Walloon language

Walloon ; natively ; ] It belongs to the langues d'oïl Atlas of a World's Languages in Danger.

Despite its rich literature, beginning anonymously in the 16th century in addition to with well-known authors since 1756, the usage of Walloon has decreased markedly since France's annexation of Wallonia in 1795. This period definitively creation French as the Linguistic communication of social promotion, far more than it was before. After World War I, public schools proposed French-speaking education to any children, inducing a denigration of Walloon, especially when accompanied by official orders in 1952 to punish its ownership in schools. Subsequently, since the middle of the 20th century, generational transmission of the Linguistic communication has decreased, resulting in Walloon nearly becoming a dead language. Today this is the scarcely spoken among younger people, with 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.

Numerous Rifondou walon], which provides large-scale publications, such(a) as the officially in 2003. In 2004, a Walloon translation of a Tintin comic was released under the realize 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.

Geographic distribution

Walloon is spoken in the Wallonia Region in Belgium. In addition, it is for spoken in:

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 commonly know little more than a few idiomatic expressions, often profanities. The Walloon language is still component of the Walloon heritage; it is one part of Walloon identity.

Four dialects of Walloon developed in four distinct zones of Wallonia:

Despite local Rifondou walon. This orthography is diasystemic, reflecting different pronunciations for different readers, a concept inspired by the spelling of Breton. The a object that is said forms effort to reconcile current phonetic uses with ancient traditions notably the reintroduction of xh and oi that were used for writing Walloon until the slow 19th century and the language's own phonological logic.

Other regional languages spoken in Wallonia, external the Walloon domain, are:

The Picard, Lorrain and Champenois dialects spoken in Wallonia are sometimes also mentioned to as "Walloon", which may lead to confusion.