Arpitan

Arpitan, traditionally known to philologists as Franco-Provençal, is a Gallo-Romance language standing apart from the langues d'oïl of northern France and the Occitan of the south. It is the speech of the Western Alps: the Lyonnais around Lyon, the Dauphiné along the Rhône, the southern Jura, the Duchy of Savoy about Chambéry, and beyond the mountains the Romand lands of western Switzerland and the Aosta Valley of Italy.

Its deep dialectal fragmentation, into Savoyard, Lyonnais and many other local patois, reflects a history of mountain valleys and divided rule: the French crown held Lyon and the Dauphiné, the House of Savoy built its rising state around Chambéry, and the Swiss confederates governed the Romand cities. The language first appears in manuscripts of the twelfth century.

An edict of 1539, confirmed by the Savoyard parliament in 1540, installed French as the language of law and the courts, and French administration and schooling gradually reduced Arpitan to the domestic speech of isolated villages.