Fourth International Summer School of
the 3L Consortium
3 July 2012: Conference 2 –
Francoprovençal et Revitalisation
Text and presentation by Jean-Baptiste Martin
Translation by Sara Brennan
Francoprovençal
I’m here to speak to you today about an endangered language, a very endangered
language at that, as I will soon explain: Francoprovençal, our regional language.
Francoprovençal is derived from Latin, which two millennia ago radiated outwards
from Lyon, known at that time as Lugdunum. Before becoming France, our country
was called Gaul. You of course know that the ancestors of the French were the
Gauls! It was called Gaul, or rather the Gauls, because the Romans, who had
conquered the region, distinguished between multiple Gauls. In the south, there
was Gallia transalpina or “the Trans-Alpine Gaul”, which was also called
Narbonnaise and was the first area to have been conquered. The rest, or rather the
majority, of the land was named Gallia comata or “Long-Haired Gaul” (a name
doubtlessly inspired by the shaggy locks of the men of the region). The LongHaired Gaul itself was divided into three provinces: Lyon, Belgium and Aquitaine.
Map No. 1
Before focusing on Francoprovençal itself, I’d first like to share with you some
information about the regional languages spoken in metropolitan France. As you
can see on Map No.1, France is considered to have nine regional languages if one
regroups the different dialects that constitute the Langue d’oïl as well as the
neighboring Germanic dialects such as Alsatian and the Platt of Moselle. These
languages are quite diverse, as some are derived from Latin while others hail from
different linguistic origins. The Latinate languages include the three Gallo-Romance
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languages, which are so named because they are derived from Latin and have
retained traces of the substrate Gaulish language. They occupy the majority of
metropolitan France (the Langue d’oïl from which French is derived was originally
the dialect spoken in the region of Ile-de-France, while Occitan was spoken in the
south and Francoprovençal in the eastern-central region). Also descended from
Latin are Corsican, related to Tuscan (the linguistic ancestor of Italian), and Catalan,
a language mostly spoken in Spain that is rather closely related to Occitan. At the
periphery of France, we find languages that are completely different because they
are not of Latin origin. These non-Latinate languages include Breton, a Celtic
language spoken in the west; Basque, a linguistic isolate found in the southwest (of
which the majority of the linguistic region located in Spain); Alsatian and Platt, two
Germanic languages spoken in the northeast; and Flemish, a language mostly found
in Belgium and the Netherlands whose domain extends south into northern France.
Francoprovençal has long interested linguists and non-linguists alike given both its
status as an intermediate language between the Langue d’oïl and Occitan and its
originality. This interest has provided the impetus for many a study. To give you
the most precise idea possible of Francoprovençal, I will discuss its geography,
history, principle characteristics, current weak vitality, and finally the actions taken
by associations and the Rhône-Alpes region to promote and revitalize the language.
Geographic Situation
As shown on Map No.2, the domain of Francoprovençal currently extends into three
countries: France, Switzerland, and Italy. In France, it is spoken in the following
departments: Loire, Rhône, Ain, Jura, southern Doubs, Haute-Savoie, Savoie, and
Isère. This area corresponds to the majority of the modern Rhône-Alpes region. In
Switzerland, Francoprovençal is spoken in the cantons of Neuchâtel, Vaud, Genève,
Fribourg and Valais (thus all of Suisse Romande, or Romandy, except for the canton
of Jura, which has Langue d’oïl origins). In Italy, it is mainly spoken in the Aosta
Valley.
Map No. 2
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From a linguistic point of view, Francoprovençal borders on the Langue d’oïl to the
north, Occitan to the west and to the south, Piedmontese to the southwest and
Alemannic to the northwest.
History
As already stated, the origins of Francoprovençal lie in the Latin which spread from
Lugdunum, the Roman colony founded in 43 B.C. by Lucius Munatius Plancus on the
Fourvière hill at the confluence of the Rhône and the Saône (the name fourvière
represents the regular phonetic evolution of the Latin FORUM VETUS, meaning
“ancient forum”). Gaining rapidly in importance, Lugdunum became the capital of
the Gauls in 14 A.D.
