French Flemish

French Flemish (Fransch vlaemsch, Flamind franchoèse, Standard Dutch: Frans-Vlaams, French: flamand français) is a West Flemish dialect spoken in the north of contemporary France.

Place names indicate that Flemish was spoken as early as the 8th century in the region of Flanders that was ceded to France at the 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees. This area became known as French Flanders. Its dialect subgroup, called French Flemish, meanwhile, became a minority dialect that survives mainly in Dunkirk (Duinkerke in Dutch, Duunkerke in West Flemish, "dune church"), Bourbourg (Broekburg in Dutch), Calais (Kales), Saint-Omer (Sint-Omaars), with its Flemish ethnic enclave of Haut-Pont (Haute-Ponte), and Bailleul (Belle).

French Flemish has about 20,000 daily users, and twice that number of occasional speakers. The dialect's status appears to be moribund, but there has been an active movement to retain French Flemish in the region.