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58-458: The race took place on an open road, an average distance of 3,500 km non-stop (sometimes more than 5,000 km as in 1959): departing Wednesday at 11 pm from Spa , and returning to the same place on Sunday around 4 pm. A Golden Cup was also sometimes awarded to three-year class winners such as Bill Bengry . The rally of August 1939 was the last major rally event before World War II. Belgium's Ginet Trasenster of Bugatti and France's Jean Trevoux in

116-588: A Citroën DS 19 . From 1965 to 1971, the Nürburgring race was held due to the refusal of some countries to cross their territory. The duration of the race was 82 hours to reach 96 hours in its last edition. A revival was planned for 2011 but was cancelled. Record holder of number of victories: Ginet Trasenster , 5 *Multiple teams finished without penalties or with equal points and were declared co-winners Spa, Belgium Spa ( French pronunciation: [spa] ; Walloon : Spå )

174-479: A Hotchkiss tied for first place, denying the German works teams shortly before their countries were overrun. This was one of five Liège wins for Trasenster. The Liège continued as uncompromisingly an open road event run to an impossible time schedule, and remained Europe's toughest rally until it had moved to Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. From 1961 to 1964, the course was modified to Liège- Sofia -Liège. This reflected

232-437: A language . The phonological divisions of regional languages of southern Belgium were studied by the contemporary linguist E.B. Atwood. He defined the precise geographical repartition of the four chief dialects of Walloon. In addition, he defined them against the dialects of Picard , Lorrain and Champenois . Since then, most linguists (among them Louis Remacle ), and gradually also Walloon politicians, regard Walloon as

290-432: A population density of 265/km (690/sq mi). Spa is one of Belgium's most popular tourist destinations, being renowned for its natural mineral springs , and production of " Spa " mineral water , which is exported worldwide. The motor-racing Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps , just south of the nearby village of Francorchamps , also hosts the annual Formula One Belgian Grand Prix and various endurance races such as

348-613: A continued corpus planning process. The "Feller system" (1900) regularized transcription of the different accents. Since the 1990s, a common orthography was established (the Rifondou walon  [ wa ; fr ] ), which allowed large-scale publications, such as the Walloon Misplaced Pages officially in 2003. In 2004, a Walloon translation of a Tintin comic was released under the name L'èmerôde d'al Castafiore ; in 2007 an album consisting of Gaston Lagaffe comic strips

406-513: A dozen Walloon magazines publish regularly. The Société de Langue et de Littérature Wallonne , founded in 1856, promotes Walloon literature and the study ( dialectology , etymology , etc.) of the regional Roman languages of Wallonia. There is a difference between the Walloon culture, according to the Manifesto for Walloon culture , and the Walloon language (even if the latter is a part of

464-479: A large collection of literary works in Walloon, quite possibly the largest outside Belgium, and its holdings are representative of the output. Out of nearly a thousand works, twenty-six were published before 1880. Thereafter the numbers rise gradually year by year, reaching a peak of sixty-nine in 1903. After that, publications in Walloon fell markedly, to eleven in 1913. Yves Quairiaux counted 4,800 plays for 1860–1914, published or not. In this period, plays were almost

522-804: A postal system was set up between Spa and the outside world. Since the 18th century, casinos have been located in Spa. The town continued to grow as a fashionable resort in the 19th century, and was extended during the reign of King Leopold II . Buildings such as the Thermal Baths (1868), the Pouhon Peter the Great (1880), and the Leopold II Gallery (1880) date from this period. During World War I , Spa operated as an important German convalescent hospital town between 1914 and 1917. In 1918,

580-650: A regional language, the first in importance in Wallonia . It is the only one to have originated from that part of Belgium. The eleventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica identified Walloon as the "northernmost Romance language". Walloon is spoken in the Wallonia Region in Belgium. In addition, it is spoken in: Although Walloon was widely spoken until the mid-20th century, today only

638-409: A small proportion of the inhabitants of the region are fluent in the language. Those born since the 1970s usually know little more than a few idiomatic expressions , often profanities . The Walloon language is still part of the Walloon heritage; it is one component of Walloon identity. Four dialects of Walloon developed in four distinct zones of Wallonia: Despite local phonetic differences, there

