Gallo is a regional language of eastern Brittany . It is one of the langues d'oïl , a Romance sub-family that includes French . Today it is spoken only by a minority of the population, as the standard form of French now predominates in this area.
106-470: Batz-sur-Mer ( French pronunciation: [ba syʁ mɛʁ] , literally Batz on Sea ; Gallo : Borg-de-Baz , Breton : Bourc'h-Baz ) is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France . The commune is situated on a former island, which until around the 9th century was separate from the mainland at Guérande and the neighbouring island of Le Croisic . The territory of
212-605: A Brittonic Celtic language traditionally spoken in the western territory of Brittany. In the west, the vocabulary of Gallo has been influenced by contact with Breton, but remains overwhelmingly Latinate. The influence of Breton decreases eastwards across Gallo-speaking territory. As of 1980 , Gallo's western extent stretches from Plouha ( Plóha ), in Côtes-d'Armor , south of Paimpol , passing through Châtelaudren ( Châtié ), Corlay ( Corlaè ), Loudéac ( Loudia ), east of Pontivy , Locminé ( Lominoec ), Vannes , and ending in
318-490: A Celtic language descended from Old Irish. Gallo is typically not mutually intelligible with French, primarily due to its differing phonology and vocabulary. This is in spite of what Paul Sébillot wrote in 1878: "[Gallo] is a dialect of French (...): it contains a considerable quantity of old words, a very small amount of words borrowed from Breton, and is, except for several local expressions (...) very easy to understand." The study of language has evolved considerably since
424-581: A French keyboard (ó, ú and r̃). The Vantyé spelling system was developed again by the Bertègn Galèzz association in the early 1980s, and is notable for its attempt to be closer to Breton . The letters k and w are not native to French, which prefers q and o plus a vowel to represent [k] and [w], respectively. Breton, however, uses k and w regularly, so the Vantyé system does as well. For example, ke ("that') and wézyaw ("bird"), compared to
530-550: A baseline and adjusting it to fit Gallo’s unique phonetic features, such as using lh to indicate palatalization and ë to represent schwa. Since then, other systems have emerged, such as ELG, MOGA, ABCD, and BAP. The ELG system (short for " écrire le gallo ", French for “write the Gallo [language]”), the oldest system, was proposed in 1978 by Alan-Joseph Raude and completely eschews French orthography. Raude based his writing system on medieval texts written in Gallo, therefore creating
636-493: A classic example of a dialect continuum, encompassing Norway, Denmark, Sweden and coastal parts of Finland. The Continental North Germanic standard languages ( Norwegian , Danish and Swedish ) are close enough and intelligible enough for some to consider them to be dialects of the same language, but the Insular ones ( Faroese and Icelandic ) are not immediately intelligible to the other North Germanic speakers. Historically,
742-469: A continuum until they have independent cultural status (autonomy), a process the German linguist Heinz Kloss called ausbau . Speakers of local varieties typically read and write a related standard variety, use it for official purposes, hear it on radio and television, and consider it the standard form of their speech, so that any standardizing changes in their speech are towards that variety. In such cases
848-457: A dialect continuum (excluding urban enclaves of Cantonese ). There are sharper boundaries resulting from more recent expansion between Hakka and Yue, and between Southwestern Mandarin and Yue, but even here there has been considerable convergence in contact areas. Cree is a group of closely related Algonquian languages that are distributed from Alberta to Labrador in Canada . They form
954-459: A dialect continuum, drawing lines called isoglosses between areas that differ with respect to some feature. A variety within a dialect continuum may be developed and codified as a standard language , and then serve as an authority for part of the continuum, e.g. within a particular political unit or geographical area. Since the early 20th century, the increasing dominance of nation-states and their standard languages has been steadily eliminating
1060-447: A dialect continuum, isoglosses for different features are typically spread out, reflecting the gradual transition between varieties. A bundle of coinciding isoglosses indicates a stronger dialect boundary, as might occur at geographical obstacles or long-standing political boundaries. In other cases, intersecting isoglosses and more complex patterns are found. Standard varieties may be developed and codified at one or more locations in
1166-764: A direct consequence of the Revolution. During this time, the Jacobins viewed regional languages as a way in which the structural inequalities of France were perpetuated. Accordingly, they sought to eradicate the regional languages to free their speakers of unconstitutional inequalities. Under the Third Republic , public education became universal and mandatory in France, and was conducted exclusively in French; students who spoke other languages were punished. Well into
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#17327838205501272-522: A distinct dialect, but the Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian standard varieties of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language are all based on the same dialect, Shtokavian . Therefore, Croats , Serbs , Bosniaks and Montenegrins communicate fluently with each other in their respective standardized varieties . In Croatia , native speakers of Shtokavian may struggle to understand distinct Kajkavian or Chakavian dialects, as might
1378-439: A group which also includes, among others, Catalan , Italian , Spanish , Portuguese and Romanian . Gallo has not just borrowed words from Breton, but also aspects of grammar; the use of the preposition pour as an auxiliary verb is said to be of Celtic origin. The relationship between the two is comparable to that of the two languages of Scotland: Scots , an Anglic language closely related to English, and Scottish Gaelic ,
