Talk:Brussels-Capital Region

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-- Out of Place -- "The following is clearly out of place in a neutral article. Among all major migrants groups from outside the EU, a majority of the permanent residents have acquired the Belgian nationality. Since the 2000 Nationality Law (snel-Belgwet or Quickly-Belgian law in Dutch), knowledge (even basic) of a Belgian national language is no longer compulsory and there are thus e.g. Belgian Turks who can't speak or understand French or Dutch."

Contents

[edit] Removed matter

I removed the following matter:

The population of this area is dominantly French-speaking, altough the entire agglomeration was initially Dutch-speaking, except for the royal court, nobility and 'haute-bourgeoisie' that were French-speaking since several centuries. Important minorities are: nationals from many European Union-countries, USA, UK and Canada, and of 'guest-workers and their families, mainly southern-Europe and North-Africa, and more recently from Central and Eastern-Europa.

Redundant with Comtemporary Brussels and History of Brussels sections of Brussels' article. Must be merged if appropriate. --Edcolins 20:37, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Dear, looking back after a while, it looks like most contributors see the use of having these two separate entries. That allows also for a greater accuracy and precision in the descriptions, and in the actual information. However, i do agree that we should avoid double and redundant information. --Lucas Richards 14:31, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Creation year

The Region was created in 1989, not 1993 [1]. --Edcolins 11:19, Jul 4, 2004 (UTC)


I'm sorry.But on the Dutch apge there stand independent in 1993.

[edit] Brussels Region

I don't see why the "Brussels region" colloquial name should be removed along with its translation. Please explain. --Edcolins 11:19, Jul 4, 2004 (UTC)

Now there stands The Brussels-Capital Region (Région de Bruxelles-Capitale in French, Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest in Dutch, Region Brüssel-Hauptstadt in German) or Brussels Region (Région Bruxelloise in French, Brusselse Gewest in Dutch) is one of the three regions of Belgium.

I think


The Brussels-Capital Region or Brussels Region (Région de Bruxelles-Capitale or Région Bruxelloise in French, Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest or Brusselse Gewest in Dutch and Region Brüssel-Hauptstadt in German) is one of the three regions of Belgium.

is better.

I agree. Yeah, it looks better. Go ahead. --Edcolins 18:54, Jul 4, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Why remove any reference to the Flemings in brussels beingt part of the Flemish community / nation?

Ed Collins, I saw your rewording of the introduction, but why removing that factual information that is supported by 100% of the Fleminsh politicians from Brussels? --Rudi Dierick 20:15, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Rudy, thanks for your comment. My edits [2] were intended to express that the Flemish Community and the French Community of Belgium are institutions on the political front at least. I am not denying that many inhabitants of Brussels may identify themselves with the political institutions, but that is more on the sociological front. On this front, Brussels contains many communities: let's say the community of French-speaking inhabitants, the community of Dutch-speaking inhabitants, the catholic community, the gay community, the community of European Union civil servants, the wikipedian community, and so on and so forth... Like every modern city in the world which is composed of many communities, I do think.
It would be nice to find opinion polls on this issue maybe, and refer to it in the article, that would be rather interesting. --Edcolins 22:09, Dec 20, 2004 (UTC)
Dear, my question was maybe not properly worded. It was not about the sociologigal aspects of the very diverse brussels population, but specifically about the political fact (that 100% pf the current flemish politicians in brussels support being part of the Flemish Community), and about the cultural and institutional reality (as laid down in the constitution). So, my qustion was why we should not first alk abot the most general thing, being that brussels has basically two 'cnstituent' ethnic groups, Flemings and French-speakers? More detailled information should, as far as I understood general Wikipedia guidelines, and common practice in encyclopedia, be referred to later parapgraphs or more specialised articles. E.g. the correct information that you added appears perfectly on its place under the subtitle 'Institutions'. As you did not give any reason (nor when cutting out hat information), nor later, I re-instated that bit of factual information that, as far as I can assess is indeed crucial in understanding brussels.
The problem with classifying Brussels inhabitants into communities is that it does not fit with the legal reality. As far as I know, Belgian ID cards do not mention in which community you are belonging. You can considered yourself as belonging to the both community or none of these communities. --Edcolins 16:31, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)
I'm not ure to understand what point you are making? What do you want to suggest as a conclusion? --Rudi Dierick
I mean according to me an inhabitant of Brussels do not belong to either the "Flemish Community in Belgium" or to the "French Community of Belgium". To my humble opinion, these two expressions legally refer only to administrative and political institutions which have certain competencies in the domain of culture and education for instance. One inhabitant of Brussels may be speak Dutch and attend a cultural activity funded by the "French Community of Belgium". Or the other way around. It is possible of course to talk about sociological, cultural, linguistic or religious communities, but almost every modern city presents such a diversity of communities. As a conclusion, I mean that there is no need to mention that the Flemings in Brussels belongs to the community of Flemings (of Flanders, Belgium and the world). It is a tautology. Does my point of view make sense? --Edcolins 20:11, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for implicitelt ("according to me ") acknowleddging that this is just a personal opinion. I invite you to consider the objective and verifiable fact that ALL Flemish politicians in Brussels, as well as the 99% of its entire socio-cultural and political organisations (except for very few) consistently stress that they are Flemings andf want to remain so. Moreover, in terms of political communities, 99% of the votes in brussels are given to political parties that all belong very spcifically to just one of the two communities, and that ALL are also active either in Wallonia, or in Flanders, being the 'heartland' of either community. Even the French-speaking FDF, now part of the MR, is not a truly 'brussels' party as it gathers support only from French-speakers, and not from any Flkeming in brussels! As such, many speak of Brussels as as 'bridge' between the two communities. So, whenever this article wants to he complete and scientifcally correct, this objective reality MUST be mentionned (especially given the fierce atempts of some French-speakers to isolate the Flkemings in Brussels from the others.

