Princess Stéphanie Clotilde Louise Herminie Marie Charlotte of Belgium (21 May 1864 – 23 August 1945) was a Belgian princess who became Crown Princess of Austria through marriage to Crown Prince Rudolf , heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire .
192-638: The Avenue Louise ( French: [av.ny lwiz] ) or Louizalaan ( Dutch ) is a major thoroughfare in Brussels , Belgium. It is located in the southern part of the City of Brussels , on the border with the municipalities of Saint-Gilles and Ixelles , where it runs south–east from the Place Louise/Louizaplein [ nl ] to the Bois de la Cambre/Ter Kamerenbos , covering
384-672: A Czech first name reflecting the sympathies of the Crown Prince for the Slavic populations of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. On 8 August, Queen Marie Henriette visited her daughter in anticipation of her childbirth. Stéphanie did not dare talk about her marital problems with her mother. The preparations for a princely birth obeyed protocol: prayers in churches and the exhibition of the Blessed Sacrament in
576-578: A common ancestor with languages such as English, German, and the Scandinavian languages . All Germanic languages are subject to the Grimm's law and Verner's law sound shifts, which originated in the Proto-Germanic language and define the basic features differentiating them from other Indo-European languages. This is assumed to have taken place in approximately the mid-first millennium BCE in
768-399: A divorce a mensa et thoro from her husband. The following year, Elisabeth Marie participated in her mother's silver wedding anniversary. Thereafter, mother and daughter did not see each other at all. According to her granddaughter-in-law, author Ghislaine of Windisch-Graetz (née d'Arschot Schoonhoven), Stéphanie "was confused in devotion and even bigoted; she was convinced that her daughter
960-467: A schwa . The Middle Dutch dialect areas were affected by political boundaries. The sphere of political influence of a certain ruler often also created a sphere of linguistic influence, with the language within the area becoming more homogenous. Following the contemporary political divisions they are in order of importance: A process of standardisation started in the Middle Ages , especially under
1152-601: A synod taking place in Corbridge , England , where the decisions are being written down " tam Latine quam theodisce " meaning "in Latin as well as common vernacular". According to a hypothesis by De Grauwe, In northern West Francia (i.e. modern-day Belgium) the term would take on a new meaning during the Early Middle Ages , when, within the context of a highly dichromatic linguistic landscape, it came to be
1344-468: A venereal disease that he transmitted to his wife, rendering her unable to conceive again. In 1889, Rudolf and his mistress Mary Vetsera were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide pact at the imperial hunting lodge at Mayerling in the Vienna Woods . In 1900, Stéphanie married again, to Count Elemér Lónyay de Nagy-Lónya et Vásáros-Namény , a Hungarian nobleman of lower rank; for this, she
1536-593: A "certain marvelous romanticism in the act which the princess poses [because] the latter closed on her the portal of the Hofburg, at the same time thoughtful and the glance full of promising images, then went south where she will soon cease to be Princess Dowager". The new spouses initially settled at the Palais Zichy in Vienna. Two years after her mother's remarriage, Archduchess Elisabeth Marie (who at some point
1728-483: A Dowager Crown Princess, to abandon Austria. As guardian of his 5-year-old granddaughter Elisabeth Marie, the Emperor demanded that Stéphanie remain with her child. Stéphanie had to obey and obtained permission to stay for four months at Miramare Castle , near Trieste . At the start of her widowhood, Stéphanie led a rather withdrawn life. Over the years, the separations from her daughter became more and more frequent, so
1920-576: A comparison between the West Germanic languages, see the sections Phonology, Grammar, and Vocabulary. Dutch dialects are primarily the dialects that are both related with the Dutch language and are spoken in the same language area as the Dutch standard language . Although heavily under the influence of the standard language, some of them remain diverse and are found in the Netherlands and in
2112-467: A consequence evolve (along with Alemannic , Bavarian and Lombardic ) into Old High German. At more or less the same time the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law, moving over Western Europe from west to east, led to the development of Old English (or Anglo-Saxon), Old Frisian and Old Saxon . Hardly influenced by either development, Old Dutch probably remained relatively close to the original language of
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#17327805222962304-514: A distance of 2.7 km (1.7 mi). It is named in honour of both Queen Louise , the first Queen of the Belgians and wife of King Leopold I , and Princess Louise , King Leopold II 's eldest daughter. The Avenue Louise is one of the most prestigious and expensive avenues in Brussels, lined with high-end fashion stores and boutiques. It also houses many embassies and offices. The avenue
2496-596: A feeling of failure, had sunk into debauchery. Despite Rudolf's attempts to reconcile with his wife, their quarrel seemed deep. During a visit to the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria in 1887, Stéphanie fell in love with the Polish Count Artur Władysław Potocki . During the next eighteen months, she did not try to hide her affections for the Count from her husband, who continued his own liaisons. From
2688-549: A fifth of the market in this sector in the Brussels Region. Luxury shops, restaurants, art galleries and antique dealers all contribute to the liveliness and reputation of the avenue. Although regarded as a prestigious street during the day, at night, however, it has a reputation for unauthorised prostitution . The Avenue Louise is home to many upmarket shops, restaurants and offices. From north to south, notable landmarks include: The 250-metre-long (820 ft) part of
2880-721: A final meeting with the monarch. Her sister Louise returned to Belgium as well, and the dying sovereign also refused to see her. Stéphanie and her sisters discovered that their father had left as main beneficiary of his will his chief mistress, the French prostitute Caroline Lacroix , as well as the Royal Trust . He also deliberately concealed property included in his estate in shell companies in Germany and France , not only to deprive his daughters of it, but also to allow his town-planning projects to continue. The Belgian state offered
3072-677: A financial transaction to the three princesses, who would each receive a sum of two million francs. While Stéphanie and Clémentine accepted the proposal, Louise refused it and initiated, in December 1910, a first trial against the Belgian State and her two sisters. In April 1911, Louise initiated a second lawsuit concerning the French companies created by Leopold II. In 1912, Louise and Stéphanie, who had now become her ally, were defended by Henri Jaspar and Paul-Émile Janson , and Louise persevered in her legal actions. The two princesses refused
3264-536: A fulfilling relationship with her daughter did not last. During this time, Stéphanie continued her romantic relationship with Count Potocki , whom she had nicknamed "Hamlet". Widowed since 1881, he was Chamberlain at the court of Vienna and a life member of the House of Lords in the Austrian Parliament. Only her sister Louise was informed of the affair. Artur Potocki remained close to Stéphanie during
3456-618: A member of the imperial legation during the coronation of Tsar Nicolas II in Saint Petersburg. In 1896 he and his brother Gábor were raised to the dignity of Count. In 1897, he resigned from the foreign service and retired from the public service. In order to be able to marry Stéphanie, he converted to Catholicism. Stéphanie did not dare to forewarn her father of her marriage plans. She chose to address herself by letter, in October 1899, to Queen Victoria who supported her. However,
3648-582: A minority language in Germany and northern France's French Flanders . Though Belgium as a whole is multilingual, three of the four language areas into which the country is divided ( Flanders , francophone Wallonia , and the German-speaking Community ) are largely monolingual, with Brussels being bilingual. The Netherlands and Belgium produce the vast majority of music , films , books and other media written or spoken in Dutch. Dutch
3840-670: A minority) and the province of Walloon Brabant . Brabantian expands into small parts in the west of Limburg while its strong influence on the East Flemish of East Flanders and eastern Zeelandic Flanders weakens towards the west. In a small area in the northwest of North Brabant ( Willemstad ), Hollandic is spoken. Conventionally, the Kleverlandish dialects are distinguished from Brabantian, but there are no objective criteria apart from geography to do so. Over 5 million people live in an area with some form of Brabantian being
4032-852: A new amicable agreement with the State, before their action was dismissed by the Court of Appeal in April 1913. However, on 22 January 1914, an agreement was concluded between Louise, the Belgian State and some of her creditors: She received, like her two sisters, a little more than five million francs from their late father's fortune. In January 1906, Stéphanie and Elemér bought the Rusovce Mansion in Hungary (now in Slovakia ) in order to establish permanent residence there. The neoclassical-style building
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#17327805222964224-420: A number of closely related, mutually intelligible dialects spoken in the former Old Dutch area. Where Old Dutch fragments are very hard to read for untrained Modern Dutch speakers, the various literary works of Middle Dutch are somewhat more accessible. The most notable difference between Old and Middle Dutch is in a feature of speech known as vowel reduction , whereby vowels in unstressed syllables are leveled to
4416-579: A political border, because the traditional dialects are strongly influenced by the national standard varieties. While a somewhat heterogeneous group of Low Franconian dialects, Limburgish has received official status as a regional language in the Netherlands and Germany, but not in Belgium. Due to this official recognition, it receives protection by chapter 2 of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . Afrikaans , although to
