‘Vaalsberg’ (Mount of Vaals) is a hill with a height of 322.7 metres, making it the highest point in the Netherlands. However, besides the aforementioned fact, the location is also a tripoint between Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands and referred to as the Drielandepunt. Lia, Eva and myself were interested in exploring the place in order to find out what signs and maps are used in the area, and in which languages. Consequently, we went to explore the linguistic landscape at the Drielandepunt and this video is a representation of our findings. Enjoy!
Tag: Belgium
Trip to Drielandenpunt
For our video blog Luca, Eva and I went to the Drielandenpunt in Vaals, where the countries of The Netherlands, Germany and Belgium meet. There we looked at the linguistic landscape focusing on signs, maps etc. This is what we found out!
Wallons, nous! – Us, Walloons!
One of the biggest feature of the European Union is its language diversity. Apart from the official languages, there is a large diversity of regional languages. In Wallonia, the French speaking part of Belgium, the most spoken regional language is Walloon. The numbers of speakers is constantly diminishing as younger generations, like me, speak and learn exclusively French. Nonetheless, the language is still relatively visible in various medias in Wallonia.
My Identity and My Language(s)
My name is Benjamin and I am currently a student. I was born in Belgium but 15 days later I moved to Burundi. In a way, it is representative of how my life has been so far . The constant moving around allowed me to live in numerous countries spreading over Africa, North America and Europe. And now I am in Maastricht.
قصة مغربية في القلب
"The story of a Moroccan at heart"
Having had the blessing of travelling from my youngest age, I have, for many years, described myself as a Moroccan. Africa was ‘my land’, Morocco, ‘my country’, Arabic, my ‘language’ and I felt truly part of the people.