Blason populaire
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The term "blason populaire" originated from Alfred Canel's travelogue Blason Populaire de la Normandie (1859), in which people from Normandy boasted about themselves while sneering at other regions.
Blason populaire is an umbrella genre in the field of folkloristics used to designate any item of any genre which makes use of stereotypes, usually, but not always, negative stereotypes, of a particular group.
Items such as ethnic jokes or blonde jokes are very common examples of blason populaire.
Blasons populaires in Wallonia and Luxembourg
In Wallonia (Belgium) and Luxembourg, the concept of "blason populaire" refers to as demonym-like nickname of the inhabitants of a village or a city.
Blasons populaires come from the traditional languages (walloon, luxembourgish). They are never translated in French, as opposed to the demonyms which exist in French and in Walloon, often in two different constructions.
Some of them, which lost their pejorative meaning, are now used to name restaurants, theater groups, communal houses, etc. They are also used in pseudonyms of writers in Walloon.
