New Speakers and Language Revitalisation: Arpitan and Community (Re)formation

Abstract

Today, it is uncontroversial to claim that France’s regional languages (RLs) are in decline. However, revitalisation movements have nonetheless continued to surface, and this chapter considers one by-product of such efforts: the emergence of new speakers in RL contexts. The term ‘new speaker’ refers to individuals who acquire the target language not through traditional transmission contexts (e.g. home, family), but instead as adults through language revitalisation initiatives. The chapter focuses on revitalisation efforts in the context of Francoprovençal, a severely endangered and understudied RL spoken transnationally across French, Italian and Swiss borders. A critical examination of current studies supplemented with recently collected empirical data shows new speakers to be central agents in a movement championing proto-nation-statehood across national borders, reorienting the region’s traditional sociolinguistic field.