page_title: Walloon language
section_title: Literature
hierarchical_section_title: Walloon language / Literature
caption_attribution_description: English: Drawing of Walloon Jacquerie of 1886, from drawing on old newspapers, made for the autumn 2010 issue of Walloon magazine "Li Rantoele". Walon: Dessinaedje do Bardouxha pås ptitès djins di 1886, fwait d' après des dessins di ç' trevén la, pol limero do waeyén-tins del Rantoele.
context_page_description: Walloon is a Romance language that is spoken in much of Wallonia in Belgium, in some villages of northern France and in the northeast part of Wisconsin, US until the mid-20th century and in some parts of Canada. It belongs to the langue d'oïl language family, the most prominent member of which 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.
context_section_description: Walloon-language literature has been printed since the 16th century, or at least since the beginning of the 17th century. It had its "golden age" during the peak of the Flemish immigration to Wallonia in the 19th century: "That period saw an efflorescence of Walloon literature, plays and poems primarily, and the founding of many theaters and periodicals."
  The New York Public Library holds a large collection of literary works in Walloon, quite possibly the largest outside Belgium, and its holdings are representative of the output. Out of nearly a thousand works, twenty-six were published before 1880. Thereafter the numbers rise gradually year by year, reaching a peak of sixty-nine in 1903.  After that, publications in Walloon fell markedly, to eleven in 1913. Yves Quairiaux counted 4800 plays for 1860–1914, published or not. In this period, plays were almost the only popular entertainment in Wallonia. The Walloon-language theatre remains popular in the region; theatre is flourishing with more than 200 non-professional companies playing in the cities and villages of Wallonia for an audience of over 200,000 each year.
  During the 19th-century renaissance of Walloon-language literature, several authors adapted versions of Aesop's Fables to the racy speech (and subject matter) of Liège. They included Charles Duvivier (in 1842); Joseph Lamaye (1845); and the team of Jean-Joseph Dehin (1847, 1851-2) and François Bailleux (1851–67), who covered books I-VI. Adaptations into other dialects were made by Charles Letellier (Mons, 1842) and Charles Wérotte (Namur, 1844).  Decades later, Léon Bernus published some hundred imitations of La Fontaine in the dialect of Charleroi (1872); he was followed during the 1880s by Joseph Dufrane, writing in the Borinage dialect under the pen-name Bosquètia. In the 20th century, Joseph Houziaux (1946) published a selection of 50 fables in the Condroz dialect. The motive among Walloon speakers in both France and Belgium was to assert regional identity against the growing centralism and encroachment of the language of the capital, on what had until then been predominantly monoglot areas.
  There are links between French literature and Walloon literature. For instance, the writer Raymond Queneau set the publication of a Walloon Poets' anthology for Editions Gallimard. Ubu roi was translated into Walloon by André Blavier, an important 'pataphysician of Verviers, and friend of Queneau, for the new and important Puppet theater of Liège of Jacques Ancion.  The Al Botroûle theater operated "as the umbilical cord" in Walloon, indicating a desire to return to the source. Jacques Ancion also 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." The scholar Jean-Marie Klinkenberg writes, "[T]he dialectal culture is no more a sign of attachment to the past but a way to participate to a new synthesis".
  Walloon is also being used in popular song. The most well-known singer in Walloon in present-day Wallonia is William Dunker (b. 15 March 1959).
caption: Cartoon in Walloon by José Schoovaerts [wa] for a 2010 issue of Walloon-speaking magazine Li Rantoele [wa]
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