Teh Jafarz Supah Thread!

[copycat]

*clarifies*

Since I don't know the people of your street, I can't tell if they can understand Flemish or not.

[Rosella]

They don't understand English, Parseltongue OR Flemish

[copycat]

They don't understand English, Parseltongue OR Flemish

Und how do you know, hmmm?

[Raforever]

Ever talked to them?

[Rosella]

Because I live next-door to them!

[copycat]

Because I live next-door to them!

Supposedly there are cases in which neighbours don't know each other, even in Belgium.

[Rosella]

Well I do. So there

[Raforever]

reaaallly?

[Rosella]

Yeppers

[copycat]

Well I do. So there

And they have all listened to someone talking Flemish and said they didn't understand a single word?

[Jafar]

I think there's a pretty good chance of them not understanding Flemish.

[copycat]

I think there's a pretty good chance of them not understanding Flemish.

Probably, but a pretty good chance is just not good enough.

[Jafar]

"Never tell me the odds!"

[copycat]

"Never tell me the odds!"

Since I lack the data needed to calculate the odds, you're pretty safe I can't tell you them either.

[Raforever]

whats Flemish again?

[Jafar]

Uh...Flem Language?

[Louisiana Night]

* LouisianaNight attempts to give a very basic explination

In Flanders(northern Belgium?), the Flemings speak a language called Flemish. It is a spoken language, and rarely written. It is also considered a dialect of Dutch(I don't know enough about it, to call that fact ).

...and I'll just let Bob correct any mistakes I made in this post.

[copycat]

In Flanders(northern Belgium?), the Flemings speak a language called Flemish. It is a spoken language, and rarely written. It is also considered a dialect of Dutch(I don't know enough about it, to call that fact ).

...and I'll just let Bob correct any mistakes I made in this post.

Very good!
Yes, Belgium is decided in three (sometimes four, since there's two types of divisions, we like to make it complicated) parts: the north is Flanders, the South is Wallon, and in the middle there's Brussels. Language-wise Flanders is Flemish, Wallon is Wallonish (or something like that, it's some kind of French), then there's a small piece of land we nicked (?sp) from the Germans after WW II and where they (obviously) speak German. And Brussels is double-languaged Dutch/French (or better Flemish/Wallonish).
Indeed, when we write, it's usually in common Dutch. Ofcourse, when a Dutch person tries to write something that is said in Flemish (for example, when a Flemish tv-series is shown on Dutch television), and it's subtitled, sometimes you can see a pretty hilarious try.
In fact, there's no such thing  as just 'the Flemish dialect'. Let one from the East of Flanders speak in his/her dielact to one of the West of Flanders, in his/her and they probably won't be able to understand each other. Another thing that is typical for (all) Flemish, as opposed to Dutch, is how we pronounce certain words. A small example:
Politie (Police)
Dutch: Politsie
Flemish: Polisie.
And then there's the prononciation of the letter 'a' in certain words.
That's the long explanation, so if you look at that and at LN's surmise, you can see he did a very good job.

[amarinda]

Hey Bob, could you give a few more examples of the pronunciation difference? I am, after all, studying Dutch...

... for that matter, a comprehensive guide to Dutch chatspeak would be great, I have no idea what Dutchies are saying sometimes with their funky abbreviations.   The only one I know is ff=even, and I have NO IDEA how they get that out of it. ff?!?!?

[Jafar]

No....more...lessons....