Arpitania (Arpitan and Italian: ''Arpitania'', French: ''Arpitanie'') is a controversial term which denotes the purported ethnic or cultural unity of the

Western Alps The Western Alps are the western part of the Alpine Range including the southeastern part of France (e.g. Savoie), the whole of Monaco, the northwestern part of Italy (i.e. Piedmont and the Aosta Valley) and the southwestern part of Switzerland ( ...

, represented by speakers of

Franco-Provençal Franco-Provençal (also Francoprovençal, Patois or Arpitan) is a language within Gallo-Romance originally spoken in east-central France, western Switzerland and northwestern Italy. Franco-Provençal has several distinct dialects and is separ ...

(termed ''Arpitan''). "Arpitania" roughly corresponds to the historical

County of Savoy The County of Savoy (, ) was a State of the Holy Roman Empire which emerged, along with the free communes of Switzerland, from the collapse of the Burgundian Kingdom in the 11th century. It was the cradle of the future Savoyard state. Histor ...

and its successor state the Duchy of Savoy: *

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

(

Ain Ain (, ; frp, En) is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in Eastern France. Named after the Ain river, it is bordered by the Saône and Rhône rivers. Ain is located on the country's eastern edge, on the Swiss border, where ...

Rhône The Rhône ( , ; wae, Rotten ; frp, Rôno ; oc, Ròse ) is a major river in France and Switzerland, rising in the Alps and flowing west and south through Lake Geneva and southeastern France before discharging into the Mediterranean Sea. At Ar ...

Savoie Savoie (; Arpitan: ''Savouè'' or ''Savouè-d'Avâl''; English: ''Savoy'' ) is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Southeastern France. Located in the French Alps, its prefecture is Chambéry. In 2019, Savoie had a population ...

Haute-Savoie Haute-Savoie (; Arpitan: ''Savouè d'Amont'' or ''Hiôta-Savouè''; en, Upper Savoy) or '; it, Alta Savoia. is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France, bordering both Switzerland and Italy. Its prefecture is Ann ...

, a big part of the Isère department, southern Franche-Comté). The northwestern salient (roughly a strip between

Mâcon Mâcon (), historically anglicised as Mascon, is a city in east-central France. It is the prefecture of the department of Saône-et-Loire in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. Mâcon is home to near 34,000 residents, who are referred to in French as ...

and

Roanne Roanne (; frp, Rouana; oc, Roana) is a commune in the Loire department, central France. It is located northwest of Lyon on the river Loire. It has an important Museum, the ''Musée des Beaux-arts et d'Archéologie Joseph-Déchelette'' (Fre ...

) is seen linguistically transitional between Arpitan,

Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language, spoken in parts o ...

, and other Oïl languages. *

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

(

Aosta Valley , Valdostan or Valdotainian it, Valdostano (man) it, Valdostana (woman)french: Valdôtain (man)french: Valdôtaine (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = Official languages , population_blank1 = Italian French ...

, parts of

Piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

Faeto Faeto ( frp, Fayéte, ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Foggia in the Apulia region of southeast Italy. It is a mountain village lying astride the Apennines and renowned for its prosciutto, an Italian dry-cured ham known as . Residen ...

and

Celle di San Vito Celle di San Vito ( frp, Cèles de Sant Vuite, ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Foggia of the Apulia region in southern Italy. Located upon the Daunian Mountains, Celle di San Vito is by far the smallest municipality in Apulia. Unlik ...

in the

Province of Foggia The Province of Foggia ( it, Provincia di Foggia ; Foggiano: ) is a province in the Apulia (Puglia) region of southern Italy. This province is also known as Daunia, after the Daunians, an Iapygian pre-Roman tribe living in Tavoliere plain, an ...

, in Apulia) * Switzerland (

Romandy Romandy (french: Romandie or )Before World War I, the term French Switzerland (french: Suisse française) waalso used german: Romandie or , it, Romandia, rm, Romanda) is the French-speaking part of western Switzerland. In 2020, about 2 milli ...

