WALSERSPRACHE - The four main objectives of the Alpine Space ...

Kurt Wanner
also an afterthought about the origin and development path of a language. They elicit right
away a question: why have they come about only at the end of the 20 th century to record these
languages? When one looks closely at these facts, one soon realises there is a lot more riding
on them than mere language conservation. Here, at their best, comes to light a political and
cultural distinctiveness, since a language is the backbone of a country whose unique way of
life is endangered or straightaway lost. Or, as Ina-Maria Greverus put it, «Confronted with the
devastation of our world, the dialect is the only medium still capable of housing a niche we
can call fatherland». Goethe expressed it so aptly 200 years ago when he declared that a
dialect is «the component from which our soul gets its breath». Unfortunately we cannot ascertain
what has prompted the editors of our ten dictionaries to undertake year- or even decadelong
work to compile them. The recently departed French movie director Roger Planchon once
stated that humanity needed these compilations about the old cultural heritage as a form of
“security”, because it was afraid in the 21 st century it would either crumple or disappear altogether:
«Therefore we must be able to tell ourselves: here, over thousands of years we have
accomplished wondrous things. This is the pessimistic flip side. The optimistic one goes somewhat
like this: we store everything to draw up a balance sheet on which we can later on and
otherwise build up something again and have a fresh start». Did our dictionary compilers,
who were quite likely the last to be able to do what they did, gather and interpret lengthy word
lists because they were afraid their languages could soon fade away? Or did they rather bear
through their laboursome undertakings in order to be able to have a fresh start? Probably a
bit of both. Is dialect the secret idiom of a minority? We must not overlook an important aspect:
dictionaries are not canned languages. They rather bear witness to steady changes and language
tolerance. There have been influences from Italian, French and Rhaetoromanic which
left a permanent imprint and never once the doubt crossed the minds of our forefathers that
by so doing their language was being given away, threatened or alienated. Quite the opposite.
Foreign expressions bespoke an enrichment and made it possible to better get along with
neighbours. When today we finger through these Walser dictionaries we get time and again
the impression they were the secret language of an alpine minority who did not want outsiders
to get even one word of what was being said. A language which, under political or
social pressure, could work as a reliable secret code, something like Rotwelsh for Gipsies or
Yiddish for Eastern Jews. This applies to Walsers only to an extremely small extent. It has
instead to do a lot more with the age of this language and to the isolation of many villages
until recently. Fernand Braudel, an historian, rightly said: «On the highlands one can still
find images of days long bygone well preserved, tools and working ways, dialects, clothing,
superstitions, in short, whatever grew of age and became something, survives up there, where
new ways and manners will never take the upperhand». If this had not been so it would no
longer have been possible to compile these dictionaries in our day and age. The special circumstances
surrounding the lives of South Walsers. If one plans to pay a visit to Walser areas
in Piedmont and in the Aosta Valley there is no better way to get ready than by reading Emil
Balmers’ «The Walsers in Piedmont», which appeared in 1949. It is not exactly a guidebook,
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