Francoprovençal itself represents the evolution of the Latin that emanated from the
major city of Lugdunum. In order to explain this diffusion of the language, Pierre
Gardette, a renowned Francoprovençal specialist, demonstrated the importance of
the roads through the Alps linking Lugdunum to Augusta Praetoria (Aosta) in the
direction of Rome. As seen in Map No.3, one of these roads passed to the north of
Lake Léman and crossed the Great St. Bernard Pass, and the other passed much
more to the south while following the Isère River and crossed the Little St. Bernard
Pass. Constituting something of an ellipse between Lyon and Geneva, the domain of
Francoprovençal corresponds fairly closely to the routes of these two roads.
Map No. 3
Specialists believe that Latinisation took place in two steps. First, there was a
Latinisation based on a fairly pure Latin, as was the case in the neighbouring
Narbonese, which experienced an earlier and more rapid Latinisation (thus
explaining its features shared with Occitan, Provençal in particular). Afterwards, a
second Latinisation based on a more popular Latin took place when forces from
Lugdunum set out to conquer Northern Gaul. Beginning in the 3rd century, there
was an increasingly strong orientation toward the north, which gradually shifted
the Roman Empire’s centre of gravity, leading to a split from the south and to a
realignment with the Gallo-Romance of the north. This development explains why
Francoprovençal is closer to the Langue d’oîl (and thus to French) than to Occitan,
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which has retained more Latin features (Occitan shares a certain number of points
in common with Italian or Spanish).
The birth of Francoprovençal corresponds to the segmentation of the GalloRomance of the north following two Germanic invasions. In Northern Gaul, the
settlement of the Franks beginning in the 5th century produced a Romance
language/Germanic language bilingualism that lasted for several centuries. The
Romance language eventually prevailed, but it was profoundly modified by contact
with the Germanic language. From then on, the language evolved in numerous
important ways, distancing itself greatly from its immediate ancestor Latin. There
was notably a weakening of the unstressed final vowels to ə at the debut of the
Carolingian dynasty (8th – 9th century—Charlemagne was king of the Franks from
768 to 814 and emperor of the Romans from 800 to 814). This change would lead
to the loss of these vowels, which in turn produced the last syllable stress
(oxytonisme) that is the defining characteristic of the Langue d’oïl and differentiates
French from all other Romance languages. In the Francoprovençal region, the
Germanic influence was much less strong (the Burgundians who occupied this area
mainly left their mark on the toponymy), and the Romance language evolved less
drastically and more slowly than in the north. As a result, Gaston Tuaillon, another
well-known specialist of Francoprovençal, defined the language as “proto-French
sheltered from certain Northern innovations”. Given its less dramatic evolution,
Francoprovençal remains much closer to Latin than does French; Occitan, however,
is still considerably closer to Latin than is Francoprovençal.
Characteristics
There are numerous phonetic and morphosyntaxic features particular to
Francoprovençal. I will start with the phonetic characteristics because they are the
most important and it is from them that the distinctiveness of the language and its
limits have been distinguished. It must be noted that the distinctiveness of
Francoprovençal was not recognized until the end of the 19th century. Until then,
the dialects of this region had either been classified as Occitan, which was known at
the time as Provençal, or as Langue d’oïl. It was the Italian linguist Graziadio Isaia
Ascoli who in 1873 first proclaimed the distinctiveness of these dialects and called
them Franco-Provençals. Although the name Franco-Provençal is not very fitting
because it leads one to think that the language is merely a blend of French and
Provençal (that is, Occitan), it has remained, though the hyphen between the words
has been eliminated to better indicate the distinctiveness of the language. Other
names (such as rhôdanien, lyonnais, français du sud-est) have been proposed, but
they have not been very successful. The most recent suggestion is Arpitan, which
means ‘language of the Alps’ (the Alps being called Arpes in Francoprovençal).
Modelled after Occitan, this term is primarily used by militants in the Alpine region.
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Phonetic characteristics
An important characteristic of Francoprovençal is the conservation of the
unstressed final vowels A and O marking feminine and masculine gender (in
Francoprovençal ala is pronounced “aile” and codo “coude”). In this way, this
language group distinguishes itself from the Langue d’oïl and thus from French,
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which has lost the pronunciation of all its final unstressed vowels (in French, aile
and coude each have one syllable, while in Marseille one hears two syllables
because the final ə is pronounced). Francoprovençal has thus preserved the
penultimate syllable stress (paroxytonisme) now lost in the Langue d’oïl, which has
moved the stress from the penultimate to the final syllable (and thus transformed
the paroxytons into oxytons). Possible penultimate stress (paroxytonisme) or
generalised final syllable stress (oxytonisme): this difference thus marks the
northern boundary of Francoprovençal (the limit between Francoprovençal and the
Langue d’oïl). In this way, Francoprovençal behaves like Occitan and the other
Romance languages.
