Walloon language

Walloon (Walon) is a Romance language which was spoken as a first language until the middle of the 20th century in large parts (70 %) of Walloon region and some villages of Northern France (near Givet).

It belongs to the langue d'oïl language family, whose most prominent member is the French language. The historical background of its formation is the territorial extension, South- and Westwards, of the Principality of Liège, since 980.

Despite its rich literature, beginning anonymously in the 16th century and with well-known authors since 1756 (see the paragraph Literature), Walloon has regressed drastically since annexation of Wallonia by French troops (1795), which definitively established French as the language of social promotion, far more that it was before.^[1] Obligatory school (1914, in fact after the World War I) gave French-speaking education to all children and induced denigration of Walloon, by punishing its use (ministerial circular of 1952). Subsequently, generational transmission of the language did no more occur since the middle of the 20th century, making Walloon almost a dead language, scarcely spoken nowadays.

Nevertheless, numerous associations, especially theater companies, try to keep the language alive. On a government level, Walloon is officially recognized as a "langue régionale endogène" (Décret Valmy Féaux, 14 of December 1990). Walloon has also benefit from a continue corpus planning process. The "Feller system" (1900) regularized transcription of the different accents. Since the 1990s, a common orthography was established, which allowed large scale publications like the Walloon Wikipedia.

Walloon should not be confused with Belgian French, which differs from the French spoken in France only in some minor points of vocabulary and pronunciation.

Disputed nature of Walloon

Walloon has been for a long time identified as a dialect of French, whereas it derived on its own from the Latin of the Roman legions. French is also just a old patois, from Île-de-France, which became the official language. ^[2] [3]

Arguing that a French-speaking person could only understand Walloon with difficulty, especially in its eastern forms, Jules Feller (1859-1940) strongly insisted that Walloon had an original "superior unity" which made it a language. ^[4]

The phonological divisions of regional languages of South Belgium where studied by Atwood, who could define the precise geographical repartition of dialects of Walloon (and separates them from dialects of picard, lorrain and champenois). ^[5]

Since than, most of linguists (between them Louis Remacle), and gradually also Walloon politicians, are regarding Walloon as a regional language, the first in importance in Wallonia, and the only one which originated from that part of Belgium. The eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica in fact identifies it as the "northern-most Romance language".

Geographic distribution

Walloon

Walloon is spoken in the Walloon region in Belgium (Wallonia). It is also spoken in:

• a small part of France: the botte 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, USA, owing to fairly large-scale immigration there in the 19th century ^[6]
• 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. Most younger people (those born since the 1970s) know little more than a few idiomatic expressions, often profanities. The Walloon language nevertheless remains a part of the Walloon heritage and as such is one of the foundations of Walloon identity.

Dialects

Linguistic map of Wallonia

There are four dialects, found in four distinct zones of Wallonia^[7] :

• Central, spoken in Namur (Nameur) – the Wallon capital – and the cities of Wavre (Åve) and Dinant
• Eastern – in many respects the most conservative and idiosyncratic of the dialects – spoken in Liège (Lidje), Verviers (Vervî), Malmedy (Måmdi), Huy (Hu), and Waremme (Wareme)
• Western – the dialect closest to French proper and with a strong Picard influence – spoken in Charleroi (Tchårlerwè), Nivelles (Nivele), and Philippeville (Flipvile)
• Southern – close to the Lorrain and to a lesser extent Champenois languages – spoken in Bastogne, Marche-en-Famenne (Måtche-el-Fåmene), and Neufchâteau (Li Tchestea), all in the Ardennes region.

Despite local phonetic differences, there is a movement towards the adoption of a common spelling, called the "rfondou 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 Wallon until 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
• 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.

Linguistic outline

Language family

Walloon distinguishes itself 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.

Phonetics and phonology

• Latin [ka] and [g + e, i, a] gave Walloon affricate phonemes spelled "tch" (as in cherry) and "dj" (as in joke): vatche (vs. French vache = cow), djambe (Fr. jambe = leg).
• Latin [s] subsisted: spene (Fr. épine = thorn), fistu (wisp of straw), mwaîsse (Fr. maître = master), fiesse (Fr. fête = party), tchestea (Fr. château = castle),…
• Voiced consonants at the end of words are always unvoiced: rodje (red) is pronounced exactly as rotche (rock).
• Nasal vowels may be followed by nasal consonants, as in djonne (young), crinme (cream), mannet (dirty), etc.
• Vowel length has a phonological value. It allows to distinguish e.g. cu (ass) and cû (cooked), i l' hosse (he cradles her) and i l' hôsse (he increases it), messe (mass) and mêsse (master), etc.

