Walloon language

Walloon Walloon (autoglottonym wallon) is a Northern Romance language, of the same branch as French (but different from it, in particular by a lexical contribution and considerable phoneticism of the Germanic languages, and by a much more important conservative Latin character).

Spoken in southern Belgium, in the provinces of Walloon Brabant, Liège (except for the German-speaking part to the east), east of Hainaut, Namur, and Luxembourg (except for the Arlon region and a fringe to the south), as well as in the region around the French town of Givet. It is the most northerly descendant of Latin in the entire language family. Walloon should not be confused with the French spoken in southern Belgium (Picardian). It is not a uniform speech and is divided into dialects:

• Liejense (Liégeois), in the east, in the villa of Liege
• Namurense (Namurois)in the center, near Namur
• Western Wallon (Wallon de l'Ouest), spoken between Levelles and Charleroi-Thuin
• South Wallon (Wallon du Sud)between Saint-Hubert and Neufchâteau

These languages, however, are being lost, since they were spoken by 80% of the Walloon population in 1950 and only by 50% in 1980, because they have been victims of syntactic and morphological disintegration.

Features

According to Marius Valkhoff's book, Philologie et littérature wallonnes (1938), the main common features of the Walloon languages were:

• La a tonic free becomes ei in front of e (veriteit, esteit for vérité, état)
• La e Come on. ie except when it is in front of a nasal sound (Is it?, viestue)
• La e tonic with a nasal sound passes to oi (ei in French, poine and no comb)
• Maintains the Germanic bilabial W (wesp for guêpe, wàrder for garder)
• Kw and gw keep a lip sound
• Keep the u Latina vnou (selling)
• Keep the s in front of consonant (mèstiex officio)
• Other conserving groups are e-y = ei, i-l = eil (like) courtile-Corp), o-y = oi (coisine-cuisine) and bl = vl = ul (Table-taule).

The preservation of the "s" Latin is undoubtedly the main characteristic that distinguishes Walloon from the other languages of its family and makes it similar to the southern Romance languages (eg: finiesse (window), tiesse (head), scole (school), to be compared with Italian finestra, testa, scuola and French fenêtre, tête, école).

Important phonological features of Walloon are the pronunciation of voiced consonants as the corresponding unvoiced ones in closed syllables (e.g.: rodje (red) and rotche (rock) are both pronounced exactly the same); and the impossibility of having more than two consonants that follow each other (liquid "l" and "r" are not counted), which forces the disappearance of certain consonants or the insertion of vowels: p. eg the "e" final is silent: wårder (to save) -> dji wåde (I keep) and not *wårde, the "r" disappears e.g. eg: li scole (the school) -> ene sicole (a school) and no ene *scole; boerler (yell) -> dji boerlêye (scream) and not dji *boerle.

In addition, there are several differences between the multiple Walloon languages:

• Existence of fonema [h] in the eastern lining: pèhon (pez) per pèchon (the standardized graph proposes pexhon).
• The Latin suffix - The student It has given - Yeah. (east and south) or - Yeah. (center and west): batê and Batia (bark) (the proposed standardized graph is batea in both cases).
• The Latin "o" subsists in the dialects of the center, east and south, but evolves to ou west and part of the south: roll and roudje (red), the normalized graph uses or.
• As for verbal morphology, the completion of the perfect indicative verb viker (live) can be dji vik-éve (east), dji vik-eûve (center) dji vik-o (south), dji vik-eu (west), etc. (normalized graph used - Come on. for the verbs of the first group in -, -ive for the verbs of the second and third groups -Hey. (e.g.: netyî, dji netyiveclean, clean) and -eu for the other verbs); there is also a double morphology with the third plural person in the times of the present of the indicative and the past of the subjunctive, to the east a vocal form is used (-lt, exhe in normalized graph) while in the west a form with "n+vocal" is used (-nut, -nuxhe in normalized graph), as a result of the presence or not of that consonant "n"; the root form of the verb may be very different in certain cases (e.g.: doirmi (door): i doirmèt / i doimnut; vini (to come): i vnèt / i vegnut; netyî (cleaning): i netièt / i neteynut)
• As for lexical differences, the word "dirty" can be called mannet (center and west) måssî (east), niche (south) and yôrd (West) (normalized graph keeps all lexicon).

Social use

Plates of the marketplace of Fosses-la-Ville: top in French and bottom in valon.

All these languages are still alive among the peasants and miners, although literary cultivation is generally done in normalized French. Despite the eroding of speech, the dialect is still used in everyday life, although the number of speakers dropped sharply between 1930 and 1960. According to surveys, active speakers comprise 35-40% of the population (3,200 000 people), among young people aged 20-30 there are only 10% active bilinguals and 40-60% passive bilinguals in Walloon; many understand it, but very few know how to write it. The percentage increases when it comes to older people.

Despite this, the official language of Wallonia is normalized French. Since November 1980, Walloon Language and Literature has been taught in schools in Liège, and there is a Municipal Institute of Walloon Language and Literature, based in Charleroi. It is totally absent from the educational world, which is aggravated by the lack of a unified language and didactic material; even so, there are writing and song contests. The main association is the Union Culturelle Wallonne, which brings together 5 provincial federations and 250 local groups, most of them theater groups and the five provincial Walon è scole committees. There are two hours a week in Walloon on television (Saturday noon) and three hours a week on the radio (Friday night). Newspapers and private radio stations give it space occasionally. Radio Liège broadcasts more and more programs in Walloon, and it is also used in church and in popular protest songs by young environmentalists.

On the other hand, the Société de Littérature Wallonne, created in 1856 and based in Liège, promotes its learning and both oral and written use.

Examples