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Niçard dialect

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Niçard
niçard/nissart/niçart
Pronunciation[niˈsaʀt]
Native toFrance, Monaco, Italy
RegionCounty of Nice, Monaco, Italy
Latin
Official status
Regulated byConselh de la Lenga Occitana (classic orthography) / Félibrige (Mistralian orthography)
Language codes
ISO 639-3–
Glottolognica1249
Linguasphere51-AAA-gd
IETFoc-nicard
  Niçard in today's Alpes-Maritimes department, according to Dalbera[1]

Niçard/Nissart(Classical orthography), nissart/Niçart (Mistralian orthography, IPA: [niˈsaʀt]), niçois (/niːˈswɑː/ nee-SWAH, French: [niswa]), or nizzardo (Italian: [nitˈtsardo]) is the language that was historically spoken in the city of Nice, in France, and in the surrounding province. Nissart is an Italic language, close to the Ligurian and Corsican languages.

Most residents of Nice/Nissa and its region no longer speak Niçard, and the very few[quantify] who do are fully bilingual in French as Nissard has lost its function of a vernacular language decades ago.[according to whom?] Nonetheless, today there is a developing revival of the use of the language. Some local television news is presented in Niçard/Nissart (with French subtitles) and street signs in the old town of Nice are written in the dialect as well as in French. The Niçard/Nissart song Nissa La Bella is often regarded as the "anthem" of Nice.

Traditionally, Italian linguists maintained that Niçard originated as a Ligurian dialect. Before the annexation of the county of Nice to France in 1860, all the historical texts and archives of the city were written either in the Ligurian language, or in Italian. On the other hand, French linguists argue that Niçard is a dialect of Occitan while conceding that Monégasque is a dialect of Ligurian. However, Sue Wright notes that before the Kingdom of Sardinia ceded the County of Nice to France, "Nice was not French-speaking before the annexation but underwent a shift to French in a short time... and it is surprising that the local Italian dialect, the Nissart, disappeared quickly from the private domain." She also wrote that one of the main reasons of the disappearance of the Italian language in the County was because "(m)any of the administrative class under Piedmont-Savoy ruler, the soldiers; jurists; civil servants and professionals, who used Italian in their working lives, moved [back] to Piedmont, after the annexation and their places and roles were taken by newcomers from France".

Indeed, immediately after 1861, the French government closed all the Italian language newspapers, and more than 11,000 Niçard Italians moved to the Kingdom of Italy. The sheer scale of the Niçard exodus can be inferred from the fact that in the Savoy census of 1858, Nice had only 44,000 inhabitants. In 1881, The New York Times wrote, "Before the French annexation, the Niçois were quite as much Italian as the Genoese and their dialect was if anything, nearer the Tuscan, than is the harsh dialect of Genoa.

Giuseppe Garibaldi defined his "Nizzardo" as an Italian dialect, albeit with strong similarities to Occitan and with some French influences, and for this reason promoted the union of Nice to the Kingdom of Italy

Writing system[edit]

Niçard is written using two forms:

  • Classical orthography. Preferring the native traditions of the language, this form was developed by Robert Lafont (Phonétique et graphie du provençal, 1951; L'ortografia occitana, lo provençau, 1972) and Jean-Pierre Baquié (Empari lo niçard, 1984). It is regulated by the Conselh de la Lenga Occitana.
  • Mistralian orthography. Closer to written French, it was invented by the Félibrige (although there also exists an Acadèmia Nissarda).

An Italian orthography was abandoned when Nice joined the French Empire in 1861. It was briefly reinstated in 1942 and 1943 when Italy occupied and administered the city.

Orthography Comparison (from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
English Classical Mistralian
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. Toti li persona naisson liuri e egali en dignitat e en drech. Son dotadi de rason e de consciéncia e li cau agir entre eli emb un esperit de frairesa. Touti li persouna naisson lib(e)ri e egali en dignità e en drech. Soun doutadi de rasoun e de counsciència e li cau agì entre eli em' un esperit de frairesa.

Classification[edit]

The classifications of Occitan in dialects hesitate between defining Niçard as a specific dialect or including it in Maritime Provençal. Niçard is sharing some phonetical archaisms with Occitan areas as distant as Aranese, which is also using proparoxytone words. It is also sharing with Aranese a quite heavy influence of a neighbouring language (Catalan for Aranese, Italian for Niçard).[2] Regional differences are broadly accepted by linguists and French national education authorities in Occitan. Domergue Sumien defined in his PhD thesis[3] Occitan as a pluricentric language, and included Niçard among the seven regional standards to be taught.[4][5] The French Ministry of National Education uses either “nissart-langue d’oc”[6] or “occitan-langue d’oc nissart”.[7]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ a b Some Iberian scholars may alternatively classify Occitan as Iberian Romance.

