Occitan language
Encyclopedia
Occitan known also as Lenga d'òc (ˈleŋgɔ ˈðɔ(k); ), is a collection of related Romance-language
dialects spoken in southern France
, Italy's Occitan Valleys
, Monaco
, and Spain
's Val d'Aran
: the regions sometimes known informally as Occitania
. It is also spoken in the linguistic enclave of Guardia Piemontese
(Calabria
, Italy). It is an official language in Catalonia
, Spain (known as Aranese
in Val d'Aran). Modern Occitan is the closest relative of Catalan
. Since September 2010, the Parliament of Catalonia
has considered Aranese Occitan to be the officially preferred language for use in the Val d'Aran. The languages, as spoken in early mediaeval times, might be considered variant forms of the same language. The term Provençal (Occitan: provençau or prouvençau, pɾuvenˈsaw) may be used as a traditional synonym for Occitan but, nowadays, Provençal is mainly understood as an Occitan dialect spoken in Provence.
The long-term survival of Occitan is in grave doubt. According to the UNESCO
Red Book of Endangered Languages
, four of the six major dialects of Occitan (Provençal, Auvergnat, Limousin and Languedocien
) are considered "severely endangered", while the remaining two (Gascon
and Vivaro-Alpine
) are considered "definitely endangered" ("severely endangered" essentially means that only elderly people still speak the language fluently, while "definitely endangered" means that adults speak the language but are not passing it on to their children).
was the first to have recorded the term lingua d'oc. In his De vulgari eloquentia
he wrote in Latin: "nam alii oc, alii si, alii vero dicunt oil" ("some say òc, others say sì; others, in truth, say oïl"), thereby highlighting three major Romance literary languages that were well-known in Italy, based on each language's word for "yes", the òc language (Occitan), the oïl language (French), and the sì language (Italian). This was not, of course, the only defining character of each group.
The word òc came from Vulgar Latin
hoc ("this"), while oïl originated from Latin hoc illud ("this [is] it"). Old Catalan and nowadays the Catalan of Northern Catalonia (France, Catalunya Nord) also have hoc (òc). Other Romance languages derive their word for yes from the Latin sic, "thus [it is], [it was done], etc.", such as Spanish sí, Eastern Lombard sé, Italian sì, or Portuguese sim. In Modern Catalan, as in modern Spanish, sí is usually used as a response, although the language retains the word oi, akin to òc, which is sometimes used at the end of yes-no question
s and in higher register also as a positive response. French uses si in response to questions where a negative answer is expected: e.g., "Vous ne restez pas ici?" ("You aren't staying here?").
) were referred to as Limousin or Provençal, the names of two regions lying within modern "Occitania
". After Mistral
's Félibrige
movement in the 19th century, Provençal achieved the greatest literary recognition and so became the most popular term for the Occitan language.
According to Joseph Anglade, a philologist
and specialist of medieval
literature who helped impose the then archaic
term Occitan as the sole correct name, the word Lemosin was first used to designate the language at the beginning of the 13th century by Catalan
troubadour
Raimon Vidal de Besalú
in his Razós de trobar
As for the word Provençal, it should not be taken as strictly meaning the language of Provence
but Occitania
as a whole, as, "in the eleventh, the twelfth, and sometimes also the thirteenth centuries, one would understand under the name of Provence the whole territory of the old Provincia Romana
and even Aquitaine
". The term first came into fashion in Italy
.
Nowadays, linguists use the terms Provençal and Limousin strictly to refer to specific varieties within Occitania, whereas Occitan is used for the language as a whole. Many non-specialists, however, continue to refer to the language as Provençal, causing some confusion.
It is interesting to note that Carolinian
litanies
(ca 780
), both written and sung in Latin, were answered
to in Old Occitan by the audience (Ora pro nos; Tu lo juva).
Other famous pieces include the Boecis
, a 258-line-long poem written entirely in the Limousin dialect of Occitan between the year 1000 and 1030 and inspired by Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy
; the Waldensian
La Nobla Leyczon
(dated 1100), la Cançó de Santa Fe
(ca 1054–1076), the Romance of Flamenca
(13th c.), the Song of the Albigensian Crusade (1213–1219?), Daurel et Beton (12th or 13th c.), Las, qu'i non sun sparvir, astur
(11th c.) and Tomida femina
(9th or 10th c.).
Occitan was the vehicle for the influential poetry
of the medieval troubadours and trobairises
: At that time, the language was understood and celebrated throughout most of educated Europe. With the gradual imposition of French royal power over its territory, Occitan declined in status from the 14th century on. By the Edict of Villers-Cotterets (1539) it was decreed that the langue d'oïl (Northern French) should be used for all French administration. Occitan's greatest decline was during the French Revolution
, during which diversity of language was considered a threat.
The literary renaissance of the late 19th century (which included a Nobel Prize for Frédéric Mistral
) was attenuated by the First World War, when Occitan speakers spent extended periods of time alongside French-speaking comrades.
are used, external influences could have influenced its origin and development. Many factors favoured its development as a language of its own.
, with which it shares many linguistic features and even a common origin (see Occitano-Romance languages
). The language was one of the first to gain prestige as a medium for literature among Romance languages in the Middle Ages. Indeed, in the 12th and 13th centuries, Catalan troubadours such as Guerau de Cabrera, Guilhem de Bergadan, Guilhem de Cabestany, Huguet de Mataplana, Raimon Vidal de Besalú, Cerverí de Girona, Formit de Perpinhan, and Jofre de Foixà wrote in Occitan.
At the end of the 11th century, the Franks, as they were called at the time, started to penetrate the Iberian Peninsula
through the Ways of St. James
via Somport
and Roncesvalles
, settling on various spots of the Kingdoms of Navarre
and Aragon
enticed by the privileges granted them by the Navarrese kings. They established themselves in ethnic borough
s where Occitan was used for everyday life, e.g. Pamplona, Sangüesa, Estella, etc. The language in turn became the status language chosen by the Navarrese kings, nobility and upper classes for official and trade purposes in the period stretching from the early 13th century to late 14th century. These boroughs in Navarre may have been close-knit communities with little mingling, in a context where the natural milieu was predominantly Basque
-speaking. The variant chosen for written administrative records was a koiné
based on Languedocien
from Toulouse with fairly archaic linguistic features. Evidence of a written account in Occitan from Pamplona revolving around the burning of borough San Nicolas has reached up to our days (1258), while the History of the War of Navarre by Guilhem Anelier (1276) albeit written in Pamplona shows a linguistic variant from Toulouse.
Things turned out slightly otherwise in Aragon, where the sociolinguistic situation was different, with a clearer Basque-Romance bilingual situation (cf. Basques from the Val d'Aran cited circa 1000), but a receding Basque language (Basque banned in the marketplace of Huesca, 1349). While the language was chosen as a medium of prestige in records and official statements along with Latin in the early 13th century, Occitan faced competition from the rising local Romance vernacular, the Navarro-Aragonese
, both orally and in writing, especially after Aragon's territorial conquests south to Saragossa, Huesca
and Tudela
between 1118 and 1134. It resulted that a second Occitan immigration of this period was assimilated by the similar Navarro-Aragonese language, which at the same time was fostered and chosen by the kings of Aragon. The language fell into decay in the 14th century across the whole southern Pyrenean area and became largely absorbed into Navarro-Aragonese first and Castilian later in the 15th century, after their exclusive boroughs broke up (1423, Pamplona
's boroughs unified).
Gascon
-speaking communities were called in for trading purposes by Navarrese kings in the early 12th century to the coastal fringe extending from Donostia to the Bidasoa
, where they settled down. The language variant used was different from the ones used in Navarre, i.e. a Béarnese Gascon
, with Gascon being in use far longer than in Navarre and Aragon till the 19th century, thanks mainly to the close ties held by Donostia and Pasaia
with Bayonne
.
Though it was still an everyday language for most of the rural population of southern France well into the 20th century, it has been all but replaced by the systematic imposition of the French language
. According to the 1999 census, there are 610,000 native speakers (almost all of whom are also native French speakers) and perhaps another million persons with some exposure to the language. Following the pattern of language shift
, most of this remainder is to be found among the eldest populations. Occitan activists (called Occitanists) have attempted, in particular with the advent of Occitan-language preschools (the Calandreta
s), to reintroduce the language to the young. Nonetheless, the number of proficient speakers of Occitan appears to be dropping precipitously. A tourist in the cities in southern France is unlikely to hear a single Occitan word spoken on the street (or, for that matter, in a home), and is likely to only find the occasional vestige, such as street signs (and, of those, most will have French equivalents more prominently displayed), to remind them of the traditional language of the area. Occitans, as a result of more than 200 years of conditioned suppression and humiliation (see Vergonha
), seldom speak their own language in the presence of foreigners, whether they're from abroad or from outside Occitania (in this case, often merely and abusively referred to as Parisiens or Nordistes, which means northerners). Occitan is still spoken by many elderly people in rural areas, but they generally switch to French when dealing with outsiders.
Occitan's decline is somewhat less pronounced in Bearn
because of the province's history (a late addition to the Kingdom of France), though even there the language is little spoken outside the homes of the rural elderly. The village of Artix
is notable for having elected to post street signs in the local language.
, Italy
, Spain
and Monaco
. In Monaco, Occitan coexists with Monégasque
Ligurian, which is the other native language. Some researchers state that up to seven million people in France understand the language, while twelve to fourteen million fully spoke it in 1921. In 1860, Occitan speakers represented more than 39% of the whole French population (52% for francophone
s proper); they were still 26% to 36% in the 1920s and less than 7% in 1993.
, Franco-Provençal, Astur-Leonese, and Aragonese
), every settlement technically has its own dialect, with the whole of Occitania forming a classic dialect continuum
that changes gradually along any path from one side to the other. Nonetheless, specialists commonly divide Occitan into six main dialects:
Gascon is generally considered the most divergent, and descriptions of the main features of Occitan often consider Gascon separately. Max Wheeler notes that "probably only its copresence within the French cultural sphere has kept [Gascon] from being regarded as a separate language", and compares it to Franco-Provençal, which is considered a separate language from Occitan but is "probably not more divergent from Occitan overall than Gascon is."
There is no general agreement about larger groupings of these dialects.
Max Wheeler divides the dialects into two groups:
Pierre Bec divides the dialects into three groups:
Bec also notes that some linguists prefer a "supradialectal" classification that groups Occitan with Catalan
as a part of a wider Occitano-Romanic diasystem. One such classification posits three groups:
According to this view, Catalan is an ausbau language that became independent from Occitan during the 13th century, but originates from the Aquitano-Pyrenean group.
Domergue Sumien proposes a slightly different supradialectal grouping.
). So Occitan can be considered as a pluricentric language
. The standardization process began during the 1970s with the works of Pèire Bèc, Robèrt Lafont
, Rogièr Teulat, Jacme Taupiac, and Patric Sauzet. But it has not been achieved yet. It is mostly supported by users of the classical norm. Due to the strong situation of diglossia
, some users still reject the standardization process and do not conceive Occitan as a language that could work just as other standardized languages.
There are also two other norms but they have a lesser audience. The Escòla dau Pò norm (or Escolo dóu Po norm) is a simplified version of the Mistralian norm and is used only in the Occitan Valleys (Italy), besides the classical norm. The Bonnaudian norm (or écriture auvergnate unifiée, EAU) was created by Pierre Bonnaud and is used only in the Auvergnat dialect, besides the classical norm.
Many Occitan linguists and writers, particularly those involved with the pan-Occitan movement centred on the Institut d'Estudis Occitans
, disagree with the view that Occitan is a family of languages and think that Limousin, Auvergnat, Languedocien, Gascon, Provençal and Alpine Provençal are dialects of a single language. Though there are some noticeable differences between these varieties, there is a very high degree of mutual intelligibility
between them; they also share a common literary history, and in academic and literary circles, have been identified as a collective linguistic entity—the langue d'oc—for centuries.
Some Provençal authors continue to support the view that Provençal is a separate language. Nevertheless, the vast majority of Provençal authors and associations think that Provençal is a part of Occitan.
This debate about the status of Provençal should not be confused with the debate concerning the spelling of Provençal.
For example, the classical (pan-Occitan) spelling writes Polonha where the Mistralian spelling system has Poulougno, for [puˈluɲo], 'Poland'.
The question of Gascon
is similar. Gascon presents a number of significant differences from the rest of the language; but, despite these differences, Gascon and other Occitan dialects have very important common lexical and grammatical features, so authors such as Pierre Bec argue that they could never be considered as different as, for example, Spanish and Italian. In addition, the fact that Gascon is included within Occitan despite its particular differences, can be also justified because there is a common elaboration (Ausbau) process between Gascon and the rest of Occitan. The vast majority of the Gascon cultural movement considers itself as a part of the Occitan cultural movement. And the official status of Val d'Aran
(Catalonia
, Spain), adopted in 1990, says that Aranese is a part of Gascon
and Occitan. A grammar of Aranese by Aitor Carrera, published in 2007 in Lleida
, presents the same view.
The exclusion of Catalan
from the Occitan sphere, although Catalan is a language closely related to Occitan, is justified because there has been a consciousness of its being different from Occitan since the later Middle Ages and the elaboration (Ausbau) processes of Catalan and Occitan (including Gascon) have been quite distinct since the 20th century. Nevertheless, some other scholars point that the process that lead to the affirmation of Catalan as a distinct language from Occitan was started during the period when the pressure to include Catalan-speaking areas to a mainstream Spanish culture was at its most.
accent. Unlike French, it is a pro-drop language
, allowing the omission of the subject (canti: I sing; cantas you sing). Among these 19 discriminating criteria, 7 are different from Spanish, 8 from Italian, 12 from Franco-Provençal, and 16 from French.
or Catalan
, or both.