Morphology

• The plural feminine adjectives before the noun take an unstressed ending "-ès" (except in the Ardenne dialect): compare li djaene foye (the yellow leaf) and les djaenès foyes (the yellow leaves).
• There is no gender difference in definite articles and possessives (except in the Ardenne dialect): compare Walloon li vweteure (the car, feminine) and li cir (the sky, masculine), with French la voiture but le ciel; Walloon has si coir (his/her body, masculine) and si finiesse (his/her window, feminine) while French has son corps but sa fenêtre.

Lexicon

• Walloon still has a few Latin remnants which have disappeared from neighboring Romance languages, e.g. compare Walloon dispierter (to awake) to Spanish despertar (same meaning) or Romanian deștepta (same meaning).
• But the most striking feature is the number of borrowings from Germanic languages (Dutch and German dialects): compare Walloon flåwe to today's Dutch flauw (weak). Other common borrowings, among hundreds of others, are dringuele (tip; Dutch drinkgeld), crole (curl; Dutch krul), spiter (to spatter; same root as the English to spit, or German spützen; Dutch spuwen), li sprewe (the starling; Dutch spreeuw, or German Sperling).

Syntax

• The adjective is often placed before the noun: compare Walloon on foirt ome (a strong man) with French un homme fort; ene blanke måjhon (a white house) and French une maison blanche.
• A borrowing from Germanic languages: the construction Cwè çki c'est di ça po ene fleur? (what kind of flower is this?) can be compared word to word to German Was ist das für eine Blume? and Dutch Wat is dat voor een bloem?, as opposed to standard French Quelle sorte de fleur est-ce? [but in the colloquially conversation indeed "Quelle sorte de fleur est-ce que c'est?": nobody is saying "Quelle sorte de fleur est-ce?"].

History

Shop sign in Crupet

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, even though 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 we find the first occurrence of the word "Walloon" in the same linguistic sense that we use it today. In 1510 or 1511, Jean Lemaire de Belges made the connection between "Rommand" to "Vualon":

Et ceux cy [les habitants de Nivelles] parlent le vieil langage Gallique que nous appellons Vualon ou Rommand (…). Et de ladite ancienne langue Vualonne, ou Rommande, nous usons en nostre Gaule Belgique: Cestadire en Haynau, Cambresis, Artois, Namur, Liege, Lorraine, Ardenne et le Rommanbrabant, et est beaucoup differente du François, lequel est plus moderne, et plus gaillart.

And those people [the inhabitants of Nivelles] speak the old Gallic language which we call Vualon or Rommand (…). And we use the said old Vualon or Rommand language in our Belgian Gaul: That is to say in Hainaut, Cambrai, Artois, Namur, Liège, Lorraine, Ardennes and Rommand Brabant, and it is very different from French, which is more fashionable and courtly.

The word "Walloon" thus came closer to its current meaning: the vernacular of the Roman part of the Low Countries. One might say that the period which saw the establishment of the unifying supremacy of the Burgundians in the Walloon country was a turning-point in their linguistic history. The crystallization of a Walloon identity as opposed to that of the thiois (i.e. Dutch speaking) regions of the Low Countries, established "Walloon" as a word for designating its people. Somewhat later, the vernacular of these people became more clearly distinct from central French and other neighbouring langues d'oïl, prompting the abandonment of the vague term "Roman" as a linguistic, ethnic, and political designator for "Walloon".

Also at this time, following the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts in 1539, the French language replaced Latin for all administrative purposes in France. French was established as the academic language and became the object of a political effort at normalization, La Pléiade, which posited the view that when two languages of the same language family coexist, each can define itself only in opposition to the other. Around the year 1600, the French writing system became dominant in the Wallonia. From this time, too, dates a tradition of texts written in a language marked by traces of spoken Walloon. The written language of the preceding centuries, scripta, was a composite language with some Walloon characteristics but not attempting to be a systematic reproduction of the spoken language.

