Welcome to the United Nations 
OHCHR 
Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Francoprovençal, Vaud
SOURCE
Marie-Louise Goumaz
Francoprovençal, Vaud
Language Profile
TOTAL SPEAKERS
In the canton of Vaud (Switzerland), it is estimated that 20 (twenty) persons are still speaking and
writing it and are involved in teaching Francoprovençal and in yearly meetings where the patois is
used for public reading, song, poetry, text writing and theatre performance.
About 3 hundred people are able to understand it.
writing it and are involved in teaching Francoprovençal and in yearly meetings where the patois is
used for public reading, song, poetry, text writing and theatre performance.
About 3 hundred people are able to understand it.
USAGE BY COUNTRY (OFFICIAL LANGUAGE)
This language is spoken in the territory of the early medieval kingdom of Burgundy, shared between eastern France, northern Italy and western Switzerland. In Italy, Francoprovençal is spoken in the Aosta Valley, in the southern valleys of the Massif du Grand Paradis, in the valley of Cenischia (provincia di Torino) and in the villages of Apulian Faeto and Celle di San Vito. In France, it is spoken in the Rhône-Alpes region and in some parts of the regions of Franche-Comté and Burgundy. In Switzerland, francoprovençaux patois were spoken throughout the currently Frenchspeaking part of Switzerland, with the exception of the canton of Jura. Today, these dialects are still used in some areas of the cantons of Valais and Fribourg. In the canton of Geneva, where the Francoprovençal patois disappeared as vernacular, it remained in the traditional anthem Cé qu'è lainô (meaning: whichever is higher) of the Republic and Canton of Geneva (Switzerland), which tells the story of the Escalade commemorating the victory of the City of Geneva against the Duke of Savoy in 1602.BACKGROUND
This language, Francoprovençal, is also designated as Arpitan. The speakers of the local dialect call their language "patois". The origin of Francoprovençal is from a more classical Latin than the Latin spoken by the Gallo-romans in the territory of the future France, from which emerged two dialect groups: the langue d'oc and the langue d'oïl, from which belongs French. Thus Francoprovençal is not a bastardized French, it is a language by itself, like Catalan is.