ok, I found where to change etsy's default language
Kinda surprised it managed to not default to French
DarklyDragon - Yesterday at 11:24 PM
things do that a lot to you?
Jero - Yesterday at 11:24 PM
I'm from Belgium
We have three official languages
I'm from the Dutch-speaking part
DarklyDragon - Yesterday at 11:24 PM
oh I didnt know that one
Jero - Yesterday at 11:25 PM
But half the country speaks French and a small sliver near the border w Germany speaks German
(bc we gained that sliver of land after WWI, iirc)
DarklyDragon - Yesterday at 11:26 PM
yay learning new things
Jero - Yesterday at 11:27 PM
and for some reason a lot of websites default to French for Belgium (I would have no idea why /sarcasm)
DarklyDragon - Yesterday at 11:27 PM
I do enjoy learning about other countries
Jero - Yesterday at 11:27 PM
yes , I do know the reason, and it's bullshit
anyone interested in a ranty infodump on the culture of language in the history of Belgium?
and how it made WWI go way worse than it could've
Jero - Yesterday at 11:32 PM
ok, this shit still has ramifications to this day btw, where the Flemish ppl(the ones living in the Dutch-speaking part) have to learn French from like 5th grade, while the French-speaking can take Dutch as an elective in high school
and government officials in the capital plain refusing to use Dutch in conversation bc they know Flemish ppl know enough French to get by
Jero - Yesterday at 11:34 PM
so, I guess you prob can tell from that that up until like the 1960s or so, French was purely the language of the elite/high society, and Dutch the language of the plebs/farmers
ofc, Flemish high society could speak Dutch, but amongst themselves they spoke French bc it's a more sophisticated (cough) language
basically, if you wanted to ever get somewhere in the business world/higher society, you needed to know French
Jero - Yesterday at 11:39 PM
all higher education was also in French, ofc
and was prohitively expensive
like how it is in the US today, kinda
so huge class disparity in education levels, and if you weren't fluent in French, there was simply no way to get higher education
so most ppl ended school at 12, if that
then WWI came around, and guess who got to be officers and who common soldiers?
and guess in what language commands were given?
Jero - Yesterday at 11:42 PM
ppl with money got to be officers(v often super incompetent bc they just bought their way out of being a common soldier with no qualifications to speak of)
while all "plebs" that got recruited got drafted as common soldiers
and of course the officers wouldn't use Dutch, now would they?
so all commands were given in French
leading to hilarious (/sarcam) results
and thousands of unnecessary deaths
so ye
there's a huge classism problem w French vs Dutch in Belgium
in the current political climate, it is expected of Dutch-speaking politicians to speak French fluently, but we're expected to be super grateful if a French politician utters a few words of very broken Dutch
DarklyDragon - Yesterday at 11:46 PM
wtf
Jero - Yesterday at 11:47 PM
ok, Dutch is a very hard language to learn for people growing up speaking French or English(bc we have several sounds that just don't exist in those), but still