[edit] merge with Brussels

We should merge this article with Brussels, the capital of Belgium. It's too ambiguous at this moment, we have Brussels, Brussels-Capital Region and the City of Brussels. There are really two articles needed, the first being the proposed merged article about the Capital of Belgium, Brussels as most people call it, aka Brussels-Capital Region and the second article about the city of Brussels, one of the 19 municipalities of the Capital. moyogo 02:06, 2005 Mar 18 (UTC) I guess for the sake of consistency with other wikis (fr and nl) we should merge the other way, Brussels -> Brussels-Capital Region. moyogo 03:20, 2005 Mar 18 (UTC)

This is a definitive no-no. I don't think you get the difference right. Brussels and Brussels-Capital Region should not been merged, they represent two different concepts. Brussels is a (rather old) city, in the sense of "an agglomeration including suburban and satellite areas". Strictly speaking, it is arbitrary to draw a clear boundary between what falls within "Brussels" and what falls outside "Brussels", no matter how controversial this may seem in Belgium. The opposite is true for the (rather young) "Brussels-Capital Region", defined by the recent amended constitution as a clear geographical, politicial, administrative and linguistic entity. Brussels was there before Belgium existed and will certainly be there for long. The Brussels-Capital Region is 15 years-old only, and might only be a temporary political arrangement. --Edcolins 07:17, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)
I think I get the difference right, we simply disagree. I'm not suggesting we blur the differences but I'm suggesting we put the content of both pages in one place. The content of Brussels-Capital Region should not be bigger than just politics and demographics. Brussels should have historical, political, demographical and geographical information. Right now there's just gonna be redundant information. Does Paris have Paris and Paris Department? No, they are both merged. The political entity Paris Department is merged into Paris, the city we all know. I think it makes total sense to include the political entity of Brussels in the article about Brussels. But we have the right to differ, I won't go ahead and force what seems obvious to me. What's even weirder is that the fr and nl wikis have only 2 articles, but Brussels -> the City of Brussels (the municipality) and Brussels-Capital Region. I'm not sure it makes sense to point to just a part of Brussels when someone would want an article about the whole city (not just the municipality). ---moyogo 13:17, 2005 Mar 20 (UTC)
Paris and Paris Department might not have separate articles but there is another (significative) example: London, Greater London (the administrative region) and the City of London. --Edcolins 08:29, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)
I get your point. I still disagree. I think Brussels-Region should just be the administrative and political section of the more general Brussels article. But there's no point arguing for this, as long as it's not confusing for the user. Should we move the InfoBox from Brussels to Brussels-Region to follow your logic? Should we move the redundant information and clearly point to it? ---moyogo 11:02, 2005 Mar 24 (UTC)
Yes, go ahead, move the infobox. That's a perfectly consistent proposal. --Edcolins 19:27, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] French names

I'm not agree whit the fact that all the names of the 19 cities in Brussels-Region are in French on Wikipedia EN. Their all original dutch names and the french name is not more important than the dutch name. It should been Ixelles - Elsene (like it was BTW) not only Ixelles for example.

I Agree. For South Tyrol, another bilingual area, all the titles have a bilingual form. See for examples Communes of South Tyrol. I think this should be done for the communes in the Brussels Region too. The Dutch names are officially equal to the French names, like in South Tyrol the German and Italian names, so let's show that in the titles and make it e.g. Ixelles - Elsene or Woluwe-Saint-Pierre - Sint-Pieters-Woluwe. Like it's already shown in the table and the template on this page. Diemietrie 10:45, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I requested a move of all communes with both a French and a Dutch official name from the French title to a bilingual title as described above. Diemietrie 10:12, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

An Englishman, having lived in Brussels for almost a decade and speaking both French and Dutch, and taking an interest in Belgian community issues, I would stress that Brussels has a very large English-speaking community and that within it the words for the 19 Communes (we never say Gemeente) are exclusively the French ones. Flemings may not like this fact and may (or may not) be justified in thinking so, but the fact remains that the French names are the ones in actual usage in English in Brussels. In the same way, the name for Finland in English is Finland (not Suomi/Finland) despite Finland being the name of the country in a local minority language (Swedish).