1484-525: A language defined in this way may include local varieties that are mutually unintelligible, such as the German dialects . The choice of standard is often determined by a political boundary, which may cut across a dialect continuum. As a result, speakers on either side of the boundary may use almost identical varieties, but treat them as dependent on different standards, and thus part of different "languages". The various local dialects then tend to be leveled towards their respective standard varieties, disrupting
1590-464: A large extent, but those from distant regions are more difficult to be understood. The difference between the written standard and the vernaculars is apparent also in the written language, and children have to be taught Modern Standard Arabic in school to be able to read it. All modern Aramaic languages descend from a dialect continuum that historically existed before the Islamicization of
1696-544: A large number of phonemes varying from word to word and region to region. The many pronunciations of mai , from the Latin mé , illustrate this diversity: [maj], [ma], [me], [mɛ], etc. The pronunciation of Latin [o]/[u] in closed stressed syllables is more authentic in Gallo than in other langues d’oïl. Gùla , for example, is pronounced [gul] in Gallo, but [gœl] in French. Some terms, however, are influenced by neighboring langues d'oïl, and astour [astuʁ] ("now", from Latin hóra )
1802-684: A less arguable example of a dialect continuum. For many decades since Italy's unification, the attitude of the French government towards the ethnolinguistic minorities was copied by the Italian government. The eastern Romance continuum is dominated by Romanian . Outside Romania and Moldova, across the other south-east European countries, various Romanian language groups are to be found: pockets of various Romanian and Aromanian subgroups survive throughout Bulgaria , Serbia , North Macedonia , Greece , Albania and Croatia (in Istria ). Conventionally, on
1908-453: A play La fille de la Brunelas (1901). In the 1920's, Jeanne Malivel wrote Les Sept Frères , a story which was inspired by her grand-mother and was written in Gallo. This, in part, inspired the creation of the artistic movement Seiz Breur . It was in the 1970s that a concerted effort to promote Gallo literature started. In 1979 Alan J. Raude published a proposed standardised orthography for Gallo. The consonants in Gallo are almost
2014-487: A poetical text of 336 quatrains and the earliest known Romance text from Brittany, and to Le Roman d'Aquin , an anonymous 12th century chanson de geste transcribed in the 15th century but which nevertheless retains features typical of the mediaeval Romance of Brittany. Gallo is a language of oral tradition, whose history is rich with stories, fables, and legends. Gallese legends frequently address recurring characters, such as Gargantua and Morgan le Fay , or questions of how
2120-404: A purpose, which means that the silent h and double consonants are eliminated, except in certain specific cases (ll to indicate palatalization, etc.). Aneit has the same difficulties as ELG, since a speaker with a different pronunciation needs to know the standardized spelling to be able to decipher the written system. Another problem faced by Aneit is its use of diacritics not easily accessible on
2226-492: A rapid and ever-increasing decline since the 1850s. Standard Dutch was based on the dialects of the principal Brabantic and Hollandic cities. The written form of Standard German originated in the East Central German used at the chancery of the kingdom of Saxony , while the spoken form emerged later, based on North German pronunciations of the written standard. Being based on widely separated dialects,
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#17327838205502332-554: A result of centuries of interaction and multilingualism. The boundaries between the northern Mandarin area and the central groups, Wu , Gan and Xiang , are particularly weak, due to the steady flow of northern features into these areas. Transitional varieties between the Wu, Gan and Mandarin groups have been variously classified, with some scholars assigning them to a separate Hui group. The boundaries between Gan, Hakka and Min are similarly indistinct. Pinghua and Yue form
2438-422: A schwa ([ ə ]) in most regions. This distinction between [e] and [eː] makes it possible to differentiate past participles by gender and number. While in standard French, chassé , chassée, and chassés are all pronounced the same, most Gallo speakers make a phonemic distinction between the masculine chassé [ʃasə] and the feminine chassée or plural chassés [ʃase]. In this example, the pronunciation of é
2544-433: A schwa, and elsewhere it's a [ɛ] or an [e] (the geographical distribution is the same as for [e]/[eː]). The Latin [o] in open stressed syllables became a ue , then monophthonged in both French and Gallo around the 12th century, becoming [ œ ] in French, [ə] in Gallo. Cór thus became qheur . The evolution of the Latin [e] in closed stressed syllables is much more diverse, and the original diphthong éi has been replaced by
2650-559: A system authentic to the language without reference to other modern writing systems. Regional differences were less pronounced during the Medieval era, meaning ELG’s spelling choices are based on a more standardized form. In the words for finger, evening, and me (in French: doigt, soir, moi), which display regional pronunciation differences, the “oi” found in French is written as “ei”, giving the forms: deit, seir, mei, though [ei] will not be
2756-530: A tendency to underestimate their competence and choose thus to not report speaking it. This makes estimates of the number of speakers vary widely. Although a written literary tradition exists, Gallo is more noted for extemporised story-telling and theatrical presentations. Given Brittany's rich musical heritage, contemporary performers produce a range of music sung in Gallo (see Music of Brittany ). The roots of written Gallo literature are traced back to Le Livre des Manières written in 1178 by Étienne de Fougères,
