Alémanique. The German dialects of eastern France are divided into categories - alémanique and francique. Alémanique, spoken in southern Alsace, is relatively close to High German. It is known in the vernacular as Elsässerdeutch or Elsässich.
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Arpitan. Arpitan or Franco-Provençcale (not to be confused with Provençale) is spoken in Savoy. A separate Gallo-Roman language from either the langues d'oc (Occitan and Provençale) or the langues d'oïl (French, Gallo etc), it combines many elements of both, hence its name. Subdivided into many dialects, it is one of the most threatened regional languages of France.
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Basque. Thought to be possibly the oldest language spoken in Europe, the origins of Euskara or Basque are uncertain. It is however (along with the Finno-Hungarian family of languages) a non Indo-European language of great antiquity. Spoken throughout the Basque Country (in both Spain and France), it is one of the few regional languages of France to be in progression. Widely taught and transmitted to the younger generation, co-official language in north-western Spain, Basque would seem to have a relatively untroubled future ahead of it.
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Breton. Breton (along with Welsh, Cornish and Manx) belongs to the Brythonic group of Celtic languages. Despite being the mother-tongue of two nations, the Gaelic branch (Scotland, Ireland) has fared less well. Thanks to a certain isolation and a strong regional identity, the two main Brythonic languages, Breton and Welsh have retained a significant population of native-speakers. The drama for both is that those speakers are in both cases very predominantly of the older generation.
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Catalan.
With some six million speakers in north-eastern Spain, co-official status in Spanish Catalonia, official status in Andorra, Catalan is not a threatened language. In total it
may be spoken by the same number again in enclaves throughout Spain and France and the border-territories between and in the Balearic Isles. It is spoken by some 100,000 people
in French Catalonia (Roussillon). Since it is closely related to the langues d'oc (Occitan and Provençale), the three languages together, perceived as one single
family, are in fact the mother-tongue of the north-western Mediterranean.
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Corsican.
A dialect of Italian, close to Tuscan, but strongly influenced by the languages of southern Italy, Sicily and Sardinia, Corsican is spoken throughout the ïle de beauté
(except in the town of Villlier and Bonofacio where a Genoese dialect is spoken) and in the north of Sardinia. Owing to the violent nature of the Corsican separatists, much controversy has
raged over whether Corsican is a language as such but it has now won a measure of acceptance and is taught in primary schools on the island. Fierce Corsican independence probably ensures
its survival.
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Francique. The German dialects of eastern France are divided into categories - alémanique and francique. Francique, spoken in north Alsace, in north-eastern Lorraine and in the Moselle, is a related to Low and Middle German. It subdivides into several dialects, in some cases close to Dutch and in others similar to dialects of German fairly widely spoken in Belgium, Luxembourg and in Germany itself.
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Occitan. Historically, the mother-tongue of the whole of France south of a line drawn through the town of Vichy, Occitan is the sister-language of Catalan. In the south-east, it is generally known as Provençale. The langue d'oc (so-called because the word for 'yes' is oc) subdivides into countless different patois and, considering its wide geographical distribution, is spoken today by a relatively small (and declining) percentage of the population.
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French. The langue d'oïl (so-called because the word for 'yes' was oïl, later oui) is a teutonised form of Gallo-Roman that spread through northern France as a consequence of the dominance of the Franks. The various dialects (from normand to dauphinois) have succumbed to the dominance of standard French. Only Wallon (Belgium), jersais and guernsais (Channel Islands) and Gallo (the third language of Brittany) have really managed to maintain a separate identity and achieve a degree of official recognition.
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Gallo. of all the many original dialects of the langue d'oïl (so-called because the word for 'yes' was oïl, later oui), Gallo is the only one (in France itself) to have successfully resisted incorporation in French (the dominant language of the group). After Breton and French, Gallo is the third language of Brittany, spoken in Haut Bretagne, and is even taught in a handful of schools.
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Provençale. Although speakers of Occitan and Provençale will sometimes claim to be unable to understand each other, the two are really the same language, the langue d'oc (so-called because the word for 'yes' is oc) with Provençcale simply being the variety spoken in the south-east. Provençale, native language of Nobel laureate Frédéric Mistral, benefits from a particularly rich literary tradition stretching back to the medieval troubadours.
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