The Belgian Constitution (see 4.1.1) guarantees the freedom of (private) language use (art. 30). However, a historical corpus of laws has provided further stipulations on language communities, language areas, and language usage in, e.g., schools, law suits, services of public authorities, or at the workplace (see 2.5.4). Steunpunt Taalwetwijzer provides an online guide to legislation on language in the Dutch-speaking area of Belgium.
Flemish Sign Language (see 2.5.4 and 2.5.6) was officially recognized by Decree of 5 May 2006 (“Decreet houdende de erkenning van Vlaamse gebarentaal”).
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