Lingualia LingualiaEurope’s regional and minority languages

Languages · Romance languages

Franco-Provençal

Spoken in : France, Italy

01. Data about the language

Language group

Indo-European / Romance

Area

Francoprovençal dialects are spoken in all of the valleys of the Valle d'Aosta and in some Alpine valleys in the region of Piedmont (province of Turin), viz. in Val Sangone, some parts of the Val de Suse, the Valle Cenischia, the valleys of Vij and Ala, the Val Grande, the Val Locana, the valley of Piantonetto and the Val Soana. A Francoprovençal linguistic island can be found in two communities in Pouilles: Faeto and Celle San Vito.
French is spoken in the Valle d'Aosta, where it comes under the influence of Francoprovencal dialects spoken locally, and in the region of Piedmont in some valleys in the province of Turin (Val Germanasea, and the valleys of Cluson and Pélis) where it comes under the influence of Occitan.

Updated, sourced data, checked on 14 October 2026 · scope : Italie (Vallée d'Aoste, Piémont occidental)

Numerical strength

At the start of the 21st century, Franco-Provençal was spoken by about 70,000 people in the Aosta Valley and 15,000 to 24,000 in Piedmont; recent estimates give 60,000 to 65,000 speakers in the Aosta Valley and western Piedmont, with uncertainty about the exact number1. According to the Fondation Émile Chanoux survey (2001), patois was the second most used language among Aosta Valley residents, especially in rural areas1.

Status

Franco-Provençal is protected by national Law 482/1999 and, in Piedmont, by regional law 21/20221. In the Aosta Valley, the patois, although protected, have never had a formal role, unlike French, which has deprived them of certain State measures1.

Education

Teaching Franco-Provençal at school was only seriously undertaken from the 1996–97 school year, mostly on request, in lower-secondary and nursery schools1. The René Willien Centre for Franco-Provençal Studies runs a summer school, and the Concours Cerlogne has been held in schools in the Aosta Valley and Piedmont for more than fifty years1.

Sources

  1. E. Autelli, « Il francoprovenzale e il francese nell'Italia settentrionale », Linguistik online 130, 6/24, Universität Bern (revue Linguistik online) ; auteure : universités d'Innsbruck et de Sassari, 2024.

02. Poem

Original Translation
La lenga de ma mére
The language of my mother
Quan dz'ëro petsou din lo brë, Mamma in tsanten dejet parë: "Në në dessu la pluma, In bon repou, Mon dzen petsou, Fé nëna, druma druma".
When I was in still in her arms, Here's what my mother sang: "Go have some rest, my baby, on your feather bed. My lovely baby, Go to sleep, beddy-bye."
Quan un Non tsëjet de se pot, Aprë llie dze dijò lo mot: (in dzeugnen le man). JEUSE... JESU, Josè Vardade-mè Cetta nët. Amejeuse.
Whenever a name fell from her lips, I used to repeat it after her: (Clasping my hands). JEUSE... JESUS, Joseph Protect me This night. Amen.
Lettre ma mamma sayet pà; A prèdzé llie m'at inségnà Sensa gneuna Grammère. Mè pi grantet, Dze prédzo adret La lenga de ma mère.
My mother couldn't read letters ; But she taught me to speak Without any grammar book. Now that I'm grown up I speak as one must My mother's tongue.
L'est de coteuma i dzor de vouë, Qu'atot d'entso su lo papë, In pout dëre (pachence!), Tan in patoè, Come in francè, Le bague qu'in se pense.
Nowadays it's usual, That with ink on paper, You can (finally!) say Both in patois And in French The things you're thinking.
In adzeublen et lettre et mot. Dz'aprouvo d'ecrire mè ettot Lo patoë de mon përe. Më! tot solet, Pouro vieillet, Que pourri-dzò tan fëre?
By moving letters and words, I too try to write The dialect of my father. But all by myself! Poor old man, How will I ever succeed?
Jean-Baptiste Cerlogne (da Dzan-Pouro, 1892)

03. Linguistic description

Franco-Provençal is a Gallo-Romance language, close to French but distinct from it2. Its name was coined in 1874 by the linguist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli, who made it a group of its own; this classification was at first disputed by Paul Meyer and Gaston Paris1. It is a highly fragmented set of non-standardised patois, which makes drawing boundaries between them difficult1.

Sources

The 2003 CD had no description of this language: this text was written for the site from the sources below.

  1. E. Autelli, « Il francoprovenzale e il francese nell’Italia settentrionale », Linguistik online 130, Universität Bern, 2024.
  2. Glottolog 5.3 – Arpitan, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 2025.

04. Cartoon

La petite souris qui cherchait un mari - Francoprovençal
Story read over pictures (no cartoon found) · 6 min 19 s · channel: Webécole Youtube · YouTube

Video hosted on YouTube and published by the channel shown; its author may remove it at any time.