| Occitan | |
| Nativename: | occitan,, provençal / provençau |
| States: | France, Spain, Italy, Monaco |
| Ethnicity: | Occitans |
| Date: | 1990 - 2012 |
| Ref: | e25 |
| Speakers2: | Estimates range from to total speakers (2007–2012),[1] [2] with 68,000 in Italy (2005 survey),[3] 4,000 in Spain (Val d'Aran) |
| Familycolor: | Indo-European |
| Fam2: | Italic |
| Fam3: | Latino-Faliscan |
| Fam4: | Latin |
| Fam5: | Romance |
| Fam6: | Italo-Western |
| Fam7: | Western Romance |
| Fam8: | Gallo-Iberian |
| Fam9: | Gallo-Romance |
| Fam10: | Occitano-Romance |
| Ancestor: | Old Latin |
| Ancestor2: | Vulgar Latin |
| Ancestor3: | Proto-Romance |
| Ancestor4: | Old Occitan |
| Script: | Latin alphabet (Occitan alphabet) |
| Nation: | Spain |
| Minority: | France
Italy (Occitan Valleys) (Law number 482 of 15 December 1999)Monaco |
| Agency: | Conselh de la Lenga Occitana |
| Iso1: | oc |
| Iso2: | oci |
| Iso3: | oci |
| Lc1: | sdt |
| Ld1: | Judeo-Occitan |
| Glotto: | occi1239 |
| Glottorefname: | Occitan |
| Lingua: | 51-AAA-g & 51-AAA-f |
| Dia1: | Auvergnat |
| Dia2: | Gascon |
| Dia3: | Languedocien |
| Dia4: | Limousin |
| Dia5: | Provençal |
| Dia6: | Vivaro-Alpine |
| Dia7: | Niçard |
| Dia8: | Judeo-Provençal † |
| Dia9: | Judeo-Gascon † |
| Notice: | IPA |
| Map2: | Occitan_language_map_1900_(Europe_only).svg |
| Mapcaption2: | Geographic range of the Occitan language around 1900 |
| Region: | Occitania |
| Dia10: | Judeo Niçard † |
| Stand1: | Aranese in Spain |
Occitan (;[7] Occitan (post 1500);: occitan|link=no in Occitan (post 1500); pronounced as /utsiˈta, uksiˈta/), also known as (in Occitan (post 1500); ˈleŋɡɒ ˈðɔ(k)/; French: langue d'oc) by its native speakers, sometimes also referred to as Provençal, is a Romance language spoken in Southern France, Monaco, Italy's Occitan Valleys, as well as Spain's Val d'Aran in Catalonia; collectively, these regions are sometimes referred to as Occitania. It is also spoken in Calabria (Southern Italy) in a linguistic enclave of Cosenza area (mostly Guardia Piemontese). Some include Catalan in Occitan, as the distance between this language and some Occitan dialects (such as the Gascon language) is similar to the distance between different Occitan dialects. Catalan was considered a dialect of Occitan until the end of the 19th century[8] and still today remains its closest relative.
Occitan is an official language of Catalonia, Spain, where a subdialect of Gascon known as Aranese is spoken (in the Val d'Aran).[9] Since September 2010, the Parliament of Catalonia has considered Aranese Occitan to be the officially preferred language for use in the Val d'Aran.
Across history, the terms Limousin (Lemosin), Languedocien (Lengadocian), Gascon, in addition to Provençal (Provençal, Provençau or Prouvençau) later have been used as synonyms for the whole of Occitan; nowadays, the term "Provençal" is understood mainly as the Occitan dialect spoken in Provence, in southeast France.[10]
Unlike other Romance languages such as French or Spanish, Occitan does not have a single written standard form, nor does it have official status in France, home to most of its speakers. Instead, there are competing norms for writing Occitan, some of which attempt to be pan-dialectal, whereas others are based on a particular dialect. These efforts are hindered by the rapidly declining use of Occitan as a spoken language in much of southern France, as well as by the significant differences in phonology and vocabulary among different Occitan dialects.
