World Language Map

Where is Western Flemish spoken?

Western Flemish (West-Vloams) is an Indo-European language, spoken in Belgium, France and the Netherlands. It is marked on the map by a ringed point.

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Where Western Flemish is spoken

Western Flemish is spoken in 3 countries: Belgium, France and the Netherlands. The table gives the share of each country’s people who speak it, from Unicode CLDR, where CLDR has a figure.

CountryShare of populationEstimated speakers
Belgium10%1,197,760
FranceNot givenNot given
NetherlandsNot givenNot given

Estimated speakers are the CLDR percentage applied to CLDR’s own population figure for the country, so they are rough. A country without a figure may still have speakers: it is listed because the language area, or Glottolog’s record, reaches it.

Western Flemish has no area on the map because no open area map covers it. The ringed point is the position Glottolog gives for the language.

How many people speak Western Flemish?

Wikidata gives about 1.4 million speakers (Wikidata, with no source given, 1998). These figures are approximate: they come from different sources, years and definitions of a speaker.

Status: Threatened. Glottolog lists it as threatened: it is still spoken by all generations, but there are signs that the number of speakers is falling.

Where Western Flemish sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies Western Flemish as follows, from the largest family down to the language itself.

  1. Indo-European
  2. Classical Indo-European
  3. Germanic
  4. Northwest Germanic
  5. West Germanic
  6. Macro-Dutch
  7. Middle-Modern Dutch
  8. Modern Dutch
  9. Southwestern Dutch
  10. Western Flemish

More about Western Flemish

Codes: ISO 639-3 vls, Glottolog vlaa1240. Glottolog macroarea: Eurasia.

Questions about Western Flemish

Where is Western Flemish spoken?

Western Flemish is spoken in Belgium, France and the Netherlands. Unicode CLDR puts it at 10% of the population of Belgium, which is about 1,197,760 people. On the map it is shown as a single point, because no open area map covers it.

How many people speak Western Flemish?

Wikidata gives about 1.4 million speakers (Wikidata, with no source given, 1998). Speaker numbers are approximate and differ between sources: counting who is a speaker, and whether to include second-language speakers, is not settled.

Which language family is Western Flemish in?

Glottolog places Western Flemish in the Indo-European family, in the branch Classical Indo-European, Germanic, Northwest Germanic, West Germanic, Macro-Dutch, Middle-Modern Dutch, Modern Dutch and Southwestern Dutch.

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