2023-09-16 08:04:12
Do you say “boulet” or “boulette” instead? Are you celebrating the “ducasse” or the “kermesse”? Wallonia, and more broadly the Belgian French-speaking world, is full of words very specific to our region and sometimes even to a part of our region. Do you know them ? We offer you a short quiz to test Walloon French and its specificities.
In the answer to the quiz, you will find cards showing the French words of Wallonia but also of Brussels, the borders being “porous”. These maps were created with Michel Francard, linguist and professor emeritus at UCLouvain. He is the co-author of Dictionary of Belgianisms (ed. De Boeck) and would like to clarify: “These maps work by province but it is a sort of convention. In reality, there are no watertight linguistic boundaries.“We will talk to you about this porosity and the diversity of language throughout the quiz.
And then, last element before launching into the game: on the occasion of the Walloon festivals, we have chosen words linked to this region but Belgianisms are not limited to that. “The differences we highlight here come from languages in contactMichel Francard immediately specifies. Either the Romance languages: Walloon, Picard, Gaumais or Champagne, or Flemish or Dutch. But the vast majority of Belgianisms do not come from languages in contact. These are real innovations. For example, the word GSM owes nothing to Flemish or Walloon.” Enough to inspire us for a future quiz since here, we will focus on the variations within the Walloon territory.
This is what is said. Up to you !
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