"How is Wawre pronounced?" Topic

As in the place of the battle during the 100 days?

English or French pronunciation, either is fine.

Isn't it spelled Wavre?

youtu.be/9VDKQotXsvM?t=19s

Not sure that Grouchy would recognise the place now…..concrete and glass.

Interesting to be reminded how the locals pronounced the big battle…Watterlow……..

A Prussian might have talked of Vavre……just to complicate things

Like it sounds

As was mentionnned briefley in the video posted by Patrick R. There is an annual re enacment of the Battle of Wavre beginning of Juli. Most of the battlefield is actually on the outskirts of the town near to the present day Walibi amusement parc. The re enactment is rather good (medium sizes with approx 400 participants and more appprochable then the big onse in Waterloo. There are a number of sites left of the battle including a stoe marking the place where général Gerard was wounded, the cross of the Bridge "pont du christ (the actually bridge is replaced) and a cannonball lodged in a pillar of the church. Wavre itself is a busy commercial centre but the region around it still holds much of the rural aspect of the 19th century

Sorry I spelled it wrong :)

Do you know………you might be forgiven.

The title cannot be corrected….the text, at least, gives you that 60 minutes.

I get the feeling, after four visits, that Belgians give not a damn for their traditions and culture….unless a tourist attraction like Bruges. Otherwise, everything must be replaced with concrete and glass.

Bit like the land of my birth. Not a traditional farmstead or cottage left, just bungalows, like you would expect to see in a episode of a 1980s or 90s US soap opera.

Curious though….why did you ask?

deadhead : sorry but they do, it's just that they do not give Waterloo the same importance as the British do, because Waterloo for the Belgians is not the most important battle of Napoleon and is certanly not that representative for the era only because he lost there. Borodino and Marengo for ex. speak more to our imagination. When we play Nap's, there is allways a problem to find someone who wants to play the British (and has figures for them).
Besides that, Wavre is pronounced Wavre for us Belgians, for foreigners you could try the following : WA : wha and Vre, by pronouncing each letter one by one in cycle (the "r" rolled on your tongue), the "e" is pronounced as in "echo". The "r" will be the problem as that pronounciation does not exist in English.
As for "…that Belgians give not a damn for their traditions and culture" I would like to say that the English are probably only interested in their own culture and traditions and nobody elses. Please do not forget that England was paramount in the creation of Belgium in order to have a buffer-zone against France.

deadhead – Me and the kid has been reading up on Waterloo and it came up.

I'm familiar with a few French and Belgian town name pronunciations mostly from WW1 gaming but this one threw me for a loop :-)

Belgium must be a wonderful place, as all of Europe has been fighting over it for hundreds of years. As to the English and their attitude toward other cultures, it is that way only because God is an Englishman. :D

After all Wavre was just a side show to Waterloo, and the monument to Gerard was erected in 1958 so I think there is a lot of interest in our diverse heritage, only our history did not stop in 1815. (example: the bridge that was fought over in 1815 in Limal (near Wavre saw some very hard fighting in the first (or was it second,) world war and has a commemorative plaque for that period. Belgium (Flanders Wallonnia Brussels) might be a quanint little country, hard to follow what is happening there, but it is not only an open air museum of battles from a bye gone age. Again the axample of Wavre, it was a fairly unimportant small town in 1815, now it is the (still fairly small) capital of the province of Brabant Wallon.

AICUSV : I guess you must be right. I'm an Atheist anyway….

Vav-re

Frenchie: vavre
Belgian woavre

Good one Jcfrog!

Um, so, messieurs, 'wha' or 'va'?

As I said depends if you are local or Walloon. No joke.

Woaver in our local dialect (Flemish, just across the laguage border)

YouTube link

Walf-ra

"Local OR Walloon" ?

or "Local, or Walloon" ?

I am confused. This thread explains Belgum in a nutshell.

Wavre is in 'Brabant Wallon'
-so local pronunciation would be Walloon (as we say), that is the French dialect spoken in the southwest Franco-Belgian borderland, non?

So far we have:

Belgian Ray
Wha – Vre (the "r" rolled on your tongue, the "e" is pronounced as in "echo")

{? WA-VRR-É… Really?}

Jcfrog
Frenchie: vavre
Belgian woavre

Marcel1809

'French Flemish' woaver

and finally

1968billsfan

Walfra

which just looks like bad typing.

The YouTube link simply says, rather fetchingly:
Belgian: 'WA (long 'a') VRR-UH (schwa)'

-which is how I've always said to myself and, I think, heard it pronounced.

