| Brusselian | |
|---|---|
| Brusseleir | |
| Native to | Belgium, specificallyBrussels |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| IETF | nl-u-sd-bebru |
Brusselian (also known asBrusseleer,Brusselair,Brusseleir,Marols orMarollien) is aDutchdialect native toBrussels, Belgium. It is essentially a heavily-FrancisizedBrabantian Dutchdialect[1][2] that incorporates a sprinkle ofSpanishloanwords dating back to the rule of theLow Countries by theHabsburgs (1519–1713).[3]
Brusselian was widely spoken in theMarolles/Marollen neighbourhood of theCity of Brussels until the 20th century.[3] It still survives among a small minority of inhabitants calledBrusseleers[3] (orBrusseleirs), many of them quite bi- and multilingual in French and Dutch.[4][5]
TheRoyal Theatre Toone, a folkloric theatre of marionettes in central Brussels, still puts onpuppet plays in Brusselian.[3]
ThetoponymsMarols in Dutch orMarollien in French refer to theMarolles/Marollen, a neighbourhood of theCity of Brussels, near thePalace of Justice, which itself takes its name from the formerabbey of the Apostoline sisters, a religious group based in this area during theMiddle Ages (fromMariam Colentes inLatin ("those who honour the Virgin Mary"), later contracted toMaricolles/Marikollen, and finallyMarolles/Marollen). Historically aworking class neighbourhood, it has subsequently become a fashionable part of the city.[3]
Brusselian is described as "totally indecipherable to the foreigner (which covers everyone not born in the Marolles), which is probably a good thing as it is richly abusive."[3]
There is a dispute and confusion about the meaning of Brusselian, which many consider to be a neighbourhood jargon distinct from a larger Brussels Dutch dialect, while others use the term "Marols" as an overarching substitute term for that citywide dialect.[6] According to Jeanine Treffers-Daller, “the dialect has a tremendous prestige and a lot of myths are doing the rounds.”[6]
If you ask ten Brusselers what "Marollien" is, you get ten different answers. For some people it is French contaminated by Flemish and spoken in the neighborhood of the rue Haute and the rue Blaes, whereas for others it is Frenchified Flemish. Still others say that it is a vernacular variety of French, spoken in the whole city, etc., etc. Marollien, however, is exceptional if not unique, because it is a double language. In fact it is not between the germanic and romance languages, it is both.
— Jacques Pohl, 1953,[7]
The Brusselian wordzwanze is commonly applied by speakers of French and Dutch to denote a sarcastic form of folkhumour considered typical of Brussels.[8][9]
A local version of theBrabantian dialect was originally spoken in Brussels. When theKingdom of Belgium gained its independence in 1830 after theBelgian Revolution, French was established as the kingdom's only official language. It was therefore primarily used amongst thenobility (though some in the historic towns ofFlanders were bilingual and stayed attached to the old Flemish literature), themiddle class and a significant portion of the population whose secondary education had only been delivered in French.
French then gradually spread through the working classes, especially after the establishment of compulsory education in Belgium from 1914 for children aged between six and fourteen years. Primary school education was given in Dutch in theFlemish Region and in French in theWalloon Region. Secondary education was only given in French throughout Belgium. Drained by the personal needs of the administration, many new working class arrivals from the south of Belgium, again increased the presence of French in Brussels. Informal language was from then on a mixture ofRomance andGermanic influences, which adapted into becoming Brusselian.
Nowadays, the Brussels-Capital Region is officially bilingual in French and Dutch,[10][11] even though French has become the predominant language of the city.[12]
An example of Brusselian is:
Na mooie ni paaze da'k ee da poèzeke em zitte deklameire
Allien mo vè aile t'amuzeire
Neineie... ik em aile wille demonstreire
Dat as er zain dee uile me konviksen e stuk in uilen uur drinke.
Dat da ni seulement en allien es vè te drinke.
Nu moet je niet denken dat ik hier dat gedichtje heb zitten voordragen
Alleen maar om jullie te vermaken
Neenee… ik heb jullie willen tonen
Dat er [mensen] zijn die met overtuiging een stuk in hun kraag drinken.
Dat dat niet louter en alleen is om te drinken.— In Standard Dutch
For the popularcomic seriesThe Adventures of Tintin, the Brussels authorHergé modelled his fictional languagesSyldavian[13] andBordurian on Brusselian, and modelled many other personal and place-names in his works on the dialect (e.g. the city ofKhemkhâh in the fictionalMiddle Eastern country of Khemed comes from the Brusselian phrase for "I'm cold"). Bordurian, for example, has as one of its words the Brusselian-basedmänhir meaning "mister" (cf.Dutchmijnheer). In the original French, the fictional Arumbaya language ofSan Theodoros is another incarnation of Brusselian.