Savoyard dialect

"Savoyan" redirects here. For the French wine grape, see Mondeuse noire.

Savoyard
savoyârd
Native to	France
Region	Savoy
Native speakers	(35,000 cited 1989)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Italic Latino-Faliscan Romance Italo-Western Western Gallo-Romance Franco-Provençal Savoyard
Writing system	Latin
Official status
Recognised minority language in	Italy (Franco-Provençal protected by statute)[2]
Regulated by	Institut de la langue savoyarde
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	savo1253

Savoyard (endonym: savoyârd) 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.

Some words

Several subdialects of Savoyard exist that exhibit unique features in terms of phonetics and vocabulary. This includes many words that 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

• Languages of France

References

Notes

1. Le francoprovençal, langue oubliée, Gaston Tuaillon in Vingt-cinq communautés linguistiques de la France, 1989, tome 1, p.204, Geneviève Vernes, éditions L’Harmattan.
2. Norme in materia di tutela delle minoranze linguistiche storiche, Italian parliament, archived from the original on 2012-05-02, retrieved 2024-04-29