4608-475: A post he liked very much. He was friendly with Princess Louise of Belgium , who had encouraged him to marry her younger sister. In anticipation of her establishment at the Austrian court, her mother Marie Henriette had warned Stéphanie: "Avoid Louise, and if you see her, reason with her, show her a good example [...] Louise is not true. It costs nothing to lie or act. She is very frivolous". Rudolf's personality
4800-413: A result, Nederduits no longer serves as a synonym for the Dutch language. In the 19th century, the term " Diets " was revived by Dutch linguists and historians as well, as a poetic name for Middle Dutch and its literature . Old Dutch can be discerned more or less around the same time as Old English (Anglo-Saxon), Old High German , Old Frisian , and Old Saxon . These names are derived from
4992-509: A result, when West Flemings try to talk Standard Dutch, they are often unable to pronounce the g-sound, and pronounce it similar to the h-sound. This leaves, for example, no difference between " held " (hero) and " geld " (money). Or in some cases, they are aware of the problem, and hyper-correct the "h" into a voiced velar fricative or g-sound, again leaving no difference. The West Flemish variety historically spoken in adjacent parts in France
5184-473: A second or third language in the polyglot Caribbean island countries of Aruba , Curaçao and Sint Maarten . All these countries have recognised Dutch as one of their official languages, and are involved in one way or another in the Dutch Language Union . The Dutch Caribbean municipalities ( St. Eustatius , Saba and Bonaire ) have Dutch as one of the official languages. In Asia, Dutch
5376-537: A second son and therefore resumed sexual relations with the Queen; but, after a miscarriage in March 1871, another daughter was born on 30 July 1872: Clémentine , the last child of the royal couple. Stéphanie relates about her parents: "It is sad and discouraging to think that these two beings [...] could not live better together and create a home. But unfortunately, they did not understand each other. Their paths crossed for
5568-522: A significant degree mutually intelligible with Dutch, is usually not considered a dialect but instead a separate standardised language . It is spoken in South Africa and Namibia. As a daughter language of 17th-century Dutch dialects, Afrikaans evolved in parallel with modern Dutch, but was influenced by various other languages in South Africa. West Frisian ( Westerlauwers Fries ), along with Saterland Frisian and North Frisian , evolved from
5760-481: A single instant, only to move away immediately and forever. He chose that of indifference, infidelity, she had to accept that of resignation, loneliness and pain". Leopold II thereafter lost interest in his family; he turned his attentions to the notorious creation of the Congo Free State , which was his personal fiefdom and not a Belgian colonial territory , and as such its ruthless exploitation amassed him
5952-761: A socialist deputy and whom she had not seen since 1925. The arrival of the Red Army in April 1945, at the end of the war, forced Stéphanie and her husband to leave their residence and take refuge in the Pannonhalma Archabbey in Hungary . Stéphanie died of a stroke in the abbey later the same year. Stéphanie was the third child of the Duke (future King Leopold II) and Duchess of Brabant (born Archduchess Marie Henriette of Austria), an unhappy and mismatched couple. In 1853, their marriage had been arranged for exclusively political reasons by both King Leopold I and
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6144-479: A somewhat different development since the late Middle Ages. Two dialect groups have been given the official status of regional language (or streektaal ) in the Netherlands. Like several other dialect groups, both are part of a dialect continuum that continues across the national border. The Dutch Low Saxon dialect area comprises the provinces of Groningen , Drenthe and Overijssel , as well as parts of
6336-424: A source language, mainly for law and history students. In Indonesia this involves about 35,000 students. Unlike other European nations, the Dutch chose not to follow a policy of language expansion amongst the indigenous peoples of their colonies. In the last quarter of the 19th century, however, a local elite gained proficiency in Dutch so as to meet the needs of expanding bureaucracy and business. Nevertheless,
6528-552: A unique prestige dialect and has a large dialectal continuum consisting of 28 main dialects, which can themselves be further divided into at least 600 distinguishable varieties. In the Netherlands, the Hollandic dialect dominates in national broadcast media while in Flanders Brabantian dialect dominates in that capacity, making them in turn unofficial prestige dialects in their respective countries. Outside
6720-584: A vast private fortune. He also rejected his family for his mistresses – having so many scandalous liaisons that he was known to his subjects as Le Roi des Belges et des Belles (“The King of the Belgians and of the Beauties”). From 1874, Stéphanie (who until then had a nanny, the Viennese Antoinette Polsterer) was placed under the direction of her sister Louise's governess, Mademoiselle Legrand. Stephanie writes: "My education began at
6912-537: Is kantor , handdoek "towel" in Indonesian is handuk , or bushalte "bus stop" in Indonesian is halte bus . In addition, many Indonesian words are calques of Dutch; for example, rumah sakit "hospital" is calqued on the Dutch ziekenhuis (literally "sickhouse"), kebun binatang "zoo" on dierentuin (literally "animal garden"), undang-undang dasar "constitution" from grondwet (literally "ground law"). These account for some of
7104-587: Is Sranan Tongo , spoken natively by about a fifth of the population. Princess St%C3%A9phanie of Belgium Princess Stéphanie was the second daughter of King Leopold II of Belgium and Marie Henriette of Austria . She married in Vienna on 10 May 1881 Crown Prince Rudolf, son and heir of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria . They had one child, Archduchess Elisabeth Marie . Stéphanie's marriage quickly became fragile. Rudolf, depressed and disappointed by politics, had multiple extramarital affairs, and contracted
7296-506: Is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family , spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language and is the third most spoken Germanic language. In Europe, Dutch is the native language of most of the population of the Netherlands and Flanders (which includes 60% of the population of Belgium ). Dutch was one of the official languages of South Africa until 1925, when it
7488-466: Is a calque of the aforementioned Roman province Germania Inferior and an attempt by early Dutch grammarians to give their language more prestige by linking it to Roman times. Likewise, Hoogduits ("High German") and Overlands ("Upper-landish") came into use as a Dutch exonym for the various German dialects used in neighboring German states. Use of Nederduytsch was popular in the 16th century but ultimately lost out over Nederlands during
7680-473: Is a monocentric language , at least what concerns its written form, with all speakers using the same standard form (authorised by the Dutch Language Union ) based on a Dutch orthography defined in the so-called " Green Booklet " authoritative dictionary and employing the Latin alphabet when writing; however, pronunciation varies between dialects. Indeed, in stark contrast to its written uniformity, Dutch lacks
7872-537: Is also an official language of several international organisations, such as the European Union , Union of South American Nations and the Caribbean Community . At an academic level, Dutch is taught in about 175 universities in 40 countries. About 15,000 students worldwide study Dutch at university. In Europe, Dutch is the majority language in the Netherlands (96%) and Belgium (59%) as well as
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8064-587: Is found in the Salic law . In this Frankish document written around 510 the oldest Dutch sentence has been identified: Maltho thi afrio lito ("I say to you, I free you, serf") used to free a serf. Another old fragment of Dutch is Visc flot aftar themo uuatare ("A fish was swimming in the water"). The oldest conserved larger Dutch text is the Utrecht baptismal vow (776–800) starting with Forsachistu diobolae ... ec forsacho diabolae (litt.: "Forsake you
8256-465: Is located in an area of over 2,400 hectares, consisting of an English-style park , planted with purple beeches, silver fir trees and multiple decorative species, which extends over both banks of the Danube . They received many guests there, including Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his morganatic wife, still ostracized by the court of Vienna , and writers, such as the pacifist Bertha von Suttner . Renovation
8448-522: Is mostly Germanic; it incorporates slightly more Romance loans than German, but far fewer than English. In Belgium, the Netherlands and Suriname, the native official name for Dutch is Nederlands (historically Nederlandsch before the Dutch orthographic reforms ). Sometimes Vlaams (" Flemish ") is used as well to describe Standard Dutch in Flanders , whereas Hollands (" Hollandic ")
8640-487: Is occasionally used as a colloquial term for the standard language in the central and northwestern parts of the Netherlands. English uses the adjective Dutch as a noun for the language of the Netherlands and Flanders. The word is derived from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz . The stem of this word, *þeudō , meant "people" in Proto-Germanic, and *-iskaz was an adjective-forming suffix, of which -ish
8832-446: Is served by the metro station Louise/Louiza at one end (on lines 2 and 6 ), as well as the tram lines 8 and 93, which run its entire length. The Avenue Louise was first proposed in 1844 by two private property developers, Jean-Philippe De Joncker and Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, who submitted to the City of Brussels a plan for a monumental avenue bordered by chestnut trees that would allow easy access from Brussels' city centre to
9024-569: Is so distinct that it might be considered as a separate language variant, although the strong significance of language in Belgian politics would prevent the government from classifying them as such. An oddity of the dialect is that, the voiced velar fricative (written as "g" in Dutch) shifts to a voiced glottal fricative (written as "h" in Dutch), while the letter "h" becomes mute (like in French). As
9216-585: Is sometimes called French Flemish and is listed as a French minority language . However, only a very small and aging minority of the French-Flemish population still speaks and understands West Flemish. Hollandic is spoken in Holland and Utrecht , though the original forms of this dialect (which were heavily influenced by a West Frisian substratum and, from the 16th century on, by Brabantian dialects ) are now relatively rare. The urban dialects of
