Savoyard dialect

Savoyard
Savoyârd
Spoken in  France
 Italy
 Switzerland
Region  Aosta Valley
 Savoy
 Valais
Native speakers ± 35.000 speakers [1]  (date missing)
Language family
Writing system Latin
Official status
Official language in Italy (protected by statute).
France (region language).
Regulated by Institute Savoyard language
Language codes
ISO 639-3 –

Savoyard is a Romance language group with several distinct varieties that form a linguistic subgroup from the Arpitan (Franco-Provençal) language family. It is spoken in some territories of the historical Duchy of Savoy, nowadays a geographic area spanning France (in Savoie and Haute-Savoie), Switzerland (in the canton of Valais), and Italy (region of Aosta). The varieties are commonly known as patois. It has around 35 thousand speakers today.

Contents

Some words

Several subdialects of Savoyard exist that exhibit unique features in terms of phonetics and vocabulary. Among them, many words have to do with the weather: bacan (French: temps mauvais); coussie (French: tempête); royé (French: averse); ni[v]ole (French: nuage); ...and, the environment: clapia, perrier (French: éboulis); égra (French: sorte d'escalier de pierre); balme (French: grotte); tova (French: tourbière); and lanche (French: champ en pente).

Linguistic studies

Savoyard has been the subject of detailed study at the Centre de dialectologie of the Stendhal University, Grenoble, currently under the direction of Michel Contini.

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ Le francoprovençal, langue oubliée, Gaston Tuaillon in Vingt-cinq communautés linguistiques de la France, tome 1, p.204, Geneviève Vernes, éditions L’Harmattan.
Italics indicate extinct languages; bold indicates languages with more than 5 million speakers; languages between parentheses are varieties of the language on their left.