French Belgium Voice Over Agency

Belgian French is the variety of French spoken mainly in the French Community of Belgium, alongside related minority regional languages such as Walloon, Picard, Champenois and Lorrain (Gaumais), as well as in the capital city of Brussels. The French language spoken in Belgium differs very little from that of France or Switzerland. It is characterized by the use of some terms that are considered archaic in France, as well as loanwords from local languages such as Walloon and Picard of the Oïl language group and Dutch.

French is one of the three official languages of Belgium alongside Dutch and German. It is spoken natively by around 41% of the population, primarily in the southern region of Wallonia and the Brussels-Capital Region.

While a number of Oïl languages have traditionally been spoken in different areas of Wallonia, French emerged as the regional language of literature in the 13th century. This was a result of heavy French cultural influence on the region over the past few centuries. Owing to the diversity of local languages, the French language in Wallonia was influenced by them, with words from Walloon, Picard, Champenois and Lorrain making their way into the local variant. Until the 20th century, Walloon was the majority language of Wallonia, and most speakers were bilingual in both French and Walloon.

While the French spoken in Wallonia was influenced by local languages, the variant spoken in Brussels was influenced by Dutch, specifically the local Brabantian dialect. The city, located in the Flanders region, was originally exclusively Dutch-speaking. However, as French was viewed as the language of education, prestige and social mobility, a Frenchification of the city took place beginning in the 19th century, intensifying towards the end of the century. Today, many Dutch idioms or expressions have been translated into French and are used as such in the Brussels area.

There are a few consistent phonological differences between the French spoken in France and Belgian French, but usually no more than the differences between regional dialects within France (or the ones that exist between English-Canadian speakers of Toronto and Vancouver, for instance), which might be even non-existent. Regional accents however, can vary from city to city (e.g. the Liège accent), but on the whole they may vary more according to one’s social class and education.

While stronger accents have been more typical of working-class people, they have become much less pronounced since World War I and the widespread use of television, which has helped to standardize accents and the types of words speakers will use. Within the French community of Belgium, standard French pronunciation is taught to students. The following differences vary among speakers, depending on their level of education, age, and the region they come from.

Major phonological differences include:

– Lack of the approximant /ɥ/: The combination /ɥi/ is replaced by /wi/, and in other situations /ɥ/ becomes a full vowel /y/. Thus for most Belgian speakers, the words enfuir (to run away) and enfouir (to bury) are homophones.

– The nasal vowels are pronounced like in French of France. /ɑ̃/ → [ɒ̃], /ɛ̃/ → [æ̃], /ɔ̃/ → [õ]. The distinction between the nasal vowels /ɛ̃/ and /œ̃/ is upheld in Belgian French, whereas in many regions of France, these two sounds have merged. Thus, in Parisian French brin (stalk) and
brun (brown) are pronounced the same way, but not in Belgian French.

– The distinction between the vowels /ɛ/ and /ɛː/ is upheld, whereas in France, these two sounds have merged. The words mettre (put) and maître (master) are pronounced differently in Belgian French.

– The distinction between the vowels /o/ and /ɔ/ is upheld in final open syllables, the words peau (skin) and pot (jar) are pronounced differently; they are pronounced the same in French of France and in Quebec French.

– A stronger distinction exists between long and short vowels.

While long vowels are constrained to closed syllables in French of France, Belgian French also has them in absolute final position: ⟨ée⟩, ⟨aie⟩ [eː], ⟨ue⟩ [yː], ⟨ie⟩ [iː], ⟨oue⟩ [uː] and ⟨eue⟩ [øː]. As a result, almost all feminine adjectives are phonetically distinct from their masculine counterparts for Belgians.

The marginal phoneme /ɑ/ is most of the time rendered as a lengthened version of /a/: [aː].

The letter “w” is almost always pronounced /w/, the same as in English, which also approximates Flemish “w”. In France, it is often pronounced /v/ as in German. For example, the word wagon (train car) is pronounced /vaɡɔ̃/ in Standard French, but /waɡɔ̃/ in Belgian French.
For some speakers, final stops are devoiced: “d” becomes “t”, “b” becomes “p”, and “g” becomes “k”. Combined with the dropping of consonants in final consonant clusters, this leads to pronunciations like [ɡʁɒ̃ːt] instead of [ɡʁɒ̃ːd] (“grande”) and [taːp] instead of /tabl/ (“table”).

Certain accents, such as certain urban accents (notably those of Brussels and Liège), as well as the accents of older speakers, and particularly less educated speakers, display greater deviation from Standard French pronunciation. For example, in the dialect spoken in and around Liège, particularly among older speakers, the letter “h” is pronounced in certain positions, whereas it is never pronounced in Standard French. That dialect is also known for its slow, slightly singing intonation, a feature that is even stronger farther east, in the Verviers area.