2862-620: A visually distinct system for Gallo, but it requires learning and is not immediately intuitive for Gallo speakers, who may not even recognize it as Gallo upon first seeing it. ELG is used in some public places, such as for bilingual signage in the Rennes metro system. The Aneit system was introduced in 1984 by the Bertègn Galèzz Association, successor to the organization Friends of the Gallo Language. The system
2968-832: Is a group of closely related Algonquian languages in Canada , which is distributed from British Columbia to Quebec , and the United States , distributed from Montana to Michigan , with diaspora communities in Kansas and Oklahoma . With Cree, the Ojibwe dialect continuum forms its own continuum, but the Oji-Cree language of this continuum joins the Cree–Montagnais–Naskapi dialect continuum through Swampy Cree . The Ojibwe continuum has 70,606 speakers. Roughly from northwest to southeast, it has these dialects: Unlike
3074-463: Is a movement for standardisation on the model of the dialect of Upper Brittany . It is difficult to record the exact number of Gallo speakers today. Gallo and vernacular French share a sort of continuum, so speakers may have difficulty determining exactly which language they are speaking. Many people speak Gallo while using a considerable amount of French words and phrases, thus confounding the language question further. Moreover, Gallo speakers may have
3180-573: Is also used to make a syllabic [l] and [ʁ], as in berton [bʁˌtɔ̃]. Like all langues d'oïl , Gallo underwent the vowel shift known as Bartsch's law , according to which the Latin [a] in open stressed syllables, when preceded by a palatal consonant, became ie , as in cápra , which became chieuvr . As in French, the sound [j] represented by the letter i disappeared around the Renaissance, giving chèvre and cheuv , though this sound can still be observed in Côtes-d'Armor . In eastern Brittany,
3286-404: Is also used. The very common diphthong [aw] most often is the result of the disappearance of a consonant that existed in Latin. For example, fagu ("beech") became fao , and what once was two consecutive, separately pronounced vowels, [fau], has become a diphthong: [faw]. In some words, such as talpa , the [l] became a vowel, [u], and then [w], so [al] thus became [aw]: [tawp], while in French,
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3392-514: Is becoming [astœʁ] in eastern Upper Brittany. In the south of Loire-Atlantique , thanks to contact with Poitevin , [ɔ] is common, and guernol [gɛʁnɔl] and parto [paʁtɔ] are heard instead of guernouille [gɛʁnuj] and partout [paʁtu]. Gallo has diphthongs, just like Latin itself, other langues d’oïl, and other Romance languages. Diphthongs in Gallo generally use the semi-vowels [w] and [j], more rarely [ɥ]: [wa], [wə], [wi], [aw], [ja], [ju], [aj], [ej], [ɛ̃i], [ɥi], [ɥɛ̃], [ɥə], etc. The triphthong [jaw]
3498-520: Is closely related to Italian; in Italy, Ligurian , Piedmontese , Lombard , Emilian , Romagnol , Italian Gallo-Picene, Venetian , Friulian , Ladin ; and in Switzerland, Lombard and Romansh . This continuum is sometimes presented as another example, but the major languages in the group (i.e. Portuguese, Spanish, French and Italian) have had separate standards for longer than the languages in
3604-1000: Is identical or near-identical. The Germanic dialects spoken on the island of Great Britain comprise areal varieties of English in England and of Scots in Scotland. Those of large areas north and south of the border are often mutually intelligible. In contrast, the Orcadian dialect of Scots is very different from the dialects of English in southern England —but they are linked by a chain of intermediate varieties. The western continuum of Romance languages comprises, from West to East: in Portugal, Portuguese ; in Spain, Galician , Leonese or Asturian , Castilian or Spanish , Aragonese and Catalan or Valencian ; in France, Occitan , Franco-Provençal , standard French and Corsican which
3710-491: Is not done in all regions, and [j] is often replaced by [l]. The word pllée , for example, can be pronounced [pje] or [ple]. Germanic in origin, [ h ] generally hasn’t been pronounced since the 13th century, but it is still used in Mené, a small region around Merdrignac and Plémet . The vowel system of Gallo is close to French, but they diverged as they evolved, and Gallo has a number of phenomena not found in French, such as
3816-472: Is not yet a single writing system that is unanimously agreed upon, mainly due to regional pronunciation differences. The word for “me” could be pronounced any of the following ways: [maj], [mεj], [mej], [ma], [mε] or [me]. This large variance makes it difficult to pick a single written form that would be most suitable. If the orthography of French was used, the word could be written in countless ways: maï, maye, maille, mèï, mey, meille, ma, mé, mè , etc. However,
3922-461: Is now more difficult to recognize because many of the intervening languages have declined or become extinct. The Goidelic languages consist of Irish , Scottish Gaelic and Manx . Prior to the 19th and 20th centuries, the continuum existed throughout Ireland, the Isle of Man and Scotland. Many intermediate dialects have become extinct or have died out leaving major gaps between languages such as in
4028-412: Is perhaps most evident today in Italy, where, especially in rural and small-town contexts, local Romance is still often employed at home and work, and geolinguistic distinctions are such that while native speakers from any two nearby towns can understand each other with ease, they can also spot from linguistic features that the other is from elsewhere. In recent centuries, the intermediate dialects between