According to the UNESCO Red Book of Endangered Languages,[11] four of the six major dialects of Occitan (Provençal, Auvergnat, Limousin and Languedocien) are considered severely endangered, whereas the remaining two (Gascon and Vivaro-Alpine) are considered definitely endangered.
The name Occitan comes from the term Occitan (post 1500);: lenga d'òc ("language of Occitan (post 1500);: italic=no|òc"), Occitan (post 1500);: òc being the Occitan word for yes. While the term would have been in use orally for some time after the decline of Latin, as far as historical records show, the Italian medieval poet Dante was the first to have recorded the term Occitan (post 1500);: lingua d'oc in writing. In his Latin: [[De vulgari eloquentia]], he wrote in Latin, Latin: "nam alii oc, alii si, alii vero dicunt oil" ("for some say Occitan (post 1500);: òc, others Italian: sì, yet others say French, Old (842-ca.1400);: oïl"), thereby highlighting three major Romance literary languages that were well known in Italy, based on each language's word for "yes", the Occitan (post 1500);: òc language (Occitan), the French, Old (842-ca.1400);: oïl language (French), and the Italian: sì language (Italian).
The word Occitan (post 1500);: òc came from Vulgar Latin Latin: hoc ("this"), while French, Old (842-ca.1400);: oïl originated from Latin Latin: hoc illud ("this [is] it"). Old Catalan and now the Catalan of Northern Catalonia also have Catalan; Valencian: hoc (Catalan; Valencian: òc). Other Romance languages derive their word for "yes" from the Latin Latin: sic, "thus [it is], [it was done], etc.", such as Spanish Spanish; Castilian: sí, Eastern Lombard sé, Italian Italian: sì, or Portuguese Portuguese: sim. In modern Catalan, as in modern Spanish, Catalan; Valencian: sí is usually used as a response, although the language retains the word Catalan; Valencian: oi, akin to Occitan (post 1500);: òc, which is sometimes used at the end of yes–no questions and also in higher register as a positive response.[12] French uses French: si to answer "yes" in response to questions that are asked in the negative sense: for example, French: "Vous n'avez pas de frères?" "Si, j'en ai sept." ("You have no brothers?" "But yes, I have seven.").
The name "Occitan" was attested around 1300 as Latin: occitanus, a crossing of Latin: oc and Latin: aquitanus (Aquitanian).
For many centuries, the Occitan dialects (together with Catalan)[13] were referred to as Limousin or Provençal, after the names of two regions lying within the modern Occitan-speaking area. After Frédéric Mistral's Félibrige movement in the 19th century, Provençal achieved the greatest literary recognition and so became the most popular term for Occitan.
According to Joseph Anglade, a philologist and specialist of medieval literature who helped impose the then archaic term Occitan as the standard name,[14] the word Lemosin was first used to designate the language at the beginning of the 13th century by Catalan troubadour Raimon Vidal de Besalú(n) in his Catalan; Valencian: Razós de trobar:
Occitan (post 1500);: 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 romances and pastourelles; but [the language] from Limousin is of greater value for writing poems and cançons and sirventés; 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.
The term Provençal, though implying a reference to the region of Provence, historically was used for Occitan as a whole, for "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 Gallia Narbonensis and even Aquitaine".[15] The term first came into fashion in Italy.[16]
Currently, linguists use the terms Provençal and Limousin strictly to refer to specific varieties within Occitan, using the latter term for the language as a whole. Many non-specialists, however, continue to refer to the language as Provençal.
One of the oldest written fragments of the language found dates back to 960, shown here in italics mixed with non-italicized Latin:
Latin: italic=no|De ista hora in antea non {{lang|pro|cat=no|decebrà[17]
Carolingian litanies, though the leader sang in Latin, were answered to in Old Occitan by the people (Provençal, Old (to 1500);Occitan, Old (to 1500);: Ora pro nos; Provençal, Old (to 1500);Occitan, Old (to 1500);: Tu lo juva).[18]
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 The Consolation of Philosophy; the Waldensian Provençal, Old (to 1500);Occitan, Old (to 1500);: [[La nobla leyczon]] (dated 1100),[19] Provençal, Old (to 1500);Occitan, Old (to 1500);: {{Lang|oc|[[Cançó de Santa Fe]] (–1076), the Romance of Flamenca (13th century), the Song of the Albigensian Crusade (1213–1219?), Provençal, Old (to 1500);Occitan, Old (to 1500);: [[Daurel e Betó]] (12th or 13th century), Provençal, Old (to 1500);Occitan, Old (to 1500);: [[Las, qu'i non-sun sparvir, astur]] (11th century) and Provençal, Old (to 1500);Occitan, Old (to 1500);: [[Tomida femina]] (9th or 10th century).
