Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research (ASSEHR), volume 97 Proceedings of the 7th International Scientific and Practical Conference Current Issues of Linguistics and Didactics: The Interdisciplinary Approach in Humanities (CILDIAH 2017) Gallo language: distribution area, functional status’ dynamics and vitality factors A.S. Bukhonkina V.P. Sviridonova Institute of Philology and Intercultural Communication Institute of Philology and Intercultural Communication Volgograd State University Volgograd State University Volgograd, Russia Volgograd, Russia [email protected] [email protected] A.V. Stramnoy Department of Economy and Managements Volgograd State Technical University Volgograd, Russia [email protected] Abstract—This paper discusses the distribution area, the language, acquiring such characteristics as writing and functional status and vitality factors of the Gallo language institutionality. The rest of the Northern Romance dialects relating to the languages of the northern regions of France gradually started to fade away and eventually either (langues d'oil), and classified by UNESCO among the languages disappeared completely, preserved its rudiments in regional on the verge of extinction. The sociolinguistic situation in Upper dialects, or, as in the case of Gallo, began to be perceived as Brittany, where they speak Gallo, requires close attention: it is dialectal variants of the French language. However, it is worth more complex than in Lower Brittany, as the territory of the mentioning that Gallo is the only form of the Northern spread of its indigenous language is a buffer zone between the Romance speech that received the status of the regional continental romance habitat and Breton enclave in the west of the language, which is acknowledged by the Ministry of National peninsula. If the Breton language as a historical language of Education of France. Upper Brittany is well known in France and abroad, the Gallo language is little known. This due to the fact that the Breton Secondly, the Breton language being the basis of the language has been considered as the only true historical language Breton identity has always been considered the only true of Brittany. The paper analyses the dynamics of the functional language of historical Brittany and outmatched Gallo with this status of the Gallo because the interest in its study has really region being positioned as a successor of Celtic culture increased, its positions have strengthened, as well as the overall tradition. Breton has always had the status of the language social and cultural context related to regional languages in even if it was supplanted from the local communicative France has changed. In addition, the paper involves the analysis environment. According to H.Walter, “the Breton language, of the Gallo language generation transmission, actual number of the Gallo language speakers, spheres of its use and the degree of apparently being different from French, seems more Breton as its vitality in conditions of domination of the majority (the Romance forms of speech in Upper Brittany poorly contribute French) language and the other local language (the Breton to image creating of Breton, the non-romance region. In this language). regard, residents of Upper Brittany are not considered to be Bretons, unlike residents of Lower Brittany” [1]. Keywords— Gallo language; Upper Brittany; language vitality; II. DISTRIBUTION ZONE OF GALLO I. INTRODUCTION The term Gallo is of Breton origin and means “foreign, The Breton language as a historical language of Upper alien”. Initially, this word was used to refer to those who did Brittany is quite well known within and outside of France, not speak the Breton language. First written usage of this term whereas the language of Lower Brittany (Gallo) is little known dates back to XIV century. Since that time it was more and overshadowed by the former. This is due to several widespread in linguistic environment; the adaptation by the reasons. Firstly, for a long time Gallo had been wrongly native speakers was sporadic as they prefered to call it “patois, perceived as a distorted local variant of the standard French uncultivated speech” (patois, parler local). Currently, it is language. This perception was connected to the fact that both quite difficult to identify language facts of the Romance Gallo and French are related to the language group that region area as the major part of the spoken language in this originated from the Northern Romance speech, which includes area fits into the inherent form of speech (Gallo) along with poitevin, norman and picardian dialects. As a result of a acquired standard French. Due to the fact that Gallo and favourable historical and political context, French, among French have a lot in common, indigenous population does not other equal languages, received the status of supradialectal perceive this mixed form of speech as a regional language. Copyright © 2017, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press. 57 This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research (ASSEHR), volume 97 This can be proved by the results of several polls conducted in as it is relatively easy to distinguish and classify French form Brittany, which show that the local population does not of speech in this area. But it is incredibly difficult to say where understand the expression “regional French language” [2]. The Gallo begins if it really begins somewhere [6]. main problem facing specialists in northern French dialects, which are closely-related to French, is to define the borders As a result, conducting polls about the transmission and and separate them from regional variants of the French use of this idiom in everyday life is complicated. Standard language. For the majority of people, Gallo is still considered question for this analysis “How often and in what situation do to be ‘patois’. It is indeed difficult for a foreigner to hear you use the regional language?” does not require additional people spontaneously speaking Gallo as this form of speech is comments in the distribution zone of the Breton language, but used within families [3]. it can be misunderstood by native speakers of Gallo, as they cannot identify it (which is possibly wrong) as a “language”. Ille-et-Vilaine, the western part of Morbihan, the western Depending on social and age categories, informers can part of Côtes-d'Armor and the northern part of Loire- identify this form of speech as “Gallo”, “regional language”, Atlantique are traditionally considered to be a distribution “uncultivated speech”, “patois”. In this regard, those few polls zone of Gallo. Gallo is mainly spoken in rural areas and less conducted in Upper Brittany [CREDILIF, INSEE] avoid any common in cities. Residents of these areas understand the categorization and designation of local idioms using such local idiom worse than their parents and grandparents. Young terms as “Gallo”, “local idiom”, “regional language” and and middle-aged people have the least understanding of this “patois” as equavalents and choosing the same designation as language. Despite the significant decrease in the number of an informer does. people understanding and speaking Gallo, recently the number of those who want to study it as a part of school or university The first complex poll, showing the number of Gallo programme has increased [4]. speakers, was conducted in 1999 as a part of the project called «Étude de l’histoire familiale» (Study of family history) Moreover, the continuing social stigmatization of Gallo initiated by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic probably entails slight distortion of polls’ results, as Studies (INSEE). According to its results, the number of respondents, especially the young ones, can deliberately Gallo speakers in historical Brittany was estimated to be 28 underestimate (hide?) their communicative competence. In 000 or 1% of its population, thus at that time Gallo took the 4- particular, the tests conducted by ERELLIF linguistic th place in the region after French, Breton (11.3%) and laboratory of the University of Rennes 2 in partnership with English (4.3%) [7]. the Gallo Teachers' Association show that there is an obvious difference between reported and real respondents’ However, the results of this poll could give inexact competences. They overestimate the ability to understand information about the number of native speakers, as formal Gallo and underestimate the ability to speak it themselves [5]. categorization of Gallo was not given in the questionnaire. If a family circle used to be a channel for passing on Gallo, a The question “What regional language do you practice?” regional form of speech, from the older generation to the sounds incorrectly in Upper Brittany. Even those people who younger one, currently the situation has changed. Today use Gallo in everyday life could give negative response to this young generation first gets acquainted with the regional question because they use different designation for this language at school, whereas communication in Gallo within a language phenomenon and call it patois, dialect, regional family has decreased. French and local speech. The modality of the questions can significantly influence respondents and distort the real III. LANGUAGE PRACTICE. NUMBER OF NATIVE SPEAKERS sociolinguistic situation. In this case, “formal characteristics of the questionnaire determine understatement of