4134-447: Is replaced by [ ɛ ] or remains [e]. Some words do not obey the rule, such as pátre and mátre , which have become pere [peʁ] and mere [meʁ] in practically all of Upper Brittany, while [pəʁ] and [məʁ] are only heard in the center-west. The [a] in open stressed syllables before [ l ] doesn't follow the [e]/[eː] pattern either, and has evolved very differently in different regions. Sále has thus become sèl , sél , sé or seu . Schwa
4240-402: Is the result of five years' research throughout Upper Brittany, and takes its name from the brochure presenting it to the public: Nostre lenghe aneit ("our language today"). Also called "unified spelling", it follows in the footsteps of ELG in terms of its basis on etymology for its spelling. The Aneit system differs from ELG on a number of points, however. For example, every letter must have
4346-602: The Balkans in the west with Balkan Turkish , includes Turkish in Turkey and Azerbaijani language in Azerbaijan , extends into Iran with Azeri and Khalaj , into Iraq with Turkmen , across Central Asia to include Turkmenistan , Uzbekistan , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , to southern Regions of Tajikistan and into Afghanistan . In the south, the continuum starts in northern Afghanistan, northward to Chuvashia . In
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4452-462: The Breton word gall , meaning 'foreigner', 'French' or 'non-Breton'. The term was first used by Breton speakers, which may explain why it is used rarely by Gallo speakers themselves. Henriette Walter conducted a survey in 1986 which showed that just over 4% of Gallo speakers in Côtes-d'Armor had ever used the term, and a third of them found it "had quite a pejorative connotation". According to
4558-652: The British Isles . Julius Caesar 's invasion of Armorica in 56 BC led to a sort of Romanization of the population. Gaulish continued to be spoken in this region until the 6th century CE, especially in less populated, rural areas. When the Bretons emigrated to Armorica around this time, they found a people who had retained their Celtic language and culture. The Bretons were therefore able to integrate easily. In contrast to Armorica's western countryside, Nantes and Rennes were Roman cultural centres. Following
4664-588: The Constitution of France was amended in 2008. Article 75-1 asserts that "regional languages are part of the French heritage". Moreover, Gallo is the only langue d'oïl to be recognized as a regional language by the French Ministry of Education . Nevertheless, like all of the other regional languages of France, the use of Gallo has declined since the 19th century. Similar to speakers of other regional languages, Gallo speakers began to associate French as
4770-571: The Dutch , Frisian , Low Saxon and High German dialects formed a canonical dialect continuum, which has been gradually falling apart since the Late Middle Ages due to the pressures of modern education, standard languages, migration and weakening knowledge of the dialects. The transition from German dialects to Dutch variants followed two basic routes: Though the internal dialect continua of both Dutch and German remain largely intact,
4876-556: The East Slavic and West Slavic languages . East Slavic includes Russian , Belarusian , Rusyn and Ukrainian ; West Slavic languages of Czech , Polish , Slovak , Silesian , Kashubian , and Upper and Lower Sorbian . All South Slavic languages form a dialect continuum. It comprises, from West to East, Slovenia , Croatia , Bosnia and Herzegovina , Montenegro , Serbia , North Macedonia , and Bulgaria . Standard Slovene , Macedonian , and Bulgarian are each based on
4982-631: The Migration Period , these two cities, as well as regions to the east of the Vilaine , including the town Vannes , fell under Frankish rule. Thus, during the Merovingian dynasty , the population of Armorica was diverse, consisting of Gaulish tribes with assimilated Bretons, as well as Romanized cities and Germanic tribes. War between the Frank and Breton kingdoms was constant between
5088-520: The Romance languages , which are similarly descended from a language spread by imperial expansion over substrate languages 2000 years ago. Unlike Europe, however, Chinese political unity was restored in the late 6th century and has persisted (with interludes of division) until the present day. There are no equivalents of the local standard literary languages that developed in the numerous independent states of Europe. Chinese dialectologists have divided
5194-541: The Uralic languages . The Sami languages , sometimes mistaken for a single language, are a dialect continuum, albeit with some disconnections like between North , Skolt and Inari Sami . The Baltic-Finnic languages spoken around the Gulf of Finland form a dialect continuum. Thus, although Finnish and Estonian are considered as separate languages, there is no definite linguistic border or isogloss that separates them. This
5300-588: The modern vernacular dialects (or languages) branched from ancient Arabic dialects, from North Western Africa through Egypt , Sudan , and the Fertile Crescent to the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq . The dialects use different analogues from the Arabic language inventory and have been influenced by different substrate and superstrate languages. Adjacent dialects are mutually understandable to
5406-573: The 1990s, the main focus of the curriculum was cultural awareness of the Gallo language and identity. However, in 2002, Gallo's optional-subject status in secondary schools was withdrawn. In reaction to the 2002 decision, an effective and committed network of Gallo activists advanced Gallo's status in Brittany schools. Gallo is now taught in Upper Brittany's state schools, though the number of students enrolled in Gallo courses remains low. In
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#17327838205505512-674: The 19th century, however, and there is no longer any universally accepted criterion to distinguish decisively between language and dialect. The Celts settled in Armorica toward the 8th century BCE. Some of early groups mentioned in the written records of the Greeks were the Redones and the Namnetes . They spoke dialects of the Gaulish language and maintained important economic ties with
