I swear to you on what is dearest to me: what follows is neither the fruit of my imagination nor the effect of an overly pronounced penchant for Belgian beers. So here it is: Walloon is spoken in… Wisconsin. Yes, you read correctly ! Moreover, this seemingly surreal situation responds to a certain logic. Immigrants from the Namur region came to settle in this state in the northeastern United States in the 19th century and, two hundred years later, a certain number of their descendants still master the language of their ancestors. (see the “To watch” section below). The names of certain localities bear witness to this – Brussels, Champion, Grand-Leez – as does the local gastronomy. If you go there, don’t hesitate to have a booyah (broth)!
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Please note that this language is also present in France around the town of Givet, in the Ardennes, precisely. This geographical proximity partly explains the borrowings from French to Walloon, particularly in the vocabulary of mining and the steel industry. This is the case with the “slag heap”, the “coal”, the terrible “grisou” and, in a much more festive register, the “estaminet”.
That said, it is obviously in Wallonia that its practitioners are most numerous. But be careful: not in all of Wallonia, since this Belgian administrative region also has speakers of Luxembourgish and two other Oïl languages: Picard (in the west) and Lorraine (in the south-east).
“Wallon” and “Gaul” have the same origin
Like all Romance languages, Walloon corresponds to the particular evolution that Latin underwent in this territory. The etymology demonstrates this, moreover, since its name comes from wahla, a term by which the Franks designated peoples not using a Germanic language (“Gaulish” has the same origin). There, he remained dominant orally until the First World War. A bygone era. If you go to Charleroi or Liège today, you will hear mainly French spoken, and this for a simple reason: even if there is Walloon literature, for centuries our language has held a monopoly on official texts in this region. .
This situation has modified collective representations. Quite early on, for the sake of distinction, the privileged classes expressed themselves in French. The phenomenon accelerated between 1795 and 1814, during the Napoleonic annexation, to the point that, during the creation of Belgium in 1830, the local elites chose French as the only language of administration, of army, education, press, including in the Flemish part of the country. “The bourgeoisie, allied with the aristocracy, relied on French to strengthen the cohesion of newly independent Belgium,” explains Jean Sellier, in A history of languages and the people who speak them (1). An inequality which, later, would fuel Flemish cultural demands.
However, it was at the end of the Great War that the fatal blow was dealt to the Walloons. In 1919, compulsory education was implemented exclusively in French, making it the only language for professional success. With the same result as on this side of the border. “In three generations, a Walloon population which mainly spoke regional languages has become almost exclusively French-speaking,” underlines linguist Anne-Catherine Simon.
A development reflected in the statistics. The number of speakers, which reached nearly 1.3 million people in 1998, fell to 360,000 in 2018. Even more worrying: if 70 to 80% of those over 60 speak this language, the proportion only reaches 10 % among those under 30. This is why UNESCO now qualifies Walloon as a “seriously endangered” language.
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(1) A history of languages and the people who speak them, by Jean Sellier. Editions La Découverte.
Read elsewhere
French remains the majority among Brussels residents, but English is progressing
81% of Brussels residents speak French, but the use of English is increasing: its use now reaches 47% of the population, according to the fifth linguistic barometer devoted to the Belgian capital. Dutch (from 16.3% to 22.3%) also occupies an increasing place. This is followed by Italian and German (6.1% each), Spanish (4.5%) and Arabic (1.5%).
Louis Nisse pleads for the reunion of Wallonia with France and the defense of the French language, which he claims is threatened. He develops his arguments here.
French Wallonia!, by Louis Nisse. Editions Mols.
French language: The contradictions of Rachida Dati
Without fearing ridicule, Rachida Dati installed the new French language enrichment commission on May 27 by inviting 10 young people from the “Pass culture” reading club to this event. Could someone point out to Rachida Dati that in French, pass is written pass?
What should be the purpose of a dictation?
Is the goal of dictation to provoke mistakes or to understand why a word is written like this and not like that? It is with this second intention that the linguist Laelia Véron agreed to speak as part of the Ozélir du Loiret festival. An approach which, according to her, displeased. “I was fired!“, assures the academic on Facebook. “She opposed the designer of the dictation and the entire system”, justifies the Department of Loiret, organizer of the event.
Who really was Pierre Larousse ?
Son of an innkeeper and a blacksmith from Yonne, Pierre Larousse democratized the dictionary. The Popular of the Center retraces the major stages in the life of this man who brought the dictionary into French homes.
Defenders of regional languages demonstrate to change the Constitution
Several thousand activists for the defense of regional languages gathered in different cities in France on Saturday with a common demand: to demand the modification of the Constitution to ensure a “legal security of minoritized languages”.
What place for regional languages in teacher training?
This is the written question asked by Jean Sol, LR senator for Pyrénées-Orientales, to the Minister of Higher Education, Sylvie Retailleau. Like the associations promoting regional languages, he wants the reform announced in April 2024 by Emmanuel Macron to integrate bilingual education in regional languages.
After the publication of my letter devoted to the Floral Games, organized in Toulouse since 1324, a reader informed me of the existence of a poetry competition in Welsh, the Eisteddfod, created in 1176. This was, however, interrupted for several centuries before seeing the light of day again in 1792.
An initiative in favor of gabaye
Gabaye is a variant of Saintongeais spoken in Gironde, which the Crus et Terroirs Académie du Pays Gabaye association and Jean-Luc Buetas wish to highlight. A project supported by several municipalities, by the Gironde department and by the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region.
School, a factor in the decline of minority languages
Under the Third Republic, millions of French children from non-French-speaking regions were sent to schools where only French was allowed. A policy at the origin of the decline of regional languages because “a language that is not taught is a cliff eaten away by the sea” (Pierre-Jakez Hélias). This academic work, starting from the Breton case, extends the analysis in an original way to other situations where the educational institution has favored certain languages to the detriment of others. We thus travel according to the chapters from Italy to Russia via Algeria, and this from the early Middle Ages to the contemporary period.
School and languages in spaces with linguistic sharingunder the direction of Jean-Luc Le Cam and Erwan Le Pipec, Presses universitaire de Rennes.
TO LISTEN
When social networks take up the language of TV series
Are social networks changing the definition of certain anglicisms? This is the track that this France Inter broadcast follows by observing that the expression main character (“main character”) is used on TikTok with another meaning.
TO WATCH
Xavier Istasse made a documentary dedicated to the Walloon community in Wisconsin. Amazing!
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