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696-532: A very small extent, in Brussels , Belgium; some villages near Givet , northern France; and a clutch of communities in northeastern Wisconsin , United States. It belongs to the langues d'oïl dialect continuum , the most prominent member of which is French . The historical background of its formation was the territorial extension since 980 of the Principality of Liège to the south and west. Walloon

754-467: Is a city and municipality of Wallonia in the province of Liège , Belgium , whose name became an eponym for mineral baths with supposed curative properties . It is in a valley in the Ardennes mountains 35 km (22 mi) south-east of Liège and 45 km (28 mi) south-west of Aachen . In 2006, Spa had a population of 10,543 and an area of 39.85 km (15.39 sq mi), giving

812-409: Is a regional movement towards the adoption of a common spelling, called the Rifondou walon . This orthography is diasystemic , reflecting different pronunciations for different readers, a concept inspired by the spelling of Breton . The written forms attempt to reconcile current phonetic uses with ancient traditions (notably the reintroduction of xh and oi that were used for writing Walloon until

870-401: Is a stylized pouhon housed in a neoclassical monument to the covering surrounded by a protective wall opened its facade. The monument is topped by a blue banner bearing the "Spa-Pouhon" inscriptions. "Argent masonry money pouhon of sand topped with gold-SPA Pouhon inscriptions on a blue background." The city colours are yellow and blue. The stylized pouhon is inspired by the monument that housed

928-506: Is believed to possess special health-giving properties, known as a spa . As the site of cold springs with alleged healing properties, Spa has been frequented as a "water-taking" place since classical antiquity . Pliny the Elder (died 79 CE) noted, "There is a famous spring in Tungri , a state of Gaul, whose water, sparkling with bubbles, has a ferruginous taste that is only noticeable when

986-571: Is classified as "definitely endangered" by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger . Despite its rich literature, beginning anonymously in the 16th century and with well-known authors since 1756, the use of Walloon has decreased markedly since France's annexation of Wallonia in 1794 . This period definitively established French as the language of social promotion, far more than it

1044-471: Is directly linked by funicular to the heart of the city and a new luxury hotel. In 2007, the Spa-Francorchamps circuit completely renewed its infrastructure to comply with the best international standards, allowing it to continue to host the annual Belgian Formula One Grand Prix 1, in addition to many other annual sporting events. Spa is located on the borders of the Ardennes massif, at

1102-413: Is partly set in Spa during the eighteenth century. The 1975 film Belle is wholly set in contemporary Spa and its environs. Agatha Christie 's fictional detective Hercule Poirot was born in Spa. Spa is twinned with: Walloon language Walloon ( / w ɒ ˈ l uː n / ; natively walon ; French : wallon ) is a Romance language that is spoken in much of Wallonia and, to

1160-596: The 24 Hours of Spa . The world's first beauty pageant, the Concours de Beauté, was held in Spa on 19 September 1888. The town also hosted the Tour de France on 5 July 2010, when stage 2 of the race ended there. In 2021, Spa became part of the transnational UNESCO World Heritage Site the Great Spa Towns of Europe , for its famous mineral springs and architectural testimony to the rise of European bathing culture in

1218-582: The Borinage dialect under the pen-name Bosquètia . In the 20th century, Joseph Houziaux (1946) published a selection of 50 fables in the Condroz dialect. The motive among Walloon speakers in both France and Belgium was to assert regional identity against the growing centralism and encroachment of the language of the capital, on what had until then been predominantly monoglot areas. There are links between French literature and Walloon literature. For instance,

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1276-650: The German Army established its principal headquarters in Spa, and from there the delegates set out for the French lines to meet Marshal Foch and to sue for peace in the consultations leading up to the Armistice that ended the First World War. The general headquarters of Kaiser Wilhelm II were, in 1918, the last place where he resided before his abdication due to the German surrender. In July 1920,

1334-592: The Low Countries . One might say that the period which saw the establishment of the unifying supremacy of the Burgundians in the Walloon country was a turning-point in their linguistic history. The crystallization of a Walloon identity, as opposed to that of the thiois (i.e. Dutch-speaking) regions of the Low Countries, established "Walloon" as a word for designating its people. Somewhat later,

1392-468: The Spa-Francorchamps race track is known for. The elevation also results in cooler summers and frequent winter frost along with snowfall. Spa is quite gloomy, although averaging both a drier and sunnier climate than nearby locations Stavelot and Malmedy that are also surrounding the race track. Spa has two railway stations: Spa and Spa-Géronstère , where local trains of SNCB/NMBS link