9408-637: Is spoken in Limburg (Belgium) as well as in the remaining part of Limburg (Netherlands) and extends across the German border. West Flemish ( Westvlaams ) is spoken in West Flanders , the western part of Zeelandic Flanders and also in French Flanders , where it virtually became extinct to make way for French. The West Flemish group of dialects, spoken in West Flanders and Zeeland ,
9600-618: Is sunken and has three tunnels—all housed in the central lane, which was widened by the removal of two rows of trees—with level crossings and car parking spaces aboveground. The three tunnels are, from north to south: the Stéphanie Tunnel, the Bailli Tunnel and the short Vleurgat Tunnel. From the 1960s onwards, the Avenue Louise was gradually transformed into an office district. The first special development plan for
9792-595: Is taught in various educational centres in Indonesia, the most important of which is the Erasmus Language Centre (ETC) in Jakarta . Each year, some 1,500 to 2,000 students take Dutch courses there. In total, several thousand Indonesians study Dutch as a foreign language. Owing to centuries of Dutch rule in Indonesia, many old documents are written in Dutch. Many universities therefore include Dutch as
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#17327805222969984-662: Is the Modern English form. Theodiscus was its Latinised form and used as an adjective referring to the Germanic vernaculars of the Early Middle Ages . In this sense, it meant "the language of the common people". The term was used as opposed to Latin , the non -native language of writing and the Catholic Church . It was first recorded in 786, when the Bishop of Ostia writes to Pope Adrian I about
10176-404: Is the case with the ( standardised ) West Frisian language . It is spoken alongside Dutch in the province of Friesland . Dutch dialects and regional languages are not spoken as often as they used to be, especially in the Netherlands. Recent research by Geert Driessen shows that the use of dialects and regional languages among both Dutch adults and youth is in heavy decline. In 1995, 27 percent of
10368-530: Is the sole official language, and over 60 percent of the population speaks it as a mother tongue . Dutch is the obligatory medium of instruction in schools in Suriname, even for non-native speakers. A further twenty-four percent of the population speaks Dutch as a second language . Suriname gained its independence from the Netherlands in 1975 and has been an associate member of the Dutch Language Union since 2004. The lingua franca of Suriname, however,
10560-531: The 2006 New Zealand census , 26,982 people, or 0.70 percent of the total population, reported to speak Dutch to sufficient fluency that they could hold an everyday conversation. In contrast to the colonies in the East Indies , from the second half of the 19th century onwards, the Netherlands envisaged the expansion of Dutch in its colonies in the West Indies . Until 1863, when slavery was abolished in
10752-413: The Bergakker inscription , found near the Dutch city of Tiel , which may represent a primary record of 5th-century Frankish. Although some place names recorded in Roman texts such as vadam (modern Dutch: wad , English: "mudflat"), could arguably be considered as the oldest single "Dutch" words, the Bergakker inscription yields the oldest evidence of Dutch morphology. However, interpretations of
10944-400: The Brussels and Flemish regions of Belgium . The areas in which they are spoken often correspond with former medieval counties and duchies. The Netherlands (but not Belgium) distinguishes between a dialect and a streektaal (" regional language "). Those words are actually more political than linguistic because a regional language unites a large group of very different varieties. Such is
11136-416: The Gestapo was a part, set up their Brussels headquarters on the Avenue Louise. They occupied numbers 347, 418, 453 and 510; initially their headquarters were at number 453, in the Résidence Belvédère . On 20 January 1943, Baron Jean de Sélys Longchamps , a Brussels-born fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force , mounted a solo attack on the headquarters at number 453. Benefitting from the wide avenues, and
11328-476: The Habsburgs without consulting the groom and bride, whose interests were almost entirely opposed: the Duke of Brabant was little interested by family life and was passionate about political and economic issues in the kingdom which he was to reign over, while Marie Henriette was a young woman versed in religion with other interests limited to horseback riding, dogs and music. Born at the Palace of Laeken on 21 May 1864, Stéphanie received an emergency baptism on
11520-495: The High German consonant shift , does not use Germanic umlaut as a grammatical marker, has largely abandoned the use of the subjunctive , and has levelled much of its morphology , including most of its case system . Features shared with German, however, include the survival of two to three grammatical genders – albeit with few grammatical consequences – as well as the use of modal particles , final-obstruent devoicing , and (similar) word order . Dutch vocabulary
11712-420: The House of Habsburg following their marriages. Until World War II , Prince and Princess Lónyay peacefully spent their lives at Rusovce. In the years following the end of the World War I, Elisabeth Marie (who resided with her family in Schönau an der Triesting , Lower Austria ) and her mother still had strong feelings for each other. This tenderness was expressed especially in their correspondence because it
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#173278052229611904-492: The House of Habsburg . The writer stayed in Rusovce eleven times. The collaboration was, however, abruptly interrupted in 1933 by Stéphanie, who wrote to Corti: "For the sake of the imperial family, I decided to give up publishing my memoirs in the form that had been initially planned [...]. I see myself constrained to limit myself to my own notes, as well as to my personal memories, in which your contributions and your modifications do not find their place". Corti being excluded from
12096-417: The Imperial Crypt in the center of Vienna. The new emperor on 28 January 1917 granted the title of Hungarian Fürst (Prince) with the style of Serene Highness to Elemér. After the armistice of 11 November 1918, the Austro-Hungarian Empire ceased to exist. In March 1919, the whole imperial family had to leave Austria. However this measure did not apply to Stéphanie nor her daughter, who were excluded from
12288-431: The Low Countries , its meaning being largely implicitly provided by the regional orientation of medieval Dutch society: apart from the higher echelons of the clergy and nobility, mobility was largely static and hence while "Dutch" could by extension also be used in its earlier sense, referring to what today would be called Germanic dialects as opposed to Romance dialects , in many cases it was understood or meant to refer to
12480-473: The Low Franconian languages, paired with its sister language Limburgish or East Low Franconian. Its closest relative is the mutually intelligible daughter language Afrikaans. Other West Germanic languages related to Dutch are German , English and the un-standardised languages Low German and Yiddish . Dutch stands out in combining some Ingvaeonic characteristics (occurring consistently in English and Frisian and reduced in intensity from west to east over
12672-405: The Order of Saint Stephen of Hungary and the Empress bestowed several ladies with the Order of the Starry Cross . After the wedding night, which Stéphanie in her private letters revealed to her sister to have been a violent event by Rudolf, already mentally unstable, the couple honeymooned at Laxenburg outside the capital. Stéphanie was soon subjected to the questioning of her new family: At
12864-476: The Randstad , which are Hollandic dialects, do not diverge from standard Dutch very much, but there is a clear difference between the city dialects of Rotterdam , The Hague , Amsterdam and Utrecht . In some rural Hollandic areas more authentic Hollandic dialects are still being used, especially north of Amsterdam. Another group of dialects based on Hollandic is that spoken in the cities and larger towns of Friesland , where it partially displaced West Frisian in
13056-406: The Southern Netherlands (now Belgium and Luxembourg), developments were different. Under subsequent Spanish , Austrian and French rule , the standardisation of Dutch language came to a standstill. The state, law, and increasingly education used French, yet more than half the Belgian population were speaking a variety of Dutch. In the course of the 19th century, the Flemish Movement stood up for
13248-431: The antonym of *walhisk (Romance-speakers, specifically Old French ). The word, now rendered as dietsc (Southwestern variant) or duutsc (Central and Northern Variant), could refer to the Dutch language itself, as well as a broader Germanic category depending on context. During the High Middle Ages " Dietsc / Duutsc " was increasingly used as an umbrella term for the specific Germanic dialects spoken in
13440-471: The continental West Germanic plane) with dominant Istvaeonic characteristics, some of which are also incorporated in German. Unlike German, Dutch (apart from Limburgish) has not been influenced at all by the south to north movement of the High German consonant shift and had some changes of its own. The cumulation of these changes resulted over time in separate, but related standard languages with various degrees of similarities and differences between them. For
13632-434: The differences in vocabulary between Indonesian and Malay. Some regional languages in Indonesia have some Dutch loanwords as well; for example, Sundanese word Katel or "frying pan" origin in Dutch is " ketel ". The Javanese word for "bike/ bicycle " " pit " can be traced back to its origin in Dutch " fiets ". The Malacca state of Malaysia was also colonized by the Dutch in its longest period that Malacca
13824-642: The pre-Roman Northern European Iron Age . The Germanic languages are traditionally divided into three groups: East (now extinct), West , and North Germanic. They remained mutually intelligible throughout the Migration Period . Dutch is part of the West Germanic group, which also includes English, Scots , Frisian , Low German (Old Saxon) and High German . It is characterised by a number of phonological and morphological innovations not found in North or East Germanic. The West Germanic varieties of
