Walloon (; natively ; , Belgian French pronunciation: ) is a Romance language that is spoken in much of Wallonia and, to a very small extent, in Brussels, Belgium; some villages near Givet, northern France; and a clutch of communities in northeastern Wisconsin, United States.Université du Wisconsin : collection de documents sur l'immigration wallonne au Wisconsin, enregistrements de témoignages oraux en anglais et wallon, 1976 University of Wisconsin Digital Collection : Belgian-American Research Collection
It belongs to the langues d'oïl dialect continuum, the most prominent member of which is French. The historical background of its formation was the territorial extension since 980 of the Principality of Liège to the south and west. Walloon is classified as "definitely endangered" by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.
Despite its rich literature, beginning anonymously in the 16th century and with well-known authors since 1756, the use of Walloon has decreased markedly since France's annexation of Wallonia in 1794. This period definitively established French as the language of social promotion, far more than it was before."It seems the revolutionaries themselves consider the fact French was enough close to the Walloon language so as not to manage Wallonia as Brittany, Corsica, Alsace or Flanders." "" Astrid Von Busekist, Politique des langues et construction de l'État, Éd. Duculot, Gembloux, 1998, pp. 22–28 After World War I, public schools provided French-speaking education to all children, inducing a denigration of Walloon, especially when accompanied by official orders in 1952 to punish its use in schools. Subsequently, since the middle of the 20th century, generational transmission of the language has decreased, resulting in Walloon almost becoming a dead language. Today it is scarcely spoken among younger people, with the vast majority of its native speakers being the elderly (aged 65 and over). In 2007, the number of people with knowledge of the language was estimated at 600,000."Europe and North Asia" (211–282). Tapani Salminen (2007), C. Moseley, London & New York: Routledge
Numerous associations, especially theatre companies, are working to keep the language alive. Formally recognized as a (regional indigenous language) of Belgium since 1990,Décret Valmy Féaux, 14 December 1990 Walloon has also benefited from a continued corpus planning process. The "Feller system" (1900) regularized transcription of the different accents. Since the 1990s, a common orthography was established (the ), which allowed large-scale publications, such as the Walloon Wikipedia officially in 2003. In 2004, a Walloon translation of a Tintin comic was released under the name L'èmerôde d'al Castafiore; in 2007 an album consisting of Gaston Lagaffe comic strips was published in Walloon.
Walloon is more distinct as a language than Belgian French, which differs from the French spoken in France only in some minor points of vocabulary and pronunciation.
Disputed nature of Walloon
Linguists had long classified Walloon as a dialect of French, which in turn is a . Like French, it descended from Vulgar Latin. Arguing that a French-speaking person could not understand Walloon easily, especially in its eastern forms, Jules Feller (1859–1940) insisted that Walloon had an original "superior unity", which made it a language.
The phonological divisions of regional languages of southern Belgium were studied by the contemporary linguist E.B. Atwood. He defined the precise geographical repartition of the four chief dialects of Walloon. In addition, he defined them against the dialects of Picard, Lorrain and Champenois.E.B. Atwood, "The phonological divisions of Belgo-Romance", in Orbis, 4, 1955, pp. 367–389.
Since then, most linguists (among them Louis Remacle), and gradually also Walloon politicians, regard Walloon as a regional language, the first in importance in Wallonia. It is the only one to have originated from that part of Belgium. The eleventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica identified Walloon as the "northernmost Romance language".
Geographic distribution Walloon Walloon is spoken in the Wallonia Region in Belgium. In addition, it is spoken in: a small part of France: the Pointe de Givet in northern Ardennes, and several villages in the Nord département, making it one of the regional languages of France; a small district of Door County, Wisconsin, US, owing to fairly large-scale immigration there in the 19th century;"Belgian-American Research Collection", University of Wisconsin as well as portions of Kewaunee County, Wisconsin, US, and Brown County, Wisconsin, US; and Notes from the Field: Wisconsin Walloon Documentation and Orthography by Kelly Biers and Ellen Osterhaus, Language Documentation and Conservation, Vol. 15, 2021, pp. 1–29 and Brussels, by some Walloon residents.
Although Walloon was widely spoken until the mid-20th century, today only a small proportion of the inhabitants of the region are fluent in the language. Those born since the 1970s usually know little more than a few idiomatic expressions, often profanities. The Walloon language is still part of the Walloon heritage; it is one component of Walloon identity.
Dialects
Four dialects of Walloon developed in four distinct zones of Wallonia:Steven G. Kellman Switching languages: translingual writers reflect on their craft, p. 152. Central, spoken in Namur (), the Wallon capital, and the cities of Wavre () and Dinant; Eastern – in many respects the most conservative and idiosyncratic of the dialects, spoken in Liège (), Verviers (), Malmedy (), Huy (), and Waremme (); Western – the dialect closest to French proper and with a strong Picard influence, spoken in Charleroi (), Nivelles (), and Philippeville (); and Southern – close to the Lorrain and to a lesser extent Champenois languages, spoken in Bastogne, Marche-en-Famenne (), and Neufchâteau (), all in the Ardennes region.
Despite local phonetic differences, there is a regional movement towards the adoption of a common spelling, called the Rifondou walon. This orthography is diasystemic, reflecting different pronunciations for different readers, a concept inspired by the spelling of Breton. The written forms attempt to reconcile current phonetic uses with ancient traditions (notably the reintroduction of xh and oi that were used for writing Walloon until the late 19th century) and the language's own phonological logic.