1450-716: The Walloons went en masse to the Belgian coast in Flanders. Relaxation tourism replaced the thermal aspect of Spa. The 1980s and 1990s heralded the start of a renewal of the infrastructure and influence of Spa. On 17 May 1983, to mark the 400th anniversary of the export of Spa waters, HM King Baudouin visited the new facilities of the Spa Monopole SA, the Henrijean Hydrology Institute and

1508-627: The 18th and 19th centuries. Among the various hypotheses put forward as to the etymological origin of the name Spa is that of "gushing spring", from the Latin sparsa meaning "scattered" and "gushing", past participle of spargere ("scatter", "sprinkle" or "moisten"). Another connects the word to the meaning of "free space", from the Walloon spâ and from the Latin spatia , plural of spatium . The place has been known since Roman times , when

1566-461: The Feller system ( sistinme Feller ) and Unified Walloon ( rifondou walon or rfondou walon ). Walloon is distinguished from other languages in the langue d'oïl family both by archaism coming from Latin and by its significant borrowing from Germanic languages, as expressed in its phonetics, its lexicon , and its grammar . At the same time, Walloon phonetics are singularly conservative:

1624-564: The Germans, but the town escaped the Battle of the Bulge in 1945 that stopped, luckily for Spa, right at its gates. The Marshall Plan helped Belgium to recover quickly. In the 1950s and 1960s, mass tourism gradually developed, diminishing Spa's reliance on the elite as customers. These were decades of social tourism as well, with an increasingly large number of Flemish and Dutch customers, while

1682-618: The Pouhon Peter the Great until 1820. Under the Ancien Régime , the shield was commonly used in spa towns. It was customary for the spa guests to leave their arms at the hotel where he had stayed in recognition of the benefits of the waters. At Spa, many hotels have inscriptions like "In the Arms of England", "the Duke of Orleans ," "To the King of Poland ", etc. The 1975 film Barry Lyndon

1740-653: The Thermal Establishment. In 1994, a new French song festival started: Les Francofolies de Spa . In 1997, the area of Spa-Bérinzenne opened the Regional Center for Initiation to the Environment, one of whose specialties is water. The old Thermal Baths were closed in 2004. In 2005, a new thermal center, Thermoludism, opened on the Annette and Lubin hill with panoramic views of the city. It

1798-513: The Walloon population speak their ancestral language. Breaking the statistics down by age, 70–80% of the population aged over 60 speak Walloon, while only about 10% of those under 30 do so. Passing knowledge of Walloon is much more widespread: claimed by some 36–58% of the younger age bracket. Laurent Hendschel estimates there are 1,300,000 bilingual people in Wallonia (Walloon-French, Picard-French...). Many French words that pertain to mining and to

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1856-505: The academic language, French became the object of a political effort at normalization; La Pléiade posited the view that when two languages of the same language family coexist, each can be defined only in opposition to the other. Around the year 1600, the French writing system became dominant in the Wallonia. From this time, too, dates a tradition of texts written in a language marked by traces of spoken Walloon. The written language of

1914-491: The city with Theux , Verviers and Aachen . The railway line used to extend further south towards Trois-Ponts , Vielsalm and Luxembourg . Local and regional bus services in Spa are provided by the Walloon transport company TEC . Spa is located on the crosspoint of national roads N62, N629 and N686. The nearest motorway is the A27 ( E42 ), where a junction for Spa is located in the commune of Jalhay . The coat of arms for Spa

1972-500: The connection between Rommand to Vualon : Et ceux cy [les habitants de Nivelles] parlent le vieil langage Gallique que nous appellons Vualon ou Rommand (...). Et de ladite ancienne langue Vualonne, ou Rommande, nous usons en nostre Gaule Belgique: Cestadire en Haynau, Cambresis, Artois, Namur, Liège, Lorraine, Ardenne et le Rommanbrabant, et est beaucoup differente du François, lequel est plus moderne, et plus gaillart. And those people [the inhabitants of Nivelles] speak

2030-471: The culture). Walloon-language literature has been printed since the 16th century, or at least since the beginning of the 17th century. It had its "golden age" during the peak of the Flemish immigration to Wallonia in the 19th century: "That period saw an efflorescence of Walloon literature, plays and poems primarily, and the founding of many theaters and periodicals." The New York Public Library holds

