Effect of a United Luxembourg on Belgiums and Luxembourg linguistic demographics

[Valdemar II]

Originally Posted by Valdemar II

The annextion of Belgium Luxembourg (BL) are going to have interesting consequencies. BL is home to a third of Wallons population, which will mean that the population of Flandern is now in majority, this is somewhat offset by the Francophone elite in Flanders, but some of the bitterness from the Flemish is going to stay or even increase, I could see Brussel staying Flemish thanks to lowered Francophone immigration, higher Flemish emigration and a stronger Flemish nationalism, we can end up with a Belgium which is 80% Flemish instead of 60%.....

The effect on Luxembourg is goint just as big the Wallons is now in majority in Luxembourg, but they lack the pro-French linguistic elite of Belgium, which could mean that Wallon would evolve into a distinct language in Luxembourg, like Luxembourgish has done in OTL.

[pompejus]

Originally Posted by Valdemar II

The effect on Luxembourg is goint just as big the Wallons is now in majority in Luxembourg, but they lack the pro-French linguistic elite of Belgium, which could mean that Wallon would evolve into a distinct language in Luxembourg, like Luxembourgish has done in OTL.

Personally I think that the evolution of the Luxembourgish dialect into a different language (and I am certain that people like Susano won't recognise it as a different language from German) is because of Germany occupying Luxembourg during both world wars. If France doesn't occupy Luxembourg I don't see such a thing happening to the Walloon dialect and the result would be that the Walloon parts of Luxembourg end up speaking French. Actually it wouldn't surprise me that the whole of Luxembourg would end up speaking French. There are still places in Luxembourg where you can't make people understand you if you speak only German. If you include Belgian Luxembourg, the French/Wallon people would form a majority. Also I think, but certainly do not know for sure, that the elite in Luxembourg spoke French, just like the Belgian elite and even the Dutch elite at the beginning of the 19th century.