The Standard Language Situation in the Low Countries: Top-Down and Bottom-Up Variations on a Diaglossic Theme

This paper reviews the available evidence in support of a diaglossic account (Auer 2005, 2011) of the 20th century history of Belgian and Netherlandic Dutch, whereby the national varieties of Dutch are argued to be developing towards a stratificational configuration without discrete intermediate strata between the base dialects and the standard. However, we show that the processes leading to diaglossia differ significantly in the two varieties. While the recent history of Netherlandic Dutch is characterized by downward norm relaxation (top to bottom), Belgian Dutch is characterized by bottom-up (re)standardization. Building on a refined version of Auer’s diaglossic model, we reflect on the exact nature of linguistic standardization in the Low Countries and outline scenarios for the further development of Belgian and Netherlandic Dutch.