Walloon resources

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Snufkin
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Walloon resources

Postby Snufkin » Wed Apr 14, 2021 5:57 pm

I've been working on my Walloon for a while now and I thought why not make a list of resources available (I would have loved to see such a list when I started my journey). I'm by no mean an expert nor a linguist, corrections and suggestions are always welcome.

Walloon has 4 main dialects :

  • Eastern Walloon aka "Liègeois", noted EW.
  • Central Walloon aka "Namurois", noted CW.
  • Western Walloon aka "Wallo-Picard", noted OW.
  • Southern Walloon aka "Wallo-Lorain", noted SW.

And two orthographies :


Most of the time resources will focus on one dialect (sometimes on one village) and one orthography.

Which dialect to learn?


Central Walloon is the most versatile Walloon, you'll be able to understand a bit of everything and every speaker will understand you.
Eastern Walloon is the least "French" dialect out there, making it more difficult to learn for French speakers. However, it's by far the best documented dialect.
Western Walloon is the closest to French (and Picard), lots of resources available as well.
Southern Walloon is poorly documented and resources are hard to find.

Which orthography to learn?

Rfondou wallon wasn't as succesful as their authors had hoped. Ultimately, you'll have to switch from one spelling to another. I'd recommend to start with the spelling of your dialect and familiarise yourself with rfondou wallon at the same time. The Walloon Wikipedia is in rfondou Walloon but that's pretty much all you'll find in that spelling.

Courses/Textbooks


Grammar


Dictionaries


More to come for sure :)
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Lawyer&Mom
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Re: Walloon resources

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Wed Apr 14, 2021 9:49 pm

My husband’s family comes from a tiny village outside of Namur, so this is definitely of interest. What do you *do* with your Walloon knowledge? Are their podcasts, broadcasts, newspapers etc?
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Snufkin
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Re: Walloon resources

Postby Snufkin » Mon Aug 09, 2021 8:26 pm

Lawyer&Mom wrote:My husband’s family comes from a tiny village outside of Namur, so this is definitely of interest. What do you *do* with your Walloon knowledge? Are their podcasts, broadcasts, newspapers etc?


Oh, sorry I completely forgot to answer to your question. Well, you could use the language in Wallonia :D but not so much online I'm afraid. The language is very popular in theatre plays, most cities have their Walloon-speaking theatre groups. You can subscribe to a magazine written in Walloon, the most active ones are listed here : https://www.revues.be/. There used to be a Walloon TV show with French subtitles "Wallons, nous !" that was aired on RTBF but it was since replaced by another show "Stoemp, Pèkèt ... et des rawettes" which is mostly in French unfortunately. If you can make it to a Walloon library, you'll find a plethora of Walloon poems and texts, some comics get a Walloon translation as well. Practising your spoken skills is will be virtually impossible unless you come to visit, the older generations would be more than happy to speak inwhat they consider to be their native language. Some schools even organise evening courses! On Youtube you can find some Walloon songs and other authentic material uploaded by locals. So there's enough to keep someone busy for a while ;)
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steve54301
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Re: Walloon resources

Postby steve54301 » Sun Oct 24, 2021 8:47 pm

There is also a dialect here in Wisconsin. Please do not overlook us, and please consider anything you publish/write to also be in English :-)

Summary:
In Wisconsin’s southern Door Peninsula, a small, rural community of descendants of Belgian immigrants have spoken Walloon since the mid nineteenth century. There are fewer than 50 native speakers of this dialect today.

No conventionalized writing system for Walloon was used in Belgium until after 1900, after the major mid-century waves of immigration had taken place. Many of the original settlers were illiterate, and those who were literate read and wrote in French. Walloon remained the preferred language in the home for several generations, while French proficiency declined within a generation.

Some common words are consistently written for advertising events like Belgian Days. Contemporary Belgian Walloon orthographies are largely based on French spelling conventions, with spelling and diacritic marks that distinguish it from French, but few Wisconsin Walloon speakers have studied these writing systems....

My uncle who only passed away a little over a year ago never spoke English till high school, and was a fluent Walloon speaker till the end. He visited Belgium a dozen times. The Belgian Heritage Center near Brussels Wisconsin has been inverviewing the few speakers that are left and making lots of recordings. So it would be nice if we could work together to create tools to let future generations have a way to interpret the language.

Professor Kelly Biers of Asheville, South Dakota has been helping but the work is slow.

Thanks
Steve
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guyome
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Re: Walloon resources

Postby guyome » Sat Dec 11, 2021 9:10 pm

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Re: Walloon resources

Postby guyome » Mon Dec 13, 2021 4:16 pm

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Re: Walloon resources

Postby guyome » Wed Dec 15, 2021 9:57 pm

Some audio resources.

Two weekly podcasts entirely in Walloon by RCF (a Catholic radio station);
    Li bone novèle (30 min., Liège dialect): readings of the Sunday Mass and comments. The host, Gilles Monville, is a Walloon teacher and his comments seems to revolve mostly around paraphrasing the texts and explaining words people may not be familiar with. I've listened to a couple of episodes and this seems quite useful
    Tranche de Wallon (20/30 min., mostly Namurois dialect?): discussions on various topics

Theatre plays on Youtube:
There's probably a lot more of these out there.
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