2088-491: The desire of the organizer — the Royal Motor Union of Liège to diversify the route and to find traffic-free roads. Despite the change in venue, the race still kept its reputation as a challenge of driver endurance and mechanical reliability. The 1961 race required 90 hours of driving with a 4 hour rest at Sofia. Only 8 cars finished out of 85 total entrants. Lucien Bianchi and Georges Harris won this event, driving

2146-516: The drink is finished. This water purges the body, cures third-grade fevers and dispels calculous affections. The same water, put on the fire, becomes cloudy and eventually turns red." (C lib. XXXI VIII) The spa town grew in the Middle Ages , in the oldest iron and steel centre of Liège Province . The ban Spa was created around 1335 and included two urban concentrations: vilhe of Creppe and vilhe Spas, 2 km (1.2 mi) away. Prior to

2204-466: The exploitation of mineral water, the steel industry developed communication lines, which made it possible to develop the spa town. As early as 1547, Agustino, physician to the King of England, Henry VIII , stayed in Spa and helped give knowledge to the world of the value of the Spa water. In 1559, Gilbert Lymborh wrote of "acid fountains of the Ardennes forest and primarily those located in Spa". It

2262-545: The famous mineral springs in Spa are located on a hillside south of the town. In total, there are more than 300 cold mineral springs in Spa and its surroundings, classified into two types: light mineral waters and natural sparkling waters (called 'pouhons' locally). The light mineral waters come from recent rainfall on the Malchamps Moor, roughly 4 km (2.5 mi) south-west of the town and are filtered through layers of peat , quartz , and phyllite . In contrast,

2320-635: The gateway to the High Fens in the Wayai valley. The city center is surrounded by three wooded hills including Annette and Lubin to the north. The town borders the rural municipalities of Theux , Jalhay , Stavelot and Stoumont in the district of Verviers in the province of Liège . The municipal area is 39.89 km (24.79 mi); including 7.9 km (4.9 mi) of built and related land, 5.6 km (3.5 mi) of agricultural land and 23.6 km (14.7 mi) of forests and wooded land. Many of

2378-479: The language has stayed fairly close to the form it took during the High Middle Ages . From a linguistic point of view, Louis Remacle has shown that a good number of the developments that we now consider typical of Walloon appeared between the 8th and 12th centuries. Walloon "had a clearly defined identity from the beginning of the 13th century". In any case, linguistic texts from the time do not mention

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2436-400: The language, although they mention others in the langue d'oïl family, such as Picard and Lorrain . During the 15th century, scribes in the region called the language "Roman" when they needed to distinguish it. It is not until the beginning of the 16th century that first occurrence of the word "Walloon" appeared in the current linguistic sense. In 1510 or 1511, Jean Lemaire de Belges made

2494-540: The late 19th century) and the language's own phonological logic. Other regional languages spoken in Wallonia, outside the Walloon domain, are: The Picard, Lorrain and Champenois dialects spoken in Wallonia are sometimes also referred to as "Walloon", which may lead to confusion. The Walloon alphabet generally consists of the basic ISO Latin Alphabet , and six types of diacritic . It also makes frequent use of digraphs. Various orthographies have been used, most notably

2552-403: The location was called Aquae Spadanae . For this reason, the city's name is sometimes presented as the acronym of various Latin phrases, such as salus per aquam or sanitas per aquam , meaning "health through water"; it is in reality a backronym , an a posteriori fabrication of a fictitious acronym. The term Spa has since become eponymous with any place having a natural water source that

2610-515: The old Gallic language which we call Vualon or Rommand (...). And we use the said old Vualon or Rommand language in our Belgian Gaul: That is to say in Hainaut, Cambrai, Artois, Namur, Liège, Lorraine, Ardennes and Rommand Brabant, and it is very different from French, which is more fashionable and courtly. The word "Walloon" thus came closer to its current meaning: the vernacular of the Roman part of

2668-509: The only popular entertainment in Wallonia. The Walloon-language theatre remains popular in the region; theatre is flourishing with more than 200 non-professional companies playing in the cities and villages of Wallonia for an audience of over 200,000 each year. During the 19th-century renaissance of Walloon-language literature, several authors adapted versions of Aesop's Fables to the racy speech (and subject matter) of Liège. They included Charles Duvivier (in 1842); Joseph Lamaye (1845); and