14016-586: The uvula and performed this surgery before his young patient went to Ostend to recover. Queen Marie Henriette isolated herself in Spa to rest, while King Leopold II, held back by affairs of state, and his two daughters remained in Laeken. In August, Leopold, suffering from dropsy , was brought back to Laeken. The Queen thenceforth never left her son's bedside. After having received the last sacraments in September,
14208-452: The 14-year-old Stéphanie was introduced to her. Already rumors about her possible marriage were swirling in Europe. Leopold II and Marie Henriette hoped to marry their second daughter to a reigning sovereign or a crown prince. The first candidate mentioned was King Alfonso XII of Spain , but this possibility was almost immediately denied. Stéphanie had heard of Rudolf for the first time at
14400-518: The 14th to 15th century onward, its urban centers ( Deventer , Zwolle , Kampen , Zutphen and Doesburg ) have been increasingly influenced by the western written Dutch and became a linguistically mixed area. From the 17th century onward, it was gradually integrated into the Dutch language area. Dutch Low Saxon used to be at one end of the Low German dialect continuum . However, the national border has given way to dialect boundaries coinciding with
14592-538: The 16th century and is known as Stadsfries ("Urban Frisian"). Hollandic together with inter alia Kleverlandish and North Brabantian , but without Stadsfries, are the Central Dutch dialects . Brabantian is named after the historical Duchy of Brabant , which corresponded mainly to the provinces of North Brabant and southern Gelderland , the Belgian provinces of Antwerp and Flemish Brabant , as well as Brussels (where its native speakers have become
14784-688: The 7th century. It was replaced in France by Old French (a Romance language with a considerable Old Frankish influence). However, the Old Franconian language did not die out at large, as it continued to be spoken in the Low Countries, and subsequently evolved into what is now called Old Low Franconian or Old Dutch in the Low Countries. In fact, Old Frankish could be reconstructed from Old Dutch and Frankish loanwords in Old French. The term Old Dutch or Old Low Franconian refers to
14976-593: The Avenue Louise between the Place Louise / Louizaplein and the Place Stéphanie / Stefanieplein is called le goulet Louise in French ("the Louise bottleneck"). With two tramway lines and thousands of cars sharing this narrow segment of the avenue, large traffic jams occur during rush hours. The problem was already obvious in the early 1980s, so a tram tunnel under the bottleneck was built along with
15168-495: The Avenue Louise's name considerable infamy at the time. A monument to Baron de Selys Longchamps now stands in front of number 453. The Avenue Louise was redeveloped after 1950 in preparation for the 1958 Brussels World's Fair ( Expo 58 ), transforming it into an urban motorway (see Brusselisation ) by tunnelling the main intersections and offering direct access to the Small Ring (Brussels' inner ring road). The northern part
15360-530: The Avenue Louise, drawn up in 1970, merely acknowledged this transformation. Although it attempted to remedy the discrepancies in the avenue's silhouette, the plan made no pronouncement on the allocation of the buildings, giving free rein to land speculation . The 1970 plan also authorised the construction of towers on the avenue. High-rise buildings such as the Louise Tower (1965), the ITT Tower (1973) and
15552-576: The Blue Tower (1976) date from this period. At the end of the 1990s, the JNC International SA office, as part of the chemin de la ville project, studied the redevelopment of public spaces on the Avenue Louise, with the installation of new sculptures and lighting, and the redesign of pavements and surface parking areas. In spite of this, much of the post-war configuration still exists today. It implies that no metro line runs through
15744-542: The City of Brussels—through whose territories the avenue was to run. The Belgian Government had declared the project a public utility in 1844, and the private developer was granted a concession to start the project in 1851, but it failed to follow through, and by 1856, that concession was revoked. However, by 1859, the Government regranted the concession to the same developer, as long as the City of Brussels would carry out
15936-553: The Crown Prince was satisfied with Stéphanie and on 5 March, he asked her parents for her hand. The reaction of Rudolf's parents was mixed – while Empress Elisabeth was deeply disappointed with the match as the Belgian monarchy dated only from 1830 and did not compare to the Habsburgs in terms of seniority, even though its royal house was a branch of the House of Wettin (one of the oldest ruling houses in Europe), Emperor Franz Joseph I
16128-417: The Dutch adult population spoke a dialect or regional language on a regular basis, but in 2011, that was no more than 11 percent. In 1995, 12 percent of children of primary school age spoke a dialect or regional language, but in 2011, that had declined to four percent. Of the officially recognised regional languages Limburgish is spoken the most (in 2011 among adults 54%, among children 31%) and Dutch Low Saxon
16320-490: The Dutch government remained reluctant to teach Dutch on a large scale for fear of destabilising the colony. Dutch, the language of power, was supposed to remain in the hands of the leading elite. After independence, Dutch was dropped as an official language and replaced by Indonesian , but this does not mean that Dutch has completely disappeared in Indonesia: Indonesian Dutch , a regional variety of
16512-415: The Dutch standard language is largely absent, and speakers of these Dutch dialects will use German or French in everyday speech. Dutch is not afforded legal status in France or Germany, either by the central or regional public authorities, and knowledge of the language is declining among younger generations. As a foreign language , Dutch is mainly taught in primary and secondary schools in areas adjacent to
16704-531: The Dutch standard language, it is not mutually intelligible with Dutch and considered a sister language of Dutch, like English and German. Approximate distribution of native Dutch speakers worldwide: Dutch is an official language of the Netherlands proper (not enshrined in the constitution but in administrative law ), Belgium, Suriname, the Dutch Caribbean municipalities (St. Eustatius, Saba and Bonaire), Aruba , Curaçao and Sint Maarten . Dutch
16896-408: The Dutch, was still spoken by about 500,000 half-blood in Indonesia in 1985. Yet the Indonesian language inherited many words from Dutch: words for everyday life as well as scientific and technological terms. One scholar argues that 20% of Indonesian words can be traced back to Dutch words, many of which are transliterated to reflect phonetic pronunciation e.g. kantoor "office" in Indonesian
17088-443: The Emperor interrupted me: " It is your imagination that creates ghosts for you. Rudolf is doing very well. He looks a little tired, he is too often on the road, he exerts himself too much. He should stay more with you; but have no fear! ". Rudolf pursued other connections, in particular with the 17-year-old Baroness Marie Vetsera from around April 1888. Stéphanie became a widow at the age of 24 when, on 30 January 1889, her husband
17280-541: The Empress at official receptions. It was she who, at the request of her mother-in-law, now accompanied the Emperor and the Crown Prince on official trips and who received foreign sovereigns visiting the court. She entered the ballrooms on her father-in-law's arm and served as the hostess at official dinners. Delighted to be released from the "official duties", Empress Elisabeth withdrew from court, while Rudolf broke away from his wife to whom he became less and less warm. In
17472-602: The Franks. However, the language did experience developments of its own, such as very early final-obstruent devoicing . In fact, the find at Bergakker indicates that the language may already have experienced this shift during the Old Frankish period. Attestations of Old Dutch sentences are extremely rare. The language is mostly recorded on fragmentary relics, and words have been reconstructed from Middle Dutch and loan words from Old Dutch in other languages. The oldest recorded
17664-691: The King of Belgium refused to see his daughter marry a man of lower rank. Stéphanie received a negative response from Leopold II: "My father answered me in the severest and harshest terms that he refused me his consent. Queen Victoria's letter had missed its mark. He gave her, too, an extremely lively answer, in which he even hinted that she had better not interfere in matters which did not concern her". The Belgian sovereigns, offended that Stéphanie did not primarily speak to them about her matrimonial projects, severed any relationship with their daughter and forbade her to return to Belgium. Leopold II even planned to withdraw
17856-576: The Netherlands and Flanders . In French-speaking Belgium , over 300,000 pupils are enrolled in Dutch courses, followed by over 23,000 in the German states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia , and about 7,000 in the French region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais (of which 4,550 are in primary school). At an academic level, the largest number of faculties of neerlandistiek can be found in Germany (30 universities), followed by France (20 universities) and
18048-412: The Netherlands and Belgium, the dialect spoken in and around the German town of Kleve ( Kleverlandish ) is historically and genetically a Low Franconian variety. In North-Western France, the area around Calais was historically Dutch-speaking (West Flemish), of which an estimated 20,000 are daily speakers. The cities of Dunkirk , Gravelines and Bourbourg only became predominantly French-speaking by
18240-539: The Netherlands, although there are recognisable differences in pronunciation, comparable to the pronunciation differences between standard British and standard American English. In 1980 the Netherlands and Belgium concluded the Language Union Treaty . This treaty lays down the principle that the two countries must gear their language policy to each other, among other things, for a common system of spelling. Dutch belongs to its own West Germanic sub-group,
18432-539: The Nordic countries the following year; North Africa , the Balearic Islands and Corsica in 1894; Greece and Palestine in 1895; and Russia in 1897. In March 1898, an illness forced her to give up traveling – she suffered from pneumonia and pleurisy, which forced her to remain bedridden for some time. This gave rise to fears for her life before she suddenly recovered. On 10 September 1898, Empress Elisabeth
