Language is about identity

In a 2013 paper by Jacqueline Lee Tinkler, titled "Determinants of Ethnic Retention As See Through Walloon Immigrants to Wisconsin," she pointed out;

"For generations, the community remained a close-knit, cohesive, nearly self-sufficient ethnic island, maintaining their religion, language, and customs.

After Indian reservations and the Amish communities, the settlement of Walloon Belgians in northeast Wisconsin is the most enduring ethnic island in the United States. "

Recently a two page article on revitalizing Indigenous languages in Wisconsin appeared in the local newspaper. (GBPG Wed, Jun 9, 2021)

"Laugauge is at a core of what ie means to be Oneida, Menominee, Ho-Chunk, Mohican, Potawatomi or Ojibwe, as the phrases and sentences consistently reinforce an Indigenous way of thinking at looking at the world", Francour and others say. "Language is about identity as a people, and it had been nearly completly taken away through forced assimilation..."

The article about Native American lanugages really can apply to our own native Walloon language. It's worth a read. Think about lanugage in the context that Belgium didn't become its own county till 1830, and just a short time later many left to come to Wisconsin. It wasn't so much their county that defined them as it was their language. That language traces back to the Holy Roman Empire.

And we have all heard or read the story of when our ancestors first came to Wisconsin and had planned to settle near Sheboygan, but had trouble communicating there as it was mostly all Germans. So they headed North as they heard there were French speakers there.