Occitan was the vehicle for the influential poetry of the medieval troubadours (Provençal, Old (to 1500);Occitan, Old (to 1500);: trobadors) and Provençal, Old (to 1500);Occitan, Old (to 1500);: [[trobairitz]]: At that time, the language was understood and celebrated throughout most of educated Europe.[20] It was the maternal language of the English queen Eleanor of Aquitaine and kings Richard I (who wrote troubadour poetry) and John.
With the gradual imposition of French royal power over its territory, Occitan declined in status from the 14th century on. The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts (1539) decreed that the French: langue d'oïl (French – though at the time referring to the Francien language and not the larger collection of dialects grouped under the name French: italic=no|[[langues d'oïl]]) should be used for all French administration. Occitan's greatest decline occurred during the French Revolution, in which diversity of language was considered a threat.
In 1903, the four Gospels (Occitan (post 1500);: italic= no|"Lis Evangèli", i.e. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) were translated into Provençal as spoken in Cannes and Grasse. The translation was given the official Roman Catholic Imprimatur by vicar general A. Estellon.
The literary renaissance of the late 19th century (in which the 1904 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, Frédéric Mistral, among others, was involved) was attenuated by World War I, when (in addition to the disruption caused by any major war) many Occitan speakers spent extended periods of time alongside French-speaking comrades.
Because the geographical territory in which Occitan is spoken is surrounded by regions in which other Romance languages are used, external influences may have influenced its origin and development. Many factors favored its development as its own language.
Catalan in Spain's northern and central Mediterranean coastal regions and the Balearic Islands is closely related to Occitan, sharing many linguistic features and 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 in various locations in the Kingdoms of Navarre and Aragon enticed by the privileges granted them by the Navarrese kings. They settled in large groups, forming ethnic boroughs where Occitan was used for everyday life, in Pamplona, Sangüesa, and Estella-Lizarra, among others.[21] These boroughs in Navarre may have been close-knit communities that tended not to assimilate with the predominantly Basque-speaking general population. Their language 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 the late 14th century.[22] Written administrative records were in a koiné based on the Languedocien dialect from Toulouse with fairly archaic linguistic features.
Evidence survives of a written account in Occitan from Pamplona centered on the burning of borough San Nicolas from 1258, while the History of the War of Navarre by Guilhem Anelier (1276), albeit written in Pamplona, shows a linguistic variant from Toulouse.[23]
Things turned out slightly otherwise in Aragon, where the sociolinguistic situation was different, with a clearer Basque-Romance bilingual situation (cf. Basques from the Catalan; Valencian: italic=no|Val d'Aran cited), but a receding Basque language (Basque banned in the marketplace of Huesca, 1349).[24] [25] 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 Zaragoza, 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. In the 14th century, Occitan across the whole southern Pyrenean area fell into decay 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).[26]
Gascon-speaking communities were called to move in for trading purposes by Navarrese kings in the early 12th century to the coastal fringe extending from San Sebastian to the river Bidasoa, where they settled down. The language variant they used was different from the ones in Navarre, i.e. a Béarnese dialect of Gascon.[27] Gascon remained in use in this area far longer than in Navarre and Aragon, until the 19th century, thanks mainly to the fact that Donostia and Pasaia maintained close ties with Bayonne.
Though it was still an everyday language for most of the rural population of southern France well into the 20th century, it is now spoken by about 100,000 people in France according to 2012 estimates.[1] There is a movement in regions of France where Occitan was widely spoken to introduce educational programs to encourage young people in these regions to learn the language.
