From flamano to urban vernacular. Linguistic and meta-linguistic heritage of first generation miners in Flemish Limburg

Abstract

AbstractThis article explores the linguistic and meta-linguistic heritage of the Italian mine workers families that arrived in Belgian Limburg after the Second World War. On the basis of historical research, discourse analysis of texts and sociolinguistic interviews, I describe how the complex linguistic integration of first-generation migrants, that was scarcely noticed and debated until the 1960s, has been picked up and enregistered by second- and third-generation Italians in Limburg. I show how first generation’s hybrid linguistic practices have come to be linked to one particular mining city, the city of Genk, and enregistered as an urban vernacular of this place, although they still refer to the larger historical background they are rooted in. I explain this heritage in three steps. First, I describe the complex contact-linguistic situation of first-generation miners’ families. I will then present the linguistic consequences of this situation, by describing the emergence of a multilingual, but mainly French-based mining jargon among Flemish and foreign miners. In a third step, I place the social and linguistic situation of first-generation miners at the root of the linguistic practices of second- and third-generation Italians in Limburg.