18624-674: The United Kingdom (5 universities). Despite the Dutch presence in Indonesia for almost 350 years, as the Asian bulk of the Dutch East Indies , the Dutch language has no official status there and the small minority that can speak the language fluently are either educated members of the oldest generation, or employed in the legal profession such as historians, diplomats, lawyers, jurists and linguists/polyglots, as certain law codes are still only available in Dutch. Dutch
18816-621: The West Indies, slaves were forbidden to speak Dutch, with the effect that local creoles such as Papiamento and Sranan Tongo which were based not on Dutch but rather other European languages, became common in the Dutch West Indies. However, as most of the people in the Colony of Surinam (now Suriname ) worked on Dutch plantations, this reinforced the use of Dutch as a means for direct communication. In Suriname today, Dutch
19008-444: The advantages of her situation. As in any dynastic marriage where the political interest of the two sovereign houses takes precedence, the existence of romantic feelings within the couple has never been proven, but the relationship of the young spouses was based, at the beginning, on respect and a mutual attachment. The spouses gave nicknames to each other respectively: "Coco" for Rudolf, and "Coceuse" for Stéphanie. Their understanding
19200-437: The age of ten; I immediately understood that from that moment books and notebooks would take the place of my toys, that a more orderly life would begin". Stéphanie benefitted from schooling by teachers who provided her with various courses: French , English , German , Dutch and Hungarian for languages, while mathematics lessons, horsemanship, history, history of art, religion, botany, and rhetoric were also taught. However,
19392-470: The approaches then used to treat the latter, namely opium , cognac , morphine , as well as mercury which, taken at too high a dose, can lead to psychological consequences. In order to take care of himself, Rudolf left to stay on the island of Lokrum , where he took Stéphanie. No one had informed the Crown Princess of the nature of the illness from which her husband was suffering. When she felt
19584-661: The area known as the Low Countries goes back further in time, with the Romans referring to the region as Germania Inferior ("Lower" Germania). It is a reference to the Low Countries' downriver location at the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta near the North Sea . From 1551, the designation Nederlands received strong competition from the name Nederduytsch (literally "Low Dutch", Dutch being used in its archaic sense covering all continental West Germanic languages). It
19776-431: The autumn of 1881, Stéphanie thought she was pregnant, but it was a false alarm. After this disappointment, in the spring of 1883, the Crown Princess's pregnancy was confirmed, delighting the Emperor. After this announcement, the Crown Prince once again became considerate and attentive to his wife. Both Stéphanie and Rudolf were sure it would be a boy; they even spoke of the future child by calling him "Wenceslaus" ( Wacław ),
19968-560: The avenue, despite its high built density and its multiple functions of shops/offices/housing, the latter being in a way replaced by these tunnels. However, tram lines 8 and 93 operate on their own site from the Place Stéphanie to the Woluwe depot. The Avenue Louise is currently one of the most attractive addresses for office space. With some 400,000 m (4,300,000 sq ft) of tertiary surfaces, it accounts for more than
20160-507: The avenue. The avenue's name pays homage to both Queen Louise , the first Queen of the Belgians and wife of King Leopold I , and Princess Louise , King Leopold II 's eldest daughter, as does the Place Louise / Louizaplein , a major square located in its upper part. This first name dates back to the construction of the bottleneck around 1840, a few years after the royal wedding between Queen Louise and Leopold I in 1832. This second name coincided with Princess Louise's birth in 1858, during
20352-558: The book and have it published simultaneously in Europe and New York . The publishing contract was drawn up on 24 April 1934, but Stéphanie's procrastination postponed the publication and distribution of her memoirs to October 1935, under the original title of Ich sollte Kaiserin werden (I Was To Be Empress) in German bookstores, because the book was censored in Austria , where the police visited every bookshop in Vienna in order to seize
20544-624: The borders of other standard language areas. In most cases, the heavy influence of the standard language has broken the dialect continuum . Examples are the Gronings dialect spoken in Groningen as well as the closely related varieties in adjacent East Frisia (Germany). Kleverlandish is a dialect spoken in southern Gelderland , the northern tip of Limburg , and northeast of North Brabant (Netherlands), but also in adjacent parts of North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany). Limburgish ( Limburgs )
20736-579: The bride being walked down the aisle by her parents. Foreign princes (among them the future King Edward VII of the United Kingdom and his nephew, the future German Emperor Wilhelm II ) and members of the imperial family attended the celebrations, alongside members of the diplomatic corps and the Knights of the Golden Fleece . The church was so crowded that the wedding procession was hampered in its progress. Stéphanie remembered, "Both of us pronounced
20928-479: The case with the Gronings dialect , which is considered a variety of the Dutch Low Saxon regional language, but it is relatively distinct from other Dutch Low Saxon varieties. Also, some Dutch dialects are more remote from the Dutch standard language than some varieties of a regional language are. Within the Netherlands, a further distinction is made between a regional language and a separate language, which
21120-422: The ceremony, a gala lunch was given with 60 people in attendance. Stéphanie had two older siblings: Louise (born 18 February 1858), and Leopold, Count of Hainaut (born 12 June 1859). On 10 December 1865, her paternal grandfather King Leopold I, founder of the Belgian dynasty, died after a reign of 34 years. His son, Stéphanie's father, ascended to the throne under the name of Leopold II, and her brother assumed
21312-654: The churches of the imperial palaces. On 2 September in the Laxenburg castles complex , Stéphanie gave birth to a daughter, Elisabeth Marie , known as "Erzsi" (short for Erzsébet , the Hungarian form of Elisabeth). Generously, Emperor Franz Joseph I showered the young mother and her family with gifts. When the sex of the child was announced to Rudolf, he did not hide his disappointment at not having been given an heir to Austria-Hungary Empire, but he got used to his role of father and gave, in his correspondence, many details about
21504-553: The close of the 18th century, with (Hoog)Duytsch establishing itself as the Dutch exonym for German during this same period. In the 19th century Germany saw the rise of the categorisation of dialects, with German dialectologists terming the German dialects spoken in the mountainous south of Germany as Hochdeutsch ("High German"). Subsequently, German dialects spoken in the north were designated as Niederdeutsch ("Low German"). The names for these dialects were calqued by Dutch linguists as Nederduits and Hoogduits . As
21696-579: The construction. Development began soon after, with preliminary work on grading starting in June 1860. After years of fruitless negotiations, the City of Brussels finally annexed the narrow band of land needed for the avenue, in addition to the Bois de la Cambre itself, in April 1864, and final plans for the part of the avenue south of the Louise bottleneck were formally approved in July 1864. That decision accounts for
21888-558: The copies already on sale. In the book she published Rudolf's last letter to her, and proclaimed that (in her view) he and Baroness Vetsera had made a suicide pact. The work appeared in a French version in 1937 in Brussels under the title: Je devais être impératrice (I Had To Be Empress), and the same year was finally authorized to be published in Austria under the original title. As long as they maintained satisfactory health, Stéphanie and Elemér traveled and met various exiled rulers:
22080-413: The course of fifteen centuries. During that period, they forced Old Frisian back from the western coast to the north of the Low Countries, and influenced or even replaced Old Saxon spoken in the east (contiguous with the Low German area). On the other hand, Dutch has been replaced in adjacent lands in present-day France and Germany. The division into Old, Middle and Modern Dutch is mostly conventional, since
22272-518: The court of Vienna, she had to live most of the time with them – walks, canoeing parties, invitations and parties were almost always held with the many members of the House of Habsburg. Her mother-in-law, Empress Elisabeth, nicknamed her "the hideous dromedary"; however, Stephanie began to enjoy her new position. During an official visit to Hungary in May 1881, she was given a standing ovation and began to see
22464-525: The danger that his nephew was running. Four weeks later, war broke out. With Hungary not yet undergoing many hardships, Stéphanie set up a makeshift dispensary in the Rusovce house, while Elemér accepted a management position in the Austrian Red Cross which took him to Romania and Serbia . Stéphanie worked as a nurse in her residence. In November 1916, the health of Emperor Franz Joseph I
22656-518: The dark days following Rudolf's death. However, the health of the Count, who was not yet 40, was so bad that he lost the ability to speak after surgery due to laryngeal cancer . In March 1890, Potocki died and Stéphanie once again went into a deep grieving. At the court of Vienna, Stéphanie had to endure the coldness of Empress Elisabeth, who avoided her, and the equally distant attitude adopted by Emperor Franz Joseph I. Although she retained her title of Crown Princess, she did not retain its functions and
22848-528: The daughter of Bohuslav, Count Chotek , Austrian ambassador to Stuttgart , St. Petersburg and Brussels , and lady-in-waiting to Archduchess Isabella of Austria, Duchess of Teschen . For her part, Stéphanie planned to marry an aristocrat: Count Elemér Lónyay de Nagy-Lónya et Vásáros-Namény , a Hungarian nobleman of lower rank, of Protestant faith , and one year older than her. After studying law in Budapest , he had entered diplomatic service. In 1886, he
23040-500: The day of her birth. The official baptism took place one month later, on 25 June, in a ceremony which lasted an hour, in the chapel of the Palace of Laeken, where she received the names Stéphanie Clotilde Louise Herminie Marie Charlotte; her first two names were in honor of her godparents, her maternal uncle Archduke Stephen of Austria, titular Palatine of Hungary) and her aunt by marriage Princess Clotilde of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha . After
