Walloon

[Pacifica]

I thought this discussion might as well be continued on a dedicated thread:

On the occasion of the Fêtes de Wallonie (which are celebrating their 100th anniversary).

chanson wallone - li bia bouquet- royal moncrabeau- - YouTube

Is it (relatively) well-known? I can't think of a single song in non-French Oïl that people would be expected to know, here.

And since I had to look for the lyrics, here they are for those intested:

C’est d’mwin li djoû di m’ariadje
Aprèstez, aprèstez tos vos bouquèts
Nos lès mèstrans au cwârsadje
Dès bauchèles di nosse banquèt
Mins c’est l’mène li pus djolîye
Ossi vraîmint dji m’rafîye
Dè lî donner li bouquèt
Elle aurè li bia bouquèt.

Ç’a stî one saqwè d’drole
L’ôte fîye dj’aveuve one crole
Tot-aspouyî
Dj’alais soki
L’amoûr vint m’rèwèyi

C’est d’mwin li djoû di m’ariadje
Aprèstez, aprèstez tos vos bouquèts
Nos lès mèstrans au cwârsadje
Dès bauchèles di nosse banquèt
Mins c’est l’mène li pus djolîye
Ossi vraîmint dji m’rafîye
Dè lî donner li bouquèt
Elle aurè li bia bouquèt.


Ç’asteûve mi p’tite Marîye
Come èlle esteûve djolîye
Quèn-embaras
Ça stî ç’djoû-là
Qui dj’a signé l’contrat.

C’est d’mwin li djoû di m’ariadje
Aprèstez, aprèstez tos vos bouquèts
Nos lès mèstrans au cwârsadje
Dès bauchèles di nosse banquèt
Mins c’est l’mène li pus djolîye
Ossi vraîmint dji m’rafîye
Dè lî donner li bouquèt
Elle aurè li bia bouquèt.



Adiè totes mès folîyes
Dj’intère dins l’confrérîye
C’è-st-à l’auté
Qui dj’va djurer
Amoûr, fidélité.

C’est d’mwin li djoû di m’ariadje
Aprèstez, aprèstez tos vos bouquèts
Nos lès mèstrans au cwârsadje
Dès bauchèles di nosse banquèt
Mins c’est l’mène li pus djolîye
Ossi vraîmint dji m’rafîye
Dè lî donner li bouquèt
Elle aurè li bia bouquèt.



C’est d’mwin qu’dji m’boute à pièce
Adiè tote li djon-nèsse
Po comincî
Dji m’va satchî
A l’cwade à tot spiyî.

C’est d’mwin li djoû di m’ariadje
Aprèstez, aprèstez tos vos bouquèts
Nos lès mèstrans au cwârsadje
Dès bauchèles di nosse banquèt
Mins c’est l’mène li pus djolîye
Ossi vraîmint dji m’rafîye
Dè lî donner li bouquèt
Elle aurè li bia bouquèt.

Here, yes. I don't know about France.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if there were some famous ones in the north of France since Picard is undoubtedly the most vibrant (if you can call it that) of the non-French Oïl languages spoken in France.

I was speaking about Belgium of course!

Here's another famous one:

la petite gayole - YouTube

What level of famous are we talking about? Not that it's easy to quantify, but...

Also, the last stanza sounded like Breton to me, and it's indeed Breton! Weird, but interesting.



Elle me l'avait toudi promi
È'n belle petite gayole
È'n belle petite gayole
Elle me l'avait toudi promi
È'n belle petite gayole
Pour mettre em' canari

Troulala, troulala, troulalalalère...

Quand l'canari saura t'chanter
Il ira vir les filles
Il ira vir les filles
Quand l'canari saura t'chanter
Il ira vir les filles
Pour apprendre à danser

Troulala...

On dit qu'les Namurois sont lents
Mais quand ils sont dedans
Mais quand ils sont dedans
On dit qu'les Namurois sont lents
Mais quand ils sont dedans
Ils y sont pour longtemps

Troulala...

M'canari cantoi toudi
Mon dieu que chu bé mi
Mon dieu que chu bé mi
M'canari cantoi toudi
Mon dieu que chu bé mi
Dans cette p'tite gayole ci

Troulala...

Elle me l'avait toudi promi
È'n belle petite gayole
È'n belle petite gayole
Elle me l'avait toudi promi
È'n belle petite gayole
Pour mettre em' canari

Troulala...

Ya prometed e voa din
Eur gaoued bihan vrao
Eur gaoued bihan vrao
Ya prometed e voa din
Eur gaoued bihan vrao
Evit va labousig
Eur gaoued bihan vrao
Evit va labousig

Lol, yeah, I'm not sure really. I would say many/most (?) people know the tune and/or at least a couple of lines although knowing the whole thing by heart would less common.

