A presentation and critical discussion of data about linguistic competence and language use in Brussels from three sources: the Taalbarometer, the Brulingua platform and the linguistic habits of FaceBook and Instagram users.

Ever since it was decided to scrap the linguistic component of the national census in the 1950s, not much is known about the linguistic competences and practices of the Belgian population. Far more is known, however, about the population of Brussels since 2000, when the VUB started publishing, every five years or so, a based on a representative sample of the Brussels population: the Taalbarometer. Some of the main results of the latest one (2024) will be presented by its chief author. This presentation will be supplemented by some striking data from two other sources: the evolution, over the last few years, of the use of the online platform Brulingua for testing and learning a large number of languages, and the choice of languages by users of FaceBook and Instagram in the 19 Brussels communes.

Mathis Saeys, socioloog VUB/BRIO

Alexander Mikhailian, computational linguist and consultant

Moderator: Philippe Van Parijs, Brussels Council for Multilingualism

With the collaboration of Alexandre Spanoudis (Actiris) and Jonathan Van Parys (from New York)

Brussels’ multilingualism in figures