Walloon society and culture

Bilingual street sign in Fosses-la-Ville

Walloon was the predominant language of the Walloon people until the beginning of the 20th century, even though they had a passive knowledge of French. Since that time, the use of French has spread to the extent that now only 15% of the Walloon population speak their ancestral language. Breaking the statistics down by age, 70–80% of the population aged over 60 speak Walloon, while only about 10% of those under 30 do so. Passive knowledge of Walloon is much more widespread: claimed by some 36–58% of the younger age bracket. Laurent Hendschel thinks there are 1.300.000 bilingual people in Wallonia (Walloon-French, Picard-French...)^[8]. Many French words that pertain to mining and to the textile trade derive from the Walloon-Picard complex. ^[9]

Legally, Walloon has been recognized since 1990 by the French Community of Belgium, the cultural authority of Wallonia, as an "indigenous regional language" which must be studied in schools and encouraged. The Walloon cultural movement includes the Union Culturelle Wallonne, an organization of over 200 amateur theatre circles, writers' groups, and school councils. About a dozen Walloon magazines publish regularly, and the Société de Langue et de Littérature Wallonne, founded in 1856, promotes Walloon literature and the study (dialectology, etymology, etc.) of the regional Roman languages of Wallonia.

There is a difference between the Walloon culture according to the Manifesto for Walloon culture and the Wallon language (even if this latter is a part of the culture).

Literature

William Dunker (right in front of Orval glass)

Walloon literature (regional language not French) is printend since the XVI century or at least since the beginning of the XVII century ^[10] . But it did have its golden age, paradoxically, during the peak of the Flemish immigration to Wallonia in the XIXth century: 'That period saw an efflorescence of Walloon literature, plays and poems primarily,and the founding of many theaters and periodicals.' ^[11] The New York Public Library possesses a surprisingly large collection of literary works in Walloon, quite possible the largest outside Belgium, and its holding are representative of the output. Out of nearly a thousand twenty-six were published before 1880. There after the numbers rise gradually year by year, reaching a peak of sixty-nine in 1903, and then they fall again, down to eleven in 1913. See 'Swwitching Languages', p. 153. Yves Quairiaux counted 4800 plays for 1860–1914, published or not. ^[12] In this period plays were almost the only popular show in Wallonia. But this theater remains popular in the present-day Wallonia: Theatre is still flourishing with over 200 non-professional companies playing in the cities and villages of Wallonia for an audience of over 200,000 each year.^[13]. There are links between French Literature and Walloon Literature. For instance Raymond Queneau set Editions Gallimard the publication of a Walloon Poets' anthology. Ubu roi was translated in Walloon by André Blavier ( an important pataphysician of Verviers, friend of Queneau), for the new and important Puppets theater of Liège of Jacques Ancion, the Al Botroûle theater "at the umbilical cord" in Walloon indicating a desire to return to the source (according to Joan Cross). But Jacques Ancion wanted to develop a regular adult audience. From the 19th century he included the Walloon play Tati l'Pèriquî by E.Remouchamps and the avant-garde Ubu roi by A.Jarry ^[14]. For Jean-Marie Klinkenberg, the dialectal culture is no more a sign of attachment to the past but a way to participate to a new synthesis ^[15] The most famous singer in Walloon in present-day Wallonia is William Dunker (15 March 1959).

Example phrases

See also

• Walloons – the people
• Wallonia – the region
• Belgian French – French as spoken in Belgium
• Doncols; Sonlez: formerly Walloon-speaking villages in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
• Manifesto for Walloon culture

References

• Professor Philip M.Marker, Webster's Wallon - English Thesaurus Dictionary ICON Group International, San Diego, 2008. ISBN 0-497-83760-9
• Professor Maurice Piron, Anthologie de la littérature wallonne, Mardaga, Liège, 1978 (661 pages) ISBN 2-8021-0024-6.

External links

• Web page of Common Written Walloon
• Comprehensive grammar of Walloon (in French and under GFDL)
• phonetic system of Walloon
• Wallon-English Gastronomy Dictionary
• Union Culturelle Wallonne
• Ethnologue report for Walloon
• L'Arsouye, cyber-gazette wallonne
• online dictionary

Footnote