Examples of pan-Occitan features shared with Catalan, but not French:
Examples of pan-Occitan features not shared with Catalan or French:
Examples of dialect-specific features of the southerly dialects (or some of them) shared with Catalan, but not French:
Examples of Gascon
-specific features not shared with French or Catalan:
Examples of other dialect-specific features not shared with French or Catalan:
, Lexeme
, Lexicography
for more information.)
Some have claimed around 450,000 words exist in the Occitan language, a number comparable to English (The Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged with 1993 addenda reaches 470,000 words, as does the Oxford English Dictionary, Second edition). The Merriam-Webster Web site estimates that the number is somewhere between 250,000 and 1 million words.
The magazine Géo
(2004, p. 79) claims that American English literature can be more easily translated into Occitan than French, excluding modern technological terms that both languages have integrated.
A comparison of the lexical content can find more subtle differences between the languages. For example, Occitan has 128 synonyms related to cultivated land, 62 for wetlands, and 75 for sunshine (Géo). The language went through an eclipse during the Industrial Revolution
, as the vocabulary of the countryside became less important. At the same time, it was disparaged as a patois
. Nevertheless, Occitan has also incorporated new words into its lexicon to describe the modern world. The Occitan word for web is oèb, for example.
One interesting and useful feature of the Occitan language is its virtually infinite ability to create new words through a number of interchangeable and imbeddable suffixes, giving the original terms a whole array of semantic nuances. Take as an example this excerpt from La covisada (1923) by Henri Gilbert:
The 120 words that are needed for a correct English translation of all types of devils, Occitan expresses with just thirty-four. But this is not the only way to determine the size of things or people. The feminine form is also of great avail. Not to mention that suffixes slightly or greatly affect how things or people are perceived. See for instance the word prat for meadow:
Of course, all the aforementioned words may in turn be further precised by other suffixes. These suffixes can be added to nouns (peis → peisson → peissonet), adjectives (brave → bravilh → bravilhon), verbs (petar → petejar → petonejar) and adverbs (doçament → docetament = doçamenet). Even proper nouns would be altered in a familiar context. In most cases, they're family names: the wife of Mr Mistral (sénher Mistral, monsur Mistral or lo Mistral) will accordingly be called la Mistrala (madama Mistral); their son will be lo Mistralet and their daughter la Mistraleta. Their younger son's nickname will be lo Mistraleton and so forth, without running the risk of being misunderstood. Shall Mr Mistral be tall, old, fat or disliked, he will as easily become lo Mistralàs and lo Mistralon in the opposite case.
, especially when written — more so than either is with Spanish or French, for example. Occitan and Catalan form a common diasystem (or a common Abstandsprache), which is called Occitano-Romance, according to the linguist Pèire Bèc. Speakers of both languages share early historical and cultural heritage.
The combined Occitano-Romance area is 259,000 km² and represents 23 million speakers. However, the regions are not equal in terms of language speakers. According to Bec 1969 (pp. 120–121), in France, no more than a quarter of the population in counted regions speak Occitan well, though around half can understand it; it is thought that the number of Occitan users has decreased dramatically since then. By contrast, in the Spanish Catalonia, nearly three quarters of the population speak Catalan and 95% understand it.
One of the most notable passages of Occitan in Western literature occurs in the 26th canto of Dante
's Purgatorio
in which the troubadour Arnaut Daniel
responds to the narrator:
The above strophe translates to:
Another notable Occitan quotation, this time from Arnaut Daniel's own 10th Canto:
Modern Occitan:
Translation:
French writer Victor Hugo
's classic Les Misérables
also contains some Occitan. In Part One, First Book, Chapter IV, "Les œuvres semblables aux paroles", one can read about Monseigneur Bienvenu:
Translation:
The Spanish playwright Lope de Rueda
included a Gascon servant for comical effect in one of his short pieces, La generosa paliza.
John Barnes
's Thousand Cultures science fiction series (A Million Open Doors
, 1992; Earth Made of Glass
, 1998; The Merchants of Souls
, 2001; and The Armies of Memory
, 2006), features Occitan.
So does the 2005 best-selling novel Labyrinth
by English author Kate Mosse
. It is set in Carcassonne
, where she owns a house and spends half of the year.
The French composer Joseph Canteloube
created five sets of folk songs entitled Songs of the Auvergne, in which the lyrics are in the Auvergne dialect of Occitan. The orchestration strives to conjure vivid pastoral scenes of yesteryear.
Michael Crichton
features Occitan in his Timeline
novel.
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
dialects spoken in southern France
Southern France
Southern France , colloquially known as le Midi is defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Gironde, Spain, the Mediterranean, and Italy...
, Italy's Occitan Valleys
Occitan Valleys
The Occitan Valleys are the part of Occitania which is situated within the borders of Italy.It is a mountainous territory, situated in the southern Alps: most of its valleys are oriented eastward and descend toward the plains of Piedmont.The population is estimated at inhabitants.Main towns are...
, Monaco
Monaco
Monaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a sovereign city state on the French Riviera. It is bordered on three sides by its neighbour, France, and its centre is about from Italy. Its area is with a population of 35,986 as of 2011 and is the most densely populated country in the...
, and Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
's Val d'Aran
Val d'Aran
The Val d'Aran is a valley in the Pyrenees mountains and a comarca in the northwestern part of the province of Lleida, in Catalonia, northern Spain. Most of the valley constitutes the only part of Spain, and of Catalonia, on the north face of the Pyrenees, hence the only part of Catalonia whose...
: the regions sometimes known informally as Occitania
Occitania
Occitania , also sometimes lo País d'Òc, "the Oc Country"), is the region in southern Europe where Occitan was historically the main language spoken, and where it is sometimes still used, for the most part as a second language...
. It is also spoken in the linguistic enclave of Guardia Piemontese
Guardia Piemontese
Guardia Piemontese is a town and comune in the province of Cosenza in the Calabria region of southern Italy.- Location and language :...
(Calabria
Calabria
Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....
, Italy). It is an official language in Catalonia
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
, Spain (known as Aranese
Aranese language
Aranese is a standardized form of the Pyrenean Gascon variety of the Occitan language spoken in the Val d'Aran, in north western Catalonia on the border between Spain and France, where it is one of the three official languages besides Catalan and Spanish...
in Val d'Aran). Modern Occitan is the closest relative of Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
. Since September 2010, the Parliament of Catalonia
Parliament of Catalonia
The Parliament of Catalonia is the unicameral legislature of Catalonia. It is formed by 135 members , who are elected every four years in ordinary period, or extraordinarily upon dissolution and call of elections by the President of Catalonia, by universal suffrage in proportional lists with four...
has considered Aranese Occitan to be the officially preferred language for use in the Val d'Aran. The languages, as spoken in early mediaeval times, might be considered variant forms of the same language. The term Provençal (Occitan: provençau or prouvençau, pɾuvenˈsaw) may be used as a traditional synonym for Occitan but, nowadays, Provençal is mainly understood as an Occitan dialect spoken in Provence.
The long-term survival of Occitan is in grave doubt. According to the UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
Red Book of Endangered Languages
Red Book of Endangered Languages
The Red Book of Endangered Languages was published by UNESCO and collected a comprehensive list of the world's languages currently facing extinction...
, four of the six major dialects of Occitan (Provençal, Auvergnat, Limousin and Languedocien
Languedocien
Languedocien or Lengadocian is an Occitan dialect spoken by some people in the part of southern France known as Languedoc, Rouergue, Quercy, Agenais and Southern Périgord....
) are considered "severely endangered", while the remaining two (Gascon
Gascon language
Gascon is usually considered as a dialect of Occitan, even though some specialists regularly consider it a separate language. Gascon is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn in southwestern France and in the Aran Valley of Spain...
and Vivaro-Alpine
Vivaro-Alpine
Vivaro-Alpine or Vivaroalpenc, Vivaroaupenc is the northeastern dialect of the Occitan language. It belongs to the Northern Occitan dialectal group. Vivaro-Alpine is spoken in Southern France and North-Western Italy, and in the remote Guardia Piemontese, Calabria, where it is known as gardiol...
) are considered "definitely endangered" ("severely endangered" essentially means that only elderly people still speak the language fluently, while "definitely endangered" means that adults speak the language but are not passing it on to their children).
History of the modern term
The name Occitan comes from lenga d'òc (i.e., òc language), which comes from òc, the Occitan word for yes. The Italian medieval poet DanteDante Alighieri
Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...
was the first to have recorded the term lingua d'oc. In his De vulgari eloquentia
De vulgari eloquentia
De vulgari eloquentia is the title of an essay by Dante Alighieri, written in Latin and initially meant to consist of four books, but abandoned in the middle of the second. It was probably composed shortly after Dante went into exile; internal evidence points to a date between 1302 and 1305...
he wrote in Latin: "nam alii oc, alii si, alii vero dicunt oil" ("some say òc, others say sì; others, in truth, say oïl"), thereby highlighting three major Romance literary languages that were well-known in Italy, based on each language's word for "yes", the òc language (Occitan), the oïl language (French), and the sì language (Italian). This was not, of course, the only defining character of each group.
The word òc came from Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin is any of the nonstandard forms of Latin from which the Romance languages developed. Because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography. All written works used Classical Latin, with very few exceptions...
hoc ("this"), while oïl originated from Latin hoc illud ("this [is] it"). Old Catalan and nowadays the Catalan of Northern Catalonia (France, Catalunya Nord) also have hoc (òc). Other Romance languages derive their word for yes from the Latin sic, "thus [it is], [it was done], etc.", such as Spanish sí, Eastern Lombard sé, Italian sì, or Portuguese sim. In Modern Catalan, as in modern Spanish, sí is usually used as a response, although the language retains the word oi, akin to òc, which is sometimes used at the end of yes-no question
Yes-no question
In linguistics, a yes–no question, formally known as a polar question, is a question whose expected answer is either "yes" or "no". Formally, they present an exclusive disjunction, a pair of alternatives of which only one is acceptable. In English, such questions can be formed in both positive...
s and in higher register also as a positive response. French uses si in response to questions where a negative answer is expected: e.g., "Vous ne restez pas ici?" ("You aren't staying here?").
Other names for Occitan
For many centuries, the Occitan dialects (together with CatalanCatalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
) were referred to as Limousin or Provençal, the names of two regions lying within modern "Occitania
Occitania
Occitania , also sometimes lo País d'Òc, "the Oc Country"), is the region in southern Europe where Occitan was historically the main language spoken, and where it is sometimes still used, for the most part as a second language...
". After Mistral
Frédéric Mistral
Frédéric Mistral was a French writer and lexicographer of the Occitan language. Mistral won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1904 and was a founding member of Félibrige and a member of l'Académie de Marseille...
's Félibrige
Félibrige
The Félibrige is a literary and cultural association founded by Frédéric Mistral and other Provençal writers to defend and promote Occitan language and literature...
movement in the 19th century, Provençal achieved the greatest literary recognition and so became the most popular term for the Occitan language.
According to Joseph Anglade, a philologist
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
and specialist of medieval
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
literature who helped impose the then archaic
Archaism
In language, an archaism is the use of a form of speech or writing that is no longer current. This can either be done deliberately or as part of a specific jargon or formula...
term Occitan as the sole correct name, the word Lemosin was first used to designate the language at the beginning of the 13th century by Catalan
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
troubadour
Troubadour
A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....
Raimon Vidal de Besalú
Raimon Vidal de Bezaudun
Raimon Vidal de Bezaudu was a Catalan troubadour from Besalù. He is famous for authoring the first poetical tract in a Romance language , the Razós de trobar...
in his Razós de trobar
- La parladura Francesca val mais et [es] plus avinenz a far romanz e pasturellas; mas cella de Lemozin val mais per far vers et cansons et serventés; et per totas las terras de nostre lengage son de major autoritat li cantar de la lenga Lemosina que de negun'autra parladura, per qu'ieu vos en parlarai primeramen.
- The French language is worthier and better suited for romancesRomance (genre)As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...
and pastourellePastourelleThe pastourelle is a typically Old French lyric form concerning the romance of a shepherdess. In most of the early pastourelles, the poet knight meets a shepherdess who bests him in a wit battle and who displays general coyness. The narrator usually has sexual relations, either consensual or...
s; but the one from LimousinLimousin (province)Limousin is one of the traditional provinces of France around the city of Limoges. Limousin lies in the foothills of the western edge of the Massif Central, with cold weather in the winter...
is of greater value for writing poems and cançonsCanso (song)The canso is a song style used by the troubadours. It consists of three parts. The first stanza is the exordium, where the composer explains his purpose. The main body of the song occurs in the following stanzas, and usually draw out a variety of relationships with the exordium. The canso can end...
and sirventésSirventesThe sirventes or serventes is a genre of Occitan lyric poetry used by the troubadours. In early Catalan it became a sirventesch and was imported into that language in the fourteenth century, where it developed into a unique didactic/moralistic type...
; and across the whole of the lands where our tongue is spoken, the literature in the Limousin language has more authority than any other dialect, wherefore I shall use this name in priority.
As for the word Provençal, it should not be taken as strictly meaning the language of Provence
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
but Occitania
Occitania
Occitania , also sometimes lo País d'Òc, "the Oc Country"), is the region in southern Europe where Occitan was historically the main language spoken, and where it is sometimes still used, for the most part as a second language...
as a whole, as, "in the eleventh, the twelfth, and sometimes also the thirteenth centuries, one would understand under the name of Provence the whole territory of the old Provincia Romana
Septem Provinciae
The Diocese of the Seven Provinces , originally called the Diocese of Vienne after the city of Vienna , was a diocese of the later Roman Empire, under the praetorian prefecture of Gaul...
and even Aquitaine
Gallia Aquitania
Gallia Aquitania was a province of the Roman Empire, bordered by the provinces of Gallia Lugdunensis, Gallia Narbonensis, and Hispania Tarraconensis...
". The term first came into fashion in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
.