23232-480: The death of her mother, Queen Marie Henriette, who was living withdrawn from the Belgian court. Immediately, she left for Spa to pay a last tribute to her mother. However, King Leopold II was still so furious with his daughter's unequal marriage that he forbade Stéphanie to attend the funeral service, and she was finally forced a few days later to return to London. When King Leopold II himself died on 17 December 1909, Stéphanie had just, two days earlier, been refused
23424-540: The declaration of independence of Indonesia, Western New Guinea , the "wild east" of the Dutch East Indies , remained a Dutch colony until 1962, known as Netherlands New Guinea . Despite prolonged Dutch presence, the Dutch language is not spoken by many Papuans, the colony having been ceded to Indonesia in 1963. Dutch-speaking immigrant communities can also be found in Australia and New Zealand. The 2011 Australian census showed 37,248 people speaking Dutch at home. At
23616-519: The deposed Tsar Ferdinand I of Bulgaria and the Empress Zita . They met the latter in Spain , and then in Belgium where Ferdinand had been exiled since 1930. Gradually, they withdrew to their estate where they led a more secluded existence, punctuated by religious exercises. Among their closest acquaintances figured, from 1944, their chaplain, Geza Karsai, Germanist, university professor and monk of
23808-508: The depressive – even suicidal – tendencies of her husband, went to the Emperor Franz Joseph I to alert him, without succeeding in convincing him. She remembers: "The Emperor greeted me cordially. I began by telling him that Rudolf was very ill and that his pathetic appearance and his dissipated behavior caused me serious concern; I begged him to make his son take a long journey so as to distract him from his grueling existence. But
24000-603: The development of a separate Dutch language. It was spoken by the descendants of the Salian Franks who occupied what is now the southern Netherlands , northern Belgium , part of northern France, and parts of the Lower Rhine regions of Germany. The High German consonant shift, moving over Western Europe from south to west, caused a differentiation with the Central and High Franconian in Germany. The latter would as
24192-474: The devil? ... I forsake the devil"). If only for its poetic content, the most famous Old Dutch sentence is probably Hebban olla vogala nestas hagunnan, hinase hic enda tu, wat unbidan we nu ("All birds have started making nests, except me and you, what are we waiting for"), is dated to around the year 1100, written by a Flemish monk in a convent in Rochester , England . Since the sentence speaks to
24384-429: The end of a literature class given by her housekeeper Fanny Brossel. After reading the story of William Tell , the teacher decided to teach her pupil about the power and grandeur of the House of Habsburg and illustrated her words by showing her an engraving published in a magazine depicting the Crown Prince in hunting costume. This was how Stéphanie discovered the features of the one who would become her fiancé. During
24576-489: The end of the 19th century. In the countryside, until World War I , many elementary schools continued to teach in Dutch, and the Catholic Church continued to preach and teach the catechism in Dutch in many parishes. During the second half of the 19th century, Dutch was banned from all levels of education by both Prussia and France and lost most of its functions as a cultural language. In both Germany and France,
24768-535: The estate, garden architect and hostess". When Stéphanie learned of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, she was convinced that the death of the heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne was desired by Emperor Franz Joseph I because the deceased had dared to stand up to him. Stéphanie claimed to have warned the victims because the Emperor knew
24960-465: The first effects herself, doctors mentioned peritonitis . The consequences of this lie were dramatic: when the couple tried to conceive another child, Stéphanie, who was not yet 22 years old, found it that she was sterile . From that moment, feeling betrayed by her own husband, Stéphanie harbored resentment and bitterness towards Rudolf. She refused to resume her conjugal life with a husband who did not return until dawn, and disillusioned and undermined by
25152-411: The first time at court. A few months later, Louise and her husband went to Brussels . Stéphanie found her older sister, who had turned into a "young woman admired and celebrated", very different from the young girl she had known. During the winter of 1878–1879, on her way to London , Empress Elisabeth of Austria (known as "Sisi"), mother of Crown Prince Rudolf, stopped at the court of Brussels, where
25344-530: The funeral procession, which included representatives of the Allied Powers, all German princes, and the members of the House of Habsburg . In the choir of St. Stephen's Cathedral, the new Emperor and his wife Empress Zita took a prominent place alongside the foreign rulers, and behind them stood their close family relatives. Stéphanie and her daughter were placed in the third row. Finally, the remains of Franz Joseph I were placed next to his wife and son in
25536-415: The imagination, it is often erroneously stated as the oldest Dutch sentence. Old Dutch naturally evolved into Middle Dutch . The year 1150 is often cited as the time of the discontinuity, but it actually marks a time of profuse Dutch writing; during this period a rich Medieval Dutch literature developed. There was at that time no overarching standard language ; Middle Dutch is rather a collective name for
25728-711: The influence of the Burgundian Ducal Court in Dijon ( Brussels after 1477). The dialects of Flanders and Brabant were the most influential around this time. The process of standardisation became much stronger at the start of the 16th century, mainly based on the urban dialect of Antwerp . The 1585 fall of Antwerp to the Spanish army led to a flight to the northern Netherlands, where the Dutch Republic declared its independence from Spain. This influenced
25920-563: The language now known as Dutch. In the Low Countries Dietsch or its Early Modern Dutch form Duytsch as an endonym for Dutch gradually went out of common use and was gradually replaced by the Dutch endonym Nederlands . This designation (first attested in 1482) started at the Burgundian court in the 15th century, although the use of neder , laag , bas , and inferior ("nether" or "low") to refer to
26112-559: The large height of the apartment block relative to the neighbouring buildings, he flew his Hawker Typhoon at a low altitude straight towards the building, firing the plane's 20 mm cannons, before returning to England. Following this attack, the SD moved their headquarters to number 347. The cellars at this address were used to detain and interrogate captured members of the Belgian Resistance . The torture that took place there brought
26304-629: The least (adults 15%, children 1%). The decline of the West Frisian language in Friesland occupies a middle position (adults 44%, children 22%). Dialects are most often spoken in rural areas, but many cities have a distinct city dialect. For example, the city of Ghent has very distinct "g", "e" and "r" sounds that greatly differ from its surrounding villages. The Brussels dialect combines Brabantian with words adopted from Walloon and French . Some dialects had, until recently, extensions across
26496-408: The level of education of the princesses was not very high: "The programs lacked scope. In the severe decor of the study room, it was usually too rudimentary that we applied ourselves to history, geography, literature, mathematics; a preponderant place being left to the decorative arts: painting, drawing, music, as well as needlework". If Stéphanie's instruction was somewhat rudimentary, the discipline
26688-590: The literary project, Stéphanie addressed Count and Countess Gatterburg, who submitted the manuscript first to a publisher in Leipzig in 1933. The latter considered that the manuscript was not complete enough and that its publication would be detrimental to the author. Another publishing house, John Murray of London, also rejected the text received. Finally, the Koehler & Amelang house in Leipzig agreed to publish
26880-482: The metro station at the Place Louise. However, construction was abandoned toward its end due to protests of local businesses fearing losses if patrons were to be diverted through a tunnel. The nearly-completed, vast tramway tunnel under the Louise bottleneck remains unused as of 2009. Various solutions to the traffic problem have been considered. One proposes pedestrianising the whole segment, with trams running on
27072-437: The modern standard languages . In this age no standard languages had yet developed, while a perfect West Germanic dialect continuum remained present; the division reflects the contingent future contribution dialect groups would have to the later languages. The early form of Dutch was a set of Franconian dialects spoken by the Salian Franks in the 5th century. These happened to develop through Middle Dutch to Modern Dutch over
27264-552: The monarchy and anonymously published his political opinions in the Neues Wiener Tagblatt , edited by his friend Moritz Szeps . At the beginning of 1886, the Crown Prince fell seriously ill. Several diagnoses included cystitis and stomach disease. These were only intended to hide the true nature of the disease which affected him – he had actually contracted a venereal disease , (possibly gonorrhea ), during his extramarital affairs. Doctors, fearing syphilis , used
27456-473: The negotiations for the avenue's southward extension. The Place Stéphanie / Stefanieplein , another square on the avenue, is named in honour of her younger sister, Princess Stéphanie . During World War II , following the German invasion of Belgium , Brussels was occupied by the German military . The Nazi security organisation, the Sicherheitspolizei - Sicherheitsdienst (Sipo-SD), of which
27648-501: The newborn girl. While Stéphanie blossomed in her new role of mother, this birth marked the beginning of deep marital difficulties. In Prague and Vienna , the couple received many visitors and gave many dinners. Stéphanie had a high idea of her rank and strove to fully assume the role conferred on her by her title, because the Empress had fled Vienna to travel frequently through Europe. For his part, Rudolf, who disapproved of his father's policies, developed friendships among opponents of
