Savoyard dialect

"Savoyan" redirects here. For the French wine grape, see Savoyan (grape).
Savoyard
Savoyârd
Native to France
Region Savoy
Native speakers
 35,000 (date missing)[1]
Latin
Official status
Official language in
 Italy (protected by statute).
France (region language).
Regulated by Institute Savoyard language
Language codes
ISO 639-3 –
Glottolog savo1253[2]

Savoyard is a dialect of Arpitan (Franco-Provençal). It is spoken in some territories of the historical Duchy of Savoy, nowadays a geographic area spanning France (in Savoie and Haute-Savoie) and Switzerland (in the canton of Geneva). The varieties are commonly known as patois. It has around 35,000 speakers today.

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.
  2. ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Savoyard". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
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