as LiR is interested in the Walloon dialects and MM is perhaps interested in Belgium as he lived there a time, I thought to post something about the Belgian language border. A part of the European Romance/Germanic language border mentioned in a thread recently revived on this board:
https://reshistorica.forumotion.com/t1285-romance-germanic-border-europe

And I put it on the "Civilisation and Community" forum as it became at the end not a linguistic question but also a sociological one.

The nowadays Belgian languageborder:



In the time of the newly formed Low Countries the Romance/Germanic language border wasn't important as the local dialects were used in their respective region and for the connection with the rulers of the new formed entities as the Low Countries



the language of the ruler was used by the intermediary local rulers.

But with the French revolution the "citoyen" came a real actor in this local-central ruler exchange and as such had to be able to express themselves to the central government and have reaction from that government in a central standard French from Paris. So the local dialects and languages were surpressed in France in favour of the Standard French.

When the French occupied the Southern Netherlands, they did the same as in France surpressing the local Romance and Germanic dialects and made French the administrative language of the government.
The same in the Dutch Republic, which became a kingdom under the rule of the brother of Napoleon. But this was a bit reluctant to impose French as Dutch was already a "national" language spoken on the whole territory

Then came the revival of the former Low Countries in 1815 after the Napoleon defeat as the United Kingdom of The Netherlands under William I.

As I lost two times my message yesterday, I guess because the board reacted that slowly, I will add my further message in a new addendum.

Paul.

Addendum to the previous message.

I learned a lot from what I just said from this Polish? essay:
http://cejsh.icm.edu.pl/cejsh/element/bwmeta1.element.ojs-doi-10_14746_snp_2016_16_02
Click on it to read the English language PDF
Further from this PDF and it coincides with all what I studied about the question till now.

Came in William I of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.
He made as the French before a centralized power, pushing in the former Southern Netherlands an unified administrative language of course contested by the French language elite both in the Germanic as in the Romance part with regional dialects.
And I think that it is there that the antagony between the common man and the elite started as a sociological phenomenon and not as a linguistic anymore.
William I gave gradually in to that French language elite, but it was too late before the Belgian Revolution of 1830.

In that new kingdom of Belgium, the French language elite in both the Northern Germanic dialects part as in the Romance Southern part, imposed on their turn the French language as official and administrative one, above the local dialects.
That sparked a reaction  in the mid of the 19th century in the Dutch dialects part, which was from the beginning also sociological, as it was a social divide between the upper class and the common man added in the struggle with a divide between the Catholic Church, who chose French in comparison with the secular community of Belgium.
The first figurehead in that struggle for the emancipation of the Dutch language (called Nederduitsch in that time) both linguistic and sociological was
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Frans_Willems

Gradually the Dutch language became on equal foot with the French language with the result of the
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coremans-De_Vriendt_law

On all that came a Walloon reaction, why they had in Wallonia to accept that bilinguism too.
And I am glad that it is described here in an article from the  
https://www.rtbf.be/
as I mentioned here several times on this board: namely the start of the Walloon Movement in reaction on the Flemish one.
Why don't we all speak Walloon?
Walloon movement

As the Walloon movement gradually didn't want biliguism in their region there became a law for unilinguism in government administration for four regions in 1962
http://www.efnil.org/projects/lle/belgium/belgium
From the site:
The law of 8 November 1962 set the boundaries of linguistic frontiers and effected “the linguistic homogenisation” of the provinces. Some districts were transferred from one province to another, e.g. Comines-Mouscron (Komen-Moeskroen) from the Dutch-speaking province of West-Flanders to the French-speaking province of Hainaut and Voeren (Les Fourons) from the French-speaking province of Liège to the Dutch-speaking province of Limburg. The latter transfer, in particular, has since that time been at the heart of a major debate and has regularly been the cause of friction between the two major language communities in Belgium, both on the local and on the national level.

My comments:


As both the Flemish region and the Walloon region (the latest in reaction on the Flemish one) had "constructed" their "roman national" (national myth) the friction between the two communities became more agressive as the move of the French language university of Louvain to Wavre (Louvain la neuve) and the actions from the Flemish movement against the Brussels "oil slick", meant the Frenchification of the "Flemish" "territory!" around Brussels and the right to use to the administration one of the three official languages used in the family even if the region is for instance Flemish regional "territory!"...

However I have the impression that for the recent time all those "community" related problems are appeased and only the "Flemish" far right" use the problems as a platform for a change in the Flemish region as today's largest party in that region, to impose in that region an apart right wing government and to implement their right wing political goals.


But perhaps that appeasement can any time change...?

Paul.

