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.
The Savoyard language is included in the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages as a dialect of the Franco-Provencal. However, Savoyard is itself subdivided into many sub-dialects in almost all major valleys.
Savoyard has seen its number of speakers greatly decrease since the annexation of Savoy to France in 1860, in particular because of the prohibition of speaking it at school, military service, as well as during the two world conflicts. The 20th century saw the number of speakers decrease from almost all of the population of the Savoyard countryside to a few tens of thousands.
However, during the 1980s, a renewed interest existed with the organization of many international festivals of the Franco-Provencal language, the creation of several associations with the aim of safeguarding this language, in particular, the group of Conflans, and the "Institut de la langue savoyarde", the publication of many books (monographs, books, novels), as well as the teaching – although difficult, because of the lack of recognition as a regional language. Many exchanges between students who have taken this option are organized each year, especially during the Constantin-Désormeaux competition to reward the best work of students in this language. Bilingual signage is also beginning to be present in Savoy at the entrance of the agglomerations.
The way in which Savoyard must evolve, as for a possible pseudo-uniformization, a spelling common to the whole of the Franco-Provencal area, is however subject to many controversies between several currents. These currents are most often divided into two groups. Patoisants, a group mainly formed of retirees, who, for the most part, are native speakers, having unconsciously learned the language from an early age with their parents, often with regard to rural life, but who, for some of them, have only "re interested themselves" in the Savoyard at a late ageLe francoprovençal entre la France, la Suisse et l’Italie : langue diffuse, langue focalisée et enjeux de normalisation ; Natalia Bichurina: for the majority, they are for a preservation of the language, and its variations, prefer to use the graphie de Conflans (a type of semi-phonetic spelling). The other group, informal, is composed of the new speakers, whose most represented group is that of the arpitans. Most of these are intellectuals and have learned the language only late, voluntarily. Unlike the patoisants, they use the term patois only with native speakers, because they believe that for the general public, the term patois has a derogatory connotation, and only moderately use the word Franco-Provencal which is of a confused nature, they prefer the Arpitan neologism.
History Savoyard is a dialect of Franco-Provençal, itself a Gallo-Romance language that developed mainly from Latin and the Gaulish dialects, with a Burgundian substrate whose importance remains debated. Emerging during the Carolingian period, together with the wider Franco-Provençal linguistic area, Savoyard underwent a series of developments and divisions that shaped the modern dialect and its different valley-based varieties.
Origins and early medieval development The earliest development of Savoyard is associated with the Carolingian period, during the differentiation of the Oïl and Franco-Provençal linguistic areas. One explanation connects this separation with the political reorganization of northern Gaul after the reign of Clovis I, when Paris became the center of the Salian Frankish kingdom. As a result, linguistic developments characteristic of the Oil area were not always adopted in the Franco-Provençal area.
A major difference was the resistance of the Franco-Provençal area to the generalized final-stress pattern, or oxytonism, found in the Oil languages. Many final vowels, especially final -a marking the feminine, remained weakly pronounced or unstressed. Thus Latin rosa developed into French rose, while Savoyard preserved forms such as reu or rouza.
On the main substrate of Savoyard, which is Latin, Celtic and Gaulish traces from a late Latinisation remained present in the Savoyard language. Indeed, the main difference between Occitan and Franco-Provençal is the date of Latinisation, which for the latter was later than for the former. As a result, the Celtic substrate is much more important in the Franco-Provençal domain than in the Occitan domain, as shown by the many words from Gaulish dialects incorporated into the language.
One example is the word BLIGITICARE, meaning “to milk” in Gaulish, which in Savoyard gave bloshyi / blotsyé / blostyé or , meaning “to finish milking” or “to milk a second time”. As with many other Gaulish forms that remained in Savoyard, one can observe the pejorative evolution of this word, “barbarian” in the eyes of Latin.
The Savoyard word nant, meaning “river”, which is now very common in Savoyard toponymy, is also a good example of the Celtic substrate. It is found in the Brittonic languages in related forms, such as Breton nant, meaning “canal”.
The Early Middle Ages were also the setting for barbarian invasions in Savoy, mainly by the Burgundians, who contributed a more or less significant number of words to Savoyard, such as tasson, meaning “badger”, and fata, meaning “pocket”. However, given the limited knowledge that linguists have of the Burgundian language, it is difficult to determine exactly the extent of the Burgundian substrate. It is therefore the subject of strong debate.
It should therefore be noted that Savoyard contains borrowings from Celtic languages, such as nant or nan, meaning “stream” or “torrent”, and from Burgundian, but also from neighbouring languages such as Occitan, and some from the Oïl languages. Nevertheless, the main substrate of Savoyard, as of the other Romance languages, remains Latin, including unstressed Latin final vowels, as in the name of the village La Giettaz, pronounced , where the final a is barely heard.