5618-472: The 2003-04 academic year, there were 569 students learning Gallo at secondary school or university. For comparison, in the same year, 3,791 students were learning Breton at the same levels of schooling. On December 17, 2004, the Regional Council of Brittany officially recognized Breton and Gallo as "the official languages of Brittany, alongside the French language." One of the metro stations of
5724-564: The 20th century, government policy focused exclusively on French. In 1962, Charles de Gaulle established the Haut Comité pour la défense et l'expansion de la langue française ; this committee's purpose was to enforce the use of French, to the detriment of minority languages. Furthermore, in 1994, the Loi Toubon declared that any governmental publications and advertisements must be in French. Gallo did not gain national recognition until
5830-511: The 6th and 9th centuries, which made the border between the two difficult to define. Before the 10th century, Breton was spoken by at least one third of the population up to the cities of Pornic and Avranches . Historically, France has been a nation with a high degree of linguistic diversity matched with relative tolerance, that is until the French Revolution . Gallo's status as a tolerated regional language of France suffered as
5936-588: The Breton capital, Rennes , has bilingual signage in French and Gallo, but generally the Gallo language is not as visibly high-profile as the Breton language, even in its traditional heartland of the Pays Gallo , which includes the two historical capitals of Rennes (Gallo Resnn , Breton Roazhon ) and Nantes (Gallo Nauntt , Breton Naoned ). Different dialects of Gallo are distinguished, although there
6042-655: The Continental West Germanic group, and so are not commonly classified as dialects of a common language. Focusing instead on the local Romance lects that pre-existed the establishment of national or regional standard languages, all evidence and principles point to Romania continua as having been, and to varying extents in some areas still being, what Charles Hockett called an L-complex, i.e. an unbroken chain of local differentiation such that, in principle and with appropriate caveats, intelligibility (due to sharing of features) attenuates with distance. This
6148-480: The Cree-Montagnais-Naskapi dialect continuum, with around 117,410 speakers. The languages can be roughly classified into nine groups, from west to east: Various Cree languages are used as languages of instruction and taught as subjects: Plains Cree, Eastern Cree, Montagnais, etc. Mutual intelligibility between some dialects can be low. There is no accepted standard dialect. Ojibwa (Chippewa)
6254-532: The Dutch and German standards do not show a high degree of mutual intelligibility when spoken and only partially so when written. One study concluded that, when concerning written language, Dutch speakers could translate 50.2% of the provided German words correctly, while the German subjects were able to translate 41.9% of the Dutch equivalents correctly. In terms of orthography, 22% of the vocabulary of Dutch and German
6360-472: The French que and oiseau . Silent letters are also avoided in the Vantyé system. Dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible , but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varieties may not be. This is a typical occurrence with widely spread languages and language families around
6466-456: The Levant and Mesopotamia. Northeastern Neo-Aramaic , including distinct varieties spoken by both Jews and Christians, is a dialect continuum although greatly disrupted by population displacement during the twentieth century. The Persian language in its various varieties ( Tajiki and Dari ), is representative of a dialect continuum. The divergence of Tajik was accelerated by the shift from
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#17327838205506572-643: The Perso-Arabic alphabet to a Cyrillic one under the Soviets. Western dialects of Persian show greater influence from Arabic and Oghuz Turkic languages, but Dari and Tajik tend to preserve many classical features in grammar and vocabulary. Also the Tat language , a dialect of Persian, is spoken in Azerbaijan. Turkic languages are best described as a dialect continuum. Geographically this continuum starts at
6678-758: The Turkic languages are very close to one another, and they share basic features such as SOV word order, vowel harmony and agglutination . Many of the Indo-Aryan languages of the Indian subcontinent form a dialect continuum. What is called " Hindi " in India is frequently Standard Hindi , the Sanskritized register of the colloquial Hindustani spoken in the Delhi area, the other register being Urdu . However,
6784-640: The [al] merged into [o]: taupe [top]. In northern Upper Brittany, diphthongs are used to express plurals: un martè [maʁtə], des martiaos [maʁtjaw]. In Loire-Atlantique, only the plural form is used. The nasal diphthong [ɛ̃ɔ̃], heard for example in grand ([gʁɛ̃ɔ̃] "great") is typical of western langues d’oïl and is also found in Norman , Poitevin-Saintongeais and Angevin , sometimes in slightly different forms ([aɔ̃] in Saintongeais, [ɛ̃ɑ̃] in Norman). There
6890-573: The basis of extralinguistic features (such as writing systems or the former western frontier of the Soviet Union), the North Slavic continuum is split into East and West Slavic continua. From the perspective of linguistic features alone, only two Slavic (dialect) continua can be distinguished, namely North and South, separated from each other by a band of non-Slavic languages: Romanian, Hungarian and German. The North Slavic continuum covers
