Federal polls in Belgium

[Dry]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove I suppose that's plausible. Another possibility is that they're the descendants of Romanized Gauls, who spoke Latin, while the Flemish may be the descendants of Germans.
How close to French is the Walloon language? Would the average Walloon have no trouble communicating with a Frenchman without any prior exposure to French or are the two languages distinct but closely related like Spanish and Portugese or like German and Dutch?

Ok, some history here.

In 3-4th century, the franks cross the rhine and settle in what is today south Netherlands, Belgium and north France.
In Flanders, they outnumbers the local population and they keep their language (frankish = ancestor of today flemish).
In Wallonia, the local population ('waal' in frankish means 'romanized celt') remains predominant and the spoken language remains of latin kind. Mixed with the newcomers, it produces a language of the 'langue d'oil' family (latin from north of the river Loire), namely: walloon.

In Flanders, some of the Franks: the salic franks (or merovingiens) whose capital is Tournai (Doornik), will turn to the south and some promissing land: Paris.
They will conquer it and influenced by the roman culture, will speak their own version of latin: old french.

So, walloon and old french are 2 latin languages, both spoken by romanized frankish people. Only flemings kept their original frankish language.

Walloon is not understandible for a frenchman, the same way Spanish or Italien are not understandible either. Sure you can recognize here and there a word (mostly the modern words), maybe the general meaning of what is said if you're good at languages, but no more.
The problem is more the vocabulary than the grammar. If you hear walloon, you may think its weird french, but you won't recognize the key words. Some words are still the old latin words, some words are same as in french, but pronounced differently, I know a few that are even english, I guess there's some that might be german or celt...

There is this story of the Marly Machine , conceived and built for the gardens of Versailles by the walloon engineer Rennequin Sualem . Rennequin Sualem was said not to speak french at all, only walloon and a translator was needed for him to communicate with the frenchies.

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
How close to French is the Walloon language? Would the average Walloon have no trouble communicating with a Frenchman without any prior exposure to French or are the two languages distinct but closely related like Spanish and Portugese or like German and Dutch?

AFAIK the Walloon language doesn't exist as such. They just speak plain French. Not even a dialect. There are some minor differences though. For instance, the French say "soixante-dix" (70), "soixante et onze" (71), etc. up to 79, whereas the Walloons use "septante", "septante et un", etc. I don't remember whether they use different forms for 90-99 also.

Edit: Oops. To judge by what Dry wrote, my impression about the language of the Walloons is somewhat misleading. But my impression was that they speak just "normal French" with very minor differences.

[Winston]

Thanks for the information, both of you.

It seems incredible from an outsider's point of view to maintain such emphasis on language differences. Distinct, politically self-evolving branches of the same party based on language? Come on, we're all supposed to integrate, not separate.

[Dry]

Originally posted by The Vagabond
So there are separate parties for both Flanders and Wallonie. But what about Brussels? What parties is it supposed to vote for?

In Brussels, we have the full choice. We may vote for either.

[alva]

Originally posted by Colon™


Have you watched TV1's election program? De Wever was talking about reconciliation with Dedecker, even if he supposedly meant to be on personal level. He must be wondering if he shouldn't have stuck to Dedecker.

Yup, luckily for him, the journalist realised and actually saved his arse.

Looking back - and with hindsight - I think they made the right decision. With a good election result, Dedecker might have tried a coup within the NVA and taken control of the party...officially or unofficially.

[The Vagabond]

Dry:

Do you speak about the Walloon language just in the historic context? Nowadays the Walloons speak just "regular" French (with very minor differences), don't they?

[Dry]

Originally posted by The Vagabond
AFAIK the Walloon language doesn't exist as such. They just speak plain French. Not even a dialect. There are some minor differences though. For instance, the French say "soixante-dix" (70), "soixante et onze" (71), etc. up to 79, whereas the Walloons use "septante", "septante et un", etc. I don't remember whether they use different forms for 90-99 also.

As I said, Walloon exists, but as dialect, not as structured language. Some initative had been taken to try to standardize it, to even have a walloon orthograph.

