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A long time ago, I remember reading about a work that showed that there were no distinct breaks in the local dialects as one travelled from west to east across France, and how at the easternmost areas, the dialect shared more in common with German than it did with the westernmost dialects. Now, many years later, I am trying to track down some concrete references to anchor this memory. But I have had no luck! I vaguely have the notion that the study was a classic or well-known one in linguistics, but this, too, might be wrong ...

Can someone help out? Either by affirming this is true with pointers to references, or by firmly knocking me on the head and telling me that I am misremembering in my old age due to the misadventures of a misspent youth?

EDIT:

So, maybe I am even more confused and I meant a French-Italian gradient rather than French-German. In which case, Ferdinand de Saussere's "Course in General Linguistics", Part 4 ("Geographical Linguistics"), Chapter 3 ("“Causes of Geographical Diversity”), describes part of the phenomenon:

“Just as one cannot say where High German ends and Low German begins, so also it is impossible to establish a line of demarcation between German and Dutch, or between French and Italian. Taking points far enough apart, it is possible to say with certainty ‘French is spoken here; Italian is spoken there’. But in the intervening regions, the distinction becomes blurred. The notion of smaller, compact intermediate zones acting as linguistic areas of transition (for example, Provençal as a half-way house between French and Italian) is not realistic either. In any case, it is impossible to imagine in any shape or form a precise linguistic boundary dividing an area covered throughout by evenly differentiated dialects. Language boundaries, just like dialect boundaries, get lost in these transitions. Just as dialects are only arbitrary subdivisions of the entire surface covered by a language, so the boundaries held to separate two languages can only be conventional one”

So, it does talk about the blending of French into Italian, without any distinct breaks between dialects. But it does not describe not the easternmost French dialects being closer to westernmost Italian dialects rather than the westernmost French dialects, which was the other part of what I remembered.

Glyphoglossus
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  • Are you sure you're not confusing "German" with "Italian"? French is much more closely related to Italian, as both are Romance languages. – brass tacks Jul 07 '17 at 00:49
  • @sumelic Or confusing French with Romance? One can definitely make the case that with non-pro-drop, no present progressive, no past without auxiliary, auxiliary etre, pronominal en... Parisian French works as much like Dutch, Luxembourgish or Alsatian as like Castilian Spanish. – Adam Bittlingmayer Jul 07 '17 at 19:48
  • Just because the Eastern dialects share more with German than the Western dialects doesn't mean that the East blends into German - they're still different language families! – curiousdannii Jul 08 '17 at 07:11
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    @sumelic Although I agree the starting point of the OP's question is somewhat based on a false assumption, it is clear to me they are not talking about the French language but about the local dialects spoken in France - some of them have a relationship to French (as belonging to Romance languages) but others have never had the slightest relationship to Romance languages. – None Jul 08 '17 at 09:19
  • I don't think it is possible for a continuum of French dialects to "blend" into German. The border population will be bilingual and use a lot of loanwords of the other language, but even each individual will be fully aware that when they speak "French" they are not speaking "German", and conversely. – Luís Henrique Jul 08 '17 at 11:19
  • Even between much more closely related languages, such as Brazilian Portuguese and Platine Spanish it is possible to establish boundaries - that's the reason we speak of Portuguese dialects of Uruguay but not of Spanish dialects of Rio Grande do Sul. – Luís Henrique Jul 08 '17 at 11:22
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    @LuísHenrique In the case of regional languages in France it is not a question of one language blending into the other across borders, they're very often the same regional languages on each side of the border, borders that have changed across the centuries. And I do not think one can compare regional languages in France with Brazilian Portuguese and Platine Spanish. No one speaks regional languages in France any more on an everyday basis. They've reached the stage where a few people are trying to bring back to life the languages of their ancestors. – None Jul 08 '17 at 16:20
  • @Laure - Well, the "blending" is on the title of the question, so it is up for discussion, confirmation or refutation. Of course, each regional language that is the same on each side of the border is either a romanic language or a germanic one. – Luís Henrique Jul 09 '17 at 02:45
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    @LuísHenrique We probably do not understand the question in the same way. Hence the first sentence of my question. For me - and I might be biased because I am well acquainted with the subjec of regional languages in France - it means there's a gradual shift of the myriads of regional languages from the west (What? OP doesn't say) to the eastern borders of France into German. Well, for me there's no discussion, that's false and easy to prove. Nissart or Francoprovençal have no relationship with German. – None Jul 09 '17 at 06:18
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    And at times there's no relationship at all with one regional language to the neighbouring one. – None Jul 09 '17 at 06:18
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    Ah, it looks like my befuddled mind might have added to the confusion. Perhaps I was mistaken regarding French-German. And what I am remembering is the French-Italian gradient, as suggested above. If this is the case, then I believe Ferdinand de Sauserre's "Course in General Linguistics", Part 4 ("Geographical Linguistics"), Chapter 3 ("“Causes of Geographical Diversity”) might be a starting point? Discussed in separate post below, due to length. – Glyphoglossus Jul 11 '17 at 00:31

