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Savoyard dialect

Savoyard
savoyârd
Native toFrance
RegionSavoy
Native speakers
(35,000 cited 1989)[1]
Latin
Official status
Recognised minority
language in
Italy (Franco-Provençal protected by statute)[2]
Regulated byInstitut de la langue savoyarde
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottologsavo1253

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

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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

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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

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References

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Notes

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  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