History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 303

Willems, stated that the indigenous Flemish dialect of the city of Dunkirk had almost
disappeared (Ryckeboer, 1989).
This means that throughout the 19th century, a social language border existed in the
département of Dunkirk, with an uneven distribution among the small towns and the
villages. Although there has been almost no change in the geographical linguistic
border between the French speaking and the Flemish dominated areas in the last
100years, the ratio between the two languages within the bilingual area has changed
steadily, generation after generation, to be almost completely reversed in the course
of 120 years (see Vanneste, 1982). From about the interbellum in the 20th century
onwards, everybody became bilingual and code-switching was practised frequently.
The younger generation after the Second World War was almost exclusively educated
in French and became ignorant of Flemish. The Flemish dialect became restricted
almost to themiddle-aged and elderly people and the passing on of the Flemish
language to the next generation stopped in most families, even in the countryside,
during the 1930s or 1940s. (Pée, 1946,XVI–XVII).
As a consequence those who still have an active knowledge of the Flemish dialect
belong –with only a few exceptions – to the group of people who are 60 or older.
Neither the motivat