Editing Walloon Brabant (section)

==Etymology==
Walloon is a Belgian version of an old [[West Germanic]] word reconstructed as *walh (“foreigner, stranger, speaker of Celtic or Latin”). Brabant is from Old Dutch *brākbant (attested in Medieval Latin as pāgus brācbatensis, Bracbantum, Bracbantia), from Frankish, a compound of Proto-Germanic *brēk-, *brekaną (“fallow, originally 'to break'”) + *bant-, *bantō, *banti (“district, region”)

Like the terms "Belgium" and "Flanders", the terms "Walloon" and "Brabant" are much older than the modern political entities which they represent today, but were already being used in the region when political boundaries were different. For example, Louis de Haynin wrote as follows in 1628:<ref>Louis de Haynin, ''Histoire générale des guerres de [[Savoy|Savoie]], de [[Bohemia|Bohême]], du [[Electoral Palatinate|Palatinat]] et des Pays-Bas 1616-1627 par le seigneur Du Cornet, Gentilhomme belgeois'', avec une introduction et des notes par A.L.P. de Robaulx de Soumoy, Bruxelles, 1868, First published in 1628, pp. 6-7. French: ''La Belge selon qu'elle est, pour le présent, est un grand pays entre la [[France]], l'[[Germany|Allemagne]], et la mer Océane […] Elle se my-partit ordinairement en deux régions presque esgalles, c'est à scavoir en belge wallonne et belge [[German language|allemande]] ou [[Flemish dialects|flamande]], selon aucuns. La Wallonne a pour provinces l'[[Artois]], [[Lille]], [[Douai|Douay]] et [[Orchies]] autrement dite Flandre gauloise ou walonne: [[Cambrésis|Cambresis]], [[Tournai|Tournesis]], [[County of Hainaut|Haynaut]] et l'Estat de [[Valenciènnes|Vallencennes]], [[Namur]], Lothier ou Brabant wallon, [[Duchy of Luxembourg|Luxembourgues]] et [[Prince-Bishopric of Liège|Liège]]. [...] La Wallonne, suyvant la plus commune opinion, auroit esté ainsi nommée à raison de son langage françois...''</ref>
:The Belgian [region (''contrée'' or ''province'')] is a large country (''pays'') between [[France]], [[Germany]] and the [[North Sea]]. This country is typically divided into two regions [''régions''] which are about equal, which is to say, Belgian Wallonia and Belgian, or according to some, Flemish Germany [''belge wallonne et belge allemagne ou flamande, selons aucun'']."

De Haynin noted that the distinction people made in his time between Walloon and German or Flemish Belgium was apparently based upon language, with the Walloons speaking French, and the others speaking what he described as a type of [[Low German]] (''un bas alleman'') which people, especially foreigners, referred to as Flemish. Among the provinces within these two large Belgian regions he contrasted "[[French Flanders|French or Walloon Flanders]]", now largely within France, with the rest of "[[County of Flanders|Flanders]]", and "[[Lothier]] or Walloon Brabant (''brabant wallon'')" with the larger "German or Flemish" part of Brabant, which at that time stretched into what is now the [[Netherlands]].{{cn|date=April 2025}} Note that for de Haynin and his contemporaries "Belgium" was much larger than modern Belgium, corresponding to the old [[Burgundian Netherlands]] and its associated church-ruled principalities. "Belgium" therefore included all of the Netherlands and Luxembourg, and a part of France. In contrast, the term "Flanders" could be used for a smaller region than today, equivalent to the region once dominated by the [[County of Flanders]], near the [[North Sea]].{{cn|date=April 2025}} As already noted, de Haynin himself used the adjective "Flemish" to refer to the [[Dutch language]], including dialects outside the old Flemish region, but he noted that the term "Flemish" was now being used to cover a bigger area than it originally applied to, because of the prestige of the old medieval county, which was also well-known to foreigners.{{cn|date=April 2025}}