I'm another English guy who lives in Brussels. The large English speaking population (not necessarily native English speakers) exclusively use the French names. Putting both the French and Dutch names together would be awkward. Most people in Brussels speak French. Depending where you live English or Dutch is the second language used. No body would ever suggest anglicizing the place names except maybe "Brussels".

[edit] Institutions

The section about institutions does not reflect the reality, which is much more complex, with reserved seats for the Flemish minority in the regional parliament etc. It is obvious for people who are informed of the situation, but the present article leads others to confusion. Awaiting the development of this article, I think it's wise to add a political stub status banner. --Pylambert 19:33, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

I hope my additions have solved this problem MaartenVidal 14:18, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

It is indeed much clearer, even if it remains quite difficult to understand these institutions, only because they really are complicated ! --Pylambert 14:54, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~
  • Oppose. Keep them under one name or the other and mention both names on the first line of the article. Use a redirect for the other name. No one is going to seach on "Saint-Gilles - Sint-Gillis" etc, so both redirects are going to have to exist anyway --Philip Baird Shearer 14:25, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I am also opposed to the present settlement of South Tyrol. Septentrionalis 00:37, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose The main name is the French one, there should only be a redirect from the Flemish/Dutch name. --Pylambert 12:48, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose Although in Brussels one can see many bilingual signs ("Vossenplein / place du Jeu de Balle" to give an example), I don't think it a good idea to introduce multilingual page names in English wikipedia. I'd stick to "the most common" for each of them separately, which, according to Diemietrie should mean some will be in Flemish. For those cases where "most common" can't be determined, I'd give precedence to the French name. --Francis Schonken 15:55, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. It's simpaly necessary. The dutch name and the french one are both on the same level and so it's not fair for the dutch people that their name is not mentioned in the tittle. Plus, the french names are in almost al the cases old dutch names like Schaerbeek vs. Schaarbeek.--Westermarck 18:55, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Support - Waerth 16:25, 11 February 2006 (UTC) - Choosing for one language above the other when both are almost equally relevant is POV and we are supposed to be NPOV!
  • Support For NPOV reasons as detailed in discussion below Vremya 22:51, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Support It is the most neutral solution. --Donar Reiskoffer 20:03, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Support (if it still matters) I'm a Fleming living in Brussels so I'm not particularly neutral on this topic. Using the French namen when there is no English name is imho the PoV from the Partie des Francophones Henna 21:49, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Strongest possible oppose ever per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (city names). Articles about cities should be at either the local or the English name, but NOT at both. --Rory096 04:25, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Support only neutral solution; apart from Brussels-City, the other 18 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital region have no English name. For those having a French and a Dutch name, it depends on how/where/in which reference work a speaker came upon the name. Since the English language Wikipedia is often used by speakers of another native language, only the double naming may prevent their assumption of some official or common English name and thus unknowingly writing some seemingly biased articles themselves. I do suggest systematically using the French - Dutch order in each article's title and the Dutch - French order on the first content line (in each article that line already states both names with their language). Compare also e.g. article Mechelen, on an always Dutch speaking city that had three common English names: historically and traditionally Mechlin, mainly the early Belgium's French-speaking diplomats influenced Malines, especially since the 1988-89 European football (soccer) achievements of 'KV Mechelen' it is Mechelen (though one may still hear the older English names - when travelling in the UK, I usually say I'm from Mechlin). Wikipedia should not lead which of the currently bilingual names might become a common English name. -- 213.224.87.185 2006-06-02 16:57 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Philip, this is not a matter of what name people search most. I'm sure that no one will search for Bozen-Bolzano either. It's really a matter of what suits best with respect to the linguistic situation, given the fact that there are no common English names for these communes. For South Tyrol, it was therefore decided to use a joined German-Italian name. I think that the situation in the Brussels Region is exactly the same as in South Tyrol, so I propose the same solution. The alternative would be to search in Google which name is most commonly used in English, but that would mean sometimes the French and sometimes the Dutch name as title. I don't think that is the right solution for an encyclopedia. Neither is it to always use the French name as if Brussels is unilingual French territory. Diemietrie 16:51, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I do believe there has been some fixed usage in the past for Brussels subdivisions in English. Searching through the Gutenberg project, anyone can find old books in English using "Saint Gilles" and other names without alternating between either French or Dutch. Besides most of the names with ae in French and aa in Dutch are just due to a change in Dutch spellings. I'm not saying that we should use one over the other, but there are references that we could find of usage through history, nothing official though. ---moyogo 01:27, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
It is understandable that in the past the French names were most commonly used in English, while French was during long time the only official language in Brussels (untill the first half of the 20th century), a period in which the Brussels Region changed from a Dutch-speaking area to a bilingual metropole with a French-speaking majority. That's why all names in the region are originally Dutch. It's the same situation as in South Tyrol, where the German names are the original ones, but with the Italian names as the more commonly used.
Nevertheless, times have changed and both regions are officially bilingual now. I think this should be reflected in the names used in an encyclopedia. Only when an English name is not available, of course, but that is the case here (except for the city of Brussels). Diemietrie 14:25, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

