although by no means discarded, was from then on condemned to be an opposition movement, no longer capable of seriously challenging the integrationist dominance of the Flemish movement. Finally, the theoretical implications of this historic situation as far as language planning and linguistic policy are concerned, are discussed.