Walloons Totally Explained

Everything about Walloons totally explained

The term Walloons () refers, in daily speech, either to Belgians inhabitants of Walloon Region, either to people from Wallonia who have in common a «built identity» based on ideas of the Walloon Movement. It can also designate the Walloon speakers.

Etymology

The terme Walloon is derived from Walha, a very old Germanic term used by Germanic Tribes to refer to Celtic and Latin speakers. According to areas, Walha transformed, in particular by loans in other languages, and by semantic reduction. It is the case with Walloon that was created in Roman language aside of other related terms but it supplanted them. Its oldest written trace is found in the Jean de Haynin's Mémoires de Jean, sire de Haynin et de Louvignies in 1465 where it refers to Roman populations of Burgundian Netherlands. Its semantic reduce yet during French and Dutch periods, and at the Belgian independance, the term designate only Belgians speaking a romance language (French, Wallon, Picard, …) The linguistic cleavage in politics of Belgium and the birth of a Walloon Movement will ass a «conceptual and emotional content» to the term Walloon, that will then also designate the inhabitants of Wallonia — a monolingual French-speaking territory — opposed to Flemish.

Institutional aspects

Conceptual and emotional aspects

Wallonia

As with any part of the world where languages are spoken that have no physical barrier between them, the extent of Wallonia has shifted through the ages; the more so in that through history the low-lying area of Flanders and the hilly region of the Ardennes have been under the control of many city-states and external powers; all of which have brought variations to the borders, culture, and language. The Walloon language itself, widespread up till the Second World War, has been dying out of common use owing to growing internationalisation, official education that doesn't include it as a language, and the efforts of the French government to support the use of French within the "Francophonie" commonwealth. This is made more complex by the federal structure of Belgium, that splits Belgium into three language groups - French community (though not Walloon), Flemish community and German community - with privileges to use their own tongues in official correspondence, but into three autonomous regions, known as "Vlaanderen" (Flanders) and "la région wallonne" (Walloon region, including the German community) and the bilinguial (French-Dutch) Brussels region, also federal capital of Belgium.

Brussels - not Walloon but French-speaking

Many non-French-speaking observers (over)generalize Walloons as a term of convenience for all (even born and living in the Brussels Region) Belgian French-speakers. While the mixing of the population for economic and practical reasons over the centuries means that most families can trace ancestors on both sides of the linguistic divide, the fact that the Brussels region is around ¾ French-speaking as mother tongue but lying geographically in Flanders has led to friction between the regions and communities. The local dialect in Brussels, "Brussels Vloms", is a Brabantic dialect, reflecting the Dutch heritage of the city.
In relatively modern history, Brussels has been the major town or the capital of the region. Under the long Spanish and French rule, it ended up that the sole official language was French; after a brief period with Dutch as the official language while part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, French was reinstated after independence in 1830, and the Walloon region, being a major coal and steel producing area, developed very quickly into the economic powerhouse of the country. Walloons were therefore politically dominant, and many Flemish immigrants came to work in Wallonia. Between the 1930's and the 1970's, the gradual decline of steel and more especially coal, coupled with the imbalance in investment in service industries and light industry which came to predominate in Flanders, started to tip the balance in the other direction and Flanders became gradually politically dominant, and in their turn Walloon families have moved to Flanders in search of jobs. This evolution hasn't been without political repercussions.

Walloon identity

The heartland of Walloon culture is the Meuse Valley, Dinant, Namur (the regional capital), Huy and Liège. Its Walloon language could be considered as an element of Walloon identity. However, not the entire French-speaking population of Wallonia can be culturally considered as Walloons, since a significant portion in the west (around Tournai and Mons) and smaller portions in the extreme south (around Arlon) belong to other languages (namely Picard, Champenois, Luxembourgish, and Lorrain) as mother tongues. Furthermore, Walloon and those other languages are mostly spoken by elderly people nowadays, and all of them can speak French as well or better. The younger can usually understand only bits and pieces of their ancestors' language. On the other hand, Givet commune, several villages in Ardennes département in France and a few villages in Luxembourg are historically Walloon-speaking.
   The Walloon Region institutionally comprises also the German-speaking community of Belgium around Eupen, in the east of the region, next to Germany which ceded the area to Belgium after the First World War. Many of the about 60,000 inhabitants of this very small community fiercely reject being considered as Walloon and – with their community executive leader Karl-Heinz Lambertz – demand separation from Wallonia and recognition as a separate region in Belgium.
   In the 13th century, the German medieval colonisation of Transylvania (central and North-Western Romania) comprised also considerable numbers of Wallons. Almost 10% of the Romanian Germans are of Wallon descent. At their height, the German minority of Transsylvania accounted over 10% of the area's population. Actually, there are abb. 700.000 Transylvanian Germans and descendants all over the World, especially in Germany. Only 39.000 of them are still living in Transylvania (as 2007). Place names like "Wallendorf" (Wallon Village) and family names as "Valendorfean" ("Wallon peasant") can be found among the Romanian citizens of Transylvania.
   Starting from 1620s, a considerable number of Walloon miners and their families had settled in Sweden. They were originally led by entrepreneur Louis de Geer who commissioned them to work in the iron mines of Uppland and Östergötland. The wave of migration continued substantially into 18th century. Walloons became gradually integrated into Swedish society. However, Walloon ancestry is still traceable through Walloon surnames and people of Walloon descent are organised in Sällskapet Vallonättlingar (Society of Walloon Descendants).

Famous Walloons

Including people from the region before it became known as Wallonia.

Baldwin I of Constantinople, Count of Flanders and Hainaut, first emperor of the Latin Empire
Gilles Binchois, Franco-Flemish composer
Godfroid de Bouillon, leader of the First Crusade and first European King of Jerusalem
Robert Campin, Flemish painter
Jacques Daret, Flemish painter
Jesse deForest, Walloon settler, first colonizer of New Netherland and what would become New York City. Monument dedicated and located in Battery Park, Lower Manhattan.
Nicolas Defrecheux, poet in the Walloon language
Paul Delvaux, surrealist painter
Guillaume Dufay, Franco-Flemish composer
César Franck, Belgian composer
Louis De Geer, merchant and industrialist
Zénobe Gramme, inventor of the Gramme machine
Justine Henin, tennis champion
Orlande de Lassus, Franco-Flemish composer
Jean Lemaire de Belges, late Medieval, early Renaissance poet and historian
Georges Lemaître, founder of the "big bang" theory of the Universe
Rene Magritte the surrealist artist
Pierre Minuit, who purchased the island of Manhattan from the Native Americans and founded what would become New York City
Edouard Remouchamps, playwright in the Walloon language
Pierre de la Rue, Franco-Flemish composer
Jean-Michel Saive, table tennis champion
Adolphe Sax, the inventor of the saxophone
Georges Simenon, author of Maigret and other novels
Ernest Solvay, inventor of the Solvay process and founder of the Solvay Business School.
Rogier van der Weyden (Rogier de le Pasture), Flemish painter
Léon Degrelle, Belgian rexist politician and leader of Waffen SS Walloon contingent

Footnotes

Further Information

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