It is not done for Londonderry in English. The French(fr:Londonderry) and Dutch (nl:Derry) pages do not split it across English and Irish, which would be "Derry - Londonderry - Doire". Are there any small Welsh, Irish or Scottish areas which are so designated in the Dutch or the French? It seems to me that this idea is not a useful one. Philip Baird Shearer 20:23, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this is about other Wikipedia's, it's about the English Wikipedia. If one decides to use bilingual titles for South Tyrolian communes, it should be logical to do the same for other bilingual communes without an English name.
Besides that, I think the Gaeltacht areas in Ireland are unilingual Irish and in the Gaelic areas in Wales and Scotland the Gaelic names are put in front. In Brussels and South Tyrol however, both names are treated equally. Diemietrie 23:42, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
I do not believe that anywhere' is unilingual Irish any more. Septentrionalis 00:37, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
As a political observer, I went to several municipal council meetings in five communes of this region (Saint-Josse, Schaerbeek, Ixelles, Saint-Gilles, Molenbeek), all the meetings are hold exclusively in French, only the very few Dutch-speaking councillors speak Dutch, and even some of them speak French during the official meetings. Last December I heard again at the council meeting in Schaerbeek alderman Luc Denys (Groen!) and even councillor Johan Demol (Vlaams Belang) who were respectively answering and asking questions in French, though both are elected as members of Flemish parties. --Pylambert 12:48, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I can imagine that in a city with a French majority and in a country where French was during a long time the leading language, it's not evident that you can always make yourself heard in Dutch. I think the lack of knowledge of Dutch amongst a lot of French-speaking people may play an important role here. But that does not alter the fact that Brussels is officially bilingual and both languages are treated equally there, according to the constitution. In the Brussels regional government, there has to be an equal number of French and Dutch ministers. No Brussels government can be formed and no law concerning the use of languages, the rights of the linguistic communities etc. can be passed in the Brussels Parliament without the support of a majority of the Dutch-speaking (or French-speaking) MPs. Both linguistic communities have their own community centers, schools, libraries, sport clubs, youth and elderly homes, theatres, museums, etc. All road and street signs are bilingual, even the names of metro stations and bus stops are bilingual. So I don't think there can be any doubt about the fact that Dutch and French are equal languages in Brussels. Diemietrie 18:38, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
French and Dutch are only officially, artificially and theoretically equal in Brussels, and even migrants who previously lived in Flanders or the Netherlands feel they can't go on living in Brussels without learning French because it is the most common language, not only of the "French majority" but also between a Turk and a Moroccan, a Swede and an Italian. There is a strong minority of people who speak languages other than French and Dutch at home but use (basic or not) French outside. And there are all the time Flemish complaints because they face people who can't understand Dutch in shops or even administrations. --Pylambert 19:13, 8 January 2006 (UTC)


