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Walloon (' in Walloon) is a Romance language that was spoken as a primary language in large portions (70%) of Wallonia in Belgium, in some villages of Northern France (near Givet) and in the northeast part of Wisconsin〔Université du Wisconsin : collection de documents sur l'immigration wallonne au Wisconsin, enregistrements de témoignages oraux en anglais et wallon, 1976 (University of Wisconsin Digital Collection : Belgian-American Research Collection )〕 until the mid 20th century. It belongs to the ''langue d'oïl'' language family, whose most prominent member is the French language. The historical background of its formation was the territorial extension since 980 of the Principality of Liège to the south and west. Despite its rich literature, beginning anonymously in the 16th century and with well-known authors since 1756 (see below), the use of Walloon has decreased markedly since France's annexation of Wallonia in 1795. This period definitively established French as the language of social promotion, far more than it was before.〔"It seems the revolutionaries themselves consider the fact French was enough close to the Walloon language so as not to manage Wallonia as Brittany, Corsica, Alsace or Flanders." "フランス語:Le décret du 8 pluviôse An II (...) ne prévoit pas d'envoyer des instituteurs dans la Wallonie romane (contre l'avis de Grégoire qui souhaitait une campagne linguistique couvrant tout le territoire). Les révolutionnaires eux-mêmes semblent donc considérer que la proximité entre le français et le wallon est suffisamment grande pour ne pas traiter la Wallonie comme la Bretagne, la Corse, l'Alsace ou la Flandre." Astrid Von Busekist, ''Politique des langues et construction de l'État'', Éd. Duculot, Gembloux, 1998, p.22-28〕 After World War I, public schools provided French-speaking education to all children, inducing a denigration of Walloon, especially when accompanied by official orders in 1952 to punish its use in schools. Subsequently, since the middle of the 20th century, generational transmission of the language has decreased, resulting in Walloon almost becoming a dead language. Today it is scarcely spoken among younger people. In 1996, the number of people with knowledge of the language was estimated at between 1 and 1.3 million. Numerous associations, especially theatre companies, are working to keep the language alive. Formally recognized as a ''フランス語:langue régionale endogène'' (regional indigenous language) of Belgium since 1990,〔Décret Valmy Féaux, 14 of December 1990〕 Walloon has also benefited from a continued corpus planning process. The "Feller system" (1900) regularized transcription of the different accents. Since the 1990s, a common orthography was established (the Rifondou walon), which allowed large-scale publications, such as the ''Walloon Wikipedia'' officially in 2003. In 2004, a Walloon translation of a ''Tintin'' comic was released under the name ''L'èmerôde d'al Castafiore''; in 2007 an album consisting of Gaston Lagaffe comic strips was published in Walloon. Walloon is more distinct as a language than Belgian French, which differs from the French spoken in France only in some minor points of vocabulary and pronunciation. == Disputed nature of Walloon == Linguists have long classified Walloon as a dialect of French, which in turn is a ''フランス語:langue d'oïl''. Like French, it descended from Vulgar Latin. Arguing that a French-speaking person could only understand Walloon with difficulty, especially in its eastern forms, Jules Feller (1859–1940) insisted that Walloon had an original "superior unity" which made it a language. The phonological divisions of regional languages of southern Belgium were studied by the contemporary linguist E.B. Atwood. He has defined the precise geographical repartition of the four chief dialects of Walloon. In addition, he has defined them against the dialects of Picard, Lorrain and Champenois.〔E.B. Atwood, "The phonological divisions of Belgo-Romance", in ''Orbis'', 4, 1955, pp. 367-389.〕 Since then, most linguists (among them Louis Remacle), and gradually also Walloon politicians, regard Walloon as a regional language, the first in importance in Wallonia. It is the only one to have originated from that part of Belgium. The eleventh edition of the ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'' identified Walloon as the "northern-most Romance language". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Walloon language」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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