World Language Map

Where is Walloon spoken?

Walloon (walon) is an Indo-European language, spoken in Belgium, France and Luxembourg. It is marked on the map by a ringed point.

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Where Walloon is spoken

Walloon is spoken in 3 countries: Belgium, France and Luxembourg. The table gives the share of each country’s people who speak it, from Unicode CLDR, where CLDR has a figure.

CountryShare of populationEstimated speakers
Belgium5.8%694,701
FranceNot givenNot given
LuxembourgNot givenNot given

Estimated speakers are the CLDR percentage applied to CLDR’s own population figure for the country, so they are rough. A country without a figure may still have speakers: it is listed because the language area, or Glottolog’s record, reaches it.

Walloon has no area on the map because no open area map covers it. The ringed point is the position Glottolog gives for the language.

How many people speak Walloon?

Wikidata gives about 600,000 speakers (Wikidata, with no source given, 2007). These figures are approximate: they come from different sources, years and definitions of a speaker.

Status: Shifting. Glottolog lists it as shifting: the youngest speakers are adults, and children are growing up speaking another language.

Where Walloon sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies Walloon as follows, from the largest family down to the language itself.

  1. Indo-European
  2. Classical Indo-European
  3. Italic
  4. Latino-Faliscan
  5. Latinic
  6. Imperial Latin
  7. Romance
  8. Italo-Western Romance
  9. Western Romance
  10. Shifted Western Romance
  11. Northwestern Shifted Romance
  12. Gallo-Rhaetian
  13. Oil
  14. Walloon

More about Walloon

Codes: ISO 639-3 wln, Glottolog wall1255. Glottolog macroarea: Eurasia.

Walloon is a Romance language, descended from Latin. Latin’s footprint: the Roman Empire at its height → Latin spread along Roman roads →

Questions about Walloon

Where is Walloon spoken?

Walloon is spoken in Belgium, France and Luxembourg. Unicode CLDR puts it at 5.8% of the population of Belgium, which is about 694,701 people. On the map it is shown as a single point, because no open area map covers it.

How many people speak Walloon?

Wikidata gives about 600,000 speakers (Wikidata, with no source given, 2007). Speaker numbers are approximate and differ between sources: counting who is a speaker, and whether to include second-language speakers, is not settled.

Which language family is Walloon in?

Glottolog places Walloon in the Indo-European family, in the branch Classical Indo-European, Italic, Latino-Faliscan, Latinic, Imperial Latin, Romance, Italo-Western Romance, Western Romance, Shifted Western Romance, Northwestern Shifted Romance, Gallo-Rhaetian and Oil.

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