Hubert Ora

Hubert Ora born with Liege in 1598, deceased with Liege on February 16th, 1654 is the first writer of Walloon language whose then publié" printed; works and whose name remained to us. In its Anthology of the Walloon literature, Maurice Piron underlines at the same time the exact date of its death on the faith of the obituaire of the capuchins inhabitant of Li2ege which one knows that they had taken a great importance in the Wallonia of then and the extremely disturbed context of the polemics and religious fights in the Principauté of Liege where the mode a little more liberal of this one than in the Spanish Netherlands, allowed their expression at least. In the first two thirds of the XVIIe century in the Principality, these fights could cover a violent turn

For Piron this " sonèt" provides a new proof that at their origins, the Walloon letters, like the first dialectal productions of oil, have really popular only speech that they emploient.

The oldest text of the Walloon literature

Sonnet lidjwjès

Has minisse

hoûtez of, Mounseû prédicant it;
nor pârlez nin so much tale the mônes;
Ca your f' rice to say which it diâle screw mône
like ounk di sès-appartinants

Your-èstez oun large afahant
after the bins di our tchènônes;
mins, Po v' to say neck early that I me E sounds,
your porpôs is porpôs of brigand.

If your-eûhîz Li Sicriteure
knew and bin wârdé Li lwè of nateure
your eûhîz acwèrou boun brut

Mins quwè? to say âs djioins dès-indjeures
and to splash it di your r' nârdeures,
Ci are vosoûves and your bêts fruts.

French translation

listen to Mister well the preacher
do not speak so much against the monks;
because you would do as well as the devil you well mène
like one of its sectateurs

You are quite strong avides
goods of our chanoines
but to tell you the bottom of my thought,
your remarks are matter of brigand.

If you had followed Ecrtures
well and kept the natural law well;
you had acquired good renommée.

But what? To overpower people of insults,
and écabousser of your vomiting,
they are your works and the fruits which they portent.

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