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Beauty queen in Belgium gets a royal booing by the audience for not knowing Dutch

by Jamie Rhein (RSS feed) on Dec 20th 2007 at 1:30PM

Neil wrote a post about Miss South Carolina who hopelessly and sadly botched a geography related question in a beauty contest. Just imagine what this would have been like if she would have had to say her answer in another language spoken in the U.S.--say Spanish. That's what happened in a beauty contest in Belgium. It wasn't geography that created a problem, it was not knowing how to speak Dutch.

When one Miss Belgium 2008 contestant was asked a question in Dutch and couldn't answer because she doesn't know Dutch, the audience booed. She does know Czech, but in this case, that didn't earn her admiration. The contestant is from the French speaking part of the country. The questioner, who seemed sorry for the audience upheavel must have gotten them to calm down since the contestant won and got the crown in the end.

The reason for the language upset is because the Belgium government hasn't totally been pulled together after the election six months ago. The two languages mean that there are two different Belgian communities with different ideas about what should happen in the government. That's my guess. Evidently, politics and beauty are supposed to go together. The Reuters video pf the incident with a commentary voice-over in English is on Videologist.

Filed under: Arts and Culture, Belgium, United States, Video, News

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wanda kueker Dec 27th 2007 10:38PM

The other language spoken in Belgium (besides French) is Flemish. It sounds similar but is not Dutch.

Jamie Rhein Dec 27th 2007 10:43PM

Thanks, Wanda. I went back to the site where I got the information to listen to what the commentator said. She said, "Dutch," however, I also discovered that your Flemish catch is also somewhat correct. According to the editors at Videologist where I got my information, Flemish is a dialect of Dutch spoken in the region of Flanders in Belgium.

Here's the exact quote: "Editors note: for those wondering - and debating in the comments - they do speak Dutch and French in Belgium. The Flemish Region is known as Flanders where they speak many different dialects of Dutch known collectively sometimes as Flemish.)"

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