Nowadays, linguists use the terms Provençal and Limousin strictly to refer to specific varieties within Occitania, whereas Occitan is used for the language as a whole. Many non-specialists, however, continue to refer to the language as Provençal, causing some confusion.
History
One of the oldest written fragments of the language ever found dates back to the year 960, in an official text that was mixed with Latin:- De ista hora in antea non DECEBRÀ Ermengaus filius Eldiarda Froterio episcopo filio Girberga NE Raimundo filio Bernardo vicecomite de castello de Cornone... NO·L LI TOLRÀ NO·L LI DEVEDARÀ NI NO L'EN DECEBRÀ... nec societatem non AURÀ, si per castellum recuperare NON O FA, et si recuperare potuerit in potestate Froterio et Raimundo LO TORNARÀ, per ipsas horas quæ Froterius et Raimundus L'EN COMONRÀ. [...]
It is interesting to note that Carolinian
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
litanies
Litany
A litany, in Christian worship and some forms of Jewish worship, is a form of prayer used in services and processions, and consisting of a number of petitions...
(ca 780
780
Year 780 was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 780 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.- Byzantine Empire :* Constantine VI becomes Byzantine...
), both written and sung in Latin, were answered
Response (liturgy)
A response is the second half of one of a set of preces, the said or sung answer by the congregation or choir to a versicle said or sung by an officiant or cantor...
to in Old Occitan by the audience (Ora pro nos; Tu lo juva).
Other famous pieces include the Boecis
Boecis
The Boecis is an anonymous fragment written around the year 1000 in the Limousin dialect of Old Occitan, spoken in the nowadays southern France. It is the first known poem in langue d'oc, and one of the first texts written in this language...
, a 258-line-long poem written entirely in the Limousin dialect of Occitan between the year 1000 and 1030 and inspired by Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy
Consolation of Philosophy
Consolation of Philosophy is a philosophical work by Boethius, written around the year 524. It has been described as the single most important and influential work in the West on Medieval and early Renaissance Christianity, and is also the last great Western work that can be called Classical.-...
; the Waldensian
Waldensians
Waldensians, Waldenses or Vaudois are names for a Christian movement of the later Middle Ages, descendants of which still exist in various regions, primarily in North-Western Italy. There is considerable uncertainty about the earlier history of the Waldenses because of a lack of extant source...
La Nobla Leyczon
La nobla leyczon
La nobla leyczon , La nòbla leiçon in modern Occitan, The Noble Lesson in English, is an anonymous text written in Old Occitan. It is the founding document of the Waldensian creed...
(dated 1100), la Cançó de Santa Fe
Cançó de Santa Fe
The Cançó de Santa Fe , a hagiographical poem about Saint Faith, is the earliest surviving written work in a Catalan dialect of Old Occitan. It is 593 octosyllabic lines long, divided into between 45 and 55 monorhyming laisses...
(ca 1054–1076), the Romance of Flamenca
Romance of Flamenca
The Romance of Flamenca is a 13th century romance, written in the Occitan language in Occitania. A certain Sir Bernardet may have been the author, however the Bernardet mentioned may simply be the fictional narrator. Nothing is known for certain about the author; however, a number of things may be...
(13th c.), the Song of the Albigensian Crusade (1213–1219?), Daurel et Beton (12th or 13th c.), Las, qu'i non sun sparvir, astur
Las, qu'i non sun sparvir, astur
Las, qu'i non sun sparvir, astur , which translates "Oh, to be a sparrow-hawk, a goshawk!", is the incipit of an anonymous Old Occitan cobla . It was found in the margins of an eleventh-century manuscript in the British Library. Possibly it was added late in that century, certainly by a German scribe...
(11th c.) and Tomida femina
Tomida femina
Tomida femina is the earliest surviving poem in Occitan, a sixteen-line charm probably for the use of midwives.It is preserved in the left and bottom margins of a Latin legal treatise in a ninth- or tenth-century manuscript, where it is written upside down. Line 14 is missing, but has been...
(9th or 10th c.).
Occitan was the vehicle for the influential poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
of the medieval troubadours and trobairises
Trobairitz
The trobairitz were Occitan female troubadours of the 12th and 13th centuries, active from around 1170 to approximately 1260. The word trobairitz was first used in the 13th-century romance Flamenca. It comes from the Provençal word trobar, the literal meaning of which is "to find", and the...
: At that time, the language was understood and celebrated throughout most of educated Europe. With the gradual imposition of French royal power over its territory, Occitan declined in status from the 14th century on. By the Edict of Villers-Cotterets (1539) it was decreed that the langue d'oïl (Northern French) should be used for all French administration. Occitan's greatest decline was during the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
, during which diversity of language was considered a threat.
The literary renaissance of the late 19th century (which included a Nobel Prize for Frédéric Mistral
Frédéric Mistral
Frédéric Mistral was a French writer and lexicographer of the Occitan language. Mistral won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1904 and was a founding member of Félibrige and a member of l'Académie de Marseille...
) was attenuated by the First World War, when Occitan speakers spent extended periods of time alongside French-speaking comrades.
Origins
Because the geographical territory in which Occitan is spoken is surrounded by regions in which other Romance languagesRomance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
are used, external influences could have influenced its origin and development. Many factors favoured its development as a language of its own.
- Mountains and seas: The range of Occitan is bounded naturally by the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, the Massif CentralMassif CentralThe Massif Central is an elevated region in south-central France, consisting of mountains and plateaux....
, the PyreneesPyreneesThe Pyrenees is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain...
, and the AlpsAlpsThe Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
. - Buffer zones: AridAridA region is said to be arid when it is characterized by a severe lack of available water, to the extent of hindering or even preventing the growth and development of plant and animal life...
land, marshMarshIn geography, a marsh, or morass, is a type of wetland that is subject to frequent or continuous flood. Typically the water is shallow and features grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, other herbaceous plants, and moss....
es, and areas otherwise impractical for farming and resistant of colonization provide further separation (territory between Loire and GaronneGaronneThe Garonne is a river in southwest France and northern Spain, with a length of .-Source:The Garonne's headwaters are to be found in the Aran Valley in the Pyrenees, though three different locations have been proposed as the true source: the Uelh deth Garona at Plan de Beret , the Ratera-Saboredo...
, the AragonAragonAragon is a modern autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. Located in northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces : Huesca, Zaragoza, and Teruel. Its capital is Zaragoza...
desert plateau). - Constant populations: Some Occitan-speaking peoples are descended from people living in the region since prehistory (Bec, 1963).
- Little Celtic influence (Bec, 1963)
- Ancient and long-term Roman influence: Julius CaesarJulius CaesarGaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
once said that the people of AquitaineAquitaineAquitaine , archaic Guyenne/Guienne , is one of the 27 regions of France, in the south-western part of metropolitan France, along the Atlantic Ocean and the Pyrenees mountain range on the border with Spain. It comprises the 5 departments of Dordogne, :Lot et Garonne, :Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Landes...
could teach the RomansAncient RomeAncient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
themselves to speak Latin more correctly. According to Müller, "France's linguistic separation began with Roman influence" (Bec, 1963, pp. 20, 21) - A separate lexiconLexiconIn linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...
: Although Occitan is mid-way between Gallo-Romance and Ibero-Romance language groups, it has "around 550 words inherited from Latin that do not exist in the langue d'oïl or in franco-provençal" (Bec, 1963, 20, 21). - Little germanization: "The Frankish lexicon and its phonetic influence often end above the oc/oïl line" (Bec, 1963, 20, 21)
Occitan in Spain
Occitan is closely related to CatalanCatalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
, with which it shares many linguistic features and even a common origin (see Occitano-Romance languages
Occitano-Romance languages
The Occitano-Romance branch of Romance languages encompasses the dialects pertaining to the Occitan and the Catalan languages situated in France , Spain , Andorra, Monaco, parts of Italy , and historically in the County of Tripoli and the...
). The language was one of the first to gain prestige as a medium for literature among Romance languages in the Middle Ages. Indeed, in the 12th and 13th centuries, Catalan troubadours such as Guerau de Cabrera, Guilhem de Bergadan, Guilhem de Cabestany, Huguet de Mataplana, Raimon Vidal de Besalú, Cerverí de Girona, Formit de Perpinhan, and Jofre de Foixà wrote in Occitan.
At the end of the 11th century, the Franks, as they were called at the time, started to penetrate the Iberian Peninsula
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
through the Ways of St. James
Way of St. James
The Way of St. James or St. James' Way is the pilgrimage route to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain, where tradition has it that the remains of the apostle Saint James are buried....
via Somport
Somport
Somport is a mountain pass in the central Pyrenees on the border of France and Spain. The pass, whose name is derived from the Latin Summus portus, was one of the most popular routes for crossing the mountains for soldiers, merchants, and St...
and Roncesvalles
Roncesvalles
Roncesvalles is a small village and municipality in Navarre, northern Spain. It is situated on the small river Urrobi at an altitude of some 900 metres in the Pyrenees, about 8 kilometres from the French frontier....
, settling on various spots of the Kingdoms of Navarre
Kingdom of Navarre
The Kingdom of Navarre , originally the Kingdom of Pamplona, was a European kingdom which occupied lands on either side of the Pyrenees alongside the Atlantic Ocean....
and Aragon
Kingdom of Aragon
The Kingdom of Aragon was a medieval and early modern kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula, corresponding to the modern-day autonomous community of Aragon, in Spain...
enticed by the privileges granted them by the Navarrese kings. They established themselves in ethnic borough
Borough
A borough is an administrative division in various countries. In principle, the term borough designates a self-governing township although, in practice, official use of the term varies widely....
s where Occitan was used for everyday life, e.g. Pamplona, Sangüesa, Estella, etc. The language in turn became the status language chosen by the Navarrese kings, nobility and upper classes for official and trade purposes in the period stretching from the early 13th century to late 14th century. These boroughs in Navarre may have been close-knit communities with little mingling, in a context where the natural milieu was predominantly Basque
Basque language
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
-speaking. The variant chosen for written administrative records was a koiné
Koine language
In linguistics, a koiné language is a standard language or dialect that has arisen as a result of contact between two mutually intelligible varieties of the same language. Since the speakers have understood one another from before the advent of the koiné, the koineization process is not as rapid...
based on Languedocien
Languedocien
Languedocien or Lengadocian is an Occitan dialect spoken by some people in the part of southern France known as Languedoc, Rouergue, Quercy, Agenais and Southern Périgord....
from Toulouse with fairly archaic linguistic features. Evidence of a written account in Occitan from Pamplona revolving around the burning of borough San Nicolas has reached up to our days (1258), while the History of the War of Navarre by Guilhem Anelier (1276) albeit written in Pamplona shows a linguistic variant from Toulouse.
Things turned out slightly otherwise in Aragon, where the sociolinguistic situation was different, with a clearer Basque-Romance bilingual situation (cf. Basques from the Val d'Aran cited circa 1000), but a receding Basque language (Basque banned in the marketplace of Huesca, 1349). While the language was chosen as a medium of prestige in records and official statements along with Latin in the early 13th century, Occitan faced competition from the rising local Romance vernacular, the Navarro-Aragonese
Navarro-Aragonese
Navarro-Aragonese was a Romance language spoken south of the middle Pyrenees and in part of the Ebro River basin in the Middle Ages. The language extended over the County of Aragón, Sobrarbe, Ribagorza, the southern plains of Navarre on both banks of the Ebro including La Rioja and the eastern...
, both orally and in writing, especially after Aragon's territorial conquests south to Saragossa, Huesca
Huesca
Huesca is a city in north-eastern Spain, within the autonomous community of Aragon. It is also the capital of the Spanish province of the same name and the comarca of Hoya de Huesca....
and Tudela
Tudela, Navarre
Tudela is a municipality in Spain, the second city of the autonomous community of Navarre. Its population is around 35,000. Tudela is sited in the Ebro valley. Fast trains running on two-track electrified railways serve the city and two freeways join close to it...
between 1118 and 1134. It resulted that a second Occitan immigration of this period was assimilated by the similar Navarro-Aragonese language, which at the same time was fostered and chosen by the kings of Aragon. The language fell into decay in the 14th century across the whole southern Pyrenean area and became largely absorbed into Navarro-Aragonese first and Castilian later in the 15th century, after their exclusive boroughs broke up (1423, Pamplona
Pamplona
Pamplona is the historial capital city of Navarre, in Spain, and of the former kingdom of Navarre.The city is famous worldwide for the San Fermín festival, from July 6 to 14, in which the running of the bulls is one of the main attractions...
's boroughs unified).
Gascon
Gascon language
Gascon is usually considered as a dialect of Occitan, even though some specialists regularly consider it a separate language. Gascon is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn in southwestern France and in the Aran Valley of Spain...
-speaking communities were called in for trading purposes by Navarrese kings in the early 12th century to the coastal fringe extending from Donostia to the Bidasoa
Bidasoa
The Bidasoa is a river in the Basque Country of northern Spain and southern France that runs largely south to north. Named as such downstream of the small town of Oronoz-Mugairi in the province of Navarre, the river actually results from the merge of several streams near the village Erratzu, with...
, where they settled down. The language variant used was different from the ones used in Navarre, i.e. a Béarnese Gascon
Gascon language
Gascon is usually considered as a dialect of Occitan, even though some specialists regularly consider it a separate language. Gascon is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn in southwestern France and in the Aran Valley of Spain...
, with Gascon being in use far longer than in Navarre and Aragon till the 19th century, thanks mainly to the close ties held by Donostia and Pasaia
Pasaia
Pasaia is a town and municipality located in the province of Gipuzkoa in the Basque Autonomous Community of northern Spain. It is a fishing community, commercial port and the birth place of the fighting admiral Blas de Lezo. Pasaia lies approximately 5 km east of Donostia's centre, lying at the...
with Bayonne
Bayonne
Bayonne is a city and commune in south-western France at the confluence of the Nive and Adour rivers, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, of which it is a sub-prefecture...