Another major characteristic is the double evolution of the Latin A (unstressed or
stressed) conditioned by the nature of the preceding consonant. In
Francoprovençal, the A is only conserved when it is not preceded by a palatal
consonant; in the latter environment it becomes i or é (i in the Lyon region). Thus
Latin ALA is pronounced ala in Francoprovençal, but FILIA became filli with a final
i. Similarly, CANTARE became shanta, but MANDUCARE has become manzhi. A
considerable number of words used to establish the boundary between
Francoprovençal and Occitan have been produced by this change. Occitan has
conserved the Latin A and thus did not undergo this double evolution: one finds ala,
filha, cantar, and manjar in this language.
Another phonetic feature characteristic of Francoprovençal is the diphthongisation
of the Latin vowels E and O (short and long) as in French (for example, Latin PEDE
which became pied in French has become pié or pi in Francoprovençal). The
language also illustrates a nasalisation of vowels followed by the nasal consonants
M or N. This nasalisation developed in the same contexts as in French but has
produced different results, as Francoprovençal has conserved the original timbre of
several of these vowels while French has not. The following table illustrates this
phenomenon (Occitan has not been included because generally et either does not
nasalise the vowel or does so incompletely):
A+ N final (PANE)
Ĕ +N+cons. (VENTU)
Ē +N+cons. (VENDERE)
U +N final (UNU)
Francoprovençal
[ɑ̃ ], [pɑ̃ ]
[ɛ̃ ], [vɛ̃ ]
[ɛ̃ ], [ˈvɛ̃ dʁə]
[ɔ̃ ], [ɔ̃ ]
French
[ɛ̃ ], pain [pɛ̃ ]
[ɑ̃ ], vent [vɑ̃ ]
[ɑ̃ ], vendre [vɑ̃ dʁ]
[œ̃ ~ ɛ̃ ], un [œ̃ ~ ɛ̃ ]
In France, one says œ̃ in Lyon or to the south of this city. North of Lyon, and
especially in Paris, one says ɛ̃ (Parisians don’t know how to round their lips to
produce œ̃).
As for the consonants, there is a feature considered specific to Francoprovençal
because it is found in neither French nor Latin: the transformation of the Latin C
and G, word-initially or following a consonant, into interdental θ and ð in most of
Francoprovençal (ex., CANTARE became [θɑ̃ tɑ]). In Occitan, this C has been
entirely conserved in the south ([ka̰ ⁿta]) and has become ts in the north ([tsa̰ ⁿta]).
In French, the Latin C has become [ʃ] (chanter).
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Intervocalic consonants have been weakened and certain have become silent in
Francoprovençal as in French. In this way, these two languages differ clearly from
Occitan, which has been much more conservative, as the below table illustrates:
P
C
T
D
Latin
French
Francoprovençal
Occitan
SAPONE
PACARE
VITA
SUDARE
savon [saˈvɔ̃ ]
payer [peˈje]
vie [vi]
suer [syˈe]
savon [saˈvɔ̃ ]
payi [paˈji]
via [vja]
sua [syˈɑ]
sabon [saˈbu]
pagar [paˈɡa]
vida [ˈvida]
susar [sy'za]
- Morphosyntaxic characteristics
Among the features that do not arise from verbal morphology, it is worth noting the
following:
- The definite article has four different forms despite the absence of a final s
on the plural (for example, [lɔ] and [la] in the singular, [lu] and [le] in the
plural).
- Subject pronouns are used but can be omitted in numerous dialects for the
1st person singular and the 3rd person singular or plural.
- The language distinguishes between the neuter and the masculine singular
for the personal subject pronoun (m.s. i ≠ n. o) and for the complement (m.s.
lo ≠ n. o). This obligation to distinguish the neuter complement pronoun
from the masculine pronoun is so strong that is has spread to regional
French. In Lyon, one can often hear “Tu devrais y savoir, je t’y ai déjà dit”, a
phrase in which y represents the expression of the neuter pronoun. The
Lyonnais say “je le vois” when talking about Paul who is walking by, but “j’y
vois” when referring to what someone else has just said. This y is
undoubtedly derived from constructions such as “j’y pense’ (very close to “je
le pense”), and on the basis of “j’y pense”, the Lyonnais have created “j’y dis”,
“j’y fais”. This construction was born from the need of speakers from Lyon
and the Francoprovençal to distinguish the neuter from the masculine
singular. It is used from the south of the Morvan to Gap, from Saint-Etienne
in the west to Switzerland and Italy in the east.