This subject seems familiar though perhaps it was looked on from another perspective on a different thread (I can't remember which).  It was some time ago.  Paul, was it you who mentioned that there was a German speaking minority in eastern Belgium?  I know some fellow Res Historians call Wikipedia 'Wikimisleadia' but this is an extract of a much longer article about the German-speaking cantons of Belgium on that site:- "The municipalities of Malmedy and Weismes belong to the territorial community of the French Community of Belgium. The German minority has its own rights there. Occasionally, the nine German-speaking communities, together with the communities of Malmedy and Weismes, are historically called East Belgium or East Cantons because of their common political past, formerly also as Eupen-Malmedy-St. Vith."  Apparently what used to be called Neutral Moresnet ("a small Belgian–Prussian condominium in western Europe that existed from 1816 to 1920" - quotation from Wikipedia) nearly took the invented language Esperanto as an official language at one time.  The area is now part of Belgium known as Kelmis.  I didn't notice it when I first looked at the language map posted on Sunday 25th,but I see that the German-speaking part of Belgium is marked in green.

LiR, I think I have already spoken about the East Cantons in a thread about spions and collaborators with Dirk Marinus (but I am not sure).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eupen-Malmedy

Yes now a "willing" part of Belgium, the German Community (with its circa 60,000 inhabitants) on the same level as the Flemish and Walloon (language)"community!", but as a German speaking "community" they belong to the Walloon "region".
It has a lot to do with the "ontvoogdingsstrijd" (emancipation struggle?) for the use of Dutch in the Belgian administration and institutions. And so has the German speaking ones received the same rights as their Flemish counterparts.

As you spoke about the East Cantons (Ostkantonen) I read now for the first time, that the East Cantons are not the same as the German (language) Community
https://www.ostbelgienlive.be/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-72/186_read-448/
From the wiki:
Neben der Deutschsprachigen Gemeinschaft ist auch oft die Rede von den Ostkantonen oder Ostbelgien. Diese Begriffe entstanden 1920, als der neugegründete Völkerbund die Annexion der vormals preußischen Kantone Eupen, Malmedy und St.Vith an Belgien bestätigte. Ostkantone und Deutschsprachige Gemeinschaft sind nicht identisch, da die Gemeinden des Kantons Malmedy zur Französischen (language) Gemeinschaft gehören.
And now I see that in the wiki I first mentioned the same thing is said:
"Linguistically, the Canton of Malmedy is mostly Francophone while the Cantons of Eupen and Sankt Vith are mostly Germanophone. When the three language-based communities of Belgium were created as part of the Belgian state reforms, Malmedy was placed in the French-speaking Community and Eupen and Sankt Vith were placed in the German-speaking Community. All the 11 municipalities of the East Cantons are "municipalities with language facilities", with the nine Germanophone municipalities also offering services in French and the two Francophone municipalities also offering services in German."

And LiR, if after reading all this, you have still the courage to read this, perhaps to better understand the Belgian situation and specifically the East Cantons and the German (language) Community...(after all I am a Belgian and perhaps accustomed to this complexity)...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communities,_regions_and_language_areas_of_Belgium

But perhaps the most important to tell about the "East Cantons" is their "histoire douloureuse" (they transalte with "painful history"). The same as the French equivalent: Alsace-Lorraine...
The East Cantons since 1815 with the Congress of Vienna part of Prussia, together with the nowadays Rheinland-Westfalen, which was the most modern and liberal part of Germany and resisted the longest against the Nazi rise.
Then after 1918 part of Belgium and already in 1940 by decree again "heim ins Reich" they had to fight as German soldiers...
If you have still the courage to read this long history (but perhaps in the new lockdown...). It is, I am nearly sure, from a local historian, but as he knows a bit his "local" history better than the outsiders...a bit biased perhaps but all by all the same as I read till now on other reliable sources...
https://www.geschichte.be/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-5858/?ep=50818
From the site:
"By August 1944, 8,700 men from Eupen-Malmedy had been conscripted, of whom 3,300 were never to return home, listed as killed or missing in action."

Kind regards, Paul.

Paul, thank you for the links and I will probably read them in increments so that I can absorb their contents properly.

As I am the latest days busy with language, regional autonomy (even independence), the history of writing and printing press, and seeking for the history of "West-Flemish" or Coastal Flemish, as I saw in a youtube about "Occitan" that one of the cortege spoke about their more than 1000 years old dialect...and the odd thing is that he can be possible right as many regional dialects predates the later centralized language...so I came to this in my eyes incontournable essai.
(OOPS: the word don't seem to exist in English. It is inescapable 
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/french-english/incontournable  )

An essai not so much about regional language, but more about the influence of a language on the sociological segregation, for instance in the North of nowadays Belgium between the French language upperclass and the Flemish dialects speaking lower classes.

As it is a history about the Low Countries and especially about Belgium and the Belgian language border, it is perhaps of interest for the Dutch born Dirk Marinus or for MM, who has still a lot of links and acquintances in Belgium and lived overthere a time too.

It fits with all what I read up to now and is written especially for a British and as I see it now also for an "Australian" public.
https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/dona001dutc02_01/dona001dutc02_01_0006.php

And to my happy surprise I see now that it is written by an Australian.
Bruce Donaldson
https://www.routledge.com/authors/i15864-bruce-donaldson

"I lectured in Dutch, Afrikaans and German in the Department of Germanic Studies at the University of Melbourne from 1973 to 2004, when I retired. My chief interest was in the comparative and historical grammar of Germanic languages. I discovered my passion for this field while studying Old Germanic languages as an undergraduate at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands in the early seventies."