According to the 1999 census, there were 610,000 native speakers (almost all of whom were also native French speakers) and perhaps another million people 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 Calandretas), to reintroduce the language to the young.[28]
Nonetheless, the number of proficient speakers of Occitan is thought 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.[29]
Occitan speakers, as a result of generations of systematic suppression and humiliation (see Vergonha), seldom use the language in the presence of strangers, whether they are 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.[30]
Occitan's decline is somewhat less pronounced in Béarn 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.[31]
The area where Occitan was historically dominant has approximately 16 million inhabitants. Recent research has shown it may be spoken as a first language by approximately 789,000 people in France, Italy, Spain and Monaco. In Monaco, Occitan coexists with Monégasque Ligurian, which is the other native language.[39] [40] Up to seven million people in France understand the language,[41] [42] [43] whereas twelve to fourteen million fully spoke it in 1921.[44] In 1860, Occitan speakers represented more than 39%[45] of the whole French population (52% for francophones proper); they were still 26% to 36% in the 1920s[46] and fewer than 7% in 1993.
Occitan is fundamentally defined by its dialects, rather than being a unitary language. That point is very conflictual in Southern France, as many people do not recognize Occitan as a real language and think that the next defined "dialects" are languages.[47] Like other languages that fundamentally exist at a spoken, rather than written, level (e.g. the Rhaeto-Romance languages, 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:
The northern and easternmost dialects have more morphological and phonetic features in common with the Gallo-Italic and Oïl languages (e.g. nasal vowels; loss of final consonants; initial cha/ja- instead of ca/ga-; uvular (r); the front-rounded sound pronounced as //ø// instead of a diphthong, pronounced as //w// instead of pronounced as //l// before a consonant), whereas the southernmost dialects have more features in common with the Ibero-Romance languages (e.g. betacism; voiced fricatives between vowels in place of voiced stops; -ch- in place of -it-), and Gascon has a number of unusual features not seen in other dialects (e.g. pronounced as //h// in place of pronounced as //f//; loss of pronounced as //n// between vowels; intervocalic -r- and final -t/ch in place of medieval --). There are also significant lexical differences, where some dialects have words cognate with French, and others have Catalan and Spanish cognates. Nonetheless, there is a significant amount of mutual intelligibility.
| English | Cognate of French | Cognate of Catalan and Spanish | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Occitan | French | Occitan | Catalan | Spanish | ||||
| house | style"background: Gainsboro" | Occitan (post 1500);: maison | French: maison | style"background: Gainsboro" | Occitan (post 1500);: casa | Catalan; Valencian: casa | Spanish; Castilian: casa | |
| head | style"background: Gainsboro" | Occitan (post 1500);: testa | French: tête | style"background: Gainsboro" | Occitan (post 1500);: cap | Catalan; Valencian: cap | Spanish; Castilian: cabeza | |
| to buy | style"background: Gainsboro" | Occitan (post 1500);: achaptar | French: acheter | style"background: Gainsboro" | Occitan (post 1500);: crompar | Catalan; Valencian: comprar | Spanish; Castilian: comprar | |
| to hear | style"background: Gainsboro" | Occitan (post 1500);: entendre | French: entendre | style"background: Gainsboro" | Occitan (post 1500);: ausir / Occitan (post 1500);: audir | Catalan; Valencian: oir | Spanish; Castilian: oír | |
| to be quiet | style"background: Gainsboro" | Occitan (post 1500);: se taire | French: se taire | style"background: Gainsboro" | Occitan (post 1500);: calar | Catalan; Valencian: callar | Spanish; Castilian: callar | |
| to fall | style"background: Gainsboro" | Occitan (post 1500);: tombar | French: tomber | style"background: Gainsboro" | Occitan (post 1500);: caire | Catalan; Valencian: caure | Spanish; Castilian: caer | |
| more | style"background: Gainsboro" | Occitan (post 1500);: pus | French: plus | style"background: Gainsboro" | Occitan (post 1500);: mai | Catalan; Valencian: més | Spanish; Castilian: más | |
| always | style"background: Gainsboro" | Occitan (post 1500);: totjorn | French: toujours | style"background: Gainsboro" | Occitan (post 1500);: sempre | Catalan; Valencian: sempre | Spanish; Castilian: siempre |
Gascon is 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:
In order to overcome the pitfalls of the traditional romanistic view, Bec proposed a "supradialectal" classification that groups Occitan with Catalan as a part of a wider Occitano-Romanic group. One such classification posits three groups:[48] [49]
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.