- The possessive adjectives notron and votron have been created by analogy to
mon and ton (certain dialects of Francoprovençal even use loron).
It is impossible to cite here all of the many verbal features characteristic of
Francoprovençal, thus listed are a few of the most important:
- Two flexional endings are used for the verbs of the first group in the
infinitive, in the past participle, and in the 2nd person of the indicative
present and of the infinitive because A, adhering to the rule earlier
discussed, evolves differently according to the nature of the preceding
consonant (ex. porta “you (pl) carry” ≠ mangi “you (pl.) eat”).
- The flexional ending –o has been generalised in the 1st person singular in
many tenses (ex. portavo “I was carrying”).
- The –v suffix has been extended from the verbs of the first group to those of
the other groups (ex. venivo “I was coming” like portavo “I was carrying”).
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Another important characteristic of Francoprovençal is its fragmentation,
especially in terms of phonetics. This is mostly explained by the fact that from the
Middle Ages onward, the language lost its stronghold of Lyon. A major city of
France, Lyon had long (since the 13th century) gravitated towards the language of
the king, French, and had rapidly abandoned its own language. Joined to the
Kingdom of France in 1312, Lyon even went so far as to become an important
centre for the diffusion of French. As no other city took over the role as
Francoprovençal stronghold, the secondary evolutions of the language multiplied
and came about independently of one another.
A language in great danger
On the whole, Francoprovençal is an endangered language. In both France and
Switzerland, it is considered to be in very great danger because for all intents and
purposes, parents have not transmitted the language to their children for two
generations. With the exception of the militants, Francoprovençal is today only
spoken by people older than 60 or even 70. Very much devalued for many
centuries by the centralising French state and strongly opposed by the education
system since the 19th century, Francoprovençal drastically diminished in the first
half of the 20th century. The numerous and profound evolutions which have
fundamentally altered the social fabric, both urban and rural, for half a century have
accelerated and amplified the decline.
While still difficult, the situation of Francoprovençal is better in the Valley of Aosta,
which, as wrote Saverio Favre, today constitutes the citadel of the language. This
difference is explained by the fact that the Authorities of this autonomous region of
Italy have for decades unfailingly supported the language just as they have
supported French. Thus whilst the French school system strove to devalue and
eradicate the patois (‘dialect’, as the language was called), the schools of the Valley
studied and promoted it. Christiane Dunoyer, the director of René Willien Center of
Francoprovençal Studies, will explain the situation in the Valley of Aosta and the
support authorities give to the Francoprovençal language in her workshop.
It is difficult to estimate the number of Francoprovençal speakers: without a doubt
fewer than 150,000 could qualify as good speakers, which means that there are
fewer than 100,000 in the French region. But what is the meaning of the term
“good speaker”? In the FORA Study (Francoprovençal and Occitan in the RhôneAlpes region), Michel Bert and James Costa (the authors of this study) clearly
illustrate the importance of speakers who are difficult to get to know and to qualify.
This group includes, for example, “invisible” speakers and “latent speakers”.
Invisible speakers are those who do not want it to be known that they speak the
language. They still remember the stigmas of the schools of their youth that
punished and humiliated them for using their native language.
They were told: “you speak a language for barbarians or for the illiterate”, “this isn’t
a language”, “it’s useless”, “it’s nothing but a corruption of French”. Only for certain
Langue d’oïl dialects can one talk of the corruption of French—it isn’t entirely true,
but it isn’t completely baseless. But to say that Occitan is a corruption of French,
that Francoprovençal is a corruption of French—this is not at all relevant since
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these languages are much closer than French to the mother language, Latin; their
grammar is much closer than that of French to that of Latin. French is the least
Romantic of the Romance languages because it has incorporated a significant
Germanic influence; it is the most Germanic of the Romance languages.
For quite some time, the French State fought against the regional languages. For
example: until the 1940s, a kind of punishment known, depending on the region, as
“le signe”, “le signal” or simply “la patoise” was practiced in our schools. It was an
object (a wooden object or a coin of little value) that circulated in the classroom.
