Twentieth Century Language Territoriality Laws

In the 1920s, Belgium determined that it would organize itself as a state with distinct language regions, rather than as a bilingual state, and in June 1932, enacted its first law establishing linguistic territoriality. This principle enforced monolingualism as sanctioned by the state, and public services and places became spaces of one language: Flemish, French, or German. This officially created the four linguistic regions that are still in place today: the French, Dutch (Flemish), and German language regions, and the bilingual region of Brussels-Capital. This law also established that a language census would take place once every decade, and that territorial  language borders could be redrawn if the census revealed significant language population changes. The law also granted linguistic rights for any group that made up thirty percent of the population or more in any language territory [European Federation of National Institutions for Language, 2009].  

         In November 1962, another law was passed that set the boundaries of linguistic frontiers, and stipulated that each municipality had to belong to one language region. From this point forward, each province would function under one official language, dependent on the language spoken by the majority of that province’s population. Some districts were transferred between provinces in order to ensure linguistic homogeneity of each province. In July 1963, a law on language in education was passed that further established linguistic homogeneity of each province. In Article IV, the law states that “the language of teaching is Dutch in the Dutch language region, French in the French language region and German in the German language region.” This rule held in almost all areas of Belgium; exceptions were made for the Germanic region and bilingual areas such as Brussels, where the head of the family was able to decide the language their child would be taught. Each of these laws further separated the Northern and Southern regions of Belgium on linguistic lines [European Federation of National Institutions for Language, 2009].