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 transalpinaor “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 Long-Haired 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 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
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, 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 Gallo-Romance 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.
-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, 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 əis 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):
FrancoprovençalFrench
A+ N final (PANE)[ɑ̃],[pɑ̃] [ɛ̃], pain [pɛ̃]
Ĕ +N+cons. (VENTU)[ɛ̃], [vɛ̃][ɑ̃], vent [vɑ̃]
Ē +N+cons. (VENDERE)[ɛ̃], [ˈvɛ̃dʁə][ɑ̃], vendre [vɑ̃dʁ]
U +N final (UNU)[ɔ̃], [ɔ̃][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 [θɑ̃tɑ]). In Occitan, this C has been entirely conserved in the south ([ka̰ⁿta]) and has become ts in the north ([tsa̰ⁿta]). In French, the Latin C has become [ʃ] (chanter).
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:
LatinFrenchFrancoprovençalOccitan
P SAPONEsavon [saˈvɔ̃]savon [saˈvɔ̃]sabon [saˈbu]
CPACAREpayer [peˈje]payi [paˈji]pagar [paˈɡa]
TVITAvie [vi]via [vja]vida [ˈvida]
DSUDAREsuer [syˈe]sua [syˈɑ]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”).
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 Rhône-Alpes 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 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.