THE LANGUAGE OF TE MEUSE | De Taal van de Maas

‘The river carves its bed into the landscape and deposits sediment downstream.

Rivers are the primary means of transport for culture, religion, science, art and language.

The river carries “upstream” ideas, thoughts and words and deposits them downstream in the form of culture. It is no coincidence that many cities have sprung up around a ford, where the current slows down, ideas settle and culture flourishes’.

Where the water of the Meuse pushes against the threshold at Ooijen, “upstream words” have been deposited in the Belgian bluestone like sediments. A little further on, a thought grinds like “flowing” handwriting into the bottom of a ford. A fish ladder whispers the names of fish species in the Meuse in different languages. An idea carved in stone leans against the trunk of a sapling that has taken root somewhere in the river basin.

Scattered along the stream of the side channel, we find words, concepts, toponyms and expressions that have settled like sediment and describe the river landscape in all its facets in the “upstream” regional languages and dialects.