Editing Walloon language (section)

{{Short description|Gallo-Romance language of Wallonia, Belgium}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2020}}
{{Infobox language
| name          = Walloon
| nativename    = {{lang|wa|walon}}
| states        = [[Belgium]], [[France]]
| region        = [[Wallonia]], [[Ardennes (department)|Ardennes]], minority in [[Door County, Wisconsin]] (United States)
| ethnicity     = [[Walloons]]
| speakers      = 600,000 people have some knowledge of it<ref name="Tapani Salminen 2007">"Europe and North Asia" (211-282) . Tapani Salminen (2007), C. Moseley · London & New York: Routledge</ref>
| date          = 2007
| ref           = e18
| speakers2     = Possibly only 300,000 active speakers in rural [[Wallonia]]{{citation needed|date=April 2023}}
| familycolor   = Indo-European
| fam2          = [[Italic languages|Italic]]
| fam3          = [[Latino-Faliscan languages|Latino-Faliscan]]
| fam4          = [[Latin]]
| fam5          = [[Romance languages|Romance]]
| fam6          = [[Italo-Western languages|Italo-Western]]
| fam7          = [[Western Romance languages|Western Romance]]
| fam8          = Gallo-Iberian?<ref name="glottoOil">{{Cite web |url=https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/oila1234 |title=Glottolog 4.8 - Oil |date=2022-05-24 |access-date=2023-11-11 |website=[[Glottolog]] |last=Hammarström |first=Harald |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231111104954/https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/oila1234 |archive-date=2023-11-11 |url-status=live |publisher=[[Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology]] |last2=Forkel |first2=Robert |last3=Haspelmath |first3=Martin |last4=Bank |first4=Sebastian}}</ref>
| fam9          = [[Gallo-Romance languages|Gallo-Romance]]
| fam10         = Gallo-Rhaetian?<ref name="glottoOil"/>
| fam11         = [[Franco-Provençal|Arpitan]]–[[Langues d'oïl|Oïl]]
| fam12         = [[Langues d'oïl|Oïl]]
| ancestor      = [[Old Latin]]
| ancestor2     = [[Vulgar Latin]]
| ancestor3     = [[Proto-Romance language|Proto-Romance]]
| ancestor4     = [[Gallo-Romance languages|Old Gallo-Romance]]
| ancestor5     = [[Old French]]
| dia1          = [[Wisconsin Walloon]]
| script        = [[Latin script|Latin]] ([[Walloon orthography]])
| iso1          = wa
| iso2          = wln
| iso3          = wln
| glotto        = wall1255
| glottorefname = Walloon
| lingua        = 51-AAA-hf
| notice        = IPA
| map           = Linguistic map of Wallonia.png
| mapcaption    = Linguistic map of [[Wallonia]]
| map2          = Lang Status 60-DE.svg
| mapcaption2   = {{center|{{small|Walloon is classified as Definitely Endangered by the [[UNESCO]] ''[[Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger]]'' (2010)}}}}
}}
'''Walloon''' ({{IPAc-en|w|ɒ|ˈ|l|uː|n}}; natively {{lang|wa|walon}}; {{langx|fr|wallon}} {{IPA|fr|walɔ̃||LL-Q150 (fra)-Madehub-wallon.wav}}) is a [[Romance language]] that is spoken in much of [[Wallonia]] and, to a very small extent, in [[Brussels]], Belgium; some villages near [[Givet]], northern France; and a [[Wisconsin Walloon|clutch of communities]] in northeastern [[Wisconsin]], United States.<ref name=wisconsin>Université du Wisconsin : collection de documents sur l'immigration wallonne au Wisconsin, enregistrements de témoignages oraux en anglais et wallon, 1976 {{in lang|en}} [http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/WI/subcollections/BelgAmrColAbout.html University of Wisconsin Digital Collection : Belgian-American Research Collection ]</ref> 

It belongs to the ''[[langues d'oïl]]'' [[dialect continuum]], the most prominent member of which is [[French language|French]]. The historical background of its formation was the territorial extension since 980 of the [[Principality of Liège]] to the south and west. Walloon is classified as "definitely endangered" by the [[UNESCO]] ''[[Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger]]''.<ref>{{cite web|title=Endangered languages: the full list|website=[[TheGuardian.com]] |date=15 April 2011 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/apr/15/language-extinct-endangered}}</ref>

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 [[War of the First Coalition#Battle of Fleurus|France's annexation of Wallonia in 1794]].  This period definitively established French as the language of social promotion, far more than it was before.<ref>"It seems the revolutionaries themselves consider the fact French was enough close to the Walloon language so as not to manage Wallonia as Brittany, Corsica, Alsace or Flanders." {{in lang|fr}} "{{lang|fr|Le décret du 8 pluviôse An II (...) ne prévoit pas d'envoyer des instituteurs dans la Wallonie romane (contre l'avis de [[Henri Grégoire|Grégoire]] qui souhaitait une campagne linguistique couvrant tout le territoire). Les révolutionnaires eux-mêmes semblent donc considérer que la proximité entre le français et le wallon est suffisamment grande pour ne pas traiter la Wallonie comme la Bretagne, la Corse, l'Alsace ou la Flandre.}}" {{in lang|fr}} Astrid Von Busekist, ''Politique des langues et construction de l'État'', Éd. Duculot, Gembloux, 1998, pp.&nbsp;22–28</ref> 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 [[Language death|dead language]]. Today it is scarcely spoken among younger people, with the vast majority of its native speakers being the [[Elderly people|elderly]] (aged 65 and over). In 2007, the number of people with knowledge of the language was estimated at 600,000.<ref name="Tapani Salminen 2007">"Europe and North Asia" (211-282) . Tapani Salminen (2007), C. Moseley · London & New York: Routledge</ref>

Numerous associations, especially theatre companies, are working to keep the language alive. Formally recognized as a ''{{lang|fr|[[langue régionale endogène]]}}'' (regional indigenous language) of Belgium since 1990,<ref>Décret Valmy Féaux, 14 December 1990</ref> 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 {{ill|Rifondou walon|wa|Rifondou walon|fr|Wallon unifié}}), which allowed large-scale publications, such as the [[:wa:Mwaisse pådje|''Walloon Wikipedia'']] officially in 2003. In 2004, a Walloon translation of a ''[[The Adventures of Tintin|Tintin]]'' comic was released under the name ''[[The Castafiore Emerald|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]].