I just looked through the contributions of Diemietrie and it appears this discussion is totally useless for him because he has already changed the titles of all the Brussels-related articles! This contributor seems obsessed by the subject and his contributions on wikipedia consist exclusively with changing French names to Dutch names. I suggest the intervention of an administrator to settle this. --Pylambert 19:26, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Don't lie. I never changed French names to Dutch ones. I've only started to move the titles from the French to the bilingual names for three communes (after my suggestion to do so in this Talk section), but then I realised that it was impossible for the other communes, so I asked at 'Requested moves' the move of these 9 communes above. Neither moving a page nor asking for it is illegal, I suppose. So please stay to the facts and the discussion instead of telling lies in a attempt to discredit your opponent. Diemietrie 23:03, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Not moved. (Although I'm personally in favour.) —Nightstallion (?) 08:22, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I've created recently an article about Arts-Loi/Kunst-Wet metro station and I moved Het Rad to La Roue/Het Rad but now I remember it was not good to have a slash in the article names. What should we do in this case? It doesn't make sense to have those article names translated in English as it is never used this way... Julien Tuerlinckx 22:36, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree, I definitely wouldn't translate into English.
In my experience, English-speaking people in Brussels almost always call it Arts-Loi. For that reason I would have the article at Arts-Loi metro station and redirects to it from both Kunst-Wet metro station and Arts-Loi/Kunst-Wet metro station. (By the way, thanks for adding that article, there's some interesting historical details there!)
I'm not sure whether one name is in most common usage for La Roue/Het Rad, so I can't really comment on that one. --David Edgar 14:09, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you when you say that English-speaking people in Brussels often call it Arts-Loi, but the problem is that this is not a valid argument to me as anyone can say that in its experience, those people call it Kunst-Wet and we would not be able to check this. Besides, I think that English people call it this way because the name is more often used in French (more French speaking people in Brussels, thus when one is asking his way in English, the answer will generally be with the French name of the station) and also because English-speaking people have good notions of French while they generally know nothing about the Dutch language (so for example when they see "Arts-Loi/Kunst-Wet" they understand its about art and for some about law, but they just never heard of what "kunst" or "wet" is); but this argument is also hard to support. Furthermore, it is no more valid with names like "Maelbeek/Maalbeek" as the pronounciation is the same and who knows which one is in French except Belgian people?

So actually I didn't even find a consensus with myself, and I think it is an important topic in wikipedia as many articles have the same problem (or will have:)), and many votes have been proceeded with always the same decision: to have the french name only, and i understand this hurts the moderate flemish people. Finally I'll make a proposition even if I'm not sure this is the best solution: let's have the french name only as it is now with the municipalities, but as soon as the entity related in the article (metro station, municipality, place, etc.) is officially bilingual, we should have a sentence right after the title (beginning with :'') that would say something like: this article is about a bilingual entity which name in Dutch is ... and in French...

What do people think about this? Julien Tuerlinckx 16:30, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

As far as the Brussels Metro stations issue is concerned, I would argue that the only correct approach is to give both names, for the simple reason that on the ground, these stations are invariably physically referred to by both names: All signs on station platforms and at station entrances are in both languages. All maps show station names in both languages. Destination signs on trains are in both languages or, if space does not permit, alternate between French and Dutch. Public address systems announce station names in both languages. This is an issue that many people in Brussels feel very strongly about (see Crainhem/Kraainem metro station for a real-life example where the initially monolingual name of a station was made bilingual after public protest) and the only way to ensure NPOV is to respect the real-world policy preferred by the actual inhabitants of Brussels. It may be helpful to consider that in quite a number of instances, potentially translatable station names are not in fact translated, because the same form of the name is used locally by both French and Dutch speakers. It would be quite absurd, for example, to refer to Vandervelde as Deschamps, Beaulieu as Mooieplek, Pannenhuis as Maison aux Tuiles, or, for that matter, Maalbeek/Maelbeek as Maalbeek/Ruisseau Meunière because nobody in real life ever uses these translations. Therefore, when they are translated, there is clearly a reason for it, and this should be respected. Nor is following official policy particularly burdensome. The argument that article names using the bilingual convention would be clunky and hard to find, requiring redirect pages for both languages, strikes me as a complete straw man, because whichever single language is chosen as standard, good practice would still require redirects for the other language. If redirects are inevitable anyway, we might as well follow the official, bilingual, and eminently neutral policy. It's not as if redirect pages are hard to create, and it would only have to be done once. Incidentally, this argument could also be applied to the larger issue of "Ixelles - Elsene" versus "Ixelles" alone or "Elsene" alone: Good practice would require three pages, two of which redirect to the third, so the most logical and neutral solution would be to have the main page under the bilingual name. Finally, if there are technical concerns about the use of slashes in article names, these could be easily remedied by using another separator, such as replacing "Sainte Catherine/Sint Katelijne" with "Sainte Catherine — Sint Katelijne" Vremya 22:48, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Vremya. I can add to this that the French name is often just the old Dutch orthography: Schaerbeek, Haeren, Laeken, Watermael in municipality names; Heysel, Crainhem, Osseghem, Veeweyde, Maelbeek, Stockel in station names. Francophones insist on using them only to underline the differences between French and (the present) Dutch (orthography). For example, Kraainem is a Flemish municipality with language facilities for French-speaking people, but the "French" name Crainhem is not official, while in other municipalities with language facilities both French and Dutch names are used if available. So, when in 1962/1963 the language border in Belgium was fixed and language facilities were set up, one considered no French name for Kraainem available. Only later Francophones began using Crainhem, the old Dutch orthography used in French for many names within the Brussels-Capital Region as well, as the French name.
I still argue to use the bilingual names for articles if there is no English name, as is done for South Tyrol. I see the supporters and offenders are now equal (including my opinion), so I hope that one more supporter will be sufficient to do so. ;-) Diemietrie 10:12, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
It sounds reasonable enough to me, but I'm one of V's personal friends, so if I throw in my support, won't people accuse me of being a "meat puppet"? Nude Amazon 02:51, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I usually try to avoid jumping back into a debate after having made my own position clear, but I feel I must break that rule here in response to Rory096's strongly worded opposition in the voting section. With all due respect to Rory, I find it deeply disturbing that his comments seem to demonstrate a profound inability (note that I am strenuously assuming good faith by not calling it a refusal) to understand the issue at hand. Among other things, the policy page Rory uses to support his position states that "In the absence of a common English name, the current local name of the city should be used." The whole point of this debate has been that the locations in question do not have a single "current local name"; they have two, one French and one Dutch. Which is why I and others have been advocating following local usage (surely a more honest interpretation of the spirit of the "current local name" guideline than insisting on a misleading and inadequate letter-of-the-law reading) in using bilingual names, which after all are the current local names. In fact, properly understood, the position that Rory096 and other opponents of the proposal seem to be advocating is not to use the "current local name" but an arbitrarily selected part of the current local name based on an arbitrary language preference that is not reflected in local usage. Vremya 09:48, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