6996-688: The commune is now part of the wild coast of the Guérande Peninsula with rocky cliffs, sandy beaches along the Atlantic Ocean and extensive salt marshes to the northeast and east. The town lies between the Bay of Biscay and its salt marshes and is a very Breton town of whitewashed granite houses. In 945 Alan II, Duke of Brittany , founded a priory in Batz-sur-Mer, dedicated to St Winwaloe . Its Benedictine monks developed
7102-493: The commune, with Laure de Berny, at the Calme Logis of Madame de La Valette. He wrote there Un drame au bord de la mer , which is set in nearby Le Croisic. The mathematician Pavel Samuilovich Urysohn drowned while swimming there with his colleague Pavel Alexandrov , who was greatly distressed by his failure to save his friend. Urysohn is buried in Batz-sur-Mer. The Musée des marais salants (or salt ponds museum )
7208-486: The complete loss of its grammatical case systems and adoption of features more commonly found among analytic languages . The barrier between East South Slavic and West South Slavic is historical and natural, caused primarily by a one-time geographical distance between speakers. The two varieties started diverging early on ( c. 11th century CE ) and evolved separately ever since without major mutual influence, as evidenced by distinguishable Old Slavonic , while
7314-412: The continent's largest language branches. The Romance area spanned much of the territory of the Roman Empire but was split into western and eastern portions by the Slav Migrations into the Balkans in the 7th and 8th centuries. The Slavic area was in turn split by the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in the 9th and 10th centuries. The Norwegian , Danish and Swedish dialects comprise
7420-458: The continuum which historically connected the Dutch, Frisian and German languages has largely disintegrated. Fragmentary areas of the Dutch-German border in which language change is more gradual than in other sections or a higher degree of mutual intelligibility is present still exist, such as the Aachen - Kerkrade area, but the historical chain in which dialects were only divided by minor isoglosses and negligible differences in vocabulary has seen
7526-416: The countryside was created. In the 19th century, oral literature was collected by researchers and folklorists such as Paul Sébillot, Adolphe Orain, Amand Dagnet and Georges Dottin. However, these authors frequently rewrote this literature in French. Paul Féval wrote certain dialogues in Gallo in his novel Châteaupauvre (1876). Amand Dagnet (1857-1933) also wrote a number of original works in Gallo, including
7632-575: The creation of a common writing system is important for ensuring comprehensibility of text across regions and making a dictionary. There are two main strategies that have been employed in past attempts at a writing system. One strategy proposes a single written form for words that will be pronounced differently according to the region. The other strategy proposes allowing a word to be written in multiple different ways, with different letters or letter combinations, to allow for speakers of Gallo to write according to their pronunciation. Another difference separating
7738-402: The disappearance of the sound was even more dramatic than in French, and some speakers say chen (dog), while the French word remains chien (from Latin cáne ). The Latin [e] in open stressed syllables has also evolved into ie in both Gallo and French, with hĕri becoming yere , for example. In Gallo, the vowel following the y differs from region to region. In most of Upper Brittany, it's
7844-693: The east it extends to the Republic of Tuva , the Xinjiang autonomous region in Western China with the Uyghur language and into Mongolia with Khoton . The entire territory is inhabited by Turkic speaking peoples. There are three varieties of Turkic geographically outside the continuum: Chuvash , Yakut and Dolgan . They have been geographically separated from the other Turkic languages for an extensive period of time, and Chuvash language stands out as
7950-487: The everyday language of Upper Brittany, Maine, and some neighbouring portions of Normandy until the introduction of universal education across France, but is spoken today by only a small (and aging) minority of the population, having been almost entirely superseded by standard French. As a langue d'oïl , Gallo forms part of a dialect continuum which includes Norman, Picard , and the Poitevin dialect among others. One of
8056-472: The features that distinguish it from Norman is the absence of Old Norse influence. There is some limited mutual intelligibility with adjacent varieties of the Norman language along the linguistic frontier and with Guernésiais and Jèrriais . However, as the dialect continuum shades towards Mayennais , there is a less clear isogloss . The clearest linguistic border is that distinguishing Gallo from Breton ,
8162-464: The idea of rejuvenating Gallo's presences in schools. They were primarily motivated in increasing the linguistic competence of children. In 1982, Gallo was officially adopted as an optional subject in secondary schools in Brittany, even appearing on France's secondary school-exit exam, the Baccalaureat. It took years for the Gallo language to actually be incorporated into the curriculum, but by
8268-568: The islands of Rathlin , Arran or Kintyre and also in the Irish counties of Antrim , Londonderry and Down . The current Goidelic speaking areas of Ireland are also separated by extinct dialects but remain mutually intelligible. Arabic is a standard case of diglossia . The standard written language, Modern Standard Arabic , is based on the Classical Arabic of the Qur'an , while
8374-486: The language of intellectuals and social promotion, and Gallo as an impediment to their success. As a result, the rate of children learning the language has diminished, since parents struggle to see the benefit of Gallo in their children's future. Within recent history, the presence of Gallo has fluctuated in Brittany's school system. Shortly before World War II, the Regional Federation of Bretagne introduced
