In The Drop of the Hammer, you often come across the word Walloon as a language: ‘the Bailiff bellowed in French and Walloon’ or in the footnotes ‘Binamé is Walloon for Beloved’.
But what is Walloon and is it still spoken?
Walloon is a Romance language that used to be spoken extensively in the south of Belgium, some villages in northern France—and believe it or not —in some areas of north-eastern Wisconsin, in parts of Canada, and in a little town in Pennsylvania called Charleroi. Today many people still use Walloon, but much less than before. In spite of the decrease in the number of people who still speak it, there are many clubs, associations, theatre companies, and cultural centers that are working hard to keep the language alive.
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