Municipalities of Belgium with language facilities
municipalities in Belgium with language facilities
In Belgium, there are 27 municipalities with language facilities (Dutch: faciliteitengemeenten [ˌfaːsiliˈtɛitə(n)ɣəˌmeːntə(n)]; French: communes à facilités [kɔmyn a fasilite]; German: Fazilitäten-Gemeinden [fatsiliˈtɛːtn̩ ɡəˈmaɪndn̩]), which must offer linguistic services to residents in Dutch, French, or German in addition to their single official languages. All other municipalities – with the exception of those in the bilingual Brussels region – are monolingual and offer services only in their official languages, either Dutch or French.
Belgian law stipulates that:
12 municipalities in Flanders must offer services in French; of these 12, the six located around Brussels are now believed to have become majority French-speaking.
Wallonia contains two language areas:
In the French-speaking part of Wallonia, four municipalities offer services in Dutch and another two offer services in German.
In the German-speaking part of Wallonia (annexed after WWI), all nine municipalities offer services in French in addition to German.
In Brussels, Dutch and French are co-official.
At the federal level, Dutch, French and German are all official languages.
History
1921–1962
There were three language areas as from the 31 July 1921 law: the Dutch-speaking Flemish area, the French-speaking Walloon area, and the bilingual area of Brussels (capital city). These language areas of 1921 actually had no institutional translation in the structure of the Belgian state, then still constitutionally divided into provinces and municipalities. Thence a French-speaking unilingual municipality could, for instance, be part of the province of West Flanders.
The public source identifies “Municipalities of Belgium with language facilities” as municipalities in Belgium with language facilities. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Municipalities, Belgium and language.
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