With regards to Rory96's oppose, both these names are the local names, neither of them is the English one, could you try to reexplain your reasons? Henna 19:16, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

In South-Wales, one may more often hear native speakers of English than of its original language; in Mid- and North-Wales, Welsh is still very much alive. I do not think that any kind of names in the south should be handled differently from names in the north. If on such basis a spelling and/or pronounciation variant would happen to be used in English language texts, both should be mentioned with equal respect, in titles as well as in the content of articles. Being a foreigner, I never heard typical Welsh expressions in any subregion because people simply knew I wouldn't understand it and might not even be able to pronounce it. In case I would write an article on a Welsh subject in the Dutch Wikipedia though, I would definitely show respect for the original and for the currently most heard words. Thus I ask such from an English Wikipedia for English, French and Dutch names of subjects for as long as one must recognize the fully bilingual official status of the municipalities of the Brussels-Capital region, or the presence of an original minority: the Brussels dialect is still being spoken, that is a typical Flemish Dutch with (only slightly more than in Dutch or in English) a number of French influences. The officially upheld bilinguality is rather sneekily breached on the official website of the Brussels-Capital region by mentioning solely French names of its municipalities, not only in the English and Spanish versions but even in German, a language similar to Dutch. Such behaviour may explain why few Flemish people might be inclined to even consider Wikipedia to be neutral, if choosing for a single French language preference whenever the opportunity occurs. -- 213.224.87.185 2006-06-02 20:43 (UTC)

[edit] French-speakers vs. flemings in Brussels

Take a photo of every single building of every street in Brussels. Add up all the Dutch words and all the French words used. Compare totals. You will then see how Vlaams Brussels really is. Brussels is a de facto French-speaking city, where a de jure bilingual French/Dutch regime is imposed as a halfway house between the current largely French-speaking reality and the Flemings' desired Dutch monolingualism.

My personal experience (based on hunderds of discussions with EU-nationals from many countries, and with often booth Flemings and Belgian French-speakers included) is that most Flemings here in Brussels are nicely monolingual, and thus give the superficial observer an overly pessimistic view of the number of Flemings around. However, once you start getting to know those folks a bit better, you start finding out there are much more Flemings living in brussels then what you 'hear' at first.
This confusing impressions of superficial observers correspond with the statements of a few Flemings that were very sharp. They pointed out that even on the Flemish national holiday (somewhere in June), many Flemings institutions and especially cultural centres and individuals prefer not to show their flags, some out of fear for violent reactions from French-speaking radicals, some because they don't want to "provoke" the French-speakers, some for a combination of these and other reasons. Once, I even heard a priest sitting in the council of a local centre state this. No wonder, with such a cowardly attitude that all those christian churches are losing appeal and followers (sorry for the stingy remark, could not help). --Lucas Richards 22:44, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
"My personal experience (based on hunderds of discussions with EU-nationals from many countries, and with often booth Flemings and Belgian French-speakers included) is that most Flemings here in Brussels are nicely monolingual." I'm sorry, are you saying that most Flemings in Brussels are monolingual= only speak Dutch? You were talking about impressions and wrong impressions, before we argue I wanna find out whether or not we really disagree :)Evilbu 20:36, 30 September 2006 (UTC)


Official manifestations of Flemishness are not done in a spirit of "this is also our city" but rather in a spirit of "this is our city alone" (cf. Flanders unilateral decision to appoint Brussels its capital

