Augeron () is the Norman dialect of the

Pays d'Auge The Pays d'Auge (, literally ''Land of Auge'') is an area in Normandy, straddling the '' départements'' of Calvados and Orne (plus a small part of the territory of Eure). The chief town is Lisieux. Geography Generally it consists of the basin ...

. It is highly endangered. This dialect includes both coastal and inland areas.

Phonology

Augeron can be characterised by means of its position within the

isogloss An isogloss, also called a heterogloss, is the geographic boundary of a certain linguistics, linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or the use of some morphological or syntactic feature. Isoglosses are a ...

es that traverse the Norman-speaking territory. Situated near the division between Lower and Upper Normandy, it can be described as transitional, displaying as it does features typical of western and eastern dialects. Augeron lies north of the Joret line and therefore shares unpalatalised (example: = cat) and palatalised (example: = five) with the northern dialects from the insular varieties and Cotentinais in the west to Cauchois in the east. It lies west of the isogloss - (example: = conceal). It is at the easternmost boundary of the Norman dialects displaying this feature. By contrast, it lies east of the isogloss - (example: = place). It is near the westernmost boundary of the Norman dialects displaying this feature. Along with other northern dialects it displays a strongly aspirated (sometimes guttural) realisation of .

Literature

Compared to the insular varieties,

Cotentinais Cotentinais () is the dialect of the Norman language spoken in the Cotentin Peninsula of France. It is one of the strongest dialects of the language on the French mainland. Dialects Due to the relative lack of standardisation of Norman, there ...

and Cauchois, there has not been a long and well-documented literary tradition in Augeron. Gaston Lerévérend (1885–1962), born in Saint-Paul-de-Courtonne, wrote in Augeron. Collections of his poetry include ''L'hus entrebâyei'' (1919), ''Mei-j'vo-l'dis'', and ''L'hus bâyi'' (1955). Roger Dubos (1906–1994) although born in Pont-Audemer and therefore a representative of the dialect at its eastern boundaries, published a ''Dictionnaire du patois normand'' (called ''Le petit Roger'') and a collection of stories in French and Norman (Augeron): ''Nous autres Parisiens... Vôs z-ât' Paysans'' (1978). Newspapers and magazines have published literature in Augeron. ''Le Pays d'Auge'' published in 1958 a story in the

Honfleur Honfleur () is a commune in the Calvados department in northwestern France. It is located on the southern bank of the estuary of the Seine across from Le Havre and very close to the exit of the Pont de Normandie. The people that inhabit Hon ...

dialect: ''Maître Ursin rev'nant!''. Christian Lambert (pen name: Maît'Jules) published over 600 columns in a gallicised Augeron in ''L'Éveil de Lisieux''. Some of these columns were collected in a book ''Radotages de Maît'Jules'' in 1984.

References

*''Auteurs Normands: vous avez dit patois?'', Les Pieux, *''La Littérature patoisante'', Brionne 1984, *''La Normandie dialectale'', René Lepelley, Caen 1999, *''Radotages de Maît'Jules'', Christian Lambert, 1984 {{Gallo-Romance languages and dialects Norman language Calvados (department) Orne Eure