Would you say people are generally aware of the existence of Walloon (by name and/or not as a mere faulty form of French)? Do you have adverts, famous company names, popular idioms, etc. in that language? Are you aware of any family member who spoke/speaks it?

Again I know this kind of question is hard to answer, but a native's opinion is good enough for me! I feel like Walloon is more vibrant, or more acknowledged than Oïl varieties spoken here (I'd say mainly due to our Jacobine heritage), but I may be completely wrong.

FWIW, here's this native's opinion on the French situation: when people speak of regional languages, they most often use the term "patois", so without a distinction between the different varieties, and with a pejorative connotation. The majority opinion is that they're a faulty form of French, and Oïl languages don't have any kind of public visibility.

Like I said, it's just my opinion, and I could be wrong.

I think that is usually the case, yes.

I'm not sure about adverts and famous company names (nothing immediately comes to mind but it's not an area I'm very knowledgeable in); I'm not sure about idioms as such either, but there are certainly Walloon words and phrases that are commonly heard around here.

No (apart from bits and pieces).

I don't know. My knowledge of the situation regarding the Oïl varieties in France is pretty much limited to what I've just read in your last post.

Walloon is almost a dead language but people know that it exists, some words and phrases survive in the midst of our French, and a minority of people are strongly interested in it and try to keep it alive: you can find e.g. theater companies that perform in Walloon, podcasts in Walloon, stuff like that. Come to think of it, I wonder how its popularity would compare to that of Latin. Both are fringe interests for sure, at least as far as real knowledge of the language is concerned, but maybe Walloon is a little more popular.

The name of the Walloon language doesn't have a pejorative connotation per se, but I do get the impression that people regard it as a ridiculous (for the more hostile) or kind of funny (for the more sympathetic) language sometimes, and that it tends, at least in some circles, to be associated with either outdatedness or lack of education or both.

Not exactly famous, but I've recalled this ("non di dju" is one of the pretty much universally known Walloon phrases).

On today's news they showed a couple talking in Walloon to people on the street. Some people understood (notably two old-ish women) while others gave them a blank stare (notably one or two Maghrebi-looking guys).

Very interesting, thanks!

Like I said, here only Picard (which is very close to Walloon; in fact, Wikipedia says that La P'tite Gayole is written in a Walloon-Picard transition dialect) has some level of acknowledgement, but even people from the places where it used to be spoken seem to consider it more as an accent with a few accompanying quirky words, some of which have made it into the French spoken in those regions.

Probably the main reason why people are aware of Picard at a national level is the 2008 movie Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, an immensely popular comedy by French humorist Danny Boon. Ch'ti, or ch'timi, is the colloquial term for a dialect of Picard, its speakers and more generally the inhabitants of the region. In the movie you can hear people speak Picard French (that is, French as spoken in the region of Picardie), only with more stereotypical accents and probably a few more words from Picard (the non-French Oïl variety) than in regular Picard French; in the trailer, Boon's character says "je parle ch'ti", when clearly he's speaking French with a thick Picard accent and a couple of Ch'ti words, namely carrette for "car", and what sounds like djousse, which is probably a swear word reminiscent of the dju you've just mentioned. He also says something I can't quite decipher, which sounds like: "mais vous m'avez rien (?) vu", which would make sense but I'm not sure that's the word he's using.

Here's the trailer, timestamped for the lines supposedly in Ch'ti (incidentally, earlier in the trailer there's some Brel playing; Picardie is a bit like our national Belgium):

Apparently a more standard way to spell it is dious.

Also, your "non di dju" made me think of the catchphrase of a character from Belgian cartoonist Franquin's Gaston: "rogntudju". Not sure how he got from nom to rogn, but that's another question.

Something I say somewhat regularly is "di djeu". I don't actually know if it's a legit variant (there are several kinds of Walloon) or my own mixture of Walloon "dju" and French "dieu".

I found some instances of "non di djeu" and "nom de djeu" online. I guess it doesn't prove much; it could still be a mistake with more people than just me making it.

The only actual definition that I found for "djeu" is "game".

Well, I don't know about the exact situation of Walloon, but there's usually the question of non-standardization of both spelling and pronunciation when it comes to Oïl, so it doesn't surprise me much that "djeu" would be used.

Or simply "djeu", come to think of it.

