Fleming and Walloon, members of the two predominant cultural and linguistic groups of modern Belgium. The Flemings, who constitute more than half of the Belgian population, speak Dutch (sometimes called Netherlandic), or Belgian Dutch (also called Flemish by English-speakers), and live mainly in the north and west.  The Walloons, who make up about one-third of the Belgian population, speak dialects of French and live chiefly in the south and east.  https://www.britannica.com/topic/Fleming

It has been going on for what seems like forever:  the social tension between Belgium’s northern part, Flanders, and its southern part, Wallonia.  With separate histories, separate educations, separate languages and even separate governments, it can sometimes seem like there’s no Belgium to speak of.  So how did things get this far?  Much like with the Catalan independence movement in Spain, language is at the core of it all.  Unlike countries that are ripped apart from within by religious or ethnic differences, Belgium’s division rests mostly upon the fact that its Walloon inhabitants mostly speak dialects of French and its Flemish inhabitants mostly speak Dutch (a slight variation also called Flemish).  The reason for this is of course older than Belgium itself--the country only officially came into existence in 1830.  The language gap can actually be traced back all the way to Roman times, when a battle for influence raged between the Franks (Germans) and the Romans over Gaul (the area Belgium was originally part of).  For a long time in the 4th and 5th centuries the two groups pushed up against each other at a line formed naturally by connected forests, a line that roughly corresponds to the modern border between Flanders and Wallonia.  When the Franks finally pushed through to take over most of Gaul, the area now described as Wallonia was already steeped in the Roman language that would later evolve into French.  Nana Van De Poel  Read more and see graphics at https://theculturetrip.com/europe/belgium/articles/an-introduction-to-the-flemish-walloon-divide/

Walloon is a Romance language with about a million speakers mainly in Walloonia (southern Belgium) and Brussels.  It is also spoken in parts of northern France, Luxembourg and in Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA.  Walloon began to appear as a distinct language between the 8th and 12th centuries and started to appear in writing in the early 15th century.  https://www.omniglot.com/writing/walloon.htm

Flemish or Belgian Dutch (Belgisch-Nederlands) refers to the dialects of Dutch spoken in northern Belgium by about 6 million people.  They differ to some extent from the Dutch spoken in the Netherlands in terms of intonation and pronunciation, and there are minor differences in vocabulary, including loanwords from French and English not found in Standard Dutch.  The word Flemish can refer to the language spoken in the former County of Flanders, specifically West Flemish, but has come to mean all the varieties of Dutch spoken in Belgium.  https://www.omniglot.com/writing/flemish.htm

10 GREAT AUTHORS IN CHILDREN’S LITERATURE by Tsh Oxenreider   There’s something about quality children’s literature that sets it apart as a work of art--the creatively crafted illustrations, the brilliant word choice, the magical plots invented by brilliant minds.  Good children’s literature should pass the test of adults and kids alike.  Oxenreider's list of ten authors:  Eric Carle, Kevin Henkes, Steven Kellogg,  Ruth Krauss, Arnold Lobel, Robert McCloskey, Beatrix Potter, Margret and H.A. Rey, E.B. White, and Margaret Wise Brown.  Audible Kids has an enormous selection of good children’s books.  This is a lifesaver for those times when you don’t want your kids plopped in front of the TV, yet you don’t have time to read to them one-on-one. It shouldn’t substitute daily reading with them, but it’s a good additional supplement.  Lately, my four-year-old has been listening to The Complete Works of Beatrix Potter during her quiet times.  Next up is Wind in the Willows.  Guest poster Sara wrote a wonderful resource of 30 good ideas to instill early literacy--be sure to look through her list of ideas.  One of my favorite guidebooks is Honey for a Child’s Heart.  I’ve used this book many times to make our library selections, and the author, Gladys Hunt, also has a blog.  Ambleside Online provides a comprehensive list of twaddle-free books by age and grade.  This is meant for the Charlotte Mason homeschool method, but you can use it for free reading as well.

