Editing Allier (section)

== Culture ==

=== Sister Regions ===
The Conseil Départemental of Allier co-operates with the following foreign administrative units:<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.allier.fr/732-les-cooperations.htm |title=Les coopérations |access-date=2021-04-07 |website=Conseil Départemental de l'Allier}}</ref>

* {{flagicon|Mali}} [[Niafunké]] ([[Mali]]) since 1988.
* {{flagicon|Morocco}} [[Khemisset]] ([[Morocco]]) since 2009.
* {{flagicon|Mongolia}} [[Övörkhangai Province|Övörkhangai]] ([[Mongolia]]) since 2000.
* {{flagicon|Romania}} [[Cluj County|Cluj]] ([[Romania]]) since 2002.
* {{flagicon|Senegal}} [[M'bour Department]] ([[Senegal]]) since 2016.
* {{flagicon|Senegal}} [[Nguékhokh]] (Senegal) since 2002.

=== Regional languages ===
Allier is traversed by the border between [[Occitan language|Occitan]] and [[French language|French]].<ref>Charles de Tourtoulon and Octavien Bringuier (1876), ''Study on the geographical limits of Occitan and French (with a map)'', Paris: Imprimerie Nationale [reprinted 2004, Masseret-Meuzac: Institut d’Estudis Occitans de Lemosin/Lo Chamin de Sent Jaume] {{in lang|fr}}</ref>

For a long period the people of Allier did not speak standard French but one of the following local languages:

* [[Bourbonnais]]: Dialect [[Langues d'oïl|oïl]], north of a line from [[Montluçon]] to [[Saint-Pourçain-sur-Sioule]] to [[Lapalisse]]
* [[Auvergnat dialect|Auvergnat]]: (a dialect of [[Occitan language|Occitan]]) in the extreme south
* the area between the two, sometimes called ''Bourbon d'oc'' is part of the ''[[Crescent (Occitania)|Occitan Crescent]]'',<ref>Guylaine Brun-Trigaud (1990), ''The Crescent:the concept and the word. Contribution to the history of the French dialect of the 19th century (Thesis)'', coll. Série dialectologie, Lyon: Centre d’Études Linguistiques Jacques Goudet {{in lang|fr}}</ref> an area of mixing of French and Occitan considered by most linguists as Occitan with French pronunciation. Some<ref>E.g. Nicolas Quint, ''The marchois speech of Saint-Priest-la-Feuille (Creuse)'' {{in lang|fr}}</ref> consider the speech of the Crescent to be a full Occitan dialect and use the term ''Marchois''.

Qualifications:

* Note that in the south-east of the department (notably in Forterre<ref>Marcel Bonin, (1981), ''The dialect of Langy and of Forterre (region of Varennes-sur-Allier)'', Cagnes sur Mer: ''Cahiers Bourbonnais'' {{in lang|fr}}</ref> and the Bourbonnais Mountain<ref>Simone Escoffier (1958), ''The meeting of langue d’oïl, Occitan and francoprovençal between Loire and Allier: phonetic limits and morphologies'' (Thesis), Mâcon: impr. Protat [éd. identique de la même année: coll. Publications de l’Institut de Linguistique Romane de Lyon-vol. 11, Paris: Les Belles Lettres] {{in lang|fr}}</ref>) the influence of Francoprovencal arises.
* Similarly, in the north-west (and especially in the old part of the Bourbonnais department of [[Cher (department)|Cher]] to [[Saint-Amand-Montrond]]), the Bourbon dialects are close to the [[Berrichon dialect]].