Other regional languages Other regional languages spoken in Wallonia, outside the Walloon domain, are: Picard, in Mons, Ath, and Tournai; Lorrain (also called Gaumais locally), in Virton; Champenois, in Bohan; and Luxembourgish, in Arlon and Martelange.
The Picard, Lorrain and Champenois dialects spoken in Wallonia are sometimes also referred to as "Walloon", which may lead to confusion.
Phonetics and phonology
Phonology + Consonant phonemes of Walloon Labial Dental/ Alveolar Post- alveolar Palatal Velar, Uvular Glottal Nasal Plosive/Affricate Fricative ()¹ ()²()² ()¹Trill()³Approximant
¹In Liege Walloon and neighbouring dialects, non-word-initial and are merged with . ²In some dialects, especially southern ones, (and , ) are or word-finally. ³ may be among some speakers.
+ Vowel phonemes Front Back unrounded rounded oral longnasal oral long nasal oral long nasal (Near-)Close Close-mid Open-mid Open
can have an allophone of . Vowels heavily change based on dialects.
Rifondou pronunciation Unified Walloon provides a unified way to pronounce the vowels, although some sounds still vary based on dialect. All consonant variations were explained in the above section. Here is the Unified vowel chart: Front Back unrounded rounded oral longnasal oral long oral long nasal Close Close-mid Open-mid Open The short high vowels are often pronounced .
Dialectal variation The following is a table of phonemes varying based on dialects: RifondouFellerN/ALiège (east-walloon)Bastogne (south-walloon)Namur (center-walloon)Charleroi (west-walloon)xhh ch jhh j schh ch sk , esk shs ch åå, â â â , ô â , ô âr , ô eaê ia aeè, e a a â eyèy îy , î oeeu, eû wâ wè oenon wè win énin én , é oiwè wa ô , ou , oû aié , ê , è, e é , ê éé , è i é , è i ôôn , on ou , oû ô ou , oû cw, kw, qw , k, q[u] i , u , è ë, e̊ i è ou u If there is a Rifondou grapheme for the sound, the source is. Otherwise, it is precised. These last two sounds are written as ⟨i⟩ and ⟨ou⟩ in Rifondou, as in rifondou. /kw~k/ is normalised as kw.
Evolution from Latin Latin before and before , , or gave Walloon affricate phonemes spelled tch and dj : (vs. French "cow"), ( "leg"). Latin persisted in clusters: (Fr. "thorn, spine"), "wisp of straw", (Fr. "master"), (Fr. "party, feast"), (Fr. "castle"), and so on. Final obstruent devoicing: "red" is pronounced exactly as "rock". Nasal vowels may be followed by nasal consonants, as in "young", "cream", "dirty", etc. Vowel length has a phonological value. It allows distinguishing "arse" and "cooked", "he cradles her" and "he increases it", "mass" and "master", etc.
Orthography
The Walloon alphabet generally consists of the basic ISO Latin Alphabet, and six types of diacritic. It also makes frequent use of digraphs. Various orthographies have been used, most notably the Feller system () and Unified Walloon ( or ). Characteristics Language family Walloon is distinguished from other languages in the langue d'oïl family both by archaism coming from Latin and by its significant borrowing from Germanic languages, as expressed in its phonetics, its lexicon, and its grammar. At the same time, Walloon phonetics are singularly conservative: the language has stayed fairly close to the form it took during the High Middle Ages.
Morphology The plural feminine adjectives before the noun take an unstressed ending (except in the Ardenne dialect): compare "the yellow leaf" and "the yellow leaves". There is no gender difference in definite articles and possessives (except in the Ardenne dialect): compare Walloon ("the car", feminine) and ("the sky", masculine), with French and ; Walloon has ("his/her body", masculine) and ("his/her window", feminine) with French and .
Lexicon Walloon has a few Latin remnants that have disappeared from neighboring Romance languages: compare Walloon to Spanish and Romanian (all with the same meaning: "to awaken"). The most distinctive feature is its number of borrowings from Germanic languages (Dutch and German dialects): compare Walloon to today's Dutch "weak" (cognate of English flaw). Other common borrowings, among hundreds of others, are ("tip"; Dutch ), ("curl"; Dutch ), ("to spatter"; same root as the English to spit, and to spew, or German ; Dutch ), (the starling; Dutch , or German ).
Syntax The adjective is often placed before the noun: compare Walloon with French , "a strong man"; and French , "a white house". Borrowing from Germanic languages, the construction "What kind of flower is this?" can be compared word for word to German and Dutch , as opposed to Standard French or (colloquially) .
History
From a linguistic point of view, Louis Remacle has shown that a good number of the developments that we now consider typical of Walloon appeared between the 8th and 12th centuries. Walloon "had a clearly defined identity from the beginning of the 13th century". In any case, linguistic texts from the time do not mention the language, although they mention others in the langue d'oïl family, such as Picard and Lorrain. During the 15th century, scribes in the region called the language "Roman" when they needed to distinguish it. It is not until the beginning of the 16th century that first occurrence of the word "Walloon" appeared in the current linguistic sense. In 1510 or 1511, Jean Lemaire de Belges made the connection between to :