Savoyard dialect

Summary

Savoyard is a Franco-Provençal dialect of the Gallo-Romance family. It is spoken in some territories of the historical Duchy of Savoy, nowadays a geographic area spanning Savoie and Haute-Savoie, France and the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It has around 35,000 speakers today.

Savoyard
savoyârd
Native toFrance
RegionSavoy
Native speakers
(35,000 cited 1989)[1]
Latin
Official status
Official language in
Franco-Provençal protected by statute in Italy[2]
Regulated byInstitut de la langue savoyarde
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottologsavo1253

Some words edit

Several subdialects of Savoyard exist that exhibit unique features in terms of phonetics and vocabulary. This includes many words that 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 edit

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 edit

References edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ Le francoprovençal, langue oubliée, Gaston Tuaillon in Vingt-cinq communautés linguistiques de la France, 1989, tome 1, p.204, Geneviève Vernes, éditions L’Harmattan.
  2. ^ Norme in materia di tutela delle minoranze linguistiche storiche, Italian parliament