8480-460: The local economy and apart from religion they devoted themselves to agriculture and to the maintenance of salt ponds . The historic church of Saint- Guénolé , or Winwaloe , largely dating from the 15th century, stands in the town centre. The church contains a 16th-century sculpture of the Madonna and Child, and its 17th-century belfry provides a significant local landmark. Climbing to the top of
8586-476: The local varieties into a number of dialect groups, largely based on phonological developments in comparison with Middle Chinese . Most of these groups are found in the rugged terrain of the southeast, reflecting the greater variation in this area, particularly in Fujian . Each of these groups contains numerous mutually unintelligible varieties. Moreover, in many cases the transitions between groups are smooth, as
8692-465: The local variety is said to be dependent on, or heteronomous with respect to, the standard variety. A standard variety together with its dependent varieties is commonly considered a "language", with the dependent varieties called "dialects" of the language, even if the standard is mutually intelligible with another standard from the same continuum. The Scandinavian languages , Danish , Norwegian and Swedish , are often cited as examples. Conversely,
8798-517: The major Romance languages have been moving toward extinction , as their speakers have switched to varieties closer to the more prestigious national standards. That has been most notable in France, owing to the French government's refusal to recognise minority languages , but it has occurred to some extent in all Western Romance speaking countries. Language change has also threatened the survival of stateless languages with existing literary standards, such as Occitan. The Romance languages of Italy are
8904-630: The most divergent from other Turkic languages. There are also Gagauz speakers in Moldavia and Urum speakers in Georgia . The Turkic continuum makes internal genetic classification of the languages problematic. Chuvash , Khalaj and Yakut are generally classified as significantly distinct, but the remaining Turkic languages are quite similar, with a high degree of mutual intelligibility between not only geographically adjacent varieties but also among some varieties some distance apart. Structurally,
9010-559: The national standard of Pakistan , while Hindus regard the same speech as Hindi , an official standard of India . Even so, the Eighth Schedule to the Indian Constitution contains a list of 22 scheduled languages and Urdu is among them. During the time of the former Socialist Republic of Macedonia , a standard was developed from local varieties of Eastern South Slavic , within a continuum with Torlakian to
9116-432: The nonstandard dialects that comprise dialect continua, making the boundaries ever more abrupt and well-defined. Dialectologists record variation across a dialect continuum using maps of various features collected in a linguistic atlas , beginning with an atlas of German dialects by Georg Wenker (from 1888), based on a postal survey of schoolmasters. The influential Atlas linguistique de la France (1902–10) pioneered
9222-544: The north and Bulgarian to the east. The standard was based on varieties that were most different from standard Bulgarian. Now known as Macedonian , it is the national standard of North Macedonia , but viewed by Bulgarians as a dialect of Bulgarian. Europe provides several examples of dialect continua, the largest of which involve the Germanic , Romance and Slavic branches of the Indo-European language family ,
9328-553: The northern half of France. This group includes a wide variety of more or less well-defined and differentiated languages and dialects, which share a Latin origin and some Germanic influence from Frankish , the language spoken by the Franks . Gallo, like the other langues d'oïl , is neither ancient French nor a distortion of modern French. The langues d'oïl are Gallo-Romance languages , which also includes Franco-Provençal , spoken around Savoy . These are in turn Romance languages ,
9434-453: The other hand, word-final silent consonants are retained to preserve the continuity between derived forms: fauc (false) (the final c is not pronounced) is related to fauchae (to mow), where the consonant is pronounced. In French, word-final e often serves to indicate an otherwise silent consonant should be pronounced, such as in grand [grɑ̃] and grande [grɑ̃d]. ELG indicates this with a doubled consonant: graund and graundd. ELG’s choices create
9540-422: The pervasive use of schwa and diphthongs . In Gallo, as in French, the [ a ] of Latin in stressed syllables has evolved into [ e ] or [ eː ]. Thus, adsátis became assé [ase]. However, while French has combined [e] and [eː] into just [e], a distinction was preserved in Gallo. The [eː], manifests, for example, when [a] was followed by [s], became either an [e] or a diphthong, most often [ej]. The [e] became
9646-427: The previous dialect continuum. Examples include the boundaries between Dutch and German , between Czech , Slovak and Polish , and between Belarusian and Ukrainian . The choice may be a matter of national, regional or religious identity, and may be controversial. Examples of controversies are regions such as the disputed territory of Kashmir , in which local Muslims usually regard their language as Urdu ,
9752-525: The pronunciation everywhere. Ruczèu ("stream", in French: ruisseau) is pronounced [ʁysəw] in eastern Upper Brittany and [ʁyzəw] in the west. The ae in Bertaeyn ("Brittany"), can be pronounced [ae], [aɛ], [aə], or other possibilities. The diagraphs oe, cz, and tz are notable distinguishing elements of ELG. Word-final e ceased to be pronounced as early as the twelfth century in Gallo, several centuries before French, so Raude proposes to not write them. On
9858-515: The proposed systems is their usage of silent letters and non-phonetic spelling. Some systems try to maintain a one-to-one correspondency between letters and sounds, whereas some choose to add silent letters or diagraphs in an attempt to better represent the sounds of Gallo. The first effort to codify Gallo spelling was undertaken by the Friends of the Gallo Language ( Association des Amis du parler gallo ) in 1977. It proposed using French spelling as
