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Bilingual French-Walloon street sign in Fosses-la-Ville. Walloon was the predominant language of the Walloon people until the beginning of the 20th century, although they had a passing knowledge of French. Since that time, the use of French has spread to the extent that now only 15% of the Walloon population speak their ancestral language.
The Walloon language, widespread in use up until the Second World War, has been dying out of common use due in part to its prohibition by the public school system, in favor of French. Starting from the end of the 19th century, the Walloon Movement , aiming to assert the identity of Walloons as French-speaking (rather than Walloon speaking ...
The Walloon language has been written using various orthographies over its history, most notably the Feller system (sistinme Feller) and Common Walloon (rifondou walon or rfondou walon). The Feller system was developed to transcribe Walloon dialects by Jules Feller and was first published in 1900. [ 1 ]
These include Standard French, Picard, Walloon, Lorrain, and Norman. [3] The Arpitan language, also known as Franco-Provençal. It shares features of both French and the Provençal dialect of Occitan. The Occitan language, or langue d'oc, has dialects such as Provençal dialect, and Gascon dialect. [4] Included also in on the Occitano-Romance.
The second-most spoken primary (Belgian) language, used natively by approximately one third of the population, is French. [3] It is the official language of the French Community (which, like the Flemish Community, is a political entity), the dominant language in Wallonia (having also a small German-speaking Community), as well as the Brussels ...
Walloon literature (regional language not French) has been printed since the 16th century. But it did have its golden age, paradoxically, 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."
Created Date: 8/30/2012 4:52:52 PM
It consists of all 75 members of the Walloon Parliament except German-speaking members (currently two) who are substituted by French-speaking members from the same party, and 19 members elected by the French linguistic group of the Parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region within the former body. These members are elected for a term of five years.