This paper presents the history and present-day constellation of language in Belgium as a long-lasting language-ideological debate, arguing that language never emerged alone as factor and argument in conflicts. The most profound historical language-ideological shift in Belgium's sociolinguistic history, namely the transformation of a bilingual and Jacobin supremacy into a monolingual Herderian one, is said to explain the recent appearance of two main problem zones: the disavowel of bilingualism as a social fact; and the selective disapproval of forms of social, cultural and linguistic multiplicity as a result of globalization.