2726-401: The pouhon waters come from rainfall that may be decades old, having percolated through calcareous rocks hundreds of meters underground. Spa has an oceanic climate that is made more continental by its higher elevation and inland position compared to other Belgian climates at lower level or closer to the sea. Spa has a relatively high precipitation year-round, with tricky weather something that

2784-405: The preceding centuries, scripta , was a composite language with some Walloon characteristics but it did not attempt to be a systematic reproduction of the spoken language. Walloon was the predominant language of the Walloon people until the beginning of the 20th century, although they had a passing knowledge of French. Since that time, the use of French has spread to the extent that now only 15% of

2842-474: The source. Jacques Ancion also wanted to develop a regular adult audience. "From the 19th century he included the Walloon play Tati l'Pèriquî by E. Remouchamps and the avant-garde Ubu roi by A. Jarry ." The scholar Jean-Marie Klinkenberg writes, "[T]he dialectal culture is no more a sign of attachment to the past but a way to participate to a new synthesis". Walloon is also being used in popular song. The best-known singer in Walloon in present-day Wallonia

2900-405: The team of Jean-Joseph Dehin (1847, 1851–1852) and François Bailleux (1851–1866), who covered books I-VI. Adaptations into other dialects were made by Charles Letellier (Mons, 1842) and Charles Wérotte (Namur, 1844). Decades later, Léon Bernus published some hundred imitations of La Fontaine in the dialect of Charleroi (1872); he was followed during the 1880s by Joseph Dufrane , writing in

2958-645: The textile trade derive from the Walloon-Picard complex. Legally, Walloon has been recognized since 1990 by the French Community of Belgium , the cultural authority of Wallonia, as an "indigenous regional language" which must be studied in schools and encouraged. The Walloon cultural movement includes the Union Culturelle Wallonne , an organization of over 200 amateur theatre circles, writers' groups, and school councils. About

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3016-628: The town hosted the Spa Conference , a meeting of the Supreme Council , which dealt with the war reparations owed by the defeated Reich to the Allies . The Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps was established in 1921, in the vicinity of Spa. Despite its name, the racetrack has never been located within Spa: it is instead in the nearby town of Stavelot . World War II saw Spa reoccupied by

3074-410: The vast majority of its native speakers being the elderly (aged 65 and over). In 2007, the number of people with knowledge of the language was estimated at 600,000. Numerous associations, especially theatre companies, are working to keep the language alive. Formally recognized as a langue régionale endogène (regional indigenous language) of Belgium since 1990, Walloon has also benefited from

3132-515: The vernacular of these people became more clearly distinct from central French and other neighbouring langues d'oïl , prompting the abandonment of the vague term "Roman" as a linguistic, ethnic, and political designator for "Walloon". Also at this time, following the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts in 1539, the French language replaced Latin for all administrative purposes in France. Established as

3190-407: The writer Raymond Queneau set the publication of a Walloon Poets' anthology for Editions Gallimard . Ubu roi was translated into Walloon by André Blavier , an important 'pataphysician of Verviers , and friend of Queneau, for the new and important Puppet theater of Liège of Jacques Ancion. The Al Botroûle theater operated "as the umbilical cord" in Walloon, indicating a desire to return to

3248-440: Was before. After World War I , public schools provided French-speaking education to all children, inducing a denigration of Walloon, especially when accompanied by official orders in 1952 to punish its use in schools. Subsequently, since the middle of the 20th century, generational transmission of the language has decreased, resulting in Walloon almost becoming a dead language . Today it is scarcely spoken among younger people, with

3306-560: Was published in Walloon. Walloon is more distinct as a language than Belgian French , which differs from the French spoken in France only in some minor points of vocabulary and pronunciation . Linguists had long classified Walloon as a dialect of French, which in turn is a langue d'oïl . Like French, it descended from Vulgar Latin . Arguing that a French-speaking person could not understand Walloon easily, especially in its eastern forms, Jules Feller (1859–1940) insisted that Walloon had an original "superior unity", which made it

3364-506: Was translated into Latin , Italian and Spanish. In July 1565, the gentry of the provinces met in Spa under the pretext of taking the waters . At the hotel "Aux Armes d’Angleterre", those present agreed to oppose the edicts of Philip II as austere and intolerant; this led to the historic 1566 " Compromise of Nobles ". In 1654, the stay of the exiled pretender to the English throne, Prince Charles , brought even greater fame to Spa. From 1699,

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