Walloon language
| Walloon | |
|---|---|
| Walon | |
| Native to | Belgium, France |
| Region | Wallonia, Ardennes, minority in Door County, Wisconsin (United States) |
|
Native speakers
|
600,000 (2007) perhaps only 300,000 active speakers |
|
Indo-European
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| Latin (Walloon alphabet) | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | wa |
| ISO 639-2 | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | wall1255 |
| Linguasphere | 51-AAA-hf××× |
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Walloon (Walon in Walloon) is a Romance language that was spoken as a primary language in large portions (70%) of Wallonia in Belgium, in some villages of Northern France (near Givet) and in the northeast part of Wisconsin until the mid 20th century and in some parts of Canada. It belongs to the langue d'oïl language family, whose most prominent member is the French language. The historical background of its formation was the territorial extension since 980 of the Principality of Liège to the south and west.
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 1795. This period definitively established French as the language of social promotion, far more than it was before. 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. In 1996, the number of people with knowledge of the language was estimated at between 1 and 1.3 million.
Numerous associations, especially theatre companies, are working to keep the language alive. Formally recognized as a langue régionale endogène (regional indigenous language) of Belgium since 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 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.
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Wikipedia