Language Maintenance and External Support: The Case of the French Flemings

VaSek (1976:119-120) has defined linguistic border-overlap: a linguistic community that lives within the territory of another ethnic unit, but close to the administrative frontier of this territory, and which speaks the language used as a base language on the other side of the frontier. There are many such instances. In North America we may think of the Franco-Ontarians and the Franco-Americans of northern Maine and the Chicanos of the U.S. Southwest. In Europe we may consider the Finns of the Torne Valley, Sweden (Wood 1978b), the South Tirolers of Italy, the Carinthian Slovenes, etc. Such a border-overlap is found on about a thousand square miles of the territory of France, at the point where the Romance/ Germanic language border meets the North Sea, just east of Dunkirk. Here, in territory where French is the official language, West Flemish spatial varieties of the Dutch language are natively spoken by a proportion of the French citizens of the region. Dutch is, in Vagek's term, the base language across the border in Belgian Flanders. The region, on both sides of the political frontier, is known as the Westhoek or Western Corner. In Belgium, it includes leper (French: Ypres) and Poperinge; in France, the largest town in which West Flemish is still natively current is Hazebroek (French: Hazebrouck); other towns or villages include St.-Winoksbergen (Bergues), Belle (Baillewl), Kassel (Cassel), Ekelsbeke (Esquelbecq), Godewaarsvelde (Godeswaersvelde), Boeschepe (Boeschdpe), Steenvoorde,