Why place names are so confusing in Belgium

Have you ever experienced the feeling of being lost in translation with signs on the highway written in different languages? If you visit Belgium by car, it might happen a lot, because depending on where you are driving in the country, the signs can be in Dutch and French (sometimes in German as well). The problem is that cities names are also translated and can REALLY confuse foreigners! A little guide to help you cope with it...

If you happen to visit the Brussels region, you will notice that every commune and street name is bilingual Dutch-French. Due to the Flemish origin of most of the place names, a peculiar phenomenon occurs with French versions of these names. A lot of them are written with strange combinations of letters that are not part of French spelling and you often have to ask locals how to pronounce them. For example, the commune name "Schaerbeek" is pronounced in French as if it was written "Scarbéque". And... this spelling is not even the same in Dutch, "Schaarbeek"! Why then?
 
The reason of this is the fact that an Flemish dialects used to be spelled in a different way in the old times, sometimes with rules that were not really fixed, so that one sound could be written in different ways. In Modern Dutch language, these place names were progressively changed to correspond to the spelling standards, but French speakers didn't really care about the new spelling and they kept it with the older one. Yet, you will still find the same spelling in Flemish family names, but it matters less...

If you know how to pronounce Dutch, you can quickly learn the following changes occurring in the spelling and you'll know how to pronounce the names of the city in French... oh wait, take a French accent of course(!):
- ae = aa /a:/ (a long "ah")
- au = ou /ɑu/ (normally English "ow" but French speakers say "oh")
- uy = ui /œi/ (more or less "uh-ee")
- ue = uu /y:/ (long French "u")
- ey = ei /ɛi/ (English "ay")
- y or ÿ = ij /ɛi/ (normally also English "ay" but French speakers say "ee")
- gh = g /x/ (normally like the Scottish pronunciation of ch in "loch" but French speakers say "g")
- sch = sch /sx/ (in French, just say "sk") or s /s/ (in word final)
 - c, ck = k or kk /k/


So, now you can read French versions of city names in Brussels, but also in the whole of Belgium:
Coxyde (Koksijde), Welkenraedt (Welkenraad), Crainhem (Kraainem), Knocke (Knokke), Blanckenberghe (Blankenberge), Auderghem (Oudergem), Schaerbeek (Schaarbeek)...

Unfortunately, it is not always that easy to understand that a city name means another one, especially if you compare what you see on your map or GPS and what you read on the signs! For some reason, you can find city names that are super different from their translation in French or Dutch. In some places, Flemish independentists have sprayed paint on street signs to hide the French names and only have Dutch names displayed...

Here is a selection of the biggest dissimilarities between French and Dutch names of the same city: Mons - Bergen*, Braine-l'Alleud - Eigenbrakel, Braine-le-Comte - s'-Gravenbrakel, Soignies - Zinnik, Tournai - Doornik, Ixelles - Elsene, Amblève - Amel, Tirlemont - Tienen, Fourons - Voeren, Anvers - Antwerpen, Termonde - Dendermonde, Courtrai - Kortrijk, Namur - Namen, Bouillon - Boolen... Feeling dizzy, huh?

* The meaning of the city name in both languages is in fact "mountains"

As you probably know it, Belgium also has a German-speaking community, so that there are also cities with names in German. Fortunately, the German name is usually super similar to the Dutch one (add umlauts here and there and you get them). That way, some Belgian cities have distinct translations in the three national languages: Bruxelles - Brüssel - Brussel, Liège - Lüttich - Luik, Arlon - Arel - Aarlen, Louvain - Löwen - Leuven, Malines - Mecheln - Mecheln...

Interesting article? Leave a comment!