Knowing several French-speaking as well as Flkemish politicians from Brussels, I have heard this claim also. However, when I attend those manifestations, and when I see the policy of the respective cultural authporities (COCOF for the French-speakers and VGC for the Flemings), it appears just the other way round! Nearly all Flemisgh manifestations underline the multi-ethnic status of Brussels, with both French-speakers and Flemings as the two 'native' communities, and lots of other migrant minorities, whereas such an openess is clearly not the stadard for manifestations organised by the COCOF. This statement therefore appears to me a very partisan point oif view. No wonder it is an anonymous one. --Lucas Richards 13:41, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Hold on. Multiculturalness is something else. Flanders uses "multiculturalism" to dilute French in Brussels. "French is spoken, yes but so is Arabic etc." I don't advocate the use of French over Flemish in a Belgian context. I think we just need to be honest that Brussels is the capital of Belgium in a legal and real sense - and to assert anything else risks disenfranchising some of its inhabitants.

even though the city/region is also the political and cultural centre of gravity for French speakers in Belgium - and is legally no more Flemish than French-speaking according to the Beglian constitution).

As several other contributors to the French and English languages pages on this and related topics already pointed out:
* According to the Belgian constitution, all regional and community authorities have a very large autonomy. As part of that, they all enjoy the full right to chose their capitals theirselves. ALL of them did this, and none consulted with the other one. So, the fact that you blame Flanders, for something that ALL French-speaking federal governements did to, appears wholly partisan, and not objective as required by Wikipedia.
* There is only one known case where an institution from one of the regional/community governements did not respect the territorial limits established in the Belgian constitution, being when the Walloon export agency located it's office outside Wallonia, in Brussels. That choice is quite understandable of course. --Lucas Richards 13:41, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

You're missing the point. You actually agree with me. I mean that Brussels as Flemish capital is only meaningful as far as Flanders chose it to be so (yes, like the French community, although the French-speakers refer to it as the Belgian capital first and foremost). However, other capital status' which Brussels has are more meaningful outside of a strictly legal sense: - Belgian capital: The two main communities are present there. All people in Brussels who are not nationals of other countries are nationals of Belgium. Road names are in the 2 main languages etc. - EU capital: All Europeans have a right to live and work there and all the officially registered local "nationals" are Europeans. A majority of the people in Brusses are EU and a majority of the people living in Brussels would agree that Brussels is European and in Europe. BUT - Flemish capital: Brussels only houses the Flemish institutions - and has a historical reality as part of a Dutch/Low German/Germanic-speaking region. A majority of the people in Brussels are not Flemish and a majority of the people living in Brussels would deny that Brussels is Flemish or in Flanders.

Dear why insist on a non-issue? You suggest that 'most' Flemings and/or official Flemish institutions would have an 'exclusive' claim on Brussels. However, this is a groos lie! Flemings just want to enjoy their rights in Brussels as legally recognised inhabitants and as the original population of this city! So the fact that other capital functions have a wider geographical scope appears irrelevant to me. In a democracy, even minorities have guaranteed rights. And those Flemings don't deny they're a minority. --Lucas Richards 11:38, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

It is this attitude I believe that leads to a defensive reaction on the part of French-speakers, when they not the Flemish are the de facto majority.

What do you mean exactly? Maybe some words got lost in this sentence? --Lucas Richards 13:41, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
I mean that the Flemish are an actual - if not legal - minority in Brussels. As a result, when they assert that Brussels is their capital it is offensive to French-speakers because what then is the capital of the French-speaking majority that inhabits the city?
Wouw, do you realise the implication of what you said here? This means that ALL minority groups (as the protestants and muslims in belgium, as the Greens, ...) should keep a low profile in order not to provoke the overly sensible majority-members. I really don't see why it would be offsenive when Flemings want to be part of Brussels. After all, this city is French-majority only since less then one century?. The first 3/4 of its history, it was a flemish-only city, and it was Frenchified by brute discrimination as from the french period only! --Lucas Richards 11:38, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

If Flemish people asserted the unity of Belgium and Brussels as a jointly Flemish-French city at the heart of it - and (important) that they saw the French-language culture that is present in Brussels is a positive thing that should continue to exist and which also has historical legitimacy, they would see a much more positive reaction. I am English speaking by the way.