.
Usage in France
Vergonha
La vergonha is what Occitans call the effects of various policies of the government of France on its citizens whose mother tongue was a so-called patois, specifically langue d'oc...
. According to the 1999 census, there are 610,000 native speakers (almost all of whom are also native French speakers) and perhaps another million persons with some exposure to the language. Following the pattern of language shift
Language shift
Language shift, sometimes referred to as language transfer or language replacement or assimilation, is the progressive process whereby a speech community of a language shifts to speaking another language. The rate of assimilation is the percentage of individuals with a given mother tongue who speak...
, most of this remainder is to be found among the eldest populations. Occitan activists (called Occitanists) have attempted, in particular with the advent of Occitan-language preschools (the Calandreta
Calandreta
A Calandreta is a bilingual school in Occitania in the South of France where the Occitan language is taught alongside the French language. These schools are based on the same principle as the Gaelscoileanna movement in Ireland, the Ikastolak movement in the Basque Country, the Ysgolion Meithrin...
s), to reintroduce the language to the young. Nonetheless, the number of proficient speakers of Occitan appears to be dropping precipitously. A tourist in the cities in southern France is unlikely to hear a single Occitan word spoken on the street (or, for that matter, in a home), and is likely to only find the occasional vestige, such as street signs (and, of those, most will have French equivalents more prominently displayed), to remind them of the traditional language of the area. Occitans, as a result of more than 200 years of conditioned suppression and humiliation (see Vergonha
Vergonha
La vergonha is what Occitans call the effects of various policies of the government of France on its citizens whose mother tongue was a so-called patois, specifically langue d'oc...
), seldom speak their own language in the presence of foreigners, whether they're from abroad or from outside Occitania (in this case, often merely and abusively referred to as Parisiens or Nordistes, which means northerners). Occitan is still spoken by many elderly people in rural areas, but they generally switch to French when dealing with outsiders.
Occitan's decline is somewhat less pronounced in Bearn
Béarn
Béarn is one of the traditional provinces of France, located in the Pyrenees mountains and in the plain at their feet, in southwest France. Along with the three Basque provinces of Soule, Lower Navarre, and Labourd, the principality of Bidache, as well as small parts of Gascony, it forms in the...
because of the province's history (a late addition to the Kingdom of France), though even there the language is little spoken outside the homes of the rural elderly. The village of Artix
Artix, Pyrénées-Atlantiques
Artix is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in south-western France.-Geography:Artix is located in the middle of a Pau-Orthez line on the RN117.-References:*...
is notable for having elected to post street signs in the local language.
Usage outside France
- In Val d'AranVal d'AranThe Val d'Aran is a valley in the Pyrenees mountains and a comarca in the northwestern part of the province of Lleida, in Catalonia, northern Spain. Most of the valley constitutes the only part of Spain, and of Catalonia, on the north face of the Pyrenees, hence the only part of Catalonia whose...
, in the north-west corner of CataloniaCataloniaCatalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
, SpainSpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, AraneseAranese languageAranese is a standardized form of the Pyrenean Gascon variety of the Occitan language spoken in the Val d'Aran, in north western Catalonia on the border between Spain and France, where it is one of the three official languages besides Catalan and Spanish...
(a variety of GasconGascon languageGascon is usually considered as a dialect of Occitan, even though some specialists regularly consider it a separate language. Gascon is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn in southwestern France and in the Aran Valley of Spain...
, in turn a variety of Occitan) is spoken. It is an official language of CataloniaCataloniaCatalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
together with CatalanCatalan languageCatalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
and Spanish. - In Italy, Occitan is also spoken in the Occitan ValleysOccitan ValleysThe Occitan Valleys are the part of Occitania which is situated within the borders of Italy.It is a mountainous territory, situated in the southern Alps: most of its valleys are oriented eastward and descend toward the plains of Piedmont.The population is estimated at inhabitants.Main towns are...
(AlpsAlpsThe Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
) in PiedmontPiedmontPiedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...
and LiguriaLiguriaLiguria is a coastal region of north-western Italy, the third smallest of the Italian regions. Its capital is Genoa. It is a popular region with tourists for its beautiful beaches, picturesque little towns, and good food.-Geography:...
. An Occitan-speaking enclave also has existed at Guardia PiemonteseGuardia PiemonteseGuardia Piemontese is a town and comune in the province of Cosenza in the Calabria region of southern Italy.- Location and language :...
(CalabriaCalabriaCalabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....
) since the 14th century. Italy adopted in 1999 a Linguistic Minorities Protection Law, or "Law 482", which includes Occitan; however, ItalianItalian languageItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
is the dominant language. It should be noted that the Piedmontese dialectPiedmontese languagePiedmontese is a Romance language spoken by over 2 million people in Piedmont, northwest Italy. It is geographically and linguistically included in the Northern Italian group . It is part of the wider western group of Romance languages, including French, Occitan, and Catalan.Many European and...
is extremely close to Occitan. - In MonacoMonacoMonaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a sovereign city state on the French Riviera. It is bordered on three sides by its neighbour, France, and its centre is about from Italy. Its area is with a population of 35,986 as of 2011 and is the most densely populated country in the...
, some Occitan speakers coexist with remaining native MonegasqueMonégasque languageMonégasque is a dialect of the modern Ligurian language, spoken in Monaco.- Language family :Forming a part of the Western Romance dialect continuum, Monégasque shares many features with the variety of Ligurian spoken in Genoa, but differs from its neighboring dialects Intemelio and Mentonasc. It...
(LigurianLigurian language (Romance)Ligurian is a Gallo-Romance language spoken in Liguria in Northern Italy, parts of the Mediterranean coastal zone of France, Monaco and in the villages of Carloforte and Calasetta in Sardinia. Genoese , spoken in Genoa, the capital of Liguria, is its most important dialect...
) speakers. FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
is the dominant language. - Scattered Occitan-speaking communities exist in different countries:
- There were Occitan-speaking colonies in WürttembergWürttembergWürttemberg , formerly known as Wirtemberg or Wurtemberg, is an area and a former state in southwestern Germany, including parts of the regions Swabia and Franconia....
(Germany) since the 18th century, the latter as a consequence of the CamisardCamisardCamisards were French Protestants of the rugged and isolated Cevennes region of south-central France, who raised an insurrection against the persecutions which followed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685...
war. The last Occitan speakers were heard in the 1930s. - In the Spanish Basque countryBasque Country (autonomous community)The Basque Country is an autonomous community of northern Spain. It includes the Basque provinces of Álava, Biscay and Gipuzkoa, also called Historical Territories....
, GasconGascon languageGascon is usually considered as a dialect of Occitan, even though some specialists regularly consider it a separate language. Gascon is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn in southwestern France and in the Aran Valley of Spain...
was spoken in the centre of Donostia-San Sebastián, perhaps until the beginning of the 20th century. - In the Americas, Occitan speakers exist:
- in the United States, in Valdese, North CarolinaValdese, North CarolinaValdese is a town in Burke County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 4,485 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Hickory–Lenoir–Morganton Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:Valdese is located at ....
- in Canada, in QuebecQuebecQuebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
where there are Occitan associations such as Association Occitane du Québec and Association des Occitans. - Pigüé, ArgentinaPigüéPigüé is a town in Argentina located in the Pampas, south-west of Buenos Aires. It was founded by 165 Occitan-speaking French immigrants from Aveyron and one Argentine of direct Irish descent on December 4, 1884. The urban population is now 13,822 and has increased by 9.5% since the 1991 census...
– Community settled by 165 Occitans from the Rodez-Aveyron area of Cantal in the late 19th century. - GuanajuatoGuanajuatoGuanajuato officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Guanajuato is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 46 municipalities and its capital city is Guanajuato....
– A sparse number of Occitan settlers are known to have settled in that state in the 19th century.http://www.mexicofrancia.org/articulos/p17.pdf
- in the United States, in Valdese, North Carolina
- There were Occitan-speaking colonies in Württemberg
Traditionally Occitan-speaking areas
- AquitaineAquitaineAquitaine , archaic Guyenne/Guienne , is one of the 27 regions of France, in the south-western part of metropolitan France, along the Atlantic Ocean and the Pyrenees mountain range on the border with Spain. It comprises the 5 departments of Dordogne, :Lot et Garonne, :Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Landes...
— excluding the BasqueBasque languageBasque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
-speaking part of the Pyrénées-AtlantiquesPyrénées-AtlantiquesPyrénées-Atlantiques is a department in the southwest of France which takes its name from the Pyrenees mountains and the Atlantic Ocean.- History :...
in the western part of the department and a small part of GirondeGirondeFor the Revolutionary party, see Girondists.Gironde is a common name for the Gironde estuary, where the mouths of the Garonne and Dordogne rivers merge, and for a department in the Aquitaine region situated in southwest France.-History:...
where SaintongeaisSaintongeaisSaintongeais is a dialect spoken halfway down the western coast of France in the former provinces of Saintonge, Aunis and Angoumois, all of which have been incorporated into the current départements of Charente and Charente-Maritime as well as in parts of their neighbouring départements of...
is spoken. The towns of BiarritzBiarritzBiarritz is a city which lies on the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast, in south-western France. It is a luxurious seaside town and is popular with tourists and surfers....
, AngletAngletAnglet is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in Aquitaine in south-western France. The town's name is pronounced [ãglet]; i.e...
, and BayonneBayonneBayonne is a city and commune in south-western France at the confluence of the Nive and Adour rivers, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, of which it is a sub-prefecture...
are originally Occitan-speaking, with Basque-speaking groups, but their BasqueBasque peopleThe Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...
populations grew sharply during the industrial revolution. - Midi-PyrénéesMidi-PyrénéesMidi-Pyrénées is the largest region of metropolitan France by area, larger than the Netherlands or Denmark.Midi-Pyrénées has no historical or geographical unity...
— including one of France's largest cities, ToulouseToulouseToulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...
. There are a few street signs in Toulouse in Occitan, and since late 2009 the MetroToulouse MetroThe Toulouse metro serves the city of Toulouse, France, and some of the surrounding area. The city's public transport system was initially managed by Société d'économie mixte des voyageurs de l'agglomération toulousaine , which was a company that was 80% owned by local government bodies and 20%...
announcements are bilingual French-Occitan, but otherwise the language is almost never heard spoken on the street. - Languedoc-RoussillonLanguedoc-RoussillonLanguedoc-Roussillon is one of the 27 regions of France. It comprises five departments, and borders the other French regions of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Rhône-Alpes, Auvergne, Midi-Pyrénées on the one side, and Spain, Andorra and the Mediterranean sea on the other side.-Geography:The region is...
(from "Lenga d'òc") — including the areas around the medieval city of CarcassonneCarcassonneCarcassonne is a fortified French town in the Aude department, of which it is the prefecture, in the former province of Languedoc.It is divided into the fortified Cité de Carcassonne and the more expansive lower city, the ville basse. Carcassone was founded by the Visigoths in the fifth century,...
, excluding the large part of the Pyrénées-OrientalesPyrénées-OrientalesPyrénées-Orientales is a department of southern France adjacent to the northern Spanish frontier and the Mediterranean Sea. It also surrounds the tiny Spanish enclave of Llívia, and thus has two distinct borders with Spain.- History :...
where Catalan is spoken (Fenolhedés is the only Occitan-speaking area of the Pyrénées-Orientales). - Provence-Alpes-Côte d'AzurProvence-Alpes-Côte d'AzurProvence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur or PACA is one of the 27 regions of France.It is made up of:* the former French province of Provence* the former papal territory of Avignon, known as Comtat Venaissin...
— except for the Roya and Bévéra valleys, where there is a transitional dialect between Ligurian and Occitan, (Roiasc, including BrigascBrigascBrigasc is a dialect of the Ligurian language. It is spoken in Italy and France.-Area of use:The Brigasc dialects are Roya, Tanaro, and Argentina, named respectively after the rivers Roya, Tanaro and Argentina. Roya is spoken in the French department of Alpes-Maritimes. Tanaro is spoken in the...
). There were former and now extinct isolated towns that spoke LigurianLigurian language (Romance)Ligurian is a Gallo-Romance language spoken in Liguria in Northern Italy, parts of the Mediterranean coastal zone of France, Monaco and in the villages of Carloforte and Calasetta in Sardinia. Genoese , spoken in Genoa, the capital of Liguria, is its most important dialect...
in the department of Alpes-MaritimesAlpes-MaritimesAlpes-Maritimes is a department in the extreme southeast corner of France.- History : was created by Octavian as a Roman military district in 14 BC, and became a full Roman province in the middle of the 1st century with its capital first at Cemenelum and subsequently at Embrun...
. MentonasqueMentonasqueMentonasc , is a transition dialect historically in and around Menton, France. It is generally classified as Occitan, with some strong features from the neighbouring Intemelian Ligurian dialect spoken from Monaco to San Remo.-Characteristics:The Mentonasc shows some transition features to the...
, that is spoken in MentonMentonMenton is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.Situated on the French Riviera, along the Franco-Italian border, it is nicknamed la perle de la France ....
, is an Occitan transition dialect with a strong Ligurian influence. - In MonacoMonacoMonaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a sovereign city state on the French Riviera. It is bordered on three sides by its neighbour, France, and its centre is about from Italy. Its area is with a population of 35,986 as of 2011 and is the most densely populated country in the...
, Occitan coexists with LigurianLigurian language (Romance)Ligurian is a Gallo-Romance language spoken in Liguria in Northern Italy, parts of the Mediterranean coastal zone of France, Monaco and in the villages of Carloforte and Calasetta in Sardinia. Genoese , spoken in Genoa, the capital of Liguria, is its most important dialect...
MonegasqueMonégasque languageMonégasque is a dialect of the modern Ligurian language, spoken in Monaco.- Language family :Forming a part of the Western Romance dialect continuum, Monégasque shares many features with the variety of Ligurian spoken in Genoa, but differs from its neighboring dialects Intemelio and Mentonasc. It...
. FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
is the dominant (and imposed) language. - Poitou-CharentesPoitou-CharentesPoitou-Charentes is an administrative region in central western France comprising four departments: Charente, Charente-Maritime, Deux-Sèvres and Vienne. The regional capital is Poitiers.-Politics:The regional council is composed of 56 members...
— Use of Occitan has declined here in the few parts it used to be spoken, replaced by French. Only Charente limousine, the eastern part of the region, has resisted. But moreover the natural & historical languages of most of the region are the Poitevin and SaintongeaisSaintongeaisSaintongeais is a dialect spoken halfway down the western coast of France in the former provinces of Saintonge, Aunis and Angoumois, all of which have been incorporated into the current départements of Charente and Charente-Maritime as well as in parts of their neighbouring départements of...
. - LimousinLimousin (région)Limousin is one of the 27 regions of France. It is composed of three départements: Corrèze, Creuse and the Haute-Vienne.Situated largely in the Massif Central, as of January 1st 2008, the Limousin comprised 740,743 inhabitants on nearly 17 000 km2, making it the second least populated region of...
— A rural region (about 710,000 inhabitants) where Occitan (Lemosin dialect, Nord-Occitan family) is still spoken among the oldest residents. - AuvergneAuvergne (région)Auvergne is one of the 27 administrative regions of France. It comprises the 4 departments of Allier, Puy de Dome, Cantal and Haute Loire.The current administrative region of Auvergne is larger than the historical province of Auvergne, and includes provinces and areas that historically were not...
— The language's use has declined in some urban areas. The department of AllierAllierAllier is a department in central France named after the river Allier.- History :Allier is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Auvergne and Bourbonnais.In 1940, the government of Marshal...
is divided between a southern Occitan-speaking area and a northern French-speaking area. - Centre region — Some villages, in the extreme South, speak Occitan.
- Rhône-AlpesRhône-AlpesRhône-Alpes is one of the 27 regions of France, located on the eastern border of the country, towards the south. The region was named after the Rhône River and the Alps mountain range. Its capital, Lyon, is the second-largest metropolitan area in France after Paris...
— While the south of the region is clearly Occitan-speaking, the central and northern LyonnaisLyonnaisThe Lyonnais is a historical province of France which owes its name to the city of Lyon.The geographical area known as the Lyonnais became part of the Kingdom of Burgundy after the division of the Carolingian Empire...
, ForezForezForez is a former province of France, corresponding approximately to the central part of the modern Loire département and a part of the Haute-Loire and Puy-de-Dôme départements....
and DauphinéDauphinéThe Dauphiné or Dauphiné Viennois is a former province in southeastern France, whose area roughly corresponded to that of the present departments of :Isère, :Drôme, and :Hautes-Alpes....
parts belong to the Franco-Provençal languageFranco-Provençal languageFranco-Provençal , Arpitan, or Romand is a Romance language with several distinct dialects that form a linguistic sub-group separate from Langue d'Oïl and Langue d'Oc. The name Franco-Provençal was given to the language by G.I...
area. - Occitan ValleysOccitan ValleysThe Occitan Valleys are the part of Occitania which is situated within the borders of Italy.It is a mountainous territory, situated in the southern Alps: most of its valleys are oriented eastward and descend toward the plains of Piedmont.The population is estimated at inhabitants.Main towns are...
(PiedmontPiedmontPiedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...
, LiguriaLiguriaLiguria is a coastal region of north-western Italy, the third smallest of the Italian regions. Its capital is Genoa. It is a popular region with tourists for its beautiful beaches, picturesque little towns, and good food.-Geography:...
) — Italian regions where Occitan is spoken only in the southern and central Alpine valleys. - Val d'AranVal d'AranThe Val d'Aran is a valley in the Pyrenees mountains and a comarca in the northwestern part of the province of Lleida, in Catalonia, northern Spain. Most of the valley constitutes the only part of Spain, and of Catalonia, on the north face of the Pyrenees, hence the only part of Catalonia whose...
— part of CataloniaCataloniaCatalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
that speaks a mountain dialect of Gascon Occitan.
Number of speakers
The area where Occitan was historically dominant is home to some 15 million inhabitants. It may be spoken as a first language by as many as 1 million people in FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
and Monaco
Monaco
Monaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a sovereign city state on the French Riviera. It is bordered on three sides by its neighbour, France, and its centre is about from Italy. Its area is with a population of 35,986 as of 2011 and is the most densely populated country in the...
. In Monaco, Occitan coexists with Monégasque
Monégasque language
Monégasque is a dialect of the modern Ligurian language, spoken in Monaco.- Language family :Forming a part of the Western Romance dialect continuum, Monégasque shares many features with the variety of Ligurian spoken in Genoa, but differs from its neighboring dialects Intemelio and Mentonasc. It...
Ligurian, which is the other native language. Some researchers state that up to seven million people in France understand the language, while twelve to fourteen million fully spoke it in 1921. In 1860, Occitan speakers represented more than 39% of the whole French population (52% for francophone
Francophone
The adjective francophone means French-speaking, typically as primary language, whether referring to individuals, groups, or places. Often, the word is used as a noun to describe a natively French-speaking person....
s proper); they were still 26% to 36% in the 1920s and less than 7% in 1993.
Dialects
Occitan is fundamentally defined by its dialects, rather than being a unitary language. Like other languages that fundamentally exist at a spoken, rather than written, level (e.g. Rhaeto-RomanceRhaeto-Romance languages
Rhaeto-Romance languages are a Romance language sub-family which includes multiple languages spoken in north and north-eastern Italy, and Switzerland...
, Franco-Provençal, Astur-Leonese, and Aragonese
Aragonese language
Aragonese is a Romance language now spoken in a number of local varieties by between 10,000 and 30,000 people over the valleys of the Aragón River, Sobrarbe and Ribagorza in Aragon, Spain...
), every settlement technically has its own dialect, with the whole of Occitania forming a classic dialect continuum
Dialect continuum
A dialect continuum, or dialect area, was defined by Leonard Bloomfield as a range of dialects spoken across some geographical area that differ only slightly between neighboring areas, but as one travels in any direction, these differences accumulate such that speakers from opposite ends of the...
that changes gradually along any path from one side to the other. Nonetheless, specialists commonly divide Occitan into six main dialects:
- GasconGascon languageGascon is usually considered as a dialect of Occitan, even though some specialists regularly consider it a separate language. Gascon is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn in southwestern France and in the Aran Valley of Spain...
: includes the Béarnese (sub-)dialect and AraneseAranese languageAranese is a standardized form of the Pyrenean Gascon variety of the Occitan language spoken in the Val d'Aran, in north western Catalonia on the border between Spain and France, where it is one of the three official languages besides Catalan and Spanish...
(spoken in Spain). - LanguedocienLanguedocienLanguedocien or Lengadocian is an Occitan dialect spoken by some people in the part of southern France known as Languedoc, Rouergue, Quercy, Agenais and Southern Périgord....
(lengadocian) - LimousinLimousin languageLimousin is a dialect of the Occitan language, spoken in the three departments of Limousin, parts of Charente and the Dordogne in the southwest of France.The first Occitan documents are in this dialect, particularly the Boecis, written around the year 1000....
(lemosin) - Auvergnat (auvernhat)
- Provençal (provençau or prouvençau), including the Niçard subdialect.
- Shuadit languageShuadit languageShuadit, also spelled Chouhadite, Chouhadit, Chouadite, Chouadit, and Shuhadit is the extinct Jewish language of southern France, also known as Judaeo-Provençal, Judéo-Comtadin, Hébraïco-Comtadin...
- Shuadit language
- Vivaro-AlpineVivaro-AlpineVivaro-Alpine or Vivaroalpenc, Vivaroaupenc is the northeastern dialect of the Occitan language. It belongs to the Northern Occitan dialectal group. Vivaro-Alpine is spoken in Southern France and North-Western Italy, and in the remote Guardia Piemontese, Calabria, where it is known as gardiol...
(vivaroaupenc), also known as "Alpine" or "Alpine Provençal", and sometimes considered a subdialect of Provençal
Gascon is generally considered the most divergent, and descriptions of the main features of Occitan often consider Gascon separately. Max Wheeler notes that "probably only its copresence within the French cultural sphere has kept [Gascon] from being regarded as a separate language", and compares it to Franco-Provençal, which is considered a separate language from Occitan but is "probably not more divergent from Occitan overall than Gascon is."
There is no general agreement about larger groupings of these dialects.
Max Wheeler divides the dialects into two groups:
- Southwestern (Gascon and Languedocien), more conservative
- Northeastern (Limousin, Auvergnat, Provençal and Vivaro-Alpine), more innovative
Pierre Bec divides the dialects into three groups:
- Gascon, standing alone
- Southern Occitan (Languedocien and Provençal)
- Northern Occitan (Limousin, Auvergnat, Vivaro-Alpine)
Bec also notes that some linguists prefer a "supradialectal" classification that groups Occitan with Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
as a part of a wider Occitano-Romanic diasystem. One such classification posits three groups:
- "Arverno-Mediterranean" (arvèrnomediterranèu), same as Wheeler's northeastern group, i.e. Limousin, Auvergnat, Provençal and Vivaro-Alpine
- "Central Occitan" (occitan centrau), Languedocien, excepting the Southern Languedocien subdialect
- "Aquitano-Pyrenean" (aquitanopirenenc), Southern Languedocien, Gascon and Catalan
According to this view, Catalan is an ausbau language that became independent from Occitan during the 13th century, but originates from the Aquitano-Pyrenean group.
Domergue Sumien proposes a slightly different supradialectal grouping.
- Arverno-Mediterranean (arvèrnomediterranèu), same as in Bec and Wheeler, divided further:
- Niçard-Alpine (niçardoaupenc), Vivaro-Alpine along with the Niçard subdialect of Provençal
- Trans-Occitan (transoccitan), the remainder of Provençal along with Limousin and Auvergnat
- Pre-Iberian (preïberic)
- Central Occitan (occitan centrau), same as in Bec
- Aquitano-Pyrenean (aquitanopirenenc), same as in Bec
Standardization
All these regional varieties of the Occitan language are written and valid. Standard Occitan, also called occitan larg (i.e., 'wide Occitan') is a synthesis that respects and admits soft regional adaptations (which are based on the convergence of previous regional koinesKoine language
In linguistics, a koiné language is a standard language or dialect that has arisen as a result of contact between two mutually intelligible varieties of the same language. Since the speakers have understood one another from before the advent of the koiné, the koineization process is not as rapid...
). So Occitan can be considered as a pluricentric language
Pluricentric language
A pluricentric language is a language with several standard versions, both in spoken and in written forms. This situation usually arises when language and the national identity of its native speakers do not, or did not, coincide.-English:...
. The standardization process began during the 1970s with the works of Pèire Bèc, Robèrt Lafont
Robèrt Lafont
Robèrt Lafont was an Occitan intellectual from Provence. He was a linguist, an author, an historian, an expert in literature and a political theoretician. His name in French reads Robert Lafont....
, Rogièr Teulat, Jacme Taupiac, and Patric Sauzet. But it has not been achieved yet. It is mostly supported by users of the classical norm. Due to the strong situation of diglossia
Diglossia
In linguistics, diglossia refers to a situation in which two dialects or languages are used by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety , a second, highly codified variety is used in certain situations such as literature, formal...
, some users still reject the standardization process and do not conceive Occitan as a language that could work just as other standardized languages.
Writing system
There are two main linguistic norms currently used for Occitan, one (known as "classical"), which is based on that of Mediaeval Occitan, and one (sometimes known as "Mistralian", due to its use by Frédéric Mistral), which is based on modern French orthography. Sometimes, there is some conflict between some users of each system.- The classical norm (or less exactly classical orthography) has the advantage of maintaining a link with earlier stages of the language, and reflects the fact that Occitan is not a variety of French. It is used in all Occitan dialects. It also allows speakers of one dialect of Occitan to write intelligibly for speakers of other dialects (e.g., the Occitan for day is written jorn in the classical norm, but could be jour, joun or journ, depending on the writer's origin, in Mistralian orthography). The Occitan classical orthography and the CatalanCatalan languageCatalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
orthography are quite similar: They show the very close ties of both languages. The digraphs lh and nh, used in the classical orthography, were adopted by the orthography of Portuguese, it is presumed after Friar GeraldGerald of BragaGerald, born in Cahors, Gascony, was a Benedictine monk at Moissac, France. He later worked with the archbishop in Toledo, Spain, and served as cathedral choir director. He later became the reforming Bishop of Braga, Portugal in 1100. Stopped ecclesiastical investiture by laymen in his...
, a monk from MoissacMoissacMoissac is a commune in the Tarn-et-Garonne department in the Midi-Pyrénées region in southern France. It is famous world-wide mostly for the artistic heritage handed down by the ancient Saint-Pierre Abbey.-History:...
, became bishop of BragaBragaBraga , a city in the Braga Municipality in northwestern Portugal, is the capital of the Braga District, the oldest archdiocese and the third major city of the country. Braga is the oldest Portuguese city and one of the oldest Christian cities in the World...
in Portugal in 1047 and played a major role in modernizing written PortuguesePortuguese languagePortuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
using classical Occitan norms. - The Mistralian norm (or less exactly Mistralian orthography) has the advantage of not forcing Occitan speakers already literate in French (as is usually the case) to learn an entirely new system. Nowadays, it is mostly used in the Provençal/NiçardNiçardNiçard , Nissart/Niçart , Niçois , or Nizzardo is considered a distinct subdialect of the Occitan language spoken in the city of Nice and in the historical County of Nice Niçard (Classical orthography), Nissart/Niçart (Mistralian orthography), Niçois (French, IPA: ), or Nizzardo (Italian, IPA: )...
dialect, besides the classical norm. It has also been used by a number of eminent writers, in particular in Provençal. However, it is somewhat impractical, since it is based mainly on the Provençal dialect and also uses many digraphs for simple sounds, the most notable one being ou for the [u] sound, written as o under the classical orthography.
