Linguistic borders, language revitalisation and the imagining of new regional entities

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Linguistic borders, language revitalisation and
the imagining of new regional entities
Michel BERT, DDL ICAR, University of Lyon,
France michel.bert_at_univ-lyon2.fr James COSTA,
ICAR, University of Lyon, France james.costa_at_ens-l
yon.fr
Borders and Identities Newcastle upon Tyne,
8-9 January 2010
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Identity 3 subnotions

• Identification
• Production of social image
• Sense of belonging
• (Avanza Laferté, 2005 144)

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Part 1. Regional contextRhône-Alpes, a recent
entity
French regions
The Rhône-Alpes Region
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Rhône-Alpes, a region without historical unity /
legitimacy
Current french regions and ancient provinces
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Rhône-Alpes, a region without geographic unity
Les Alpes
Le Beaujolais
Sud de la Drôme
LArdèche
Le Rhône à Lyon
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Rhône-Alpes, a region without linguistic unity
yellow the Rhône-Alpes region
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FORA a study on the vitality of Occitan and
Francoprovençal in Rhône-Alpes

• Appel doffre (juillet 2006)
• Dresser un bilan réaliste de la situation des
  pratiques sociolinguistiques en Rhône-Alpes mais
  aussi rendre compte des attentes et espoirs des
  habitants de Rhône-Alpes en la matière (Appel
  d'offre p.5)

• Préconiser les termes dune politique pour la
  Région Rhône-Alpes, proposer des outils à
  mettre en place afin que cette politique soit
  portée à la connaissance des acteurs concernés et
  du grand public. (Appel d'offre p. 2)

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FORA (Francoprovençal - Occitan -
Rhône-Alpes)methodology and conclusions

• Methodology
• Surveys
• Qualitative studies
• Conclusions
• 2 very endangered languages
• Few native speakers, all gt 60
• No language transmission in the homes
• Limited, private usages
• Teaching
• Nothing in Francoprovençal, weak in Occitan
• Associations (NGOs)
• Networks of associations very different between
  FP and Occitan
• Occitan Provençalists vs. Occitanists, 2
  different and competing perspectives

Initial qualitative studies locations
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Part 2. Focus on one consensual limit the
Francoprovençal/Occitan limit/border
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Linguistic criteria

• Francoprovençal / occitan a limit based on a
  phonetic trait
• Occitan Latin A remains a (or gt o) in all cases
• ex. segar "to scythe", filha "daughter", portar
  "to carry", luna "moon"
• Francoprovençal
• - Latin A preceded by a palatal consonant gt i,
  e, ø
• ex. sayi "to scythe", filli "daughter"
• - Latin A not preceded by a palatal consonant
  remains a
• ex. porta "to carry", luna "moon" 
• concerns a large number of words
• - Feminine nouns and adjectives
• - A double conjugation system
• Francoprovençal Occitan French
• verbs a vs i, e a e

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Occitan in Rhône-Alpesa transitional area?
The CA / CHA isogloss
Linguistic isoglosses in the Drôme (adapted from
Bouvier 1976 473)
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Occitan in Rhône-Alpesa transitional area?
The CA / CHA isogloss
Linguistic isoglosses in the Drôme (adapted from
Bouvier 1976 473)
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Who?

• Individuals
• Speakers
• Activists
• Institutions
• The State
• Ministry for Culture
• Ministry for education
• The Region

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Speakers
Occitan speakers meeting in the Pilat
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Activists Francoprovençal
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Activists Occitan
Occitanists
Provençalists
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The State

• The ministry for culture
• Languages listed in the Cerquiglinis 1999
  document
• Basque
• Breton
• Catalan
• Occitan (Gascon, Languedocien, Provençal,
  Auvergnat-Limousin, Alpin-Dauphinois)
• Francoprovençal
• (75 languages in total)
• The ministry for education
• Languages which can be taught
• Breton, Basque, Occitan, Catalan, Alsacian
  (German), Corse, Gallo and Flemish.

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The Rhône-Alpes Regional Council
Extract from the document adopted by the Regional
Council in July 2009 remarking that the Occitan
dialect mostly spoken in RA outside southern
Ardèche and Drome, vivaro-alpin or Eastern
North-Occitan, displays several common traits
with FP, authors explain that the RA region was
organised around Lyon as an economic centre, and
that FP originates in the linguistic influence
exerted by Lugdunum Lyon, in Gaulish and Latin.
From this they conclude that the vernacular
(...) constitutes the strongest and most ancient
elements of rhonalpine identity, since it proves
that there existed, for over two millennia, a
linguistic community comprising all the small
areas which now form the region
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Now what?

• Avanza, M., Laferté, G. (2005). Dépasser la
  construction des identités ? Identification,
  image sociale, appartenance. Genèses, 61(4),
  134-152.
• Bert M. (2001), Rencontres de Langues et
  francisation lexemple du Pilat, PhD thesis,
  University of Lyon2.
• Bert, M., Costa, J. Martin J.-B. (2009),
  Francoprovençal Occitan Rhône-Alpes (FORA),
  Report for the Rhône-Alpes Regional Council.
• Bouvier, J.-Cl. (1976). (1976), Les parlers
  provençaux de la Drôme. Etude de géographie
  phonétique, Klincksieck, Paris.
• Tuaillon, G. (1964), "Limite nord du provençal à
  lest du Rhône", Revue de linguistique romane,
  28, p. 127-142.