Francoprovençal language: Difference between revisions
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Most Francoprovençal speakers call their language a ''patois'', often seeing it as a regional variety of French, but the consciousness of a Francoprovençal language has made some progress since the end of the 20th century. | Most Francoprovençal speakers call their language a ''patois'', often seeing it as a regional variety of French, but the consciousness of a Francoprovençal language has made some progress since the end of the 20th century. | ||
Intents of codification are quite recent and a standard written variety | Intents of codification are quite recent and a standard written variety has appeared in the 2000s.<ref>STICH Dominique (1998) ''Parlons francoprovençal'', Paris: L’Harmattan — STICH Dominique (2001) ''Francoprovençal: proposition d’une orthographe supra-dialectale standardisée'' [PhD thesis], Paris: Université Paris V-René Descartes — STICH Dominique (2003) (collab. Xavier GOUVERT, Alain FAVRE) ''Dictionnaire francoprovençal-français, français-francoprovençal'', Thonon-les-Bains: Le Carré. | ||
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Revision as of 07:08, 29 August 2008
Francoprovençal — sometimes called Arpitan — (natively francoprovençâl, arpitan, arpetan) is a Romance language spoken in a territory called Arpitania which comprises central eastern France, western Switzerland and northwestern Italy.
This minority language enjoys a legal protection in Italy, especially in the Aosta Valley, but has no offical recognition in France nor in Switzerland. Its usage remains quite important in Italy albeit the domination of Italian. It is severely threatened in Switzerland and France in front of the domination of French.
Most Francoprovençal speakers call their language a patois, often seeing it as a regional variety of French, but the consciousness of a Francoprovençal language has made some progress since the end of the 20th century.
Intents of codification are quite recent and a standard written variety has appeared in the 2000s.[1]
Despite its weak language consciousness, Francoprovençal has enjoyed a worthy and varied literature since the 13th century.[2]
The Francoprovençal-speaking area (Arpitania) is located between that of French (to the North), that of Occitan (to the South) and those of Northern Italian and German (to the East). It includes the boundary cities of Neuchâtel, Roanne, Saint-Étienne, Grenoble, Aosta and Fribourg and it is centered around the major cities of Lyon, Geneva and Lausanne.
Name
This situation between French and Occitan (or Provençal) explains the name Franco-Provençal, initially spelled with a hyphen, as it was coined by linguist Graziado Isaia Ascoli in 1873 when he revealed to the World the very scientific existence of this language.[3] But such a name appears to be misleading because Francoprovençal has original features and can't be described just as a mix of French and Occitan.[4] So several attempts have been made to adopt a better name: since the 1970s, specialists agree that Franco-Provençal has tot be spelled Francoprovençal (without hyphen) to underline the cohesion of this language.
The alternative name of Arpitan (from Arpes 'Alps') has been promoted by cultural activists since the 1970s but scholars are reluctant to use it.
Footnotes
- ↑ STICH Dominique (1998) Parlons francoprovençal, Paris: L’Harmattan — STICH Dominique (2001) Francoprovençal: proposition d’une orthographe supra-dialectale standardisée [PhD thesis], Paris: Université Paris V-René Descartes — STICH Dominique (2003) (collab. Xavier GOUVERT, Alain FAVRE) Dictionnaire francoprovençal-français, français-francoprovençal, Thonon-les-Bains: Le Carré.
- ↑ TUAILLON Gaston (2001) La littérature en francoprovençal avant 1700, Grenoble: Ellug / Université Stendhal
- ↑ ASCOLI Graziado Isaia (1878) "Schizzi franco-provenzali", Archivio glottologico italiano III: 61-120 [first version in 1873]
- ↑ TUAILLON Gaston (1972) “Le francoprovençal: progrès d’une définition”, Travaux de linguistique et de littérature vol. X/1: 293-339