https://theartofsimple.net/10-great-authors-in-childrens-literature/  See also https://www.famousauthors.org/10-best-childrens-books-of-all-time and https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/28595-all-time-bestselling-children-s-books.html

The severity of drought conditions during the demise of the Maya civilisation about one thousand years ago has been quantified, representing another piece of evidence that could be used to solve the longstanding mystery of what caused the downfall of one of the ancient world's great civilisations.  Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University of Florida developed a method to measure the different isotopes of water trapped in gypsum, a mineral that forms during times of drought when the water level is lowered, in Lake Chichancanab in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula where the Maya were based.  Based on these measurements, the researchers found that annual precipitation decreased between 41% and 54% during the period of the Maya civilisation's collapse, with periods of up to 70% rainfall reduction during peak drought conditions, and that relative humidity declined by 2% to 7% compared to today.  The results are reported in the journal Science.  In periods of drought, more water evaporates from lakes such as Chichancanab, and because the lighter isotopes of water evaporate faster, the water becomes heavier.  A higher proportion of the heavier isotopes, such as oxygen-18 and hydrogen-2 (deuterium), would therefore indicate drought conditions.  By mapping the proportion of the different isotopes contained within each layer of gypsum, the researchers were able to build a model to estimate past changes in rainfall and relative humidity over the period of the Maya collapse.  Read more and see many graphics at https://phys.org/news/2018-08-scientists-severity-drought-maya-collapse.html  More information: N.P. Evans el al., "Quantification of drought during the collapse of the classic Maya civilization," Science (2018)   http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6401/498

Q.  What's the difference between a lama and a llama?  A.  A lama is a Tibetan priest, and a llama is an animal.  Trivia Challenge  Toledo Blade newspaper August 4, 2018  Bemused, the Muser muses that lamas and llamas are both animals.  Yes, humans are animals.

August 6, 2018  When the Romans expanded across Europe 2,000 years ago, they made inroads into almost every corner of the continent, fighting as far away as Scotland and sending its coins to what today is Estonia.  But Germany posed a particular challenge. In the year 9 of our modern calendar system, the Romans suffered an embarrassing defeat in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest near the modern day city of Hanover.  They never recovered from it and were permanently pushed back to the western side of the Rhine river, which separates Germany from south to north, 50 miles from Teutoburg.  Centuries later, it was marauders from Germany that finally brought an end to the western half of the Roman empire.  Yet the Romans were quite active on the western side of the Rhine and left behind a vast number of architectural masterpieces.  Archaeologists still keep discovering remnants of that part of German history.  And one of the most astonishing buildings from that era—the country’s oldest-known public library—is only now being uncovered.  Built about 150 years after the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, its walls recently reemerged after centuries of darkness during the construction of a new community center next to the city of Cologne’s famous cathedral.  At first, when the walls were discovered last year, researchers assumed that they had come across a community hall dating to the Roman era. But this summer, a more extensive analysis found that the building was most likely used to store up to 20,000 scrolls of parchment.  The room that researchers believe was used as a library was 65 feet long and 30 feet wide, with a 30-foot-high ceiling, according to estimates.  But what really captured the researchers' attention were the roughly 30-inch-deep wall recesses, which bore striking similarities with the setup of other rooms that were used as libraries during the Roman era.  Which parchments the library’s vast wall recesses accommodated about 2,000 years ago will remain a mystery—parchment and papyrus were notoriously fragile, and many libraries' collections disintegrated from lack of care over the years—but Cologne visitors will soon at least be able to take a closer look at the building’s foundations.  The community center’s parking lot that was supposed to be constructed on top of it will now host two fewer parking spaces than planned. Instead, a glass window on the ground will allow visitors to get a glimpse of an era long predating Europe’s current borders.  Rick Noack  Read more and see pictures at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/08/06/long-lost-roman-library-reemerges-germany-after-years-darkness/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6f2e9ffe4a9b

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1929  August 6, 2018  Word of the Day  klaxon  noun  A loud electric alarm or horn.  American inventor Miller Reese Hutchison, who created the machine later called the klaxon, was born on this day in 1876.  Wiktionary