9964-450: The same as in French, but there are many local variants, such as the voicing of [ s ] into [ z ] in Pays de Retz and that of [ t ] into [ d ] in Pays de la Mée . Certain consonant combinations are also characteristic of certain regions, such as the plosives [ c ] and [ ɟ ], which can be compared to [ k ] or [ g ] followed by a light [ j ] sound. The affricates [ dʒ ] and [ tʃ ] appear in
10070-574: The south, east of the Rhuys peninsula, in Morbihan . While most often spelled Gallo , the name of the language is sometimes written as Galo or Gallot . It is also referred to as langue gallèse or britto-roman in Brittany . In south Lower Normandy and in the west of Pays de la Loire it is often referred to as patois , though this is a matter of some contention. Gallo comes from
10176-680: The speakers of the two with each other. Likewise in Serbia , the Torlakian dialect differs significantly from Standard Serbian. Serbian is a Western South Slavic standard, but Torlakian is largely transitional with the Eastern South Slavic languages (Bulgarian and Macedonian). Collectively, the Torlakian dialects with Macedonian and Bulgarian share many grammatical features that set them apart from all other Slavic languages, such as
10282-478: The survey, the term patois was the most common way of referring to the language. The term britto-roman was coined by the linguist Alan-Joseph Raude in 1978 to highlight the fact that Gallo is "a Romance variety spoken by Bretons". Gallo should not be confused with Gallo-Roman , a term that refers to the Romance varieties of ancient Gaul. Gallo is one of the langues d'oïl , a dialect continuum covering
10388-516: The term Hindi is also used for the different dialects from Bihar to Rajasthan and, more widely, some of the Eastern and Northern dialects are sometimes grouped under Hindi. The Indo-Aryan Prakrits also gave rise to languages like Gujarati , Assamese , Maithili , Bengali , Odia , Nepali , Marathi , Konkani and Punjabi . Chinese consists of hundreds of mutually unintelligible local varieties . The differences are similar to those within
10494-548: The tower gives a good view over the salt marshes and the Le Croisic peninsula . Batz was historically part of the Duchy of Brittany and is very near the south-eastern limit of the area in which there is evidence of Breton settlement in the early Middle Ages . The town remained part of Brittany until 1957 and the Breton language was still being spoken there as late as the early 20th century. In 1834 Balzac stayed in
10600-401: The use of a trained fieldworker. These atlases typically consist of display maps , each showing local forms of a particular item at the survey locations. Secondary studies may include interpretive maps , showing the areal distribution of various variants. A common tool in these maps is an isogloss , a line separating areas where different variants of a particular feature predominate. In
10706-495: The western dialect of common Old Slavic was still spoken across the modern Serbo-Croatian area in the 12th and early 13th centuries. An intermediate dialect linking western and eastern variations inevitably came into existence over time – Torlakian – spoken across a wide radius on which the tripoint of Bulgaria , North Macedonia and Serbia is relatively pivotal. The other major language family in Europe besides Indo-European are
10812-472: The western part of Haute-Bretagne , where, for example, the word curë [kyʁe] is pronounced as [tʃyʁə], and the word ghepe as [dʒep]. Elsewhere, [cyʁə] and [ɟəp] can be heard. Qhi , meanwhile, can be pronounced [ki], [tʃi] or [ci]. These modifications result from an advancement of the place of articulation of the palatal consonants . The semi-consonant [j] is used extensively to palatalize other consonants, notably [fj], [tj], [sj] and [pj]. However, this
10918-801: The world, when these languages did not spread recently. Some prominent examples include the Indo-Aryan languages across large parts of India , varieties of Arabic across north Africa and southwest Asia, the Turkic languages , the varieties of Chinese , and parts of the Romance , Germanic and Slavic families in Europe. Terms used in older literature include dialect area ( Leonard Bloomfield ) and L-complex ( Charles F. Hockett ). Dialect continua typically occur in long-settled agrarian populations, as innovations spread from their various points of origin as waves . In this situation, hierarchical classifications of varieties are impractical. Instead, dialectologists map variation of various language features across
11024-530: Was a shared spoken language among many of those who took part in the Norman conquest of England , most of whom originated in Upper (i.e. eastern) Brittany and Lower (i.e. western) Normandy , and thus had its part, together with the much bigger role played by the Norman language , in the development of the Anglo-Norman variety of French which would have such a strong influence on English. Gallo continued as
11130-422: Was changed when the silent feminine or plural endings were added to the word. Latin verbs with infinitives ending in - are followed the same evolutionary pattern as in French. Captiáre became chasser [ʃasə] in Gallo and chasser [ʃase] in French. This evolution of the [a] in stressed syllables varies from region to region. While in central Upper Brittany , schwa has replaced [e]. In some outlying regions, it
11236-515: Was founded in 1887 by Adèle Pichon, a local nun , after she realized that tourism would put an end to the local way of life, and this is now one of the oldest traditional local museums in France. See The works of Jean Fréour Sculptor of woman carrying salt outside this museum. Gallo language Gallo was originally spoken in the Marches of Neustria , an area now corresponding to the border lands between Brittany, Normandy , and Maine . Gallo
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