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What’s with this “Wren” thing?
The oldest extant version of the fable
we
are presenting here appeared in 1913 in the first volume of a two-volume anthology
of Low
Saxon folktales (Plattdeutsche
Volksmärchen “Low German Folktales”)
collected by Wilhelm Wisser (1843–1935). Read
more ...
Walloon
Wallonia—land
of industry and idyll,
where Gallia borders on
Germania
Language information:
Walloon is by many people considered a French dialect group, an alternative
view being that it is a language in its own right. It is used primarily in
the Wallonia region of Belgium. There are speaker communities in Brussels,
in the Northern Ardennes in France as well, also in two Luxembourgish towns
(Doncols
and Sonlez)
and in a small region of Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA.
Because of its
relatively low social prestige and insufficient public education about it, there
is a good deal of ignorance about Walloon even in Wallonia itself. The actual
Walloon language is referred to as wallon, as are Walloon-influenced French dialects of Wallonia (which ought to be called français de la Wallonie ‘French of Wallonia’ or français
wallon ‘Walloon French’).
As a result,
even
many
Wallonians
themselves
confuse
the
two. To add to the confusion, the label walon (French wallon) is often also applied to the dialects of the Picard,
Lorrain
and
Champenois languages that are used in Wallonia.
Like its close
relatives French, Champenois and Picard,
Walloon belongs to the Oïl group of the Gallo-Romance branch, all of whose members
developed on Celtic substrates hailing back to Gaulish predominance of the
area.
Walloon has traditional
contacts with Netherlandic language varieties, such as Flemish and Brabantish.
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