Francoprovençal in contact with Walser German

This article focuses on Francoprovencal (FP) from the perspective of language contact, specifically the reciprocal effects between FP and two dialects of German (Alemannic) spoken in the Aosta region and belonging to the severely endangered Walser minority group located in Northwestern Italy. On the basis of lexical evidence we describe a complex dynamics of language contact among communities embedded in one another. We found bidirectional exchanges between FP and one Walser variety, but much less so with the other. As a result, lexical distance revealed a pattern of contact, isolation and asymmetries that contrasts with geographical distance or more general relations of sociolinguistic dominance.