There are also two other norms but they have a lesser audience. The Escòla dau Pò norm (or Escolo dóu Po norm) is a simplified version of the Mistralian norm and is used only in the Occitan Valleys (Italy), besides the classical norm. The Bonnaudian norm (or écriture auvergnate unifiée, EAU) was created by Pierre Bonnaud and is used only in the Auvergnat dialect, besides the classical norm.
| Comparison between the four existing norms in Occitan: extract from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly . The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled... |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| Classical norm | Mistralian norm | Bonnaudian norm | Escòla dau Pò norm |
| Provençal Provençal language Provençal is a dialect of Occitan spoken by a minority of people in southern France, mostly in Provence. In the English-speaking world, "Provençal" is often used to refer to all dialects of Occitan, but it actually refers specifically to the dialect spoken in Provence."Provençal" is also the... Totei lei personas naisson liuras e egalas en dignitat e en drech. Son dotadas de rason e de consciéncia e li cau (/fau) agir entre elei amb un esperit de frairesa. |
Provençal Provençal language Provençal is a dialect of Occitan spoken by a minority of people in southern France, mostly in Provence. In the English-speaking world, "Provençal" is often used to refer to all dialects of Occitan, but it actually refers specifically to the dialect spoken in Provence."Provençal" is also the... Tóuti li persouno naisson liéuro e egalo en dignita e en dre. Soun doutado de rasoun e de counsciènci e li fau agi entre éli em' un esperit de freiresso. |
||
| Niçard Niçard Niçard , Nissart/Niçart , Niçois , or Nizzardo is considered a distinct subdialect of the Occitan language spoken in the city of Nice and in the historical County of Nice Niçard (Classical orthography), Nissart/Niçart (Mistralian orthography), Niçois (French, IPA: ), or Nizzardo (Italian, IPA: )... Provençal Toti li personas naisson liuri e egali en dignitat e en drech. Son dotadi de rason e de consciéncia e li cau agir entre eli emb un esperit de frairesa. |
Niçard Niçard Niçard , Nissart/Niçart , Niçois , or Nizzardo is considered a distinct subdialect of the Occitan language spoken in the city of Nice and in the historical County of Nice Niçard (Classical orthography), Nissart/Niçart (Mistralian orthography), Niçois (French, IPA: ), or Nizzardo (Italian, IPA: )... Provençal Touti li persouna naisson liéuri e egali en dignità e en drech. Soun doutadi de rasoun e de counsciència e li cau agì entre eli em' un esperit de frairessa. |
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| Auvergnat Totas las personas naisson liuras e egalas en dignitat e en dreit. Son dotadas de rason e de consciéncia e lor chau (/fau) agir entre elas amb un esperit de frairesa. |
Auvergnat Ta la proussouna neisson lieura moé parira pà dïnessà mai dret. Son charjada de razou moé de cousiensà mai lhu fau arjî entremeî lha bei n'eime de freiressà. (Touta la persouna naisson lieura e egala en dïnetàt e en dreit. Soun doutada de razou e de cousiensà e lour chau ajî entre ela am en esprî de freiressà.) |
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| Vivaro-Alpine Totas las personas naisson liuras e egalas en dignitat e en drech. Son dotaas de rason e de consciéncia e lor chal agir entre elas amb un esperit de fraternitat. |
Vivaro-Alpine Toutes les persounes naisoun liures e egales en dignità e en drech. Soun douta de razoun e de counsiensio e lour chal agir entre eels amb (/bou) un esperit de freireso. |
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| Gascon Gascon language Gascon is usually considered as a dialect of Occitan, even though some specialists regularly consider it a separate language. Gascon is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn in southwestern France and in the Aran Valley of Spain... Totas las personas que naishen liuras e egaus en dignitat e en dreit. Que son dotadas de rason e de consciéncia e que'us cau agir enter eras dab un esperit de hrairessa. |
Gascon Gascon language Gascon is usually considered as a dialect of Occitan, even though some specialists regularly consider it a separate language. Gascon is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn in southwestern France and in the Aran Valley of Spain... (Febusian writing) Toutes las persounes que nachen libres e egaus en dinnitat e en dreyt. Que soun doutades de rasoû e de counscienci e qu'ous cau ayi entre eres dap û esperit de hrayresse. |
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| Limousin Totas las personas naisson liuras e egalas en dignitat e en drech. Son dotadas de rason e de consciéncia e lor chau (/fau) agir entre elas emb un esperit de frairesa. |
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| Languedocien Totas las personas naisson liuras e egalas en dignitat e en drech. Son dotadas de rason e de consciéncia e lor cal agir entre elas amb un esperit de frairesa. |
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| The same extract in five neighboring Romance languages Romance languages The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome... and English for comparison |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Catalan Catalan language Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island... Tots els éssers humans neixen/naixen lliures i iguals en dignitat i en drets. Són dotats de raó i de consciència, i han de comportar-se fraternalment els uns amb els altres. |
Arpetan Tôs los étres homans nêssont libros et ègals en dignitât et en drêts. Ils ant rêson et conscience et dêvont fâre los uns envèrs los ôtros dedens un èsprit de fraternitât. |
French French language French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts... Tous les êtres humains naissent libres et égaux en dignité et en droits. Ils sont doués de raison et de conscience et doivent agir les uns envers les autres dans un esprit de fraternité. |
Italian Italian language Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia... Tutti gli esseri umani nascono liberi ed uguali in dignità e in diritti. Sono dotati di ragione e di coscienza e devono comportarsi fraternamente l'uno con l'altro. |
Spanish Spanish language Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the... Todos los seres humanos nacen libres e iguales en dignidad y derechos y, dotados como están de razón y conciencia, deben comportarse fraternalmente los unos con los otros. |
English All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. |
Debates concerning linguistic classification and orthography
The majority of scholars believe that Occitan constitutes a single language. Some authors, constituting a tiny minority, reject this opinion and even the name Occitan: they think that there is a family of distinct languages (called langues d'oc / lengas d'oc in plural) rather than dialects.Many Occitan linguists and writers, particularly those involved with the pan-Occitan movement centred on the Institut d'Estudis Occitans
Institut d'Estudis Occitans
The Institut d'Estudis Occitans , or IEO, or Occitan Studies Institute, or Institute for Occitan Studies, is a cultural association that was founded in 1945 by a group of Occitan and French writers including Jean Cassou, Tristan Tzara, Ismaël Girard, Max Roqueta, Renat Nelli, and Pierre Rouquette...
, disagree with the view that Occitan is a family of languages and think that Limousin, Auvergnat, Languedocien, Gascon, Provençal and Alpine Provençal are dialects of a single language. Though there are some noticeable differences between these varieties, there is a very high degree of mutual intelligibility
Mutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand each other without intentional study or extraordinary effort...
between them; they also share a common literary history, and in academic and literary circles, have been identified as a collective linguistic entity—the langue d'oc—for centuries.
Some Provençal authors continue to support the view that Provençal is a separate language. Nevertheless, the vast majority of Provençal authors and associations think that Provençal is a part of Occitan.
This debate about the status of Provençal should not be confused with the debate concerning the spelling of Provençal.
- The classical orthography is phonemicPhonemic orthographyA phonemic orthography is a writing system where the written graphemes correspond to phonemes, the spoken sounds of the language. In terms of orthographic depth, these are termed shallow orthographies, contrasting with deep orthographies...
and diasystemDiasystemIn the field of structural dialectology, a diasystem or polylectal grammar is an analysis set up to encode or represent a range of related varieties...
ic, and so more pan-Occitan. It is used in (and adapted to) all Occitan dialects and regions, including Provençal. Its supporters think that Provençal is a part of Occitan. - The Mistralian orthography of Provençal is more-or-less phonemicPhonemic orthographyA phonemic orthography is a writing system where the written graphemes correspond to phonemes, the spoken sounds of the language. In terms of orthographic depth, these are termed shallow orthographies, contrasting with deep orthographies...
but not diasystemic and is closer to the FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
spelling, and therefore more specific to Provençal; its users are divided between the ones that think that Provençal is a part of Occitan and the ones that think that Provençal is a separate language.
For example, the classical (pan-Occitan) spelling writes Polonha where the Mistralian spelling system has Poulougno, for [puˈluɲo], 'Poland'.
The question of Gascon
Gascon language
Gascon is usually considered as a dialect of Occitan, even though some specialists regularly consider it a separate language. Gascon is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn in southwestern France and in the Aran Valley of Spain...
is similar. Gascon presents a number of significant differences from the rest of the language; but, despite these differences, Gascon and other Occitan dialects have very important common lexical and grammatical features, so authors such as Pierre Bec argue that they could never be considered as different as, for example, Spanish and Italian. In addition, the fact that Gascon is included within Occitan despite its particular differences, can be also justified because there is a common elaboration (Ausbau) process between Gascon and the rest of Occitan. The vast majority of the Gascon cultural movement considers itself as a part of the Occitan cultural movement. And the official status of Val d'Aran
Val d'Aran
The Val d'Aran is a valley in the Pyrenees mountains and a comarca in the northwestern part of the province of Lleida, in Catalonia, northern Spain. Most of the valley constitutes the only part of Spain, and of Catalonia, on the north face of the Pyrenees, hence the only part of Catalonia whose...
(Catalonia
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
, Spain), adopted in 1990, says that Aranese is a part of Gascon
Gascon language
Gascon is usually considered as a dialect of Occitan, even though some specialists regularly consider it a separate language. Gascon is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn in southwestern France and in the Aran Valley of Spain...
and Occitan. A grammar of Aranese by Aitor Carrera, published in 2007 in Lleida
Lleida
Lleida is a city in the west of Catalonia, Spain. It is the capital city of the province of Lleida, as well as the largest city in the province and it had 137,387 inhabitants , including the contiguous municipalities of Raimat and Sucs. The metro area has about 250,000 inhabitants...
, presents the same view.
The exclusion of Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
from the Occitan sphere, although Catalan is a language closely related to Occitan, is justified because there has been a consciousness of its being different from Occitan since the later Middle Ages and the elaboration (Ausbau) processes of Catalan and Occitan (including Gascon) have been quite distinct since the 20th century. Nevertheless, some other scholars point that the process that lead to the affirmation of Catalan as a distinct language from Occitan was started during the period when the pressure to include Catalan-speaking areas to a mainstream Spanish culture was at its most.
Linguistic characterisation
Jules Ronjat has sought to characterize Occitan by 19 principal criteria, as generalized as possible. Of those, 11 are phonetic, five morphologic, one syntactic, and two lexical. Close rounded vowels (French: rose, yeux) are rare or absent in Occitan. This characteristic often carries through to an Occitan speaker's French, leading to a distinctive méridionalMeridional French
Meridional French is a regional variant of the French language. It is strongly influenced by Occitan and so widely spoken in Occitania...
accent. Unlike French, it is a pro-drop language
Pro-drop language
A pro-drop language is a language in which certain classes of pronouns may be omitted when they are in some sense pragmatically inferable...
, allowing the omission of the subject (canti: I sing; cantas you sing). Among these 19 discriminating criteria, 7 are different from Spanish, 8 from Italian, 12 from Franco-Provençal, and 16 from French.
Features of Occitan
Most features of Occitan are shared with either FrenchFrench language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
or Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
, or both.
Features of Occitan as a whole
Examples of pan-Occitan features shared with French, but not Catalan:- Latin (Vulgar Latin /uː/) changed to /y/, as in French (Lat. > Oc. dur).
- Vulgar Latin /o/ changed to /u/, first in unstressed syllables, as in Catalan (Lat. > Oc. roman), then in stressed syllables (Lat. > Oc. flor).
Examples of pan-Occitan features shared with Catalan, but not French:
- Stressed Latin was preserved (Lat. > Oc. mar, Fr. mer).
- Intervocalic -- was lenited to /d/ rather than lost (Lat. > Oc. vida, Fr. vie).
Examples of pan-Occitan features not shared with Catalan or French:
- Original /aw/ preserved.
- Final /a/ becomes /ɔ/ (note in ValencianValencianValencian is the traditional and official name of the Catalan language in the Valencian Community. There are dialectical differences from standard Catalan, and under the Valencian Statute of Autonomy, the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua has been established as its regulator...
(Catalan), /ɔ/ may appear in word-final unstressed position, in a process of vowel harmonyVowel harmonyVowel harmony is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels that occurs in some languages. In languages with vowel harmony, there are constraints on which vowels may be found near each other....
). - Low-mid /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ diphthongized before velars. /ɛ/ generally becomes /jɛ/; /ɔ/ originally became /wɔ/ or /wɛ/, but has since usually undergone further fronting (e.g. to [wœ], [œ], [ɛ], etc.). Diphthongization also occurred before palatals, as in French and Catalan.
- Various assimilations in consonant clusters (e.g. ⟨cc⟩ in Occitan, pronounced /utsiˈta/ in conservative Languedocien).
Features of some Occitan dialects
Examples of dialect-specific features of the northerly dialects shared with French, but not Catalan:- Palatalization of to /tʃa, dʒa/.
- Vocalization of syllable-final /l/ to /w/.
- Loss of final consonants.
- Vocalization of syllable-final nasals to nasal vowelNasal vowelA nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. By contrast, oral vowels are ordinary vowels without this nasalisation...
s. - Uvularization of some or all ⟨r⟩ sounds.
Examples of dialect-specific features of the southerly dialects (or some of them) shared with Catalan, but not French:
- Latin become /m, n/.
- BetacismBetacismIn historical linguistics, betacism is a sound change in which shifts to . Betacism is a fairly common phenomenon; it has taken place in Greek, Hebrew, and Spanish, among others.In Classical Greek, the letter beta <β> denoted...
