History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 301

been held predominantly by hired German forces (see 0143-4632/02/01 0022-14
$20.00/0 © 2002 H. Ryckeboer JOURNAL OFMULTILINGUALANDMULTICULTURAL
DEVELOPMENT Vol. 23, Nos. 1&2, 2002 Lamarcq & Rogge, 1996).
In addition, we must also take into account an intense Saxon colonisation in Pas-deCalais from the fifth to the eighth century. A map of the area of their colonisation
(Vanneufville, 1979:30) corresponds strikingly with the expansion in the Picard dialect
of the Anglo-Saxon loanword hoc, hoquet ‘dung hook’.
Perhaps the most striking feature of the historical and present language situation In
the north of France is the steady movement of the linguistic border in favour of the
Romance to the detriment of the Germanic language. That proves that the Romance
varieties (namely Picard and later standard French) used to have more prestige than
the Germanic ones and caused a millennial language shift. The final consequence is
that the Flemish dialect, still spoken nowadays in the rural communities of the
arrondissement of Dunkirk, is in danger of disappearing.
From the ninth century onwards one can observe a steady growth of Romance
influence to the north of this original language boundary. The Romanisation seems to
have reached the river Leie (Lys) as early as the 10thcentury. The city of Boulogne
was bilingual up to the 12th century. One can presume that around 1300 the location
of the linguistic border was situated approximately along a line that starts at the CapGriz-Nez, keeps to the south of Guînes, Ardres and Saint-Omer, and reaches the Leie
(Lys) east of Aire. Within this region it was the towns which seem to have introduced
and adopted the French language (in its regional Picard form) first. From these
centres of commerce and education it radiated towards the surrounding countryside.
This process went on for several centuries: Calais was bilingual until the 16th century,
Saint-Omer, until the 18th century and from that century on the Frenchification begins
also in the arrondissement of Dunkirk.
The historical presence of Dutch in the northern part of Pas-de-Calais is still
recognisable not only in the place names but also in the surviving of a considerable
amount of Dutch substrate words in the local Picard dialect. Several maps based on
the ALPic I (see Carton & Lebegue, 1989), ALF (see Gilliéron & Edmont, 1902–1910)
and Poulet (1987) can demonstrate this, e.g. clav for ‘clover’ (ALF 1326), bèr, bèrk for
‘shed’ (ALPic I 46) (see Ryckeboer, 1997).
Historical Evolution of the Language Situation in the Département du Nord
The official written language that succeeded Latin during the 13th century in the part
of the county of Flanders ly