Bolze
Fribourg dialect
Said in Fribourg
The speech of the lower town, mixing French and Swiss German
Bolze
Where it comes from
Bolze is spoken in the Basse-Ville, the lower town of Fribourg, the Auge and the Neuveville, down below, along the Sarine. According to the linguist Claudine Brohy, landless peasants from the Singine, German-speaking, crowded in there from the 19th century, in cramped flats, beside a French-speaking population. Out of this poverty and this bilingualism Bolze is born: a mixture of Alemannic, French and Franco-Provençal patois. Brohy describes two varieties of it: bolze, on a French base, and bolz, on an Alemannic base.
The word is older than the speech. According to the Glossaire des patois de la Suisse romande, it was first a nickname that country people gave to the burghers of Fribourg, borrowed from an old Swiss German insult, Bolz, probably before the Revolution, when German dominated the town. For Brohy, the likeliest origin goes back to German Bold, a rough fellow, which survives only in compounds such as Trunkenbold, the drunkard. The earliest written record she cites, Boldze, dates from 1864; according to one of her informants, the name of the inhabitants passed to their speech during the 1940s.
Since the 1960s the Basse-Ville has gentrified and many Bolzes have left, but Bolze can still be heard in its bars, spoken now with pride.
In use
Two lines written for this page, with features that Brohy records: yoo for “well”, técol and mécol for “you” and “me”, “attendre sur” and “aller promener”, calqued on German.
- “Yoo, técol, tu m’attends sur le pont ?” – Well, you, are you waiting for me on the bridge?
- “Mécol, je vais promener en l’Auge.” – Me, I’m going for a walk in the Auge.
Sources: Claudine Brohy, “Frontière des langues et urbanolecte hybride : le cas du bolze à Fribourg (Suisse)” (2017); Glossaire des patois de la Suisse romande, “Bòlts” (volume II, p. 476); French Wikipedia, “Bolze”.