Editing Walloon language (section)

==Literature==
[[File:Dunker et Otjacques.jpg|thumb|The singer {{Interlanguage link|William Dunker|wa}} (right)]]
[[File:Djåcreye 1886.jpg|thumb|Cartoon in Walloon by {{Interlanguage link|José Schoovaerts|wa}} for a 2010 issue of Walloon-speaking magazine {{Interlanguage link|Li Rantoele|wa|3=Li Rantoele (gazete)}}]]
[[File:Tchanson longuès pupes tere Walons Wisconsene.jpg|thumb|upright=1.0|Walloon lyrics to the song "Tins d' eraler"  (Time to go home).]]
Walloon-language literature has been printed since the 16th century, or at least since the beginning of the 17th century.<ref>In his ''Anthologie de la littérature wallonne'', Mardaga, Liège, 1978, {{ISBN|2-8021-0024-6}} Maurice Piron is speaking (p. 5) about ''four dialogues printed between 1631 and 1636''</ref> 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."<ref name=Kellman>''Switching Languages, Translingual Writers Reflect on Their Craft,'' Ed. y Steven G. Kellman, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2003, p. 153.  {{ISBN|978-0-8032-2747-7}}</ref>

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.<ref name=Kellman /> Yves Quairiaux counted 4,800 plays for 1860–1914, published or not.<ref>Yves Quairiaux, ''L'image du Flamand en Wallonie, Essai d'analyse sociale et politique (1830-1914)'' (The Image of Flanders in Wallonia, Essay in Social and Political Analysis), Bruwxelles: Labor, 2006, p. 126. {{ISBN|2-8040-2174-2}}</ref> 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.<ref>[http://users.skynet.be/lorint/wallang/index.html Lorint Hendschel, "The Walloon Language Page"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111208194146/http://users.skynet.be/lorint/wallang/index.html |date=8 December 2011 }}, Skynet, accessed 21 October 2010</ref>

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.<ref>''Anthologie de la littérature wallonne'' (ed. Maurice Piron), Liège, 1979; limited preview at Google Books [https://books.google.com/books?id=zhpx-DbBkBkC&pg=PR9 Google Books]</ref> They included [[:wa:Charles du Vivier de Streel|Charles Duvivier]] (in 1842); Joseph Lamaye (1845); and the team of [[:wa:Jean-Joseph Dehin|Jean-Joseph Dehin]] (1847, 1851–1852) and [[François Bailleux]] (1851–1866), who covered books I-VI.<ref>There is a partial preview at [https://books.google.com/books?id=pscTAAAAQAAJ Google Books ]</ref> 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);<ref>The text of four can be found at [http://rifondou.walon.org/bernus-rif.html Walon.org]</ref> he was followed during the 1880s by [[:fr:Joseph Dufrane|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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lulucom.com/fables00.htm#intro |title=Lulucom.com |publisher=Lulucom.com |access-date=2013-03-09}}</ref> 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 [['Pataphysics|'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.<ref name=Gross /> 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 [[Alfred Jarry|A. Jarry]]."<ref name=Gross>Joan Gross, ''Speaking in Other Voices: An Ethnography of Walloon Puppet Theaters.'' Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Press, 2001, {{ISBN|1-58811-054-0}}</ref> 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".<ref>Benoît Denis et Jean-Marie Klinkenberg, "Littérature : entre insularité et activisme" (Literature: between insularity and activism), in ''Le Tournant des années 1970. Liège en effervescence'', Bruxelles, Les Impressions nouvelles, 2010, pp. 237–253, p. 252. French : ''Ancion monte l'Ubu rwè en 1975 (...) la culture dialectalisante cesse d'être une marque de passéisme pour participer à une nouvelle synthèse...''</ref>

Walloon is also being used in popular song. The best-known singer in Walloon in present-day Wallonia is [[William Dunker]] ({{abbr|b.|born}} 15 March 1959).