: /b/ and /v/ merge (feature shared with some Catalan dialects; except for Balearic, Valencian and Alguerese Catalan, where /v/ is preserved). - Intervocalic voiced stops /b d g/ (from Latin ) become voiced fricatives [β ð ɣ].
- Loss of word-final single /n/ (but not /nn/, e.g. an "year" < ).
Examples of Gascon
Gascon language
Gascon is usually considered as a dialect of Occitan, even though some specialists regularly consider it a separate language. Gascon is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn in southwestern France and in the Aran Valley of Spain...
-specific features not shared with French or Catalan:
- Latin initial /f/ changed into /h/ (Lat. > Gasc. hilh). This also happened in medieval Spanish, although the /h/ was eventually lost, or reverted back to /f/ (before a consonant). The Gascon ⟨h⟩ has retained its aspirationAspiration (phonetics)In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ...
. - Loss of /n/ between vowels. This also happened in Portuguese and GalicianGalician languageGalician is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community located in northwestern Spain, where it is co-official with Castilian Spanish, as well as in border zones of the neighbouring territories of Asturias and Castile and León.Modern Galician and...
. - Change of to ⟨r⟩ /ɾ/, or ⟨th⟩ word-finally (originally the voiceless palatal stop /c/, but now generally either /t/ or /tʃ/, depending on the word). This is a unique characteristic of Gascon.
Examples of other dialect-specific features not shared with French or Catalan:
- Merging of syllable-final nasals to /ŋ/. This appears to represent a transitional stage before nasalization, and occurs especially in the southerly dialects other than Gascon (which still maintains different final nasals, as in Catalan).
- Former intervocalic /ð/ (from Latin ) becomes /z/ (most dialects, but not Gascon). This appears to have happened in primitive Catalan as well, but Catalan later deleted this sound or converted it to /w/.
- Palatalization of /jt/ (from Latin ) to /tʃ/ in most dialects or /(j)t/: lach vs lait (Gascon lèit) 'milk', lucha vs luta (Gascon luta) 'fight'.
- Weakening of /l/ to /r/ in the Vivaro-Alpine dialect.
Comparison with other Romance languages
| Latin | Occitan (including main regional varieties) |
Catalan | French | Ladin (Nones) | Lombard | Italian | Spanish | Portuguese | Sardinian | Romanian | English |
| cantar (chantar) | cantar | chanter | ciantar | cantà | cantare | cantar | cantar | cantare | cânta | '(to) sing' | |
| cabra (chabra, craba) | cabra | chèvre | ciaura | cavra | capra | cabra | cabra | craba | capră | 'goat' | |
| clau | clau | clé | clau | ciav | chiave | llave | chave | crae | cheie | 'key' | |
| , | glèisa | església | église | glesia | giesa | chiesa | iglesia | igreja | gresia | biserică | 'church' |
| (Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin is any of the nonstandard forms of Latin from which the Romance languages developed. Because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography. All written works used Classical Latin, with very few exceptions... ), |
formatge (hormatge) | formatge | fromage | formai | furmai/furmagg | formaggio/cacio | queso | queijo | casu | caş | 'cheese' |
| lenga (lengua) | llengua | langue | lenga | lengua | lingua | lengua | língua | limba | limbă | 'tongue, language' | |
| nuèch (nuèit) | nit | nuit | not | nocc | notte | noche | noite | nothe | noapte | 'night' | |
| plaça | plaça | place | plaza | piasa | piazza/platea | plaza | praça | pratza | piaţă | 'square, plaza' | |
| pont (pònt) | pont | pont | pònt | punt | ponte | puente | ponte | ponte | punte | 'bridge' |
Rich lexicon
A comparison of terms and word counts between languages is not easy, as it is impossible to precisely count the number of words in a language. (See LexiconLexicon
In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...
, Lexeme
Lexeme
A lexeme is an abstract unit of morphological analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word. For example, in the English language, run, runs, ran and running are forms of the same lexeme, conventionally written as RUN...
, Lexicography
Lexicography
Lexicography is divided into two related disciplines:*Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries....
for more information.)
Some have claimed around 450,000 words exist in the Occitan language, a number comparable to English (The Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged with 1993 addenda reaches 470,000 words, as does the Oxford English Dictionary, Second edition). The Merriam-Webster Web site estimates that the number is somewhere between 250,000 and 1 million words.
The magazine Géo
GEO (magazine)
GEO is a family of educational monthly magazines similar to the National Geographic magazine. It is known for its profound reports, which are accompanied by opulent pictures.The first edition appeared in Germany in 1976...
(2004, p. 79) claims that American English literature can be more easily translated into Occitan than French, excluding modern technological terms that both languages have integrated.
A comparison of the lexical content can find more subtle differences between the languages. For example, Occitan has 128 synonyms related to cultivated land, 62 for wetlands, and 75 for sunshine (Géo). The language went through an eclipse during the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
, as the vocabulary of the countryside became less important. At the same time, it was disparaged as a patois
Patois
Patois is any language that is considered nonstandard, although the term is not formally defined in linguistics. It can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects, and other forms of native or local speech, but not commonly to jargon or slang, which are vocabulary-based forms of cant...
. Nevertheless, Occitan has also incorporated new words into its lexicon to describe the modern world. The Occitan word for web is oèb, for example.
One interesting and useful feature of the Occitan language is its virtually infinite ability to create new words through a number of interchangeable and imbeddable suffixes, giving the original terms a whole array of semantic nuances. Take as an example this excerpt from La covisada (1923) by Henri Gilbert:
- Diablassas, diablàs, diablassonassas, diablassonàs, diablassons, diablassonetas, diablassonetassons, diablassonets, diablassonetons, diables, diablonassas, diablonàs, diablonassonas, diablonassons, diablonassonets, diabletassas, diabletàs, diabletassonas, diabletassons, diabletassonets, diablons, diablets, diablonetassas, diablonetàs, diabletonassas, diabletonàs, diablonetassons, diabletonassons, diablonetassonets, diabletonassonets, diabletons, diablonets e diabletonets, totes correguèron darrèr la pòrta e se i ranquèron.
- Big she-devils, big devils, big little big she-devils, big little big devils, little big devils, tiny little big she-devils, little big tiny little devils, tiny little big devils, little tiny little big devils, devils, big little she-devils, big little devils, little big little she-devils, little big little devils, tiny little big little devils, big she-devils, big devils, little big she-devils, little big devils, tiny little big devils, little devils, tiny devils, big tiny little she-devils, big tiny little devils, big little tiny she-devils, big little tiny devils, little big tiny little devils, little big little tiny devils, tiny little big tiny little devils, tiny little big little tiny devils, little tiny devils, tiny little devils and tiny little tiny devils, all ran to the back of the door and kept it shut.
The 120 words that are needed for a correct English translation of all types of devils, Occitan expresses with just thirty-four. But this is not the only way to determine the size of things or people. The feminine form is also of great avail. Not to mention that suffixes slightly or greatly affect how things or people are perceived. See for instance the word prat for meadow:
- pradèl, pradet, pradòt and pradon all refer to a small meadow;
- prada, pradàs and pradal mean a large one (note that the feminine makes it bigger);
- pradariá and pradièra are even larger ones (both are feminine);
- pradeta, pradèla and pradèra are smaller than a prat but larger than a pradet (this small meadow is quite large: its being small is not seen as a problem in itself);
- pradelàs is larger than a pradèl but smaller than a prat (this meadow is rather large for a small one: it's not so small in fact);
- pradelet, pradelon, praderon and praderòt are quite smaller than a small meadow;
- pradesca is a meadow near a river or a pond;
- pradal is a natural meadow;
- pradatge, pradariá and pratlin refer to a group of meadows or all meadows in general;
- pradeta, the diminutive and feminine form of prat, also means a nice little meadow;
- pradelet, with two diminutive suffixes, is a nice little meadow as well;
- pradèla, though similar to pradeta in theory, is actually the opposite: a bad little meadow (note that -èl is more negative that -et);
- pradàs, pradinàs and pradelàs imply that the meadow and the smaller meadows, respectively, are not so good.
Of course, all the aforementioned words may in turn be further precised by other suffixes. These suffixes can be added to nouns (peis → peisson → peissonet), adjectives (brave → bravilh → bravilhon), verbs (petar → petejar → petonejar) and adverbs (doçament → docetament = doçamenet). Even proper nouns would be altered in a familiar context. In most cases, they're family names: the wife of Mr Mistral (sénher Mistral, monsur Mistral or lo Mistral) will accordingly be called la Mistrala (madama Mistral); their son will be lo Mistralet and their daughter la Mistraleta. Their younger son's nickname will be lo Mistraleton and so forth, without running the risk of being misunderstood. Shall Mr Mistral be tall, old, fat or disliked, he will as easily become lo Mistralàs and lo Mistralon in the opposite case.
Differences between Occitan and Catalan
The separation of Catalan from Occitan is seen by some as largely politically (rather than linguistically) motivated. However, the variety that has become standard Catalan does differ from that which has become standard Occitan in a number of ways. The following are just a few examples:- PhonologyPhonologyPhonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
- Standard Catalan (based on Central Eastern Catalan) is unique in that Latin short e developed into a close vowel /e/ (é) and Latin long e developed into an open vowel /ɛ/ (è); this is precisely the reverse of the development that took place in Western Catalan dialects, and the rest of the Romance languages, including Occitan. Thus Standard Catalan ésser [ˈesə] corresponds to Occitan èsser/èstre [ˈɛse/ˈɛstre] 'to be;' Catalan [kəˈre] corresponds to Occitan carrièra karˈjɛɾo̞ 'street.'
- The distinctly Occitan development of word-final -a, pronounced [o̞] in standard Occitan (e.g. chifra 'figure' [ˈtʃifro̞]), did not occur in general Catalan (which has xifra [ˈʃifrə]). However, some Occitan varieties also lack this feature and some Catalan (ValencianValencianValencian is the traditional and official name of the Catalan language in the Valencian Community. There are dialectical differences from standard Catalan, and under the Valencian Statute of Autonomy, the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua has been established as its regulator...
) varieties have the [ɔ] pronunciation mostly happening during a vowel harmonyVowel harmonyVowel harmony is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels that occurs in some languages. In languages with vowel harmony, there are constraints on which vowels may be found near each other....
process. - When in Catalan word stress falls in the antepenultimate syllable, in Occitan the stress is moved to the penultimate syllable: for example, Occitan pagina [paˈdʒino̞] vs. Catalan pàgina [ˈpaʒinə], "page". However, some varieties of Occitan (e.g., around Nice) keep the stress on the antepenultimate syllable (pàgina) while some varieties of Catalan (in Northern Catalonia) put the stress on the penultimate syllable (pagina).
- DiphthongDiphthongA diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
isation has evolved in different ways, e.g. Occitan paire vs. Catalan pare 'father;' Occitan carrièra (carrèra, carrèira) vs. Catalan carrera. - Some Occitan dialects lack the voiceless postalveolar fricativeVoiceless postalveolar fricativeThe voiceless palato-alveolar fricative or voiceless domed postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in many spoken languages, including English...
phoneme /ʃ/ but south-western Occitan presents it, e.g. general Occitan caissa [ˈkajso̞] vs. Catalan caixa [ˈkaʃə] and south-western Occitan caissa, caisha [ˈka(j)ʃo̞], 'box.' Nevertheless, some Valencian dialects like Northern Valencian lack that phoneme too, generally substituted for /jsʲ/; e.g. caixa [ˈkajʃa] (Standard Valencian) → [ˈkajsʲa] (Northern Valencian). - Occitan has developed the close front rounded vowelClose front rounded vowelThe close front rounded vowel, or high front rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is y...
/y/ as a phonemePhonemeIn a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
, often (but not always) corresponding to Catalan /u/, e.g. Occitan musica [myˈziko̞] vs. Catalan música [ˈmuzikə]. - The distribution of palatal consonantPalatal consonantPalatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...
s /ʎ/ and /ɲ/ differs in Catalan and a part of Occitan: while Catalan permits these sounds in word-final position, in central Occitan they are neutralised to [l] and [n] (e.g. central Occitan filh [fil] vs. Catalan fill [fiʎ], 'son'). Non-central varieties of Occitan, however, can have a palatal realization (e.g. filh, hilh [fiʎ, fij, hiʎ]). However, Alguerese Catalan neutralizes those palatal consonants in word-final position as well. - Also, many words that start with /l/ in Occitan start with /ʎ/ in Catalan, e.g. Occitan libre [ˈliβɾe] vs. Catalan llibre [ˈʎiβɾə], 'book.' This is perhaps one of the most distinctive characteristics of Catalan amongst the Romance languages, only shared with AsturianAsturian languageAsturian is a Romance language of the West Iberian group, Astur-Leonese Subgroup, spoken in the Spanish Region of Asturias by the Asturian people...
, LeoneseLeonese languageThe Leonese language is the endonym term used to refer to all vernacular Romance dialects of the Astur-Leonese linguistic group in the Spanish provinces of León and Zamora; Astur-Leonese also includes the dialects...
and MirandeseMirandese languageThe Mirandese language is a Romance language belonging to the Astur-Leonese linguistic group, sparsely spoken in a small area of northeastern Portugal, in the municipalities of Miranda do Douro, Mogadouro and Vimioso...
. However, some transitional varieties of Occitan, near to the Catalan area, also have initial /ʎ/. - While /l/ is always clear in Occitan, in Catalan it tends to be velarizedVelarizationVelarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant.In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of three diacritics:...
