Every civilization has its own particular language, by which its
cultural and literary inheritance is handed on. In the Valle d'Aosta,
French has been the written language for centuries, while everyone
used to speak a dialect called "patois", with many local variants.
Abbot Jean-Baptiste Cerlogne (1826-1910) began to
put the patois dialect in a written form. He is the author of works
such as "Petite grammaire du dialecte valdotain" (1893), "Dictionnaire
du du dialecte valdotain" (1908) and "Le patois valdotain - son
origine literaire et sa graphie" (1909). He is also one of the major
literary authors in patois language (Merenda a Tzesalet!, la
Bataille di vatse a Vertosan-1858), together with the poetess
Eugenie Martinet (1896-1983).
The first draft of a play in patois, "Le female a lave bouiya"
(Women at the wash-board) was written in 1933 by Abbe' Henry and was
published on the "Messager Valdotain".
Written patois works have given a new impulse to theatre: throughout the
Valley there are many companies performing very original pieces; the
most famous playwrights are Rene' Willien, Pierre Vietti and Raymond
Vautherin.
The main chance for companies and authors to display their work is
the event called "Le printemps theatral", held in Aosta.
Special attention must be paid to "Lo Chabran", a company based in
Aosta, founded in 1958. Every year it performs a couple of plays,
which run over a week. However it is usually very hard to get a
ticket: a Chabran show is an extremely important event for the
Valley people, who queue all night before the opening of the ticket
sale.
Another event connected with the patois dialect is the "Concours
Cerlogne", where schools present their annual works in patois, on a
particular subject.
The linguistic outline of the Region is then completed by "walser"
dialect, of German origin, spoken in the Gressoney Valley. Due to the
reduced number of speakers, there are only a few cultural activities
connected to walser.
Three institutions support the Valley dialects patois and
walser: the "Bureau Regional
pour l'ethnologie et la linguistique" , the " center d'etudes
franco-provencales de Saint-Nicolas, with the "Mussee Cerlogne" and
the walser Cultural center in Gressoney-Saint-Jean.