From the Middle Ages to the 19th century The beginning of this long historical period was marked by a phase of strong linguistic evolution and fragmentation, not limited to the Franco-Provençal area, and still unclear in the case of Savoyard. Indeed, the developments between the Oil domain and the Franco-Provençal domain occurred either in a more or less similar way, or in a completely different way.
In the 12th century, a notable development occurred similarly in both domains: the weakening or disappearance of preconsonantal s before a voiceless consonant, for example tsasté > tsaté. On the other hand, the split that had begun between the two linguistic groups under the reign of Clovis became partly more pronounced in the 13th century, especially through the reduction, in Old French, of the affricate consonants to — from Latin J, D + Y, and G + A — of to , and of to — from Latin C + I, E.
Thus, from the 13th century onward, the Latin words centus and vocem evolved in French in the following way: diŭrnus gave djorn > jorn > jour, and centus gave tsentus > cent. In Franco-Provençal, however, a different pattern can be observed, as follows: cinque > tsin(q) > þẽ / > thin, and djor > dzor > zor, with some dialects continuing toward z or , the sound of English th, except in certain parts of the Franco-Provençal area, where the forms in dz and ts were preserved for a longer or shorter period.
It is in this respect that a certain linguistic uncertainty remains, because and did not survive in exactly the same form throughout all of Savoy. Indeed, as shown by the map opposite, Latin C + A, whose original form gave, depending on the Savoyard variety, , , , , and more recently at Lanslebourg in the early 1900s. As for , it gave , , and .
Most of these developments remain uncertain. However, the period during which evolved into , and into , is probably the one mentioned above, namely the 13th century, since it was during the same period that Spanish likewise saw its evolve into the inter dental , identical to Savoyard sh.
The metatheses and found in the Val d'Arly and the Beaufortain remain mysterious, and few explanations have been offered. One of the rare studies carried out on this subject was that of Jules Cornu, who in 1877 published his study “Métathèse de ts en st et de dz en zd” in Romania, volume 6, no. 23. He proposed an explanation according to which the sounds and , not being simple sounds, result from a linguistic development. He therefore argued that a development of the type ts > sts > st and dz > zdz > zd is probably at the origin of this variation, which is unique within the Franco-Provençal domain.
In addition to linguistic developments, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance were also a golden age of Savoyard literature. Numerous writings recounting important episodes in the Duchy of Savoy flourished. Thus, the texts of Jean Menenc, who in 1590 praised the merits of Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy, include the following excerpt: David dè petit corsajut
Ot tantost met de revay
Goliaz, cé gro ravnajut,
Que facey tant le mavay.David de petite taille
Eut tôt fait de renverser
Goliath, ce géant ravageur,
Qui était si méchant. Texts were not always favourable to the Duchy of Savoy, as shown by Le plaisant discours d'un médecin savoyart emprisonné pour avoir donné advis au Duc de Savoye de ne croire son devin, an Old French title dating from the summer of 1600. The following is an excerpt: Creide me, ie vo en priou, Monsiou
On Ray é bin atrou qu'on Dou
Per m'arma, ie fechi bin coire ;
Y se fecha en gran colaire
E brammave com'on pati [...]
Lo ray en sa fransy n'a esta
Mai bin c'è trouva en savoay
Et é dou e ray, per ma fay! [...]Croyez-moi, je vous en prie, monsieur,
Un roi est bien différent d'un Duc.
Par mon âme, je le fis bien bouillir (de colère)
Il se mit en grande colère
Et meuglait comme un chiffonnier. [...]
Le roi n'est pas resté dans sa France
Mais, s'est bien trouvé en Savoie,
Et il est duc et roi, par ma foi ! [...]
From the 19th century to the present Savoyard was and remains a geographically variable language, because the formation of a unitary Franco-Provençal language was not facilitated by the territorial divisions experienced by the Rhône-Alpes region. Only Savoy, the Aosta Valley, Vaud, Geneva and Valais experienced greater linguistic independence, since they were not attached to France. Another cause of the variations in Savoyard is the presence of mountains. Indeed, this natural obstacle does not facilitate movement, due to rugged terrain, heavy snowfall, and other factors, and is the cause of the isolation of many villages and hamlets. The major effect of this near autarky is that variations can be felt between certain valleys, and sometimes even between certain villages. Franco-Provençal nevertheless continued to be used in most of the Northern Alps, including the Dauphiné, Lyonnais and Bresse.
From the 19th century onward, a very large number of studies of the Savoyard language appeared. These studies, carried out by linguists such as Aimé Constantin, Jules Gilliéron, Joseph Désormaux, Jules Cornu and Graziadio Isaia Ascoli for Franco-Provençal as a whole, led to the publication of many dictionaries, such as the Dictionnaire Savoyard by Aimé Constantin and Joseph Désormaux.