Editing Belgium (section)

=== Languages ===
{{Main|Languages of Belgium}}
{{bar box
|float = right
|title = Estimated distribution of primary languages in Belgium
|bars =
{{bar percent|[[Dutch language|Dutch]]|DarkSlateGray|59}}
{{bar percent|[[French language|French]]|DarkSlateGray|40}}
{{bar percent|[[German language|German]]|DarkSlateGray|1}}
}}
[[File:Brussels signs.jpg|thumb|[[Bilingual]] signs in Brussels]]
Belgium has three official languages: Dutch, French and German. A number of non-official minority languages are spoken as well.<ref name="Ethnologue-16thEd">{{cite book|chapter=Languages of Belgium|title=Ethnologue: Languages of the World|edition=sixteenth|editor=Lewis, M. Paul|publisher=[[SIL International]]|location=Dallas, Texas, U.S.|year=2009|pages=1,248|isbn=978-1-55671-216-6|url=http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=BE|access-date=27 February 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110429095334/http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=BE|archive-date=29 April 2011|url-status=live}}</ref> As no census exists, there are no official statistical data regarding the distribution or usage of Belgium's three official languages or their [[dialect]]s.<ref name="gkqeP">{{cite news|title=Surviving in Babel? Language rights and European integration|journal=Canaanite in the Amarna Tablets|volume=1|author=de Witte, Bruno|editor=Rainey, Anson F.|publisher=Brill|year=1996|isbn=978-90-04-10521-8|page=122}}</ref> However, various criteria, including the language(s) of parents, of education, or the second-language status of foreign born, may provide suggested figures. An estimated 60% of the Belgian population are native speakers of Dutch (often referred to as [[Flemish people|Flemish]]), and 40% of the population speaks French natively. French-speaking Belgians are often referred to as Walloons, although the French speakers in Brussels are not Walloons.{{efn|Native speakers of Dutch living in Wallonia and of French in Flanders are relatively small minorities that furthermore largely balance one another, hence attributing all inhabitants of each unilingual area to the area's language can cause only insignificant inaccuracies (99% can speak the language). Dutch: Flanders' 6.079&nbsp;million inhabitants and about 15% of Brussels' 1.019&nbsp;million are 6.23&nbsp;million or 59.3% of the 10.511&nbsp;million inhabitants of Belgium (2006); German: 70,400 in the German-speaking Community (which has [[Municipalities with language facilities|language facilities]] for its less than 5% French-speakers) and an estimated 20,000–25,000 speakers of German in the Walloon Region outside the geographical boundaries of their official Community, or 0.9%; French: in the latter area as well as mainly in the rest of Wallonia (3.321&nbsp;million) and 85% of the Brussels inhabitants (0.866&nbsp;million) thus 4.187&nbsp;million or 39.8%; together indeed 100%.}}

