Diachronic Perspectives on a Rich Linguistic Repertoire. Translations of the Parable of the Prodigal Son in Walser German Varieties

The translations of the Parable of the Prodigal Son are an invaluable source for documenting the Walser German varieties spoken in northwestern Italy. This article examines in detail the varieties spoken in the two islands of Aosta Valley, respectively in Gressoney and Issime, based on a number of structural features that can be easily gleaned from old and more recent translations. This significant amount of data allows us to observe significant differences between the two varieties that cannot be explained as the result of common convergence processes with the dominant varieties of the multilingual repertoire of the speakers living in these villages. While we observe clear cases of language attrition in Gressoney, the structural profile of the Issime variety is the result of a creoloidization process that can be traced back to centuries of intra‑societal bilingualism.