Currently, research shows that there is not really a true Auvergnat dialect but rather a vast northern Occitan linguistic area.

Auvergnat falls under the following categories and subcategories: Indo-European, Italic, Romance, Italo-Western, Gallo-Iberian, Gallo-Romance, Occitan.

[10] Official documents in Auvergnat become common around 1340 and continue to be found down to 1540, when the transition to French was complete.

[12] The effective borders of Auvergnat do not completely coincide with those of the current Region of Auvergne or the historical region of Auvergne but can be described as follows: There are strong oppositions between Pierre Bonnaud[13] (for whom the Auvergnat is a language of its own, see the light orange line on the map – note it is including the easternmost part of the Marchois dialect) and for instance Roger Teulat.

The Northeastern (East of 5 and 6, North of 9) has, according to Bonnaud, a stronger influence from French phonetics (a bit like Marchois).

Language learning is found to be essential within the home, according to the survey, (grandparents noted as 61%, or other family members at 50%) with a very weak result from the schools (10%).

According to the survey the desire to incorporate local language learning in schools is as follows: Haute-Loire (53%), Puy-de-Dôme (51%) et Cantal (74%).