The total number of native Dutch speakers is estimated to be about 6.23&nbsp;million, concentrated in the northern Flanders region, while native French speakers number 3.32&nbsp;million in Wallonia and an estimated 870,000 (or 85%) in the officially bilingual Brussels-Capital Region.{{efn|Flemish Academic Eric Corijn (initiator of [http://www.charta91.be/ Charta 91]), at a colloquium regarding Brussels, on 2001-12-05, states that in Brussels 91% of the population speaks French at home, either alone or with another language, and about 20% speaks Dutch at home, either alone (9%) or with French (11%)—After ponderation, the repartition can be estimated at between 85 and 90% French-speaking, and the remaining are Dutch-speaking, corresponding to the estimations based on languages chosen in Brussels by citizens for their official documents (ID, driving licenses, weddings, birth, sex, and so on); all these statistics on language are also available at Belgian Department of Justice (for weddings, birth, sex), Department of Transport (for Driving licenses), Department of Interior (for IDs), because there are no means to know ''precisely'' the proportions since Belgium has abolished 'official' linguistic censuses, thus official documents on language choices can only be estimations. For a web source on this topic, see e.g. [[#General|General online sources: Janssens, Rudi]]}}<ref name="britishcouncil">{{cite web|title=Belgium Market background|quote=The capital Brussels, 80–85 percent French-speaking,&nbsp;...|publisher=[[British Council]]|url=http://www.britishcouncil.org/eumd-information-background-belgium.htm|access-date=5 May 2007|archive-date=22 November 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071122233056/http://www.britishcouncil.org/eumd-information-background-belgium.htm|url-status=dead}}—Strictly, the capital is the municipality [[Brussels|(City of) Brussels]], though the Brussels-Capital Region might be intended because of its name and also its other municipalities housing institutions typical for a capital.</ref> The [[German-speaking Community of Belgium|German-speaking Community]] is made up of 73,000 people in the east of the [[Wallonia|Walloon Region]]; around 10,000 German and 60,000 Belgian nationals are speakers of German. Roughly 23,000 more German speakers live in municipalities near the official Community.<ref name="German-speaking_Community">{{cite web|title=The German-speaking Community|publisher=The German-speaking Community|url=http://www.dglive.be/EN/Desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-1263/2264_read-27181/|access-date=5 May 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070530023348/http://www.dglive.be/EN/Desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-1263/2264_read-27181/|archive-date=30 May 2007|url-status=dead}} The (original) [http://www.dglive.be/DesktopDefault.aspx/tabid-84/186_read-448/ version in German language] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070529215057/http://www.dglive.be/DesktopDefault.aspx/tabid-84/186_read-448/|date=29 May 2007}} (already) mentions 73,000 instead of 71,500 inhabitants.</ref><ref name="sTtZw">{{cite web|title=Citizens from other countries in the German-speaking Community|publisher=The German-speaking Community|url=http://www.dglive.be/EN/Desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-1408/2267_read-27184/|access-date=5 May 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070628233901/http://www.dglive.be/EN/Desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-1408/2267_read-27184/|archive-date=28 June 2007|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="UMYYg">{{cite web|title=German (Belgium)—Overview of the language|publisher=Mercator, Minority Language Media in the European Union, supported by the [[European Commission]] and the [[University of Wales]]|url=http://www.aber.ac.uk/cgi-bin/user/merwww/index.pl?rm=lang_detail;id=112;lang=1|access-date=7 May 2007|archive-date=11 May 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110511181257/http://www.aber.ac.uk/cgi-bin/user/merwww/index.pl?rm=lang_detail%3Bid%3D112%3Blang%3D1|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="ofCHC">{{cite web|title=Belgique • België • Belgien—La Communauté germanophone de Belgique|work=L'aménagement linguistique dans le monde|language=fr|date=19 April 2006|author=Leclerc, Jacques|publisher=Host: Trésor de la langue française au Québec (TLFQ), [[Université Laval]], Quebec|url=http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/europe/belgiqueger.htm|access-date=7 May 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070503050229/http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/AXL/europe/belgiqueger.htm|archive-date=3 May 2007|url-status=live}}</ref>

Both [[Belgian Dutch]] and [[Belgian French]] have [[Cognate|minor differences]] in vocabulary and semantic nuances from the varieties spoken respectively in the Netherlands and France. Many Flemish people still speak [[Dutch dialects|dialects of Dutch]] in their local environment. [[Walloon language|Walloon]], considered either as a dialect of French or a distinct [[Romance language]],<ref name="yBPue">According to [[Le Petit Larousse]], Walloon is a dialect of the [[langue d'oïl]]. According to the ''Meyers grosses Taschenlexikon''</ref><ref name="S2M27">{{cite book|author=Jules, Feller|title=Notes de philologie wallonne|publisher=Vaillant Carmanne|location=Liège|year=1912}}</ref> is now only understood and spoken occasionally, mostly by elderly people. Walloon is divided into four dialects, which along with those of [[Picard language|Picard]],<ref name="Ethnologue-15thEd">Among Belgium native German speakers many are familiar with the local dialect varieties of their region, that include dialects that spill over into neighboring Luxembourg and Germany.{{cite book|chapter=Languages of Belgium|title=Ethnologue: Languages of the World|edition=Fifteenth|editor=Gordon, Raymond G. Jr.|publisher=[[SIL International]]|location=Dallas, Texas, U.S.|year=2005}} (Online version: [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=BE Sixteenth edition] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051203231327/http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=BE|date=3 December 2005}})</ref> are rarely used in public life and have largely been replaced by French.