27840-494: The only times when Stéphanie and her sisters were pampered. While her older sister Louise married in 1875 a wealthy cousin of their father, Prince Philipp of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha , Austrian officer and friend of Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria , Stéphanie continued her studies and willingly took care of her younger sister Clémentine because Louise's departure left a void at the Palace of Laeken. Stéphanie made her first communion on 12 June 1876 and officially appeared for
28032-533: The original Dutch language version dating from colonial times remains the authoritative version. Up to half a million native speakers reside in the United States, Canada and Australia combined, and historical linguistic minorities on the verge of extinction remain in parts of France and Germany. Dutch is one of the closest relatives of both German and English, and is colloquially said to be "roughly in between" them. Dutch, like English, has not undergone
28224-421: The poor little one who is the only thing left of me. [...] I calmly enter death which alone can save my good reputation. Kissing you with all my heart, your Rudolf who loves you". After Rudolf's death, Stéphanie had only one thought: to leave Vienna and the heavy atmosphere of the court. She wished to go to her parents in Brussels , but neither Leopold II nor Franz Joseph I would allow Stephanie, who had become
28416-488: The poor princess who would have the honor of being chosen". The preparations for the wedding filled King Leopold II with pride. The Austrian Emperor added 148,000 guilders to the initial dowry of 100,000 florins, plus an annual sum of 100,000 florins for the duration of the marriage. Engaged, Stéphanie was dispatched to Vienna to be taught Imperial court etiquette in preparation for her marriage, and then had to attend all official receptions and dinners until her wedding, which
28608-560: The popular recreational area of the Bois de la Cambre/Ter Kamerenbos . This large avenue was to be drawn as an extension of the district they had created in 1838–39 around the current "Louise bottleneck" ( see below ). Inspired by the Boulevards of Paris , it was also to be one of the first Haussmann -esque arteries of the city. Originally, fierce resistance to the project was put up by the towns of Saint-Gilles and Ixelles —then, as now, separate municipalities (local authorities) from
28800-527: The predominant colloquial language out of the area's 22 million Dutch-speakers. Limburgish , spoken in both Belgian Limburg and Netherlands Limburg and in adjacent parts in Germany, is considered a dialect in Belgium, while having obtained the official status of regional language in the Netherlands. Limburgish has been influenced by the Ripuarian varieties like the Colognian dialect , and has had
28992-411: The provinces of Gelderland , Flevoland , Friesland and Utrecht . This group, which is not Low Franconian but instead Low Saxon and close to neighbouring Low German, has been elevated by the Netherlands (and by Germany) to the legal status of streektaal ( regional language ) according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . It is regarded as Dutch for a number of reasons. From
29184-515: The rest of the text lack any consensus. The Franks emerged in the southern Netherlands ( Salian Franks ) and central Germany ( Ripuarian Franks ), and later descended into Gaul . The name of their kingdom survives in that of France. Although they ruled the Gallo-Romans for nearly 300 years, their language, Frankish , became extinct in most of France and was replaced by later forms of the language throughout Luxembourg and Germany in around
29376-423: The rights of Dutch speakers, mostly referred to as "Flemish". However, the dialect variation was a serious disadvantage in the face of the standardised francophony . Since standardisation is a lengthy process, Dutch-speaking Belgium associated itself with the standard language that had already developed in the Netherlands over the centuries. Therefore, the situation in Belgium is essentially no different from that in
29568-406: The sacramental 'yes'. We exchanged alliances [...]. The bells of the whole city rang to announce to the inhabitants of the capital the celebration of our solemn marriage. A long, cheerful noise arose from the crowd. Military bands played the hymns of the two countries. I was the Crown Princess of Austria-Hungary!". As a part of the wedding celebrations, the Emperor bestowed Walthère Frère-Orban with
29760-524: The same branch of the West Germanic languages as Old English (i.e. Anglo-Frisian ) and are therefore genetically more closely related to English and Scots than to Dutch. The different influences on the respective languages, however, particularly that of Norman French on English and Dutch on West Frisian, have rendered English quite distinct from West Frisian, and West Frisian less distinct from Dutch than from English. Although under heavy influence of
29952-464: The set of Franconian dialects (i.e. West Germanic varieties that are assumed to have evolved from Frankish ) spoken in the Low Countries during the Early Middle Ages , from around the 5th to the 12th century. Old Dutch is mostly recorded on fragmentary relics, and words have been reconstructed from Middle Dutch and Old Dutch loanwords in French. Old Dutch is regarded as the primary stage in
30144-434: The shape of a shirt, they fell without any trim, below the knee; a leather belt held them back. In order to toughen us up, the windows of our bedroom, summer and winter, remained open: we rarely heated". Louise and Stéphanie had to dust their room themselves. Sometimes they joined the King and Queen at breakfast time. At their table, adorned with flowers, were sweets that the princesses were not allowed to taste. When Stéphanie
30336-473: The son seemed better, but his condition worsened again until he died on 22 January 1869. In her memoirs, Stéphanie wrote: "The first event that was deeply engraved in my memory was the death of this beloved brother [...]. Although I was only four and a half years old, I still vividly remember this deliciously beautiful and tender child, his resignation during his short illness, and the poignant pain of my mother, when he exhaled in her arms". Stéphanie's childhood
30528-495: The spring of 1887, painful scenes were repeated between the spouses. Rudolf began to lose control of himself: suffering from deep fits of melancholy and mania he spoke in front of whoever wanted to hear him the presentiment of his imminent death. During the summer of 1888, Stéphanie noticed a disturbing change in the general condition of the Crown Prince: his increasingly angry character led him to continued public outbursts of extreme violence. In October 1888, Stéphanie, worried about
30720-465: The surface and only delivery vehicles authorised at certain hours. Another, much more costly idea, involves finishing the tunnel and diverting all trams underground. Tramway lines 8 and 93 run the entire length of the avenue, all on segregated track except in the short Louise bottleneck section. The Avenue Louise houses many embassies , including those of: Dutch language Dutch ( endonym : Nederlands [ˈneːdərlɑnts] )
30912-430: The time are generally split into three dialect groups: Ingvaeonic (North Sea Germanic), Istvaeonic (Weser–Rhine Germanic) and Irminonic (Elbe Germanic). It appears that the Frankish tribes fit primarily into the Istvaeonic dialect group with certain Ingvaeonic influences towards the northwest, which are still seen in modern Dutch. The Frankish language itself is not directly attested, the only possible exception being
31104-413: The title of Duke of Brabant as the new heir of the throne. In the spring of 1868, the almost 9-year-old Leopold, Duke of Brabant and heir to the throne, suffered from a chill following a fall in the pond in the Park of Laeken . His condition deteriorated rapidly: the doctor diagnosed acute pericarditis . In the summer, he seemed to recover, but his cough persisted. The doctor recommended the removal of
31296-712: The title of Royal Highness from his second daughter, but court jurists demonstrated the impossibility of this. The King forbade his youngest daughter Clémentine to correspond with Stéphanie and threatened to abolish the annual annuity of 50,000 francs which she received, although Franz Joseph I advised him against it. On 22 March 1900 at Miramare Castle and after eleven years of widowhood, Stéphanie married Count Elemér Lónyay de Nagy-Lónya and Vásáros-Namény. The Emperor reluctantly gave his authorization, but Stéphanie lost her rank and her imperial titles by remarrying, while her daughter Elisabeth Marie remained in Vienna in her grandfather's guardianship. The former Crown Princess's household
31488-417: The transition between them was very gradual. One of the few moments when linguists can detect something of a revolution is when the Dutch standard language emerged and quickly established itself. The development of the Dutch language is illustrated by the following sentence in Old, Middle and Modern Dutch: Among the Indo-European languages , Dutch is grouped within the Germanic languages , meaning it shares
31680-430: The unusual shape of today's City of Brussels and for the separation of Ixelles into two separate areas. The illogical layout of today's municipal boundary is also due to the fact that it was drawn long before urbanisation was completed. The boundary then followed the outline of old fields, paths and estates. The avenue was inaugurated in 1866. Nonetheless, it took another forty years, until 1905, for buildings to solidly line
31872-420: The urban dialects of the province of Holland . In 1637, a further important step was made towards a unified language, when the Statenvertaling , the first major Bible translation into Dutch, was created that people from all over the new republic could understand. It used elements from various, even Dutch Low Saxon , dialects but was predominantly based on the urban dialects of Holland of post 16th century. In
32064-429: The winter of 1879–1880, Empress Elisabeth returned to Brussels. She was persuaded by the arguments of the court of Vienna which encouraged the Crown Prince to marry young in order to quickly ensure descendants. In March 1880 Rudolf was invited to the Belgian court at the insistence of Leopold II. After meeting the 15-year-old Princess Stéphanie, he wrote to his mother that "[he had] found what [he] sought", noting that she
32256-441: Was assassinated in Geneva ; even though she had never managed to get closer to her mother-in-law, Stéphanie was very affected by this unexpected death. Emperor Franz Joseph I and King Leopold II of Belgium cherished the plan to remarry Stéphanie with Archduke Franz Ferdinand , heir to the Austria-Hungary Empire after the death of Rudolf. However, the latter harbored other marriage plans with Countess Sophie Chotek von Wognin ,