References[edit]

  1. ^ Jean-Philippe Dalbéra. Les parlers des Alpes Maritimes: étude comparative, essai de reconstruction. London: Association Internationale d’Études Occitanes, 1994.
  2. ^ Domergu Sumien. “Classificacion dei dialèctes occitans”, Lingüistica occitana 7, 2009 "online" (PDF). Archived from the original on July 11, 2015. Retrieved May 18, 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  3. ^ Defence in 2004. Published as La standardisation pluricentrique de l’occitan. Nouvel enjeu sociolinguistique, développement du lexique et de la morphologie. Turnhout: Brepols. 2006
  4. ^ See the review of the thesis by Kathryn Klingebiel in Language Problems & Language Planning 32:3 (2008) pp. 293-296 https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/lplp.32.3.13kli#
  5. ^ See another review by Aitor Carrera in Llengua i ús: revista tècnica de política lingüística, 2008, Núm. 42, p. 83-91, https://raco.cat/index.php/LlenguaUs/article/view/128337.
  6. ^ "Arrêté du 13 janvier 2004 relatif à la liste des académies et des territoires d'outre-mer dans lesquels peuvent être subies certaines épreuves de langues vivantes à la session 2004 du baccalauréat général et du baccalauréat technologique". Journal officiel de la République française. n°18, 22 January 2004. https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000000600203
  7. ^ "Arrêté du 23 janvier 2006 relatif à la liste des académies et collectivités dans lesquelles peuvent être subies certaines épreuves de langues vivantes à la session 2006 du baccalauréat général et du baccalauréat technologique". Journal officiel de la République française. n°28, 2 February 2006. https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000000635818

Sources[edit]

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  • Andrews James Bruyn (1877) Vocabulaire français-mentonnais, Nice: no name [re-ed. 1977, Marseilles: Lafitte Reprints]
  • Baquié Joan-Pèire (1987) (collab. Andrieu SAISSI) Empari lo niçard / Apreni lo provençau, Nice: CRDP Nice / CDDP Alpes Maritimes
  • Barberis Francesco. Nizza italiana: raccolta di varie poesie italiane e nizzarde, corredate di note. Editore Tip. Sborgi e Guarnieri (Nizza, 1871). University of California, 2007
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  • Carles (Père) Pietro (1866) Piccolo vocabolario nizzardo-italiano, Nice
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  • Cerquiglini Bernard (2003) (dir.) Les langues de France, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France / Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication-DGLFLF: 125-136]
  • Cerquiglini Bernard (2000) Histoire de la langue française 1945-2000. Co-edited with Gérald Antoine. Paris: CNRS Editions, 2000.
  • Clapié Jaume, & BAQUIÉ Joan Pèire (2003) Pichin lèxico ilustrat, petit lexique illustré, niçard-françés, français-niçois, Nice: Serre
  • Compan André (1965) Grammaire niçoise [re-ed. 1981, Nice: Serre]
  • Compan André (1971) Anthologie de la littérature niçoise, coll. Biblioutèco d’istòri literàri e de critico, Toulon: L’Astrado
  • Dalbera Jean-Philippe (1984) Les parlers des Alpes Maritimes: étude comparative, essai de reconstruction [PhD thesis], Toulouse: Université de Toulouse 2 [ed. 1994, London: Association Internationale d’Études Occitanes]
  • Dalbera Jean-Philippe (2003) “Les îlots liguriens de France” [CERQUIGLINI Bernard (2003) (dir.) Les langues de France, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France / Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication-DGLFLF: 125-136]
  • Escola de Bellanda (2002) Diciounari nissart-francés, Nice: Fédération des Associations du Comté de Nice / Serre
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  • Forner Werner La dialettologia ligure. Problemi e prospettive in La dialettologia italiana oggi in G. Holtus, Tübingen 1985-1990
  • Gasiglia Rémy (1984) Grammaire du nissart, sl.: Institut d’Études Niçoises
  • Gauberti Pierre (1994) Dictionnaire encyclopédique de la langue de Peille [Pays Niçois], Nice: Serre
  • Gioffredo Pietro Storia dele Alpi marittime libri XXIV, in HPM 1839, Torino (originally published in 1662)
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  • Gourdon Marie-Louise (1997) Contribution à l’histoire de la langue occitane. Étude des systèmes graphiques pour écrire l’occitan (niçois, provençal, languedocien) de 1881 à 1919: itinéraires et travaux de A.L. Sardou, J.B. Calvino, L. Funel, A. Perbosc, P. Estieu [PdD thesis], Nice
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  • Miceu Giausep (1840) Grammatica nissarda: per emparà en pòou de temp lo patouas dòou paìs, Nice: Imprimarìa de la Sossietà tipografica [re-ed. Marie-Louise GOURDON (1975) La Grammatica nissarda de Joseph Micèu: biographie, étude sur les dialectes, commentaires philologiques, Nice: imprimerie Pierotti]
  • Pellegrini (Abbé) (1894) Lexique niçois-français, Nice: no name
  • Petracco Siccardi, Giulia L'amfizona Liguria Provenza Alessandria 1989
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  • Petracco Siccardi, Giulia Ligurien Lexicon der Romanistischen Linguistik II, 2, Tübingen, 1995
  • Sardou Antoine Léandre, & Calvino Jean-Baptiste (1881) Grammaire de l’idiome niçois, Nice: Visconti [re-ed. 1978, Marseilles: Laffitte Reprints]
  • Scaliero Giuseppe (1830) Vocabolario nizzardo, Nice: no name
  • Toscano Reinat (1998) Gramàtica niçarda, no place: Princi Néguer
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