Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
German is the least prevalent official language in Belgium, spoken natively by less than 1% of the population. The German-speaking Community of Belgium numbers 77,000, residing in an area of Belgium that was ceded by the former German Empire as part of the Treaty of Versailles , which concluded World War I .
The primary language of the community is German, making this one of the three official languages in Belgium. Traditionally the community and the wider area around it forms an intersection of various local languages and/or dialects, namely Limburgish , Ripuarian and Moselle Franconian varieties.
These countries (with the addition of South Tyrol of Italy) also form the Council for German Orthography and are referred to as the German Sprachraum (German language area). Since 2004, Meetings of German-speaking countries have been held annually with six participants: Germany, Austria, Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and Switzerland: [ 1 ]
The official languages are French and, only in the nine eastern municipalities that form the German-speaking Community near the German border, German. Dutch however, may be used for administrative purposes in the four municipalities with language facilities at the border with Flanders, and German in two such municipalities near the German ...
The municipalities with language facilities, shaded darker. All of the German area has language facilities. The language areas were established in 1963. The division into language areas was included into the Belgian Constitution in 1970. The border between the language areas is the so-called Belgian language or linguistic border. [27]
The official languages of the three countries involved in the Euregion are Dutch (in Belgium and the Netherlands), French (in Belgium) and German (in Belgium and Germany). Regional languages are also spoken namely Limburgish (which is recognised as a regional language in Dutch Limburg), Ripuarian and Walloon. The intra-cultural aspect of the ...
In 1962–1963 four language areas were formally determined: the Dutch-language area (now also corresponding with the Flemish Region), the bilingual area of Brussels-Capital, (whose borders came to determine those of the present Brussels-Capital Region), the French-language area, and the German-language area (together coinciding with Wallonia).
The Belgium–Germany border is crossed by two railways, the railway between Liège and Aachen, as well as the railway between Tongeren and Aachen. There are around 20 public roads which cross the border, of them 2 motorways (controlled-access highways), A3/A44/E40 and A27/A60/E42. The route of the now defunct Vennbahn railway.