On what basis do you think that this is the Flemish point of view? It looks to me that you are quite ignorant about this! your description is more or less that what the french-speaking press and politicians pretend it is. However, that is a groos distortion from reality. having several Flemish AND French-speaking friends, this massive gap in perception has become clear to me.
More precisely: If Flemings spoke in line with the correct Belgian legal reality i.e. that Brussels is a bilingual city at the heart of Belgium officially equally Flemish and French-speaking, they would find less hostility to manifestations of Flemishness among French-speakers. But as it is, these manifestations in their current form are correctly perceived as agressive.
See my earlier remark: looks like you only know how the French describe the Flemings, but not at all the actual political programmes and actions of flkemish institutions, politicians, ... --Lucas Richards 11:38, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
This is plain silly: what irritates the extrfemists among the French-speakers is just ANY expression of Flemish identity and belonging to Brussels! --Lucas Richards 13:41, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Does Brussels need a Flemish identity? Is it not enough that the Dutch language is co-official. Saying it is Flemish rather than Dutch speaking, what does that mean? Do Brussels people behave in a Flemish way. Flemish people drink beer and like tennis and football, like French speakers. What is "Flemish" about Brussels? The architecture of the main square? Do buildings have nationality or language? Brussels has its own identity.

Flanders consistently speaks in a way that denies the legitimacy of a French-speaking population in Brussels. I visited Ghent on the Flemish national day a couple of years ago - not a Vlaamse Leeuw in sight... so why is it used in Brussels?

Hi there, just wanted to add my 2 cents:
  • 1st cent: are there any extremists among the French-speakers (I mean extremist towards Flemish people)? Could someone explain this to me?
  • 2nd cent: i fail to see how flemish people were "original population of this city". Wasn't brusseleer that used to be spoken in Brussels? To my knowledge there was no (stupid) fight between flemish and walloons in brussels before the second world war, thus no criterion to name people "flemish" or "walloons" except the language. Then is brusseleer a variation of dutch or french? To me: neither of them...

I hope those comments will not make our friend Lucas angry, I just ask questions to help the discussion to be a little more precise for people not familiar with the topic. Julien Tuerlinckx 17:51, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

1st question :

Democratic Front of Francophones ! This party is a Frenchspeaking party in Flanders. They embody the concept of French imperialism.

I'll leave the second question to someone else, but I don't think you can call this fight stupid. Easy for you to say when your language (I checked your Babel Box)is the strongest one...Evilbu 19:38, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Names of the 19 communities (again)

How is it possible that Bozen-Bolzano has a double name but the communities in Brussels don't? The dutch name should be also mentioned.--81.240.86.154 19:33, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Quite simple actually :
  1. Brussels is not in South Tyrol
  2. Berchem-Sainte-Agathe-Sint-Agatha-Berchem just doesn't work
  3. having the title in one language and then both language on the initial line suffices, people are smart.
  4. redirects work.
Maybe we should just have plain English translations. Oooh, bigger question mark indeed. --moyogo 20:48, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Currently:

That gives us 1 name in plain English, 6 naturally bilingual names (5 from Dutch, 1 probably from French), 8 exclusive French names, 2 exclusive Dutch names. The question is what should be done with the 10 exclusive monolingual article titles? Many things could be done :

  1. use both languages for the article title
  2. use a plain English translation, like City of Brussels. - very weird and unusual for most names, and still subject to argument
    • use the reformed Dutch spelling when the name is from Dutch origins
  3. use what seems to be mostly used - hard to define or find, some people might be infuriated by this however.

--moyogo 21:25, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the Bozen-Bolzano solution is something to be happy about, see the discussion there Talk:Bozen-Bolzano. I'd prefer the name in the language of the majority of the population, but I don't know the numbers for the municipalities, and couldn't find it on the Belgian statistics website. Markussep 13:33, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Is the prescribed approach on English Wikipedia to use names commonly used by English speakers to refer to places, and then resort to local names (and the associated interlingual squabbles) only if no term is clearly preferred by English speakers? If so, as someone who lived in Brussels, and went to an English-language school in Boitsfort, I can give you the following set of data points: In English none of us referred to Bosvoorde, Sint Pieters Woluwe, Elsene, Vorst, or Sint Genesius-Rode. I don't know if you can base a generalization on that, that all the Brussels communes are known to English speakers by their French names. I admit that while I pronounced Auderghem as in French, others pronounced it as in Dutch, except with a hard English/French /g/, so I can't make a clear case that my schoolmates were saying "Auderghem" instead of "Oudergem". On the other hand, in English writing (as in the Brussels Bulletin), I don't recall the Dutch names being used (even for Rhode-Saint Genèse, outside of the agglomeration is at is). And it wouldn't be possible to say whether my colleagues were saying Uccle or Ukkel, Schaarbeek or Schaerbeek, or (outside of Brussels) Tervuren or Tervueren. Food for thought. --Largo Plazo 23:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Population number

Hello,

not all questions need to be controversial :), I noticed that the Dutch [3]and French [4]articles give a different number for the population : 1,018,804. I calculated the sum of the number of inhabitants for all communities in the Region that were given on the Dutch Wikipedia, and found the exact same number. Note that those Dutch articles claim it's from a 01/01/2006 census. Unless we use a different definition of the region or its inhabitants, I think there is no reason to revert it? Evilbu 20:41, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

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