French Flemish

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This article is a part of the Dutch dialects series.
Languages of the Netherlands‎ Dutch dialects Low Franconian Brabantian Hollandic Zeelandic West Flemish French Flemish East Flemish South Guelderish Limburgish Meuse-Rhenish Low Rhenish Low Franconian/Ripuarian Southern Meuse-Rhenish Low Dietsch Low Saxon Dutch Low Saxon
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Historic regression of Flemish in the Western periphery.
The blue line indicates the situation in the 7th-8th C.; the red line marks the situation during the 20th C.; the black line is the actual French-Belgian border.

French Flemish (in English occasionally known by its Dutch name Frans-Vlaams) is a dialect of the Dutch language. It is spoken in the north of contemporary France and is considered part of the West Flemish dialect group. Placenames testify of the dialect being spoken since the 8th century in the area that was ceded to France in the 17th century and became known as French Flanders. Its dialect subgroup called French Flemish meanwhile became a minority dialect that survives mainly between Dunkirk (Duinkerke in Dutch), Bourbourg, Calais (Kales in Dutch), Saint-Omer and Bailleul (Belle in Dutch). It has about 20,000 daily users, and twice that number of occasional speakers.^[1]

[edit] External links

• Akademie voor Nuuze Vlaamsche Tale tries to regulate this language
• Flemish in France site UOC, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Open University of Catalonia), subsite Euromosaic - Research Centre of Multilingualism.

[edit] Footnotes

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