[ɫ] ("dark l"). In coda position, /l/ has tended to be vocalized to [w] in Occitan, while remained dark in Catalan. - Standard Eastern Catalan has a neutral vowelSchwaIn linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
[ə] whenever a or e occur in unstressed position (e.g. passar [pəˈsa], 'to happen,' but passa [ˈpasə], 'it happens'), and also [u] whenever o or u occur in unstressed position, e.g. obrir [uˈβɾi], 'to open', but obre [ˈɔβɾə], 'you open'. However, this does not apply to Western Catalan dialects, whose vowel system usually retains the a/e distinction in unstressed position, nor to Northern Catalan dialects, whose vowel system does not retain the o/u distinction in stressed position, much like Occitan.
- MorphologyMorphology (linguistics)In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
- Verb conjugationGrammatical conjugationIn linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection . Conjugation may be affected by person, number, gender, tense, aspect, mood, voice, or other grammatical categories...
is slightly different, although there is a great variety amongst dialects. Medieval conjugations were much closer. - Occitan tends to add an analogicalAnalogyAnalogy is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject to another particular subject , and a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process...
-a to the feminineGrammatical genderGrammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
forms of adjectives that are invariable in standard Catalan: for example, Occitan legal / legala vs. Catalan legal / legal. - Catalan has a distinctive past tense formation, known as the 'periphrastic preterite,' formed from a variant of the verb 'to go' plus the infinitive of the verb: donar 'to give,' va donar 'he gave.' This has the same value as the 'normal' preterite shared by most Romance languages, deriving from the Latin perfect tense: in Catalan, donà 'he gave.' The periphrastic preterite only exists in Occitan as an archaic or as a very local tense.
- Verb conjugation
- OrthographyOrthographyThe orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
- The writing systems of the two languages differ slightly. The modern Occitan spelling recommended by the Institut d'Estudis OccitansInstitut d'Estudis OccitansThe Institut d'Estudis Occitans , or IEO, or Occitan Studies Institute, or Institute for Occitan Studies, is a cultural association that was founded in 1945 by a group of Occitan and French writers including Jean Cassou, Tristan Tzara, Ismaël Girard, Max Roqueta, Renat Nelli, and Pierre Rouquette...
and the Conselh de la Lenga OccitanaConselh de la Lenga OccitanaThe Conselh de la Lenga Occitana or CLO is the body responsible for managing and developing the standard variant of the Occitan language. The council was founded in 1996—1997.- External links :* , on * on *...
is designed to be a pan-Occitan system, whereas the Catalan system recommended by the Institut d'Estudis CatalansInstitut d'Estudis CatalansThe Institut d'Estudis Catalans , also known by the acronym IEC, is an academic institution which seeks to undertake research and study into "all elements of Catalan culture"....
and Acadèmia Valenciana de la LlenguaAcadèmia Valenciana de la LlenguaThe Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua , also known by the acronym AVL, is an institution created on September 16, 1998 by the Valencian Parliament, which belongs to the set of official institutions that compose the Generalitat Valenciana, according to the Act of Autonomy of the Valencian...
is specific to Catalan and Valencian. For example, in Catalan, word-final -n is omitted, as this is not pronounced in any dialect of Catalan (so we have Català, Occità); central Occitan also drops word-final -n, but it is retained in the spelling, as some eastern and western dialects of Occitan do retain the final consonant (so we have Catalan, Occitan). Some digraphs are also written in a different way such as the sound /ʎ/, which is –ll– in Catalan (similar to Spanish) and –lh– in Occitan (similar to Portuguese) or the sound /ɲ/ written –ny– in Catalan and –nh– in Occitan.
- The writing systems of the two languages differ slightly. The modern Occitan spelling recommended by the Institut d'Estudis Occitans
Occitano-Romance linguistic group
Despite these differences, Occitan and Catalan remain more or less mutually comprehensibleMutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand each other without intentional study or extraordinary effort...
, especially when written — more so than either is with Spanish or French, for example. Occitan and Catalan form a common diasystem (or a common Abstandsprache), which is called Occitano-Romance, according to the linguist Pèire Bèc. Speakers of both languages share early historical and cultural heritage.
The combined Occitano-Romance area is 259,000 km² and represents 23 million speakers. However, the regions are not equal in terms of language speakers. According to Bec 1969 (pp. 120–121), in France, no more than a quarter of the population in counted regions speak Occitan well, though around half can understand it; it is thought that the number of Occitan users has decreased dramatically since then. By contrast, in the Spanish Catalonia, nearly three quarters of the population speak Catalan and 95% understand it.
Occitan quotes
Dante Alighieri
Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...
's Purgatorio
Purgatorio
Purgatorio is the second part of Dante's Divine Comedy, following the Inferno, and preceding the Paradiso. The poem was written in the early 14th century. It is an allegory telling of the climb of Dante up the Mount of Purgatory, guided by the Roman poet Virgil...
in which the troubadour Arnaut Daniel
Arnaut Daniel
Arnaut Daniel de Riberac was an Occitan troubadour of the 12th century, praised by Dante as "il miglior fabbro" and called "Grand Master of Love" by Petrarch...
responds to the narrator:
- "Tan m'abellís vostre cortés deman, / qu'ieu no me puesc ni voill a vos cobrire. / Ieu sui Arnaut, que plor e vau cantan; / consirós vei la passada folor, / e vei jausen lo joi qu'esper, denan. / Ara vos prec, per aquella valor / que vos guida al som de l'escalina, / sovenha vos a temps de ma dolor"
- Modern Occitan: Tan m'abelís vòstra cortesa demanda, / que ieu non pòdi ni vòli m'amagar de vos. / Ieu soi Arnaut, que plori e vau cantant; / consirós vesi la foliá passada, / e vesi joiós lo jorn qu'espèri, davant. / Ara vos prègui, per aquela valor / que vos guida al som de l'escalièr, / sovenhatz-vos tot còp de ma dolor.
The above strophe translates to:
- So pleases me your courteous demand, / I cannot and I will not hide me from you. / I am Arnaut, who weep and singing go;/ Contrite I see the folly of the past, / And joyous see the hoped-for day before me. / Therefore do I implore you, by that power/ Which guides you to the summit of the stairs, / Be mindful to assuage my suffering!
Another notable Occitan quotation, this time from Arnaut Daniel's own 10th Canto:
- "Ieu sui Arnaut qu'amas l'aura
- e chatz le lebre ab lo bou
- e nadi contra suberna"
Modern Occitan:
- "Ieu soi Arnaut qu'aimi l'aura
- e caci [chaci] la lèbre amb lo buòu
- e nadi contra subèrna.
Translation:
- "I am Arnaut who loves the wind,
- and chases the hare with the ox,
- and swims against the torrent."
French writer Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
's classic Les Misérables
Les Misérables
Les Misérables , translated variously from the French as The Miserable Ones, The Wretched, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, or The Victims), is an 1862 French novel by author Victor Hugo and is widely considered one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century...
also contains some Occitan. In Part One, First Book, Chapter IV, "Les œuvres semblables aux paroles", one can read about Monseigneur Bienvenu:
- "Né provençal, il s'était facilement familiarisé avec tous les patois du midi. Il disait: — E ben, monsur, sètz saget? comme dans le bas Languedoc. — Ont anaratz passar? comme dans les basses Alpes. — Pòrti un bon moton amb un bon formatge gras, comme dans le haut Dauphiné. […] Parlant toutes les langues, il entrait dans toutes les âmes."
Translation:
- "Born a Provençal, he easily familiarized himself with the dialect of the south. He would say, E ben, monsur, sètz saget? as in lower Languedoc; Ont anaratz passar? as in the Basses-Alpes; Pòrti un bon moton amb un bon formatge gras as in upper Dauphiné. […] As he spoke all tongues, he entered into all hearts."
- E ben, monsur, sètz saget?: So, Mister, everything's fine?
- Ont anaratz passar?: Which way will you go?
- Pòrti un bon moton amb un bon formatge gras: I brought some fine mutton with a fine fat cheese
The Spanish playwright Lope de Rueda
Lope de Rueda
Lope de Rueda was a Spanish dramatist and author, regarded by some as the best of his era. A very versatile writer, he also wrote comedies, farces, and pasos...
included a Gascon servant for comical effect in one of his short pieces, La generosa paliza.
John Barnes
John Barnes (author)
-Writing:Two of his novels, The Sky So Big and Black and The Duke of Uranium have been reviewed as having content appropriate for a young adult readership, comparing favorably to Robert A. Heinlein's "juvenile" novels...
's Thousand Cultures science fiction series (A Million Open Doors
A Million Open Doors
A Million Open Doors is a science fiction novel, the first book of the Thousand Cultures series, by John Barnes. The story is told from the perspective of a maturing adult from a parochial culture who encounters many obstacles in a different and even more parochial culture which causes him to...
, 1992; Earth Made of Glass
Earth Made of Glass
Earth Made of Glass is a science fiction novel, the second book of the Thousand Cultures series, by John Barnes whose story is told from the perspective of a middle-aged special agent named Giraut...
, 1998; The Merchants of Souls
The Merchants of Souls
The Merchants of Souls is a science fiction novel, the third book of the Thousand Cultures series, by John Barnes whose story is told from the perspective of a middle-aged special agent named Giraut...
, 2001; and The Armies of Memory
The Armies of Memory
The Armies of Memory is a science fiction novel, the fourth book of the Thousand Cultures series, by John Barnes whose story is told from the perspective of a middle-aged special agent named Giraut...
, 2006), features Occitan.
So does the 2005 best-selling novel Labyrinth
Labyrinth (book)
Labyrinth is an archaeological mystery English-language novel written by Kate Mosse set both in the Middle Ages and present-day France. It was published in 2005....
by English author Kate Mosse
Kate Mosse
Kate Mosse is an English author and broadcaster. She is best known for her 2005 novel Labyrinth, which has been translated into more than 37 languages.- Private life :...
. It is set in Carcassonne
Carcassonne
Carcassonne is a fortified French town in the Aude department, of which it is the prefecture, in the former province of Languedoc.It is divided into the fortified Cité de Carcassonne and the more expansive lower city, the ville basse. Carcassone was founded by the Visigoths in the fifth century,...
, where she owns a house and spends half of the year.
The French composer Joseph Canteloube
Joseph Canteloube
Marie-Joseph Canteloube de Malaret was a French composer, musicologist, and author best known for his collections of orchestrated folksongs from the Auvergne region.-Biography:...
created five sets of folk songs entitled Songs of the Auvergne, in which the lyrics are in the Auvergne dialect of Occitan. The orchestration strives to conjure vivid pastoral scenes of yesteryear.
Michael Crichton
Michael Crichton
John Michael Crichton , best known as Michael Crichton, was an American best-selling author, producer, director, and screenwriter, best known for his work in the science fiction, medical fiction, and thriller genres. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and many have been adapted...
features Occitan in his Timeline
Timeline (novel)
Timeline is a science fiction novel by Michael Crichton that was published in November 1999. It tells the story of a group of history students who travel to 14th Century France to rescue their professor...
novel.
See also
- BaìoBaìoThe baìo is a traditional festival that takes place every five years in the municipality of Sampeyre in Valle Varaita in the province of Cuneo, Italy. It falls between the last week of January and early February. It is one of the most important and ancient traditional festivals in the Italian Alps....
- Catalan languageCatalan languageCatalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
- Institut d'Estudis OccitansInstitut d'Estudis OccitansThe Institut d'Estudis Occitans , or IEO, or Occitan Studies Institute, or Institute for Occitan Studies, is a cultural association that was founded in 1945 by a group of Occitan and French writers including Jean Cassou, Tristan Tzara, Ismaël Girard, Max Roqueta, Renat Nelli, and Pierre Rouquette...
- Languages of France
- Languages of Italy
- Languages of SpainLanguages of SpainThe languages of Spain are the languages spoken or once spoken in Spain. Romance languages are the most widely spoken in Spain, of which Spanish is the country's official language...
- Occitan alphabetOccitan alphabetThe Occitan alphabet consists of the following 23 Latin letters:The letters K, W and Y are considered foreign and are used only in words of foreign origin, incrementally integrated into Occitan, such as whisky, watt, Kenya...
- Occitan conjugationOccitan conjugationThis article discusses the conjugation of verbs in a number of varieties of the Occitan language, including Old Occitan. Each verbal form is accompanied by its phonetic transcription. The similarities with Catalan are noticeable.-First group verbs :...
- Occitan crossOccitan crossThe Occitan cross — also cross of Occitania, cross of Languedoc, cross of Forcalquier and Toulouse cross — is the symbol of Occitania...
- Occitan cuisineOccitan cuisineOccitan cuisine is the traditional cuisine and gastronomy in Occitania or in the lands where people speak Occitan.-Introduction:This kind of gastronomy is mostly Mediterranean cuisine, very near to Catalan cuisine and Italian cuisine in the east, a little less in the west, which has influences of...
- Occitan dialects
- Auvergnat
- GasconGascon languageGascon is usually considered as a dialect of Occitan, even though some specialists regularly consider it a separate language. Gascon is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn in southwestern France and in the Aran Valley of Spain...
(including Aranese) - Limousin dialect
- Languedocien
- Provençal (including NiçardNiçardNiçard , Nissart/Niçart , Niçois , or Nizzardo is considered a distinct subdialect of the Occitan language spoken in the city of Nice and in the historical County of Nice Niçard (Classical orthography), Nissart/Niçart (Mistralian orthography), Niçois (French, IPA: ), or Nizzardo (Italian, IPA: )...
) - Vivaro-Alpine
- Occitan phonologyOccitan phonology-Consonants:Below is an abstract consonant chart that covers multiple dialects. Where symbols for consonants occur in pairs, the left represents a voiceless consonant and the right represents a voiced consonant.Please note:...
External links
- Orbilat.com, Overview and grammar of Occitan
- Occitanet.free.fr, a guide to the language
- Globegate.UTM.edu, Troubadour & Early Occitan Literature
- Ostaldoccitania.net The house of occitan associations of Toulouse
- Eonet.ne, "LexRomEdic", Electronic version of Lexique Roman of Rainouard (A provisional version is available).