This article is in partnership with Day Translations.

In a 2024 article The Brussels Times highlighted an issue with Brussels and its languages.

The article also looked at the history of Brussels and how a few centuries ago the only language people spoke was a Germanic dialect similar to Dutch.

French became an official language in Brussels in the 1500s, replacing the Dutch-soundalike language.

By the middle of the 20^th century, Brussels had gained an international profile, as it was chosen to host the administrative offices of the newly created European Economic Community.

Under the new guise as the European Union since 1992, Brussels has been the place where European members of Parliament and European Commissioners meet to discuss policies and regulations. This means that the reputation of Brussels as a European capital skyrocketed and you could hear multiple languages being spoken there, as the European Union accepted new member states and recruited professional translators and interpreters.

One Town and Three Languages

Locals living in Brussels normally speak two languages: French and Flemish, a form of Dutch. German is the third official language. Different areas in Brussels and in Belgium speak different languages, with some areas having French as the prevalent language and others having Flemish. Alongside these languages most people also speak English.

Back in 2014 the BBC reported that in Belgium people speak primarily Flemish at 60%, then French at 33% (Wallon, more specifically), then German at 1% followed by Luxembourgish at 0.5%. However, in 2024 the Belgian site The Bulletin found out that many Brussels residents don’t speak any of the three main languages and that people speak more than 100 different languages, with 47% of residents speaking English. Multilingualism is rising and most households speak both French and English.

Brussels is truly a polyglot European capital, with a considerable linguistic diversity that probably include hundreds of languages, especially from non-EU countries such as India. While French-only speaking households are down to about 41% and Dutch-only households are down to about 7%, Arabic-speaking households have gone up to 11%.

In fact, Arabic is now considered to be the third native language in Brussels after French and Dutch.

If we look at all this in context, the population of Brussels has increased over the years and the percentage of people who arrived in Belgium that speaks neither French nor Dutch has also increased. This poses a problem when accessing public services as they are offered mostly in French and Dutch.

For tourists, travelling to Brussels is very convenient as they are very likely to be able to communicate in hotels and restaurants in their own language or at least in English.

Inside the European Union buildings, English is the most used language and most spoken language, as it’s easier for the majority of member states to communicate in.

While English is not the native language for the majority of the population in Belgium and in Brussels, it is being considered as a potential third official language in Belgium after French and Dutch and the second language in Brussels after French for practical reasons. For example, if a French speaker in Belgium interacts with a Belgian public officer who speaks Dutch, their communication exchange is likely to be in English.

This all becomes a game of musical chairs if English were to be considered as an official language in Belgium because 10% of Brussels residents don’t speak any Dutch, French or English.

To summarise, it is a bit of a headache trying to solve the issue of working languages in Brussels, because even if English were to be adopted as one of the official languages it still wouldn’t solve many every day problems that residents face, especially when they need to access public services.