The article represents an analysis of lexical and grammatical interference phenomena, which arise between French and Dutch under active bilinguism in Belgium. A language contact in the social environment and in the consciousness of an individual is the reason for active mixing of these two language systems, whilst a regular, mostly consensual transfer of lexical units or grammatical constructions results in their gradual entrenching in the language variants and coming into usage. The investigation is primarily concentrated on the cases of insertions from French into the Flemish variants of Dutch and on the description of interference peculiarities in this situation. The article gives a special attention to the language situation and its backgrounds in Belgium, as well as to the statistical data on the number of those speaking the main languages of the country. In addition, an assumption is made that the multitude of the languages of migrants constantly inhabiting Belgium is a thread to the Belgian bilinguism. The cases of lexical interference are divided according to the categories of parts of speech. Most often interference occurs in case of nouns or verbs; adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions and interjections reveal this phenomenon rarer. The lexical interference is represented by the cases of direct borrowings or calquing (semantically or morphologically). Classifying these lexemes thematically is rather difficult, because in the most cases they cover all possible themes of everyday communication. The grammar interference primarily reveals in altering the standard word order in the Flemish variants of Dutch (especially, in French Flemish) under the influence of French syntax, as well as in the situations, when double negation is used
In the article, the structure and key content aspects of the new textbook Economy of Benelux Countries by E. A. Sergeev, PhD in Economics, Associate Professor of the Departments of World Economy and History and Politics of European and American Countries at MGIMO-University, Senior Researcher at the Institute of International Studies (MGIMO), and Zh. N. Komissarova, PhD in Economics, Associate Professor of the Department of World Economy at MGIMO-University. There still exist gaps in Russian research of small European countries and Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg in particular. The textbook is designed to fill one of these gaps and presents a comprehensive analysis of the three economies, covering topics from real, financial, and foreign economic sectors to social systems and enterprise size structure in the Benelux countries. The textbook is well-grounded with extensive illustrative material — numerous tables and graphs based on national and international statistics, including an original — first in Russian research — Dutch economic history periodization. Another significant advantage is the explanation of theoretical concepts (e. g., “small open economy”) using examples of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, which not only familiarizes the reader with the (sub)region’s economy, but also increases their theoretical knowledge. The textbook also includes a thorough description of individual issues of particular relevance to Benelux — e. g., TNCs, demographic and migration is sues, labor market transformation and precarious employment, and regional economic imbalances. The textbook by E. A. Sergeev and Zh. N. Komissarova is thus of great importance for Benelux research and European studies, and is recommended for reading by university students, their teachers, and researchers