This article appeared in the Babel column of the English newspaper, The Guardian, on 5 April 1991.

Michel Sousse on a language that lost touch with the times

A LANGUAGE derived from low Latin and Celtic, which has been spoken in north-eastern France for more than 15 centuries, is expected to die out by the beginning of the next century.

Welche is experiencing its last hours on the Plaine d'Alsace near the Franco-German border where just 2,000 people, most of them elderly, are still able to speak it.

They are descendants of third and fourth century Gallo-Romans who found refuge from the Germanic invasionin the mountains near north Colmar. To the Teutonic world, the word Welche means a Gaul. Alsatian dialect still uses the word to describe a Frenchman.

But this rural language of resistance against Germanic incursions has been unable to adapt to the industrial world. In 1983, just two per cent of children in the area's primary schools spoke it fluently.

"Welche no longer has a raison d'être. A generation from now, it will be completely finished." said Jean-François Million, a linguist who has compiled a 6,000-word Welche dictionary.

In Welche the prosperous vine-growing villages of Sigolsheim, Amerschwihr or Ingersheim are known as Marville, Sevaumo and Ingville, the latter being derived from the original Latin name, Ungis Villa.

The mountain which dominates the area, the 1,000-metre Grand Hohnack is known to them as Vervone, from Vorvo, the Celtic god of streams.

Welche is a distant cousin of the Swiss dialect, Rheto-Romansch. It came into its own again during the second world war. "French was forbidden and no one wanted to speak German, so everyone spoke the dialect," said Camille Parmentier, a retired woodcutter.

He still remembers the advice of his grandfather who was mayor of Labaroche: "Speak French. With the dialect you won't get further than Hachimette," the next village.

To this, the last generation of Welche-speakers, local geography is divided into en Allmegn for the Plains d'Alsace, l'aut cote do ré (the other side of the Rhine) for Germany and deri toula (derrière tout cela -- behind all that) for the département of Vosges. - Libération