So….?

As for "…that Belgians give not a damn for their traditions and culture" I would like to say that the English are probably only interested in their own culture and traditions and nobody elses.

A fine example of bigotry begetting bigotry…

Janner, you are right. We must all be allowed a rant occasionally, though….even if it does mean a sweeping generalisation. I think I meant corporate Belgium rather than every individual!

All I am lamenting is the destruction of heritage buildings. My own country of birth (Ireland) has almost nothing left of country farmhouses…they are all anonymous bungalows. I can well understand Belgians not rejoicing in being "The Cockpit of Europe" but I was not only talking about military history. Try to do the walk from Wavre to Plancenoit and find anything left that is not concrete and glass.

Remember that those who contribute here are a select bunch who, by definition, want to remember events of the past. They are not the folk who want to run a motorway across the "Field of Waterloo", who demolished the Quatre Bras building, who almost let Hougoumont fall to the ground

It was overly harsh of me, DH, my apologies.

Happy 2017!

Hell no need…you are absolutely right! As is BelgianRay….but is he in a minority in his homeland?

I have only managed to insult an entire nation for just doing what most UK towns, every Irish farmer and the Cities of Singapore, KL or Beijing have been doing for years too.

If you go of the beaten track there is still something to see here and there, the area is still fairly rural (bearing in mind that in 1815 the Southern netherlands (Belgium ) had some 3.5 million inhabitants and now there are 11 million. La ferme du Walhain is still there(now fermme de la basse courtI believe) where Grouchy had his famous strawberyy lunch and argueing with Gerard over gunfire they could hear in the distance. The region around Plancenoit is also pretty rural, don't forget the monument to colonel Schwerin in Lasne, very much in the "middle of nowwhere" but you can really feel the atmosphere of the first clashes between French and Prussian cavalry as the latter approached the Waterloo battlefield.

There are actually quite a lot of streets in Wavre named after the battle (not always very accurate though) Voie du maréchal Grouchy, voie du général Blücher, venelle des Hussards, venelle des cuirassiers etc. These streets are near the battlefield but are just suburban villa's, nothing to see as such, still it shows wavre has not completely forgotten it moment of history.

Hi,

As one with Belgian ancestry I would respectfully suggest part of the problem is that the Wallons and Flemish do not really like each other. Only recently it took nearly two years to form a national government. The streets in Brussels all have names in French and Flemish simultaneously in order to emphasise the differences!

The country was devastated by invasions and two world wars so it is perhaps understandable that they are a bit ambivilent towards their history. Nevertheless when the effort is made such as Waterloo and the cloth hall at Ypres, the tourist revenue flows in.

I know I have tangented here but we British have plenty of form in these matters. Edge hill and Naseby have nothing and a small tower respectively to commemorate two of the pivotal battles of the civil war.

As for Wavre etc, Google Earth is a brilliant tool at ground level.
Happy New Year

Edge hill and Naseby have nothing and a small tower respectively to commemorate two of the pivotal battles of the civil war.

Yes, but they are of no interest to anyone outside Britain. Waterloo was literally epochal and of huge significance to all of Europe. It is not really on to treat it as just another battlefield like all the others in Belgium, which seems to be the way.

Hello.

As an avid Waterloo/ 100 days fan and visitor to these sites I agree with you completely.

Unfortunately, it is not me that needs convincing!

Happy modelling.

Chris

Have to say that I am so encouraged that such a simple question has led to such a debate.

it may just be me (my two 21 year old lads would certainly say so, even though both are now History graduates) and I know it is sad…..

But I think it matters.

Great thing about this forum. It can get "lively" at times, but it is chance to air our views

Have to say that I am so encouraged that such a simple question has led to such a debate.

it may just be me (my two 21 year old lads would certainly say so, even though both are now History graduates) and I know it is sad…..

But I think it matters.

Great thing about this forum. It can get "lively" at times, but it is chance to air our views

Well done everyone!

Was that a post one for each of your TWO 21 year old lads?

Edge hill and Naseby have nothing and a small tower respectively

There's a tower…?

The memorial is a small stump of a thing but there is an obelisk just off the road which is what I was referring to. Interestingly there is now a movement to preserve this part of our historical past with lottery funding applied for.

naseby.com

Back to Wavre, and members might find this energetic Belgian's work of interest.

link

Happy modelling,

Chris

The book shown at the bottom of the link placed by C M Dodson. Wavre by Alain Arcq, is a very readable account of the battle, a bit in an osprey format, with nice colour plates and Pics of the battlefield. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in the battle and able to read French.