Belgian French - History

History

Historically, French-speaking Belgium was never a single political entity until being unified under French rule during the French Revolution and Napoleonic rule. Prior to that, the region had never belonged to France. It was composed of the County of Hainaut (half of which was annexed by France under Louis XIV), the County of Namur, the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, the Principality of Stavelot-Malmedy, the southern part of the Duchy of Brabant and the western part of the Duchy of Luxembourg.

Clovis's capital, Tournai (in modern Wallonia), was a Roman-founded city, and Latin was thus spoken there more than in other parts of the Low Countries. Two centuries later, the Carolingian dynasty progressively took over the power from the Merovingian kings. They were based in Aachen near Liege, at the opposite end of Wallonia. Tournai and Liège still mark the western and eastern limits of French-speaking Belgium. French is not an official language north of the notional geographic line above these two cities, though there are many Francophone families in Flanders, especially Gent, Antwerp and Kortrijk.

The Merovingian and Carolingian courts thus had a vital importance in spreading Latin to the otherwise Germanic Low Countries. Latin evolved into the Oïl dialects, and thence into modern French (and Walloon, in Wallonia) over the centuries, even though these territories historically had never belonged to France.

The proximity with northern France, the numerous intermarriages (as attested by the presence of surnames of both origins on either side of the border), the close economic relations, the French occupation between 1792 and 1815, the standarisation of French in education, as well as modern media, have all contributed in making modern Belgian French almost identical to its Gallic counterpart. In fact, the French spoken in the southern half of France is more different from standard French in both accent and usage than the one spoken in current-day Belgium.