Here are some Walloon words and phrases that are in common use where I am (some are more common than others but all are at least common enough to feel familiar to me). I've mentioned a few of them before.

barakî (masc.), barakie/barekresse (fem.) (a dirty person with bad manners who dresses in bad taste)
dji/mi (I/me)
m'feye (lit. "my girl" or "my daughter"; generally just a form of address to a female, more or less like "gal")
nin (not; dji, mi and nin are ofen combined in dji n'sais nin mi = "I don't know" but with some more emphasis, I feel; a bit like "I have no clue" or "how the heck would I know")
peter evoye (to go/run away)
tiesse (head, also sentences like dji mau m'tiesse, "my head hurts")
todi (always; you can hear the variant toudi in the second song above)
vî (masc.), viye (fem.) (old)


Note I had to look up some of the spellings because these are words I tend to hear or say rather than read or write. I may still have gotten some of it wrong.

 

[kizolk]

peter evoye

That one's very peculiar. I can't help adding accute accents on all the E's, and it made me think of se péter, slang for "to go" that I used to use when I was a teen, but it'd be a surprising correspondence. Unless that slang term has more history than I thought. As for "evoye", something about voie?

 

[kizolk]

Or it could have nothing to do with Latin/Romance languages.

 

[Pacifica]

it made me think of se péter, slang for "to go" that I used to use when I was a teen, but it'd be a surprising correspondence

I don't think I've ever heard that one. There could be a link.

As for "evoye", something about voie?

Probably. It seems a somewhat similar formation to English "away".

 

[Pacifica]

It seems a somewhat similar formation to English "away".

Maybe identical, in fact: en voie.

 

[Pacifica]

I just found that èvoyî means "envoyer" (late Latin inviare) so that must be it.

 

[kizolk]

How would you use peter evoye in a sentence, by the way?

ofen combined in dji n'sais nin mi = "I don't know" but with some more emphasis, I feel; a bit like "I have no clue" or "how the heck would I know"

Would people say that jokingly, or is the sentence used as an idiom or something?

 

[Pacifica]

How would you use peter evoye in a sentence, by the way?

Quand il a vu ça il a peté evoye.

Would people say that jokingly, or is the sentence used as an idiom or something?

Often jokingly or semi-jokingly, I would say. But I guess it depends on people.

 

[kizolk]

Quand il a vu ça il a peté evoye.

How would you pronounce it exactly?

 

[Pacifica]

Personally I make a weird elision there which I'm not sure is correct.

/pɛtɛvoj/

Pronounced fully I guess it would be /pɛte ɛvoj/ (?)

 

[kizolk]

I don't think I've ever heard that one.

Another one you might never have heard is s'éclater, which we almost always used in the verlan version I think: je me técla, same meaning, and not "I'm having fun" as the more common slang term might lead one to believe. Also reminiscent of s'arracher.

 

[kizolk]

same meaning

I mean, "to leave".

 

[Pacifica]

Another one you might never have heard is s'éclater, which we almost always used in the verlan version I think: je me técla, same meaning, and not "I'm having fun" as the more common slang term might lead one to believe. Also reminiscent of s'arracher.

Indeed, I didn't know s'éclater in that sense (I did know s'arracher, which makes more direct/literal sense).

 

[Pacifica]

Se casser is a bit more similar to your se péter and s'éclater.

 

[Pacifica]

I just found this expression:

Trôyeler l’ timp èvôye

Meaning to kill time (or while it away).

 

[kizolk]

Trôyeler l’ timp èvôye

Meaning to kill time (or while it away).

Trolling time!

 

[kizolk]

Se casser is a bit more similar to your se péter and s'éclater.

Indeed, I don't know why I didn't think of that, even though a few other ones came to mind (se barrer or se tirer for instance).

 

[Pacifica]

I wonder how expressions like se casser, which sound so self-destructive, came about. It has just reminded me of how my mother, who can't seem to remember the expression se deconnecter for "to log out", keeps saying ominous-sounding things instead like je m'éteins and je me supprime.

 

[kizolk]

I wonder how expressions like se casser, which sound so self-destructive, came about. It has just reminded me of how my mother, who can't seem to remember the expression se deconnecter for "to log out", keeps saying ominous-sounding things instead like je m'éteins and je me supprime.

That's hilarious.

As for se casser, I wonder if there's a connection with the etymology of partir. A few Romance languages still have the main meaning of partir as "to break (apart), part, divide", and the CNRTL gave me a Paul Valéry quote from 1895 that still had partir with that meaning. On the other hand, slang has (self-)destructive verbs for just about anything, positive or negative, so maybe it's pointless to try to pinpoint a reason.

 

[Clemens]

It reminds me of the English saying "make a break for it."