Joseph Henriet

Joseph Henriet

Joseph Henriet ( French-Provencal : Josèf Harriet or Joze Harrieta ) (born March 13, 1945 in Aosta ) is an Italian teacher, folklorist, politician and language activist from the Aosta Valley .

Live and act

Joseph Henriet comes from the hamlet of Excenex near Aosta. He attended secondary school in Chieri near Turin and taught in schools in the Aosta Valley and Switzerland .

During his stay in the cantons of Neuchâtel and Jura in 1968 and 1969 , he dealt with the autonomy movement Rassemblement Jurassien , the aim of which was to separate the French-speaking area in the Bernese Jura from the canton of Bern . Based on this model, Henriet developed the vision of separating the Franco-Provencal Aosta Valley from Italy in a similar way . This gave rise to the ideology of Harpitania (Harpitanya Etnocrateka Libra) , a utopia with the long-term goal of an independent Arpitan federation, which, in addition to the Aosta Valley, should also include the Lower Valais and the Haute-Savoie region . For this region around Mont Blanc , the name Arpitania came into use, which is derived from the newer name Arpitan as a name for Franco-Provençal. To achieve the goal, Henriet founded the political movement Movament Harpitanya ; and he was at times also active in the Action de Liberation des Peuples des Alpes (ALPA) organization, which sought to connect the Aosta Valley to France as an alternative .

As the basis for the linguistic political movement, Henriet wrote a grammar and an orthographic system for Franco-Provencal, and he claimed to provide a uniform umbrella language for the numerous dialects of this language, which has been handed down in three countries. Henriet was convinced that only with a common written form and a political union of the region would the strongly threatened minority language and its culture survive in all areas .

Both of Henriet's concepts, the uniform form of language and political autonomy, could not prevail. However, they influenced the newer cross-border Franco-Provencal cultural movement.

Henriet was friends with the Basque separatist Federico Krutwig-Sagredo (1921–1981) and maintained contact with the Piedmontese action Arnàssita Piémontaise . From 1993 to 2001 he appeared as a regional politician for the Lega Nord .

Works

• under the pseudonym «Edur Kar»: Harpeitanya. 1971.
• Ehtudio su la question harpitana. Éditions Arba, Aosta 1973.
• Noi, Sarraceni delle alpi. Cervin, Châtillon 1976.
• La lingua arpitana (francoprovenzale). Con particulare riferimento alla lingua della Val d'Aosta. Romano Canavese 1976.
• Nos ancêtres les Sarrasins des Alpes. 2002. ISBN 2-88295-360-7 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Claude Hauser: Rassemblement Jurassien. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
2. ^ Comment j'ai créé la koinè . In: La Voix des Allobroges . 1st of March 2013.