32448-454: Was "pretty, good, [and] clever". However, she was not Rudolf's first choice as a potential bride: having refused Princess Mathilde of Saxony , as well as several Infantas of Portugal and Spain , he found that Stéphanie was one of the few Catholic princesses who met the criteria imposed by his father Emperor Franz Joseph I to become wife of the heir of the Austro-Hungarian Empire . Under pressure from his parents to marry as soon as possible,
32640-423: Was ambiguous: Often subject to mood swings, he suddenly passed from a melancholy state to an expansive joy, and he was aware of the duality of his temperament. Very young, he became a bon vivant and indulged in morally lax behaviour. The marriage was supposed to end his affairs. Countess Marie Larisch von Moennich , niece of Empress Elisabeth, had declared about Rudolph's future fiancée: "In advance, we had pity on
32832-432: Was appointed counselor of the legation. He worked in Bucharest , then in Saint Petersburg and Brussels . In 1890, he became imperial and royal Chamberlain at the Austrian court. Promoted to embassy secretary in 1892, he worked in Saint Petersburg, Paris , London and Stuttgart . He then took advantage of a year's leave to travel to Africa and the Mediterranean countries. In 1895, he accompanied Archduke Louis Victor as
33024-523: Was considered as a potential bride for several princes in Europe, among them her cousin Prince Albert , heir presumptive to the throne of Belgium, and the German Crown Prince ) married on 23 January 1902 Prince Otto Weriand of Windisch-Graetz , an Austrian prince born in a former Sovereign family (until the German mediatisation ) and officer, despite the objections of her grandfather Emperor Franz Joseph I, who later gave his consent. A few months later, in September, while staying in London, Stéphanie learned of
33216-417: Was declining, and his family came to see him. Stéphanie left Hungary for Vienna, where the Emperor died of bronchitis and pneumonia at the age of 86 on 21 November 1916 after a reign of 68 years. Stéphanie and her daughter Elisabeth Marie attended the funeral, which took place nine days later. On this occasion, the Habsburg monarchy unfolded its full splendor for the last time. The new Emperor Charles I led
33408-414: Was difficult to travel to Rusovce . However, in 1922, Stéphanie was delighted to receive her two eldest grandsons, Franz Joseph and Ernst Weriand of Windisch-Graetz . The teenagers, however, were eager to return to their home because their grandmother's attitudes were very different from what they were used to. Stéphanie's last letter to her daughter dated from 1924, the year in which Erzsi had just obtained
33600-403: Was dissolved: all those who were part of it were dismissed, but some of them were assigned to her daughter's service. The patronages exerted by Stéphanie were withdrawn from her, and she thus received an annual pension of 100,000 guilders. Her new husband, for his part, had an annual income of 50,000 guilders. The Austrian press, and in particular the journal Die Presse , saw in this marriage
33792-602: Was excluded from the House of Habsburg . However, this second union was happy. After the death of her father in 1909, Stéphanie joined her older sister Louise to claim from the Belgian courts the share of the inheritance of which they both felt they had been stripped. Until World War II , Count and Countess Lónyay (elevated to the princely rank in 1917) peacefully spent their lives at Rusovce Mansion in Slovakia . In 1935, Stéphanie published her memoirs, entitled Je devais être impératrice ("I Had to Be Empress"). In 1944, she disinherited her daughter, who had divorced to live with
33984-518: Was formalized on 7 March 1880, when Stéphanie was not yet 16 years old. Rudolf went to Brussels accompanied by an official suite of 21 people, and his current mistress. To his tutor, the Crown Prince confided, "A new life will soon begin for me and I must admit that this worries me a little". The Crown Prince was 21 years old at the time of the engagement. Declared an adult at the age of 19, he already had his own household. In 1879 he had moved to Prague Castle and assumed command of an infantry regiment,
34176-461: Was found dead in strange circumstances with his mistress Baroness Vetsera, both shot dead, at the Mayerling hunting lodge . The apparent suicide of the Crown Prince deeply affected Stéphanie and constituted, in the words of Irmgard Schiel, "the greatest catastrophe that can affect a woman in her married life". To Stéphanie, Rudolf had left an undated letter: "Dear Stéphanie, you are delivered from my fatal presence; be happy in your destiny. Be good to
34368-521: Was no longer authorized to represent the Empress. Her role was limited, and she could no longer count on the support of many friends. She traveled a lot and devoted herself to painting. Her watercolors painted in Lacroma were published as an album in 1892. In Austria, Stéphanie devoted herself to singing or went to the theater and concerts during her stays in her residences in Laxenburg and at the Hofburg . Until 1898, Stéphanie undertook long journeys each year: Corfu , Malta , Tunis and Sicily in 1892;
34560-407: Was not yet seven, contracted typhus, to the dismay of her parents, who feared that a second child of theirs would die. For many weeks, the girl was unconscious, feverish and in great pain. Her relatives prepared her for death. Her father often came to see her, and her mother and the faithful Toni Schariry, a nanny of German origin hired shortly after Stéphanie's birth, wept at her bedside. The princess
34752-452: Was pleased. For her part, Stéphanie remembered: "In the afternoon of 5 March, my parents called me. When I made my entrance, my father stood up, came to me and said in a deep voice: " The Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary has come here to ask for your hand. Your mother and I are all in favor of this marriage. We have chosen you to be Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary. Go away, think about it and give us your answer tomorrow ". The betrothal
34944-418: Was possessed by the demon and she could not tolerate the immorality of her love life. As the reprobation seemed insufficient to her, she preferred to stay away, pray for her daughter and ask priests to join their prayers to hers. In 1923, Stéphanie planned to write her memoirs. To do this, she chose to collaborate with Egon Corti , a biographer recognized in particular for his work on the historical figures of
35136-503: Was punished, she had to kneel on dry peas or remain locked up for hours, in the dark, between double doors. Stephanie and Louise had lunch and dinner with their parents after their governess reported their behavior to the Queen. When the King entered the dining room, the princesses would rise and bow before kissing his hand which he then put on their head, without a word. Only the girls' maid Toni showed them constant affection. The feast days, Easter , Saint Nicholas Day and Christmas , were
35328-409: Was real; Stéphanie described Rudolf as "a model husband" and added that they understood each other admirably, which made her happy. However, Stéphanie related that Rudolf was suspicious when she accompanied him. She was not allowed to leave the palace and remained subject to strict surveillance, so she took the opportunity to devote herself to drawing or painting. From October 1881, Stéphanie replaced
35520-440: Was replaced by Afrikaans , a separate but partially mutually intelligible daughter language of Dutch. Afrikaans, depending on the definition used, may be considered a sister language , spoken, to some degree, by at least 16 million people, mainly in South Africa and Namibia , and evolving from Cape Dutch dialects. In South America, it is the native language of the majority of the population of Suriname , and spoken as
35712-420: Was required for the residence, which comprised 200 rooms. Elemér exhibited his artistic collections there, including antique furniture, paintings by old and modern masters, as well as precious porcelain. Stéphanie and her husband created three gardens: a rose garden, an alpine garden, and another of Dutch inspiration. Irmgard Schiel wrote, "The princess was at the same time a lord, mistress of the house, manager of
35904-406: Was saved only by the care of an unknown Ardennes doctor, whom the royal couple had consulted, who recommended cold baths. The fever decreased and in October, Stéphanie was considered to have recovered. After the recovery of their daughter, Léopold II and Marie Henriette took her and her sister to make her convalescence in Biarritz , making a stopover in Paris . Leopold nourished the hope of having
36096-402: Was scheduled for 15 February 1881; however the wedding had to be deferred because Stéphanie had not yet reached puberty, and the bride was returned home for a while. The marriage was finally celebrated on 10 May 1881, a few days before Stéphanie's 17th birthday, at the Saint Augustine's Church in Vienna . Four thrones were arranged under a canopy for the Belgian and Austrian sovereigns, with
36288-429: Was strict: "We got up early in the morning: in summer, at five o'clock, in winter, at six o'clock. During our toilet, the most absolute silence was required; any breach of this rule resulted in severe punishment. We had to dress and comb our hair on our own. The maid stood in the room and watched us. In order to test us, the housekeeper often made unexpected entries. [...] Our dresses were as simple as our hairstyles. Cut in
36480-490: Was therefore marked by this mourning: "From that moment on, my memories have seen my parents' married life darken. Struck in the heart by the death of her son, my mother had changed a lot: this child had been the goal of her life, he had reconciled her with the fate that had fallen to her". At the beginning of 1871, epidemics of typhus and smallpox raged in Brussels . The Queen, without worrying about potential contagion, assisted affected families. On 10 April, Stéphanie, who
36672-417: Was under foreign control. In the 19th century, the East Indies trade started to dwindle, and with it the importance of Malacca as a trading post. The Dutch state officially ceded Malacca to the British in 1825. It took until 1957 for Malaya to gain its independence. Despite this, the Dutch language is rarely spoken in Malacca or Malaysia and only limited to foreign nationals able to speak the language. After
36864-403: Was used in the Dutch East Indies (now mostly Indonesia ) by a limited educated elite of around 2% of the total population, including over 1 million indigenous Indonesians, until it was banned in 1957, but the ban was lifted afterwards. About a fifth of the Indonesian language can be traced to Dutch, including many loan words . Indonesia's Civil Code has not been officially translated, and
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