1 Answers1

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Maybe I don't understand what you mean but saying "there were no distinct breaks in the local dialects as one travelled from west to east across France" sound to me as a complete fallacy. There's no absolute continuum between the different regional dialects of France.

If you look at the extreme west we have the Breton language which is a Celtic language. Going further west we find the Gallo which belongs to the Langues d'oïl family that covers most of northern France and has absolutely no relationship to Celtic languages. All the various langues d'oïl are indeed connected, and they belong to the Gallo-Romance languages, as do the Occitano-Romance languages that covers most of southern France.

Basque which is spoken in a small area in the south west of France (and north west of Spain) has absolutely no relationship with any other neighbouring language (and it is unrelated to any other known European language, it is even said it existed even before Romance languages)

What is true is that all border areas have transborder local dialects. Alsatian is closer to the language spoken on the other side of the border with Germany than to the French dialects west of Alsace, and that's logical when we know this area has changed hands several times, sometimes belonging to France, other times to "Germany".

The Nissart language belongs to the Occitan dialect and is closely related to Ligurian that is spoken in Italy on the other side of the border.

The Catalan language, also belonging to the Occitan dialects is spoken on both sides of the Franco-Spanish border.

In the same way the Breton language I was mentioning a few lines earlier is very close to the Celtic language spoken in Cornwall (no wonder since it was brought by the Britons in the Middle Ages).

This is not an exhaustive list, just some examples.

For further reference:

I'd like to add that local dialects are not usually spoken nowadays, except in Alsace perhaps. But they are a great subject of study !

None
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    Alsatian is not "a mixture of French and German". It is a bundle of Upper German (Alemanic) dialects. – fdb Jul 08 '17 at 10:58
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    @fdb I do not disagree with you. Follow the link in my answer. Whenever possible I have linked to pages in English. – None Jul 09 '17 at 06:43
  • Celtic languages are also PIE languages, so they are related to French. Thats being said, the Celtic language group is vastly different from the Italic language group. You are right about Basque being unrelated but "it is said" is a bit vague. By whom? Are they qualified to say that? – CJ Dennis Jul 10 '17 at 23:18
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    "no absolute continuum between the different regional dialects of France" ... maybe I misread de Saussere, or he is wrong, or things have changed since he was writing? – Glyphoglossus Jul 11 '17 at 00:36
  • @CJDennis There are references at the end of my answer, obviously they are not exhaustive, an answer on SE is not academic paper with umpteen bibliographic notes. Here's a paper by a linguist, specialist of the Basque Language. Proper academic research (except abstracts) he has produced or supervised not freely available, only abstracts. – None Jul 11 '17 at 05:53
  • @Glyphoglossus IMHO you are misreading what is only a small paragraph of Saussure's work, even though he was not a specialist of regional linguistics and research in regional linguistics has made great steps in over a century. You could take a map of France showing the myriads of regional languages in France and ponder on what he meant by "intervening regions, the distinction becomes blurred." , it does not mean there is a continuum from west to east. But I'm sure even in Saussure's days people new about the difference between Breton and Gallo or Basque and Occitan. – None Jul 11 '17 at 06:04
  • "....Basque which is spoken in a small area in the south west of France (and north west of Spain) ..." You certainly mean northeast. – Centaurus Jan 06 '18 at 16:23