Welche is a little-spoken language of

Alsace Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...

. A

Lorrain dialect Lorrain is a language (often referred to as patois) spoken by now a minority of people in Lorraine in France, small parts of Alsace and in Gaume in Belgium. It is a langue d'oïl. It is classified as a regional language of France and has the ...

, it is closely related to French by the Oïl group. Its varieties include those of Bruche,

Villé Villé (; ) is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department and Grand Est region of north-eastern France. See also * Communes of the Bas-Rhin department The following is a list of the 514 communes of the Bas-Rhin department of France. The comm ...

Lièpvre Lièpvre (; ) is a commune in the Haut-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. A monastery was built here in the eighth century by Saint Fulrad, who filled it with relics of Saint Cucuphas and Saint Alexander. Geography The mun ...

Kaysersberg Kaysersberg (german: Kaisersberg ; Alsatian: ''Kaiserschbarig'') is a historical town and former commune in Alsace in northeastern France. The name is German for ''Emperor's Mountain''. The high fortress that dominates the town serves as a remi ...

and

Orbey Orbey (; german: Urbeis; gsw-FR, Urwes) is a commune in the Haut-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. See also * Communes of the Haut-Rhin department The following is a list of the 366 communes of the French department of ...

. The name ''Welche'' is a French spelling of Welsh, a word from Germanic languages such as English, used originally to refer to

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

speakers such as the

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...

, and later to Latin speakers after Latin was imposed on the Celts. The word Welsh has been adopted in Latin dialects (such as French) to refer exclusively to other Latin dialects (such as Welche). Welche,

and English are all distantly related through the

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

group and language-mixing.

Vocabulary

Being close to German-speaking areas, a lot of words have been borrowed from German.

External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/00000000000000if_/http://juillot.home.cern.ch/juillot/ban_de_la_roche.html - variety of

Ban de la Roche Le Ban de la Roche (german: Steintal) is the name of an ancient seigneurie, later a county. It is situated in Alsace, France, Département du Bas-Rhin. This small region is referred by its old Ancien régime name because of its strong identity and ...

* http://www.lapoutroie.fr/decouvrir/patois-welche.htm Welche patois * http://badonpierre.free.fr/salmpierre/tome3zf.html glossary Oïl languages {{Romance-lang-stub