By Bruno Waterfield
The Telegraph
December 15, 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/belgium/8201723/Most-popular-Flemish-words-of-the-year-include-tent-slut.html
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| 'Knoflookcrisis', or garlic crisis, has become the popular term to describe the threat of euro zone contagion caused by countries such as Greece |
The most popular Flemish word of the year is Tentsletje, or tent-slut, a word for a woman who has multiple sexual partners at a music festival, a popular summer pastime for young people in Flanders.
The second most popular word chosen by a survey of 20,000 Flemish, or Belgian Dutch speakers, was "pedopriester" or paedo-priest in a year when the Belgian Roman Catholic Church was hit by child sex abuse scandals.
The term "Tentsletje" is actually an official one, defined in Flemish dictionaries, as youth slang for "a girl on a festival meadow who has sexual intercourse with different men in her tent".
"Knoflookcrisis", or garlic crisis, has become the popular term to describe the threat of euro zone contagion caused by highly indebted southern European countries such as Greece, Spain and Portugal.
Another popular street word of 2010 was "kakaboulet" a nonsense word used "to express dismay". The world "nillies", to describe the first decade of the decade, has also gained currency among Belgium's 6.3 million Flemish speakers.
The politics of language, rather than the words themselves, is controversial Belgium where deep divisions between Flemish and Walloons, French speaking Belgians, are threatening to tear the country apart.
The country has been without a government since June after hung elections where a Flemish separatist party, seeking the break-up of Belgium into Flanders and Wallonia, won the most votes.
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