A train attendant’s use of both Dutch and French — “goeiemorgen” and “bonjour” — to greet passengers during rush hour last year could easily have gone unnoticed in multilingual Belgium.
But it rubbed one Dutch-speaking commuter the wrong way. He told the attendant, llyass Alba, that “bonjour” was not appropriate because they were still in Dutch-speaking Flanders.
“Excusez-moi?” Mr. Alba replied.
“You need to speak in Dutch,” the man said back to him in Dutch.
The dispute escalated. Mr. Alba explained what was going on to nearby passengers — in French. The Dutch speaker then filed a complaint to Belgium’s Permanent Commission for Linguistic Control. Five months after the initial incident, in March, the commission issued its opinion: The commuter’s complaint was “well founded.”
Their guidance was reported on Friday by the Dutch-language newspaper Nieuwsblad.
Invoking administrative language laws, the Permanent Commission for Linguistic Control stated that the train attendant should have greeted passengers in Dutch.
“As soon as he knows the traveler’s language (French or Dutch), he will respond in that language (French or Dutch),” the commission said in a statement.
The dispute occurred in Vilvoorde, mere minutes from the Brussels region, which is officially Dutch and French speaking.
Vincent Bayer, a French-speaking spokesman for the SNCB, or Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Belges, the country’s national railway company, said the SNCB informed the committee that it respected its guidance. But Mr. Bayer also said the SNCB believed, above all, that train conductors must treat passengers with warmth and kindness, just as Mr. Alba did.
Mr. Alba’s use of both French and Dutch was “just nice,” Mr. Bayer said. “It was an attitude that is very inclusive for us,” he said. He said that ticket attendants in Belgium must be able to speak both Dutch and French and that they receive support in their weaker language as part of their job training.
In Belgium, where it is not unusual for people to intersperse their conversations with words of different languages, the decades-old language rules can get complicated.
Belgium’s divide is not just linguistic, but also cultural and political. The country has gone through long stretches without a formal government in place, with parties from different regions unable to come to agreement. There are about 6.8 million inhabitants of Dutch-speaking Flanders in the country’s north, and in some municipalities, business must be conducted in Dutch. The country’s French-speaking Walloon region has about 3.7 million inhabitants.
There is also a small German-speaking community of about 80,000 people in eastern Belgium.
The Brussels Capital Region, with about 1.3 million inhabitants, is primarily French speaking, but is officially bilingual. Street signs in Brussels are in both Dutch and French, and many streets and squares have two names. Buses headed toward the Grand Place will also state “Grote Markt,” the Dutch name for the famed medieval market square.
Mr. Alba, the train attendant, who has lived in Flanders and Wallonia, is now selling a coffee mug for 13 euros ($15) that says “goeiendag” and “bonjour” next to a Belgian flag.
He said in a Facebook post on Saturday that the commission’s guidance was absurd. “What a country!” he wrote in French. “Can’t we be open-minded?”
He signed off, writing, “Let’s keep saying ‘Goeiedag Bonjour.’” Across Belgium.
Jenny Gross is a reporter for The Times covering breaking news and other topics.
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