The first student caught speaking in patois was given the object, and the student
who had it in his possession at the end of the session (morning or afternoon) was
punished. The goal was to not have the circulating object: the second child caught
speaking in patois took the object from the first, the third took it from the second,
and so on. The system thus encouraged snitching. This object circulated for many
years. Thus, in 1904 (which is an important date for Occitan because that is the year
that Frédéric Mistral received the Nobel Prize in Literature for his work written in
Provençal, or Occitan), the primary school teacher in Maillanne, the village where
Mistral lived, punished the students in his school located near Mistral’s house when
they spoke in Provençal.
Now that this digression is over, I’ll return to the question of speakers.
The latent speakers no longer have the opportunity to speak the language but could
do it if they met other speakers. I finally learned, for example, that my neighbour in
the countryside knew how to speak the local Francoprovençal dialect over 20 years
after we had met. During those 20 years, as during the 30 preceding ones, she had
never once used the dialect that she had learned from her parents, with whom she
had lived for a considerable amount of time. Finally, there are also neo-speakers
who have voluntarily learnt the language outside of the family context, most often
through an association. In addition, there are a few children to whom
Francoprovençal has been transmitted by the family, but they are exceptional cases.
Towards a revival?
The FORA Study, which was undertaken at the bequest of the Rhône-Alpes Region,
not only studied the sociolinguistic situation of this region but also proposed a
certain number of measures likely to reverse or at least curb the decline of regional
linguistic practices, both in the case of Francoprovençal and in that of Occitan,
which is spoken in the south of the region. Following a debate of the Regional
Counsel that took place on July 9 2009, different measures have one by one been
put in place:
- nomination of an elected specialist of the domain (Mr. Michel Grégoire) and
the creation of a monitoring committee directed by another elected
specialist (Mr. Belkacem Lounès)
- hiring of a scientific advisor (none other than yours truly)
- assistance to associations or organisations working with regional languages
- support for manifestations in favour of regional languages
- support, by means of appeals to current projects, for research on regional
languages, especially concerning oral heritage and microtoponymy (the
microtoponyms are themselves in danger due to the loss of the regional
language and the transformation of the rural world),
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participation in the Academy of Occitan, the standing conference of the
Occitan language
assistance to publishing, notably by the creation, with the editor EMCC, of
the “Regionals” collection which aims to increase awareness of the written
literature in Francoprovençal or in Occitan produced in this region from the
Middle Ages up to the present
negotiation of an agreement with the Grenoble board of education to
facilitate the teaching of regional languages. There are issues with the
recognition of Francoprovençal, as it is not one of the regional languages
which can be chosen as an option on the baccalauréat,
commissioning of a feasibility study in anticipation of the opening of a
calandreta (a bilingual Occitan-French school) in the south of the region
consciousness raising of all involved actors through the organisation of
discussions taking place in June.
The objective of these measures and of the congress on regional languages that took
place in Lyon on June 21st is to encourage the use and the study of regional
languages. I believe that the best way to stem the decline of Francoprovençal (and
this holds true for Occitan as well) is first and foremost to rehabilitate the language
in the eyes of a general public still heavily influenced by all that was said in the past
to discredit it, especially by the education system. The elderly are still very much
influenced by what they were told in school, and they don’t question the education
that they received. This should, in my opinion, be a cultural movement, an
orientation which is reflected in the conference that will take place during the
annual festival of Francoprovençal dialects uniting both speakers and militants
from France, Switzerland and Italy. This year the title will be “Writing, Playing,
Singing in Francoprovençal in the 21st Century”. The goal is to see how to adapt to
the demands of modern youth and society. Based on their study currently in
progress, at the end of the conference Michel Bert and Bénédicte Pivot will propose
measures aimed at better coordinating the oft-fragmented actions of the
organisations and individuals interested in Francoprovençal.
Conclusion
It is difficult to say if all the efforts, current and future, will lead to a reversal of the
advanced decline of Francoprovençal. It is clear that Francoprovençal will never
again be the popularly spoken language it was a century ago. One can hope,
however, that the essential elements of the language will be saved thanks to jointly
coordination action, including the daily work of many organisations and individuals
and the support of the Rhône-Alpes Region, which is careful to not let this cultural
heritage spanning two millennia disappear. Francoprovençal still has the chance to
survive as a popular language if, as is already the case for Occitan, it becomes a
privileged vehicle of cultural creation. We will do all that we can to make this true,
as its disappearance would signal the end of a heritage that is the fruit of over sixty
successive generations who have inhabited this region since Latin replaced Gaulish.
Thank you very much for your attention and I thank Sara Brennan for her
translations.
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Thank you very much !
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