Occitan has 3 dialects spoken by Jewish communities that are all now extinct.
A sociolect of the Gascon dialect spoken by Spanish and Portuguese Jews in Gascony.[50] It, like many other Jewish dialects and languages, contained large amounts of Hebrew loanwords. It went extinct after World War 2 with the last speakers being elderly Jews in Bayonne.[51] About 850 unique words and a few morphological and grammatical aspects of the dialect were transmitted to Southern Jewish French.
A dialect of Occitan spoken by Jews in Provence. The dialect declined in usage after Jews were expelled from the area in 1498, and went extinct after the last speaker, Armand Lunel, died in 1977.[52]
The least attested of the Judeo Occitan dialects, Judeo Niçard was spoken by the community of Jews living in Nice, who were descendants of Jewish immigrants from Provence, Piedmont, and other Mediterranean communities. Its existence is attested from a few documents from the 19th century. It contained significant influence in both vocabulary and grammar from Hebrew.
All three of these dialects have some influence in Southern Jewish French, a dialect of French spoken by Jews in southern France. Southern Jewish French is now estimated to only be spoken by about 50-100 people.
Domergue Sumien proposes a slightly different supradialectal grouping.[53]
Old Occitan (until the 14th century).
Judeo-Occitan
Several IETF language variant tags have been registered:
All regional varieties of the Occitan language have a written form; thus, Occitan can be considered as a pluricentric language. 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 koinés).[53] The standardization process began with the publication of Gramatica occitana segon los parlars lengadocians ("Grammar of the Languedocien Dialect") by Louis Alibert (1935), followed by the Dictionnaire occitan-français selon les parlers languedociens ("French-Occitan dictionary according to Languedocien") by the same author (1966), completed during the 1970s with the works of Pierre Bec (Gascon), Robèrt Lafont (Provençal), and others. However, the process has not yet been completed as of the present. Standardization is mostly supported by users of the classical norm. Due to the strong situation of diglossia, some users thusly reject the standardization process, and do not conceive Occitan as a language that can be standardized as per other standardized languages.
There are two main linguistic norms currently used for Occitan, one (known as "classical") based on that of Medieval Occitan, and one (sometimes known as "Mistralian", due to its use by Frédéric Mistral) based on modern French orthography. Sometimes, there is conflict between users of each system.
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.
| Classical norm | Mistralian norm | Bonnaudian norm | Escòla dau Pò norm | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Provençal 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 Tóuti li persouno naisson liéuro e egalo en dignita e en dre. doutado de rasoun e de counsciènci e li fau agi entre éli em' un esperit de freiresso. | |||
| Niçard 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 Provençal Touti li persouna naisson liéuri e egali en dignità e en drech. doutadi de rasoun e de counsciència e li cau agì entre eli em' un esperit de frairessa. | |||
| 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. doutada de razou e de cousiensà e lour chau ajî entre ela am en esprî de freiressà.) | |||
| 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. douta de razoun e de counsiensio e lour chal agir entre eels amb (/bou) un esperit de freireso. | |||
| Gascon 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 (Febusian writing) Toutes las persounes que nachen libres e egaus en dinnitat e en dreyt. Que doutades de rasoû e de counscienci e qu'ous cau ayi entre eres dap û esperit de hrayresse. | |||
| 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. | ||||
| 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. |
| French 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. | Franco-Provençal 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. | Catalan Totes les persones neixen/naixen lliures i iguals en dignitat i en drets. Són dotades de raó i de consciència, i cal que es comportin fraternalment les unes amb les altres.[55] | Spanish 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. | Portuguese Todos os seres humanos nascem livres e iguais em dignidade e direitos. Eles são dotados de razão e consciência, e devem comportar-se fraternalmente uns com os outros. | Italian 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. | 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.[56] |
Note that Catalan version was translated from the Spanish, while the Occitan versions were translated from the French. The second part of the Catalan version may also be rendered as "Són dotades de raó i de consciència, i els cal actuar entre si amb un esperit de fraternitat", showing the similarities between Occitan and Catalan.
