TheWalloon language has been written using variousorthographies over its history, most notably theFeller system (sistinme Feller) andCommon Walloon (rifondou walon orrfondou walon).

The Feller system was developed to transcribe Walloon dialects byJules Feller and was first published in 1900.^[1] In the Feller system, the same word can be spelled differently depending on dialect: the word "fish" would be spelledpèchon by a speaker who pronounces the word as[pɛʃɔ̃] (with an'sh' sound), but would be spelledpèhon by a speaker who pronounces the word as[pɛhɔ̃] (with an'h' sound). In Common Walloon, however, the same word "fish" is always spelledpexhon, regardless of the speaker's pronunciation. The Common Walloon alphabet, developed through the 1990s, attempts to unify spellings across dialects, and revives some oldergraphemes (such as ⟨xh⟩) which were abandoned by Feller in favor of spellings which resembled standard French.^[2][3]

Early texts written in the region ofWallonia were composed inMedieval Latin, such as the 7th centuryVita Sanctae Geretrudis. In the 9th century, the first texts written in the vernacularlangue d'oïl appear in northernGaul. One of the earliest of these documents, theSequence of Saint Eulalia from around 880, shows regional traits ofWalloon,Champenois, andPicard.^[5] The medieval written language, often referred to as thescripta,^[5][6] used spellings that represented the spoken language only approximately, and was full oflatinisms and archaic forms. Thescripta was not specifically Walloon, but rather, according to linguist Maurice Delbouille, this common written language "in its role as an inter-regional idiom opposed on one hand the Latin of the clergy and on the other hand the everyday local dialect in the various regions."^[a]

From the 13th century onward, thescripta used in Wallonia was increasingly influenced by the "central" dialect ofÎle-de-France. In an analysis of a document from 1236Liège, the linguistLouis Remacle found that only about 15% of the vocabulary used was distinctively Walloon, with the rest either distinctlyFrench or having a phonetic form common to all thelangues d'oïl.^[6] From this time forward, writing in Wallonia underwent "cycles of purification", moving progressively closer and closer to the standard of theFrench language.^[6]

Even as the literature of Wallonia became almost entirely French through the 14th and 15th centuries, some Walloon words could still be found in local writing. A medical text from the early 15th century displays the situation by using the Walloonweris "healed" alongside theMiddle Frenchgarira "will heal".^[7] Walloontoponyms and proper nouns, as well as some words for common objects could be found written in dialect, often spelled in distinctive ways, usinggraphemes like ⟨xh⟩ and ⟨ea⟩.^[8]

Beginning around 1600 some of the first "truly" Walloon documents appear, mostly in theLiège dialect. These include letters, poems, and works commenting on religious and political affairs.^[9] Spelling during this early period was inconsistent, as evidenced by different published names of the 1757opéra comiqueLi Voyèdje di Tchaufontainne:

• Li Voëgge di Chôfontaine, ed. 1757
• Li Voège di Chofontaine, ed. 1784
• Li Voège di Chôfotaine, ed. 1830
• Voyège di Chaudfontaine, ed. 1858
• Li Voègge di Chaufontaine, ed. 1878^[1]

Despite the variety of spellings, some conventions were followed by many of these early texts. For example, ⟨j⟩ or ⟨g⟩ (beforee andi) were often used for the sound[dʒ], and similarly ⟨ch⟩ represented[tʃ], while later orthographies would use ⟨dj⟩ and ⟨tch⟩ respectively. Many Walloon texts of this era also continued the usage of traditionaldigraphs such as ⟨xh⟩.^[10]

The 19th century saw a flourishing of Walloon literature. In 1856 theSociété liégeois de Littérature wallonne (Liège Society of Walloon Literature) was founded, later renamed theSociété de Langue et de Littérature wallonnes [wa;fr] (Society of Walloon Language and Literature, SLLW). The Society promoted artistic works in the Walloon language as well as works ofphilology anddialectology.^[9] From the beginning, the SLLW was interested in solving the issue that there was no unified system of spelling for the Walloon language. Several orthographies were proposed, such as the morephonemic orthography of Charles-Nicolas Simonon (using such novel letters as ⟨ɹ⟩ and ⟨ñ⟩) and the orthography of Nicolas Pietkin, which made extensive analogy withFrench orthography. The most influential proposal, however, was that of dialectologist Jules Feller, the creator of theFeller system.^[8]

At the turn of the 20th centuryJules Feller proposed a new orthography for the Walloon language. His paper, entitledEssai d'orthographe wallonne (Essay on Walloon Orthography), was submitted to the Liège Society of Walloon Literature in 1899 and published one year later in 1900 by the Society. His proposal balanced the principles of«phonétisme» and«analogie» - trying to faithfully represent the sound of the language while also referencing the dominant model ofFrench orthography which most literateWalloons were familiar with.^[8]

The Society adopted Feller's orthography and, in 1903, tasked three of its members with writing a comprehensive Walloondictionary. Jules Feller,Jean Haust, andAuguste Doutrepont [wa;fr] collected 300,000 records over the next 25 years but the envisionedDictionnaire général de la Langue wallonne was never completed.^[11] Despite these difficulties, what became known as theSystème Feller was adopted throughout the region, and the majority of Walloon publications for the next century were written in some variation of Feller's orthography.^[2]

Over the course of the 20th century, Walloon society transitioned rapidly from being primarilymonolingual in the local dialects (such asWalloon,Lorrain, orPicard) to being primarily monolingual inFrench.^[9] In response to this new social reality, a group of Walloon activists began imagining a new common orthography in the late 1980s and early 1990s: a written"koiné" for the Walloon language.^[12] Inspired by the examples of other regional languages likeRomansh,Breton, andOccitan, therfondeus (initial creators of the orthography) sought to unify the spelling of words across the region. During the 1990s, they formulated a new proposal, therifondou walon, referred to in English as the "normalised spelling", "Common Written Walloon", or "Common Walloon".^[13][14]

Common Walloon has been met with some resistance, notably in the 1996 articleLes planificateurs linguistiques au chevet du wallon [wa] by Jean Lechanteur, published by theSociété de Langue et de Littérature wallonnes.^[12]

The orthography has a strong presence on the internet, with theWalloon Wikipedia andWalloon Wiktionary both written using therifondou normalized spelling.

The table below shows letters,digraphs, and trigraphs (collectively referred to asgraphemes) used by the Feller system and Common Walloon. The second and third columns show the sounds which are represented, transcribed in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet. Note that certain graphemes represent many different sounds in the Common Walloon alphabet, while in the Feller system most graphemes correspond to a single sound.

A word written using Common Walloon is spelled the same across the whole of the language area, regardless of the speakers pronunciation. This is accomplished with the use ofdiasystems (in Walloonbetchfessîs scrijhas), which are always spelled the same but are pronounced differently depending on the region.

• Latin alphabets
• Indo-European Latin-script orthographies

• Webarchive template wayback links
• CS1 French-language sources (fr)
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Articles containing Walloon-language text
• Pages with plain IPA
• Articles containing Middle French (ca. 1400-1600)-language text
• Articles containing French-language text