EU countries - borders

[Hhgsac]

Something I've been wondering about when 2 EU countries border each other, in the border towns/cities is there anything interesting with the languages and the dialects spoken? Like is a hybrid, are there loan words?

French and Spaniah are the mainstream languages around that part of France but a lot of the locals,.certainly the older ones, and especially those living more off the beaten track will still use Occitan and/or Catalan, depends exactly where you are.

You can ger a real mix at times.

I only use English when I'm in Belgium; it's safer! I once had a sandwich thrown at me on a train after I accidentally used French to a Flemish speaker.

We have been to this town! There is a restaurant that straddles the border, we had lunch there & the DC ate in Belgium & we ate in the Netherlands 😁

Ha! @BaronessBomburst We got talking to couple of youngish men who ran a craft beer shop in Leuven and I said I was surprised that there was no French there at all - even on signs or menus and as treated to an impassioned rant about how much they hated French speakers.

I remember years ago visiting a small town in Italy just over the Austrian border. Everyone spoke German and we could even pay for things with schillings (this was a year or two before the Euro came in) They would have no doubt known Italian too but the day to day languages was certainly German. I was reminded of it the other week listening to Sinner when he won Wimbledon.

I remember being in Brussels and a waiter being a bit confused when I spoke to him in French, my DH spoke to him in Flemish (it seemed safe as we'd heard him doing both himself) and we spoke English to each other.

Aah, but they do! A Flemish customer emailed us (in Dutch/ Flemish) to say that their installation had fallen in panne. My Dutch colleagues were bemused as to what the problem was until I pointed out that 'panne' is French for broken down - tombe en panne.

Yes, we holidayed in the Italian Tyrol region last year and went to a bar owned by two really old sisters. I presume they were born Austrian and, not sure, but may have had some memories from that time. It's quite an unusual experience knowing you're in Italy but everything is in and everyone is speaking German.

Is Flemish it's own language or a dialect of Dutch?

I would describe it as a variation of "standard" Dutch. A bit like Scottish English (but not Scots) compared to "standard" English: some words ate different and some pronunciation is different.

Thanks. It's just that I understand for example that Afrikaans is it's own language.

True, Afrikaans is considered a language in it's own right but also similar to Dutch. Don't know if they are mutually intelligible.

The difference between a language and a dialect is political. Flemish is spoken in a different country, so it's a language. Frisian, spoken in the Dutch province of Friesland, is also classed as a language, with sub-dialects of its own. Limburgs, spoken in the Dutch province of Limburg, and also with its own sub-dialects is just as different but the Limburgers have never had enough political clout or rioted about it, so it's only a dialect.

Most Dutch speakers can read Afrikaans and follow a conversation if the Afrikaans speaker wants them to. 😂

Iäm also Swedish and I would say that in the very north of Sweden there is defintiely Finish intonation when Swedish is spoken, and the sami language is very close to Finish so I think there are definitely some Finish influences too.

It's basically Dutch.

I had a South Africa craze a while back. I think they are to an extent

So interesting!

I live in a European country with a divided capital and two completely separate languages. The languages haven't merged at all and English is now widely used for the two communities to communicate.

Estonia and Latvia have a divided town. As languages are not similar at all, it's very rare there for people to speak the other language. Older generation communicates in Russian, younger in English.

I am struggling with Danish though but if I was living in the south of Sweden where the dialect is different I could understand Danish much better.

iHonestly I find that Skånska (spoken in Southern Sweden) pronounciation is closer to Danish than Swedish nowadays.