Several IETF language subtags have been registered for the different orthographies:[57]
The majority of scholars think that Occitan constitutes a single language. Some authors,[58] constituting a minority, reject this opinion and even the name Occitan, thinking that there is a family of distinct Occitan (post 1500);: lengas d'òc rather than dialects of a single language.
Many Occitan linguists and writers,[59] particularly those involved with the pan-Occitan movement centered on the Institut d'Estudis Occitans, disagree with the view that Occitan is a family of languages; instead they believe Limousin, Auvergnat, Languedocien, Gascon, Provençal and Vivaro-Alpine are dialects of a single language. Although there are indeed noticeable differences between these varieties, there is a very high degree of mutual intelligibility between them [60] partly because they share a common literary history; furthermore, academic and literary circles have identified them as a collective linguistic entity—the Occitan (post 1500);: lenga d'òc—for centuries.
Some Provençal authors continue to support the view that Provençal is a separate language.[61] Nevertheless, the vast majority of Provençal authors and associations think that Provençal is a part of Occitan.[62]
This debate about the status of Provençal should not be confused with the debate concerning the spelling of Provençal.
For example, the classical system writes Polonha, whereas the Mistralian spelling system has Poulougno, for pronounced as /[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.[63] In addition, Gascon's being included in Occitan despite its particular differences can be 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.[64] [65] 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, even though Catalan is closely related, is justified because there has been a consciousness of its being different from Occitan since the later Middle Ages and because the elaboration (Ausbau) processes of Catalan and Occitan (including Gascon) have been quite distinct since the 20th century. Nevertheless, other scholars point out that the process that led to the affirmation of Catalan as a distinct language from Occitan started during the period when the pressure to include Catalan-speaking areas in a mainstream Spanish culture was at its greatest.[66]
The answer to the question of whether Gascon or Catalan should be considered dialects of Occitan or separate languages has long been a matter of opinion or convention, rather than based on scientific ground. However, two recent studies support Gascon's being considered a distinct language. For the first time, a quantifiable, statistics-based approach was applied by Stephan Koppelberg in attempt to solve this issue.[67] Based on the results he obtained, he concludes that Catalan, Occitan, and Gascon should all be considered three distinct languages. More recently, Y. Greub and J.P. Chambon (Sorbonne University, Paris) demonstrated that the formation of Proto-Gascon was already complete at the eve of the 7th century, whereas Proto-Occitan was not yet formed at that time.[68] These results induced linguists to do away with the conventional classification of Gascon, favoring the "distinct language" alternative. Both studies supported the early intuition of the late Kurt Baldinger, a specialist of both medieval Occitan and medieval Gascon, who recommended that Occitan and Gascon be classified as separate languages.[69] [70]
Jules Ronjat has sought to characterize Occitan with 19 principal, generalizable criteria. Of those, 11 are phonetic, five morphologic, one syntactic, and two lexical. For example, close rounded vowels are rare or absent in Occitan. This characteristic often carries through to an Occitan speaker's French, leading to a distinctive méridional accent. Unlike French, it is a pro-drop language, allowing the omission of the subject (Occitan (post 1500);: canti: I sing; Occitan (post 1500);: cantas you sing)—though, at least in Gascon, the verb must be preceded by an "enunciative" in place of the pronoun, Occitan (post 1500);: e for questions, Occitan (post 1500);: be for observations, Occitan (post 1500);: que for other occasions:, Occitan (post 1500);: que soi (I am), Occitan (post 1500);: E qu'ei? (He/she is?), Occitan (post 1500);: Be qu'èm. (We are.).[71] Among these 19 discriminating criteria, 7 are different from Spanish, 8 from Italian, 12 from Franco-Provençal, and 16 from French.
Most features of Occitan are shared with either French or Catalan, or both.