, excluding the northern and western parts of Jura) The terms ''Arpitan'' and ''Arpitania'' (''Arpitanie'') are neologisms coined in the 1970s by Joseph Henriet (born 1945), a Communist school teacher who was influenced by the Basque activist

Federico Krutwig Federico Krutwig Sagredo (Getxo, 15 May 1921 – Bilbao, 15 November 1998) was a Spanish Basque writer, philosopher, politician, and author of several books, with ''Vasconia'' standing out in the political domain for its influence in the early ...

. In his ''Garaldea'' (published 1978), Krutwig names the Basques "Garalditans", a purported

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...

race which he claimed existed thousands of years ago. Looking for racial or linguistic remnants of the "Garalditans", he moved to the Aosta Valley in 1970, constructing Basque etymologies for local placenames. In Aosta, Krutwig befriended the young

Maoist Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Ch ...

activist Joseph Henriet. Influenced by Krutwig, Henriet declared the local patois the descendant of the Neolithic "Garalditan language". He later replaced the term ''garalditan'' with ''harpitan'', a conflation of the patois words ''arpa'' " alp", ''arpian'' "one who works on an alp", and the Basque etymology Basque ''harri-pe'' "under the rocks" proposed by Krutwig. Around 1980, Harriet dropped the Basque-inspired initial ''h-'', now proposing an "Arpitan confederation" (''Confédération arpitane'') uniting Savoy and the

Valais Valais ( , , ; frp, Valês; german: Wallis ), more formally the Canton of Valais,; german: Kanton Wallis; in other official Swiss languages outside Valais: it, (Canton) Vallese ; rm, (Chantun) Vallais. is one of the 26 cantons forming the S ...

(but not including the patois-speaking

Vaud Vaud ( ; french: (Canton de) Vaud, ; german: (Kanton) Waadt, or ), more formally the canton of Vaud, is one of the 26 cantons forming the Swiss Confederation. It is composed of ten districts and its capital city is Lausanne. Its coat of arms b ...

). With the failure of his Arpitan political movement, he retired to private life. The term ''arpitan'' since the 1990s has found usage beyond the immediate sphere of Henriet's activities, especially driven by online use. Pichard (2009) suggests its newfound success was due to the happy rhyme with ''

'' and the unwieldiness of the alternative ''francoprovençal''. The alternative term ''

patois ''Patois'' (, pl. same or ) is speech or language that is considered nonstandard, although the term is not formally defined in linguistics. As such, ''patois'' can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects or vernaculars, but not commonly to jargon o ...

'', while viewed with affection in Switzerland, has a condescending or "humiliating" connotation in France. An ''Aliance Culturèla Arpitana'' was founded in 2004.Gianpaolo Charrere
Ayas, un film sul sogno dell'Harpitanya
Aoste: La Stampa, 15 february 2012 an

Alain Pichard
Nos ancêtres les Arpitans
, 24 Heures, Lausanne, 2 May 2009 Regions of France Geographical, historical and cultural regions of France

References

Bibliography

* Jozé Harrieta oseph Henriet ''La lingua arpitana'', 1976. *

Mikael Bodlore-Penlaez Mikael Bodlore-Penlaez (born 1975) is a Breton author and cartographer. He co-edited, with Divi Kervella, the first bilingual Atlas of Brittany (French / Breton) who has received several awards, including the "Brittany's Prize of the Book". He ...

, «Savoy and Aosta, heart of the Arpitan people» in ''Atlas of Stateless Nations in Europe: Minority People in Search of Recognition'', Y Lolfa, 2011. *Les Alpes et leurs noms de lieux, 6000 ans d'histoire ? : Les appellations d'origine pré-indo-européenne., Paul-Louis Rousset, 1988, *Les mots de la montagne autour du Mont-Blanc, Hubert Bessat et Claudette Germi, Ed. Ellug, Programme Rhône-Alpes, Recherches en Sciences Humaines, 1991, .

External links

Aliance Culturèla Arpitana

Listen to some audio documents
in an Arpitan dialect. {{coord, 46, 9, N, 5, 52, E, scale:1000000, display=title Geography of Switzerland Geography of France Geography of Italy

See also

References

Bibliography

External links