Showing posts with label French. Show all posts
Showing posts with label French. Show all posts

September 27 - French Community Holiday Belgium

 Posted on September 27, 2021


This post is an updated version of my post published on September 27, 2010:




This holiday is celebrated only by the French Community of Belgium. This is mostly made up of people living in the southern half of Belgium (an area known as Walloon Region) plus many living in bilingual Brussels. The people of this community are Belgian, not French, but they speak French as their primary language.


French speakers in Belgium tend to live in the south
or in bilingual Brussels, the capital city.


The date for the French Community Holiday commemorates an important battle in the Belgian Revolution—a battle of French-speaking Belgians against the Dutch army. Interestingly, the Flemish Community of Belgium has a parallel holiday (July 11) that commemorates a battle victory of Dutch-speaking Belgians against the French army!


(By the way, note that there is a third region of Belgium, the German-speaking Community. It is tiny. These three “communities” are official institutions with their own governments.)


Can you see why French, Dutch (spoken in the Netherlands)
and German are the language communities of Belgium?


On this the French Community Holiday, French Community schools are closed, and there are many free concerts plus plays and sporting events.







Did you know...?

  • Belgium is host of the European Union—in other words, most of the EU's institutions are located there. The headquarters of NATO are also located in Belgium.



  • Because both Dutch and French are quite closely related to English, and many Belgians from both language regions learn to speak English in schools, young Flemings and Walloons often chat with each other in English! That means that English is Belgium's lingua franca (a French term, adopted by the English language, that means “common language”)....

    The only time I've been to Belgium, way back in 2002, I stayed with a French-speaking family in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, near Antwerp. And back then  I ran into a lot of people who didn't seem to speak much English.


  • Belgium is 321 times smaller than the U.S., but it has the same population as Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, the District of Columbia, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Alaska COMBINED!

  • There are many castles in Belgium. Check out Bruno's website to see some.





Belgian Food Fun Facts


Belgium is known for chocolate. It produces about 600,000 tons of chocolate per year. According to my sources, the world's biggest chocolate seller is the airport in Brussels, Belgium, which sells more than 2 tons of chocolate per DAY!




Belgians claim to have invented the fried-potato treat that are called French fries by Americans and chips by Brits. I love the fresh, hot fries/chips sold out of street carts in Belgium—partly because of all the yummy sauces we could dip them into! (I think there were 30 or 40 sauces offered by a typical friterie.)




A few of the sauces included mayonnaise, curry, tartare, barbecue, Andalusian, "Samurai" (not Japanese, but Belgian - it contains harissa), sweet and savory pickle sauce, herb-y Hawaiian sauce, spicy Dallas sauce, and something called American sauce (Amerikaanse saus) that turned out to be catsup!


With such delicious fresh fries so easily available, it's no wonder that Belgians eat (on average) 165 pounds per year! 



Belgium is also known for its waffles and rice tarts and other bakery treats.



 



Also on this date:










Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , ,

March 20 - French Language Day

Posted on March 20, 2020


There are six different language days celebrated at the United Nations:
March 20 - French
April 20 - Chinese
April 23 - Spanish
April 23 - English
June 6 - Russian
December 18 - Arabic

You may wonder why the language days aren't better spaced out through the year, but apparently each date was selected without reference to the others. April 23 was selected for English Language Day because it is the date traditionally given for both the birth and death of William Shakespeare, one of the most important writers in the English language - and someone who actually added a lot of words to the English language!

March 20 was selected for French because it is the anniversary of the International Organization of La Francophonie, a group for people and nations that speak French. 

French is an official language in 29 different countries in Europe (of course!), Africa, North America (including both Canada and the Caribbean part of Central America), and even Oceania (Vanuatu). Of course French is spoken by people in many other nations in which it is not an official language!

According to the International Organization of La Francophonie, about 300 million people worldwide speak French, although only about 76 million are native speakers.

The U.N. language days were created to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity. So...let's learn a bit of the French language, or at least a bit about the French language.

  • French used to be one of the languages of science, alongside German and English. That was true in the 1800s, especially 1850 to 1900, and scientists were expected to be able to read and write in all three languages. However, German scientists such as Einstein, Planck, and Heisenberg were so cutting-edge at "the turn of the century" that Germany became the dominant language of science in the early 1900s. German had a short run of being "top dog," because WWI and then WWII occurred.
These wars and the Cold War affected communication between scientists, yet somehow the crumbling of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War left English firmly in the singular position of "the language of science." About 98% of all scientific publications are written in English!

  • But don't forget that English has an awful lot of French in it! Way back in the 11th Century, the French-speaking Normans led by William the Conqueror invaded and occupied England. 
Since the Conqueror took land away from most of the old English aristocracy and gave it to his followers, the entire ruling class spoke French, and Anglo-Saxon (or English) language was mostly spoken by peasants / serfs, servants, tradesmen, and craftsmen. That's why there are so many French words in the English language, including many that were changed in spelling to better match English (like boeuf becoming beef and porc becoming pork) as well as some that have kept their French spellings (like déjà vu and cliché).

  • French has been used as the language of diplomacy. This is because, by the 1350s or so, French was the most spoken language in Europe and was seen as a language of sophistication and wealth. Some people argue that the popularity of English has made this role for French obsolete. However note how many diplomacy-related English words are from French: ambassador, attaché, communiqué, consul, détente, persona non grata, rapprochement, ultimatum, visa.





  • French is still dominant in food and ballet dancing (and therefore to some extent in other non-ballet dance). There are French terms used in various arts such as painting and fashion design.



Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , ,

August 15 - Acadian Day in Canada

Posted on August 15, 2019

You probably know that most Canadians speak English. You know, with a few "ehs" thrown in.


You probably also know that some Canadians speak French - about 20% (one out of five) speak French as their first language. (Most of the native French speakers also know English, too.) You probably even know that the Canadian province of Quebec is majority francophones (native French speakers) and has French as its official language.

But did you know that there are sizable communities of French-speakers in Canada outside of Quebec? I didn't until recently. The province of New Brunswick is officially bilingual, English and French, and that is because it was once a part of Acadia.



Acadia was a colony of New France. It included the eastern parts of what is now Quebec, the northeastern part of what is now Maine, and the regions that now make up the provinces of Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. French colonists arrived in the area in the early 1600s, and there were six colonial wars between Britain and France for control of Acadia. Britain is said to have conquered Acadia in 1710, but the wars continued all the way to the 1760s.


And here's another thing I didn't know: most of the Cajuns who make Louisiana and New Orleans a little French-speaking corner of the U.S. are descended from (1) francophones who fled from the British when they conquered Acadia in 1710, or (2) francophones who were expelled from Nova Scotia during the late 1750s and early 1760s.

(Spanish allies often secretly transported Acadians to Louisiana. About 11,500 Acadians were deported!)

August 15 was chosen as the day to celebrate Acadian culture because, in the Catholic church, it is the feast day of the Assumption of Mary, and Mary is considered the patron saint of the Acadians.

Acadian Day is celebrated by people in Caraquet, New Brunswick, with a noisy parade and a big festival called Titamarre. 





The Acadian flag is a lot like the French flag - but it adds a star.


You can see Acadian flags in lots of places - including faces, clothing, umbrellas, even lighthouses!




This boat has Acadian flags, Canadian flags, and the flag of New Brunswick.


The New Brunswick flag depicts a boat.


There are Acadian museums on Prince Edward Island, in Quebec, and in Louisiana. 



The first map of Acadia was drawn by Samuel de Champlain. 



Some Acadian foods include chicken fricot (a kind of soup), rappie pie, and pets de sœur (an Acadian cinnamon roll).









Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)