TBH, I love Belgian beers, but for my daily pilsner needs I stick to
my favourite Dutch brand.
Well, I have been told once he spoke
Flemish (not Dutch)... With his domestic workers in Ghent and Brussels probably...
Charles V spent his whole youth in the Southern Netherlands, so it would surprise me if he had had no working knowledge of the language.
If the highlighted part is meant to signify that he specifically learned a dialect from his native region of the county of Flanders, I have no beef with that; thought East-Flemish would be more accurate. However, if it is meant to imply that somehow Flemish is a language distinct from Dutch, then that is linguistically as well as historically incorrect, as well as slightly insulting.
When the French-speaking Brussels bourgeoisie, after a night at the opera, decided to declare Belgian independence, and wrote in the Belgian constitution that everybody enjoyed freedom of language, they really meant that everybody had the freedom to use
French in their dealings with government, and that nobody could make it in Belgium unless they learned French. "Flemish" was considered a language for illiterate peasants, unlike (Parisian) French which was the pinnacle of culture, the language of Molière and Voltaire and Victor Hugo and of global diplomacy. That attitude can even be seen with your previous PM, Elio di Rupo, who didn't speak a word Dutch the moment he got appointed PM (but to his credit, he did his darndest best to learn it and speak it).
Within the Flemish Movement, in the mid of the 19th Century, which sought emancipation for the Dutch language, there was a lively debate whether Flemings should establish their own standard language or should join the standard Dutch language, That debate was conclusively settled in favour of the "joiners", and Flemings have, e.g., adopted the same official orthography as Dutch since at least the
De Vries and Te Winkel orthopgraphy of 1864, and since 1980, there's the official "Dutch Language Union" in which Flemings and Dutch(wo)men cooperate to establish the official spelling of the Dutch language.
Contrast this with German, which is a pluricentric language, with even differing orthographies: Standard Swiss German does not have the ß but replaces it with "ss", and Standard Austrian German calls the first month of the year "Jänner" instead of "Januar" - or with English, which doesn't have a government-sanctioned orthography but has generally--accepted differing orthographies for "American English" and "British English". But nobody in their right mind calls them differing languages; at most, they're called varieties of the same language.
Moreover, I'm astutely aware that Netherlandish Dutch has been considerably influenced by émigrés from Flanders and Brabant who fled the regime of King Philip II of Spain, whose main goal in life was to have as many as possible protestants burnt at the stake. For instance, Simon Stevin, one of those refugees, coined such unique Dutch words as "wiskunde" for mathematics and "natuurkunde" for physics.
Flemish authors such as Hendrik Conscience, Willem Elsschot and Hugo Claus have contributed as much to my cultural heritage as a native Dutch speaker as have Netherlandish authors as Multatuli, Ferdinand Bordewijk and Harry Mulisch. When the Belgian politician Guy Verhofstadt is interviewed on Dutch TV, his language is as familiar to me as when Prem Radhakishun (of Suriname descent) presents a TV or radio progarmme. The currernt editor of the most influential Dutch newspaper, NRC Handelsblad, Peter Vandermeersch, is a Fleming, When Belgian columnist/author Herman Brusselmans is on Dutch TV, his speech is as familiar to me as when comedian Herman Finkers (with a distinct
Twents accent) is on TV.
Nobody ever calls the language of the Romance-speaking part of Belgium "Walloon", but frequently the two major languages of Belgium are called "Flemish" and "French". I think that's demeaning and only serves to be paint Flemings as illiterate peasants, as it was meant when Belgium was founded. it's demeaning, also, to
my cultural heritage, as a Dutchman.
Interesting in what way? I don't think the name of Paul-Henri Spaak would be very surprising. He is considered one of the
Founding Fathers of the EU, and the building in the EP complex that houses the actual debating chamber of the EP was named after him.
I was aware it was not sure, but as his grandfather was born in Herstal and his father in Jupille (both beyond dispute), you can rightly claim him as Belgian. You might need to, there's quite a shortage of nowadays people claiming to be foremost Belgian (there's only one IIRC).