In fact 4 walloon dialects are identified: Walloon of Liége, Walloon of Charleroi, Walloon of Namur and Walloon of Ardennes.
Other latin dialects spoken in wallonia are Lorrain, Picard and Champenois
Non-latin dialects spoken in wallonia include Luxemburgese, Limburgese and platt deutsch (2 kinds)

EDIT: 2 kinds of plattdeutsch, not 3

[alva]

Originally posted by Winston
Thanks for the information, both of you.

It seems incredible from an outsider's point of view to maintain such emphasis on language differences. Distinct, politically self-evolving branches of the same party based on language? Come on, we're all supposed to integrate, not separate.

That is why imo it would be good to ( very peacefully and gradually) split the country. There would be no reason why we couldn't work closely together afterwards, all under the umbrella of Europe.
It already are two - if not three - different countries within the same border.

There are others to come, Scotland may be one and there there are a few in Spain.

[alva]

Originally posted by The Vagabond
Dry:

Do you speak about the Walloon language just in the historic context? Nowadays the Walloons speak just "regular" French (with very minor differences), don't they?

French is used as a n official language.
To be honest, I didn't know either that it was that different.

[Dry]

Originally posted by The Vagabond
Dry:

Do you speak about the Walloon language just in the historic context? Nowadays the Walloons speak just "regular" French (with very minor differences), don't they?

Yes, most walloons speaks only French. And when ask they say they speak 'french', not 'walloon'.
Nevertheless, 'walloon language' exists.
Those who still speaks walloon (mostly at the pub) however will often mix it with some french, because they do not remember all words.

We however still have archives of walloon. There is some litterature (mainly walloon of Liége and Charleroi) and back in 1910-1930, there was a walloon movement who tried to keep the language, so, as I said above, they tried to give it some rules and maybe make some dictionnary.
A few artists still write songs in walloon.

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by Dry

As I said, Walloon exists, but as dialect, not as structured language. Some initative had been taken to try to standardize it, to even have a walloon orthograph.

In fact 4 walloon dialects are identified: Walloon of Liége, Walloon of Charleroi, Walloon of Namur and Walloon of Ardennes.
Other latin dialects spoken in wallonia are Lorrain, Picard and Champenois
Non-latin dialects spoken in wallonia include Luxemburgese, Limburgese and platt deutsch (3 kinds)

Oh, now I understand it better. The Walloon language exists but is scarcely used nowadays. What the majority of the Walloons speak is reffered to as "Belgian French":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_French

I just confused Walloon with Belgian French. What I said above about the language is actually true about Belgian French, not Walloon.

[The Vagabond]

All right. Thanks for your reply, Dry.

[Colon™]

Originally posted by Winston
Thanks for the information, both of you.

It seems incredible from an outsider's point of view to maintain such emphasis on language differences. Distinct, politically self-evolving branches of the same party based on language? Come on, we're all supposed to integrate, not separate.

These aren't branches of the same party. They're separate parties of the same ideological colour. These ideological families don't share any formal structures, though they typically keep close contact.

[Colon™]

Originally posted by alva


That is why imo it would be good to ( very peacefully and gradually) split the country. There would be no reason why we couldn't work closely together afterwards, all under the umbrella of Europe.
It already are two - if not three - different countries within the same border.

There are others to come, Scotland may be one and there there are a few in Spain.

An overarching structure is always going to be necessary, be it federal or confederal. Current regional borders cut straight through the metro-area of Brussels-Antwerp and they would still be were the Brussels-Capital-Region to be expanded. Current arrangements are already causing major problems regarding transportation policy. Just consider the DHL/night-flights saga for instance.

And EU-membership isn't going to be granted automatically. Were Scotland to declare independence tomorrow they'd need to run through the application process from zero. This means years in wilderness, assuming none of the existing members vetoes the application. For instance Spain may want to block them to discourage their own regions to break away.

[Colon™]

Look like the MR (Walloon liberals) will be the biggest party in Wallonia after all. The liberal family now has 41 seats in the federal chamber of representatives, against 40 seats for the christian democrats (+Flemish nationalists) and 34 for the socialists. I'm expecting debate now on whether the biggest faction in parliament should be in the driving seat, or whether the biggest faction in the biggest family should be in the driving seat.