The Savoyard patois hasn't died out. It survives in the place names you'll find on IGN maps, in trail signs, and in the conversations of older residents at the village café. Every corner of the mountains still carries traces of it: words that have outlasted centuries and are worth knowing.
A Franco-Provençal language
Savoyard patois belongs to the Franco-Provençal language family, distinct from both French and Occitan. It was once spoken across the northern Alps, from Savoy to the Swiss Romandy and the Aosta Valley. During the twentieth century it gradually retreated as schooling shifted to French, but it never vanished entirely. In Thônes, in Bellevaux, and in remote hamlets of the Arve valley, older speakers still use it among themselves. And everywhere, the names on the map keep its memory alive.
Words you'll see on maps and signs
Look closely at a 1:25,000 IGN map of Haute-Savoie and you'll come across words that don't belong to standard French. Here are the most common ones.
- Nant (also spelled Nan): a mountain torrent or small fast-moving stream. This word appears everywhere in local place names. "Nant Sec" (dry stream), "Nant Bruyant" (noisy stream), "Nant Couat" (hidden stream, from the patois word for "hidden"): these were all named by the farming families who worked this land.
- Crêt: a rocky ridge or crest. It appears in the names of many summits and hamlets across the département.
- Plan: a high-altitude shelf or plateau. A "plan" typically refers to a wide flat area in the mountains, well suited to pasture.
- Balme (also Baume): a natural rock shelter or shallow cave. Shepherds and their flocks would take cover in a balme during storms.
- Praz: the Franco-Provençal form of "prés" (meadows). You'll find it in many high-altitude place names.
- Bec: a pointed peak or rocky notch. The word appears in the names of several passes and summits in the region.
Words from alpage life
Some patois words describe farming practices that are still in use on the mountain pastures today. Knowing them helps you read the landscape differently.
Mayen: one of the most distinctive words in the Savoyard mountain vocabulary. It refers to a mid-altitude chalet used between the valley floor and the high pastures. In spring and autumn, livestock stops at the mayens on the way up or down. These buildings are scattered across the hillsides, typically on south-facing shelves.
Remuage: seasonal transhumance. The word describes the movement of livestock up to the alpine pastures in summer and back down to the valley in autumn. It is far from obsolete: you will still see it in municipal newsletters and on signs outside cheese cooperatives.
Chavan (or Chavanne): a rustic building, typically a barn or shepherd's shelter. The word has found its way into many hamlet names. The hike to Chavasse and Chavan via the Lac de Vallon, set in the Chablais, is a good illustration: two hamlets whose names capture the pastoral character of the area in a single word each.
Rutines: sunken tracks worn by generations of livestock movement. These grooves in the hillside are still visible on old pastoral routes. The walk to l'Alpage des Rutines from Chantemerle, above Samoëns, follows several of them.
A few words still heard today
Patois does not live only in place names. A handful of words persist in everyday use in mountain villages.
- Grôle: the crow. Older residents often still use this word for the bird.
- Seille: a hooped wooden bucket used to carry milk on the alpage. You will come across it in farm museums and old texts.
- Tsâ: field. A core term in the organisation of upland farming plots.
- Clouze: an enclosure, a fenced area. Related to the French "clos", it shows up in several local place names.
- Fouet: a beech forest. The word gave its name to several woodlands and hamlets in the area.
These words are not just curiosities. They describe something precise about the land, what was done on it, and what was seen from it. When you read "Plan de l'Aiguille" or "Nant du Diable" on a trailhead sign, you are not just reading a map reference. You are reading a layer of meaning left by generations who named what they knew. The mountains of Haute-Savoie have their own language. It repays a little attention.