Examples of pan-Occitan features shared with French, but not Catalan:
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 northerly dialects shared with French, but not Catalan:
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:
| + Common words in Romance languages, with English (a Germanic language) for reference | Latin (all nouns in the ablative case) | Occitan (including main regional varieties) | Catalan | French | Norman | Romansh (Rumantsch Grischun) | Ladin (Gherdëina) | Lombard | Italian | Spanish | Portuguese | Sardinian | Romanian | English |
| c(h)antar | cantar | chanter | canter, chanter | chantar | cianté | cantà | cantare | cantar | cantar | cantare | cânta(re) | '(to) sing' | ||
| c(h)abra | cabra | chèvre | quièvre | chaura | cëura | cavra | capra | cabra | cabra | craba | capră | 'goat' | ||
| clau | clau | clé, clef | clef | clav | tle | ciav | chiave | llave | chave | crae | cheie | 'key' | ||
| , | (e)glèisa | església | église | église | baselgia | dlieja | giesa | chiesa | iglesia | igreja | gresia/creia | biserică | 'church' | |
| (Vulgar Latin), | formatge (fromatge, hormatge) | formatge | fromage | froumage, fourmage | chaschiel | ciajuel | furmai/furmagg | formaggio | queso | queijo | casu | caș | 'cheese' | |
| leng(u)a (linga) | llengua | langue | langue | lingua | lenga, rujeneda | lengua | lingua | lengua | língua | limba | limbă | 'tongue, language' | ||
| nuèch (nuèit) | nit | nuit | nît | notg | nuet | nocc | notte | noche | noite | nothe | noapte | 'night' | ||
| plaça | plaça | place | plache | plazza | plaza | piassa | piazza | plaza | praça | pratza | piață[72] | 'square, plaza' | ||
| pont (pònt) | pont | pont | pont | punt | puent | punt | ponte | puente | ponte | ponte | punte (small bridge) | 'bridge' |
A comparison of terms and word counts between languages is not easy, as it is impossible to count the number of words in a language. (See Lexicon, Lexeme, Lexicography for more information.)
Some have claimed around 450,000 words exist in the Occitan language,[73] 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 website 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 (as in World Wide Web) is, for example.
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 differs from the one that has become standard Occitan in a number of ways. Here are just a few examples:
See main article: Occitan phonology and Catalan phonology.
Despite these differences, Occitan and Catalan remain more or less mutually comprehensible, especially when written – more so than either is with Spanish or French, for example, although this is mainly a consequence of using the classical (orthographical) norm of the Occitan, which is precisely focused in showing the similarities between the Occitan dialects with Catalan. Occitan and Catalan form a common diasystem (or a common Abstandsprache), which is called Occitano-Romance, according to the linguist Pierre Bec.[74] Speakers of both languages share early historical and cultural heritage.
The combined Occitano-Romance area is 259,000 km2, with a population of 23 million. 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 could speak Occitan well, though around half understood it; it is thought that the number of Occitan users has decreased dramatically since then. By contrast, in the Catalonia administered by the Government of Catalonia, nearly three-quarters of the population speak Catalan and 95% understand it.[75]
In the modern era, Occitan has become a rare and highly threatened language. Its users are clustered almost exclusively in Southern France, and it is unlikely that any monolingual speakers remain. In the early 1900s, the French government attempted to restrict the use and teaching of many minority languages, including Occitan, in public schools. While the laws have since changed, with bilingual education returning for regions with unique languages in 1993, the many years of restrictions had already caused serious decline in the number of Occitan speakers. The majority of living speakers are older adults.[76] [77] [78]
One of the most notable passages of Occitan in Western literature occurs in the 26th canto of Dante's Italian: [[Purgatorio]] in which the troubadour Arnaut Daniel responds to the narrator:
Occitan (post 1500);: 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: Occitan (post 1500);: 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:
Occitan (post 1500);: "Ieu sui Arnaut qu'amas l'aura
Occitan (post 1500);: e chatz le lebre ab lo bou
Occitan (post 1500);: e nadi contra suberna"Modern Occitan:
Occitan (post 1500);: "Ieu soi Arnaut qu'aimi l'aura
Occitan (post 1500);: e caci [chaci] la lèbre amb lo buòu
Occitan (post 1500);: 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's classic Les Misérables also contains some Occitan. In Part One, First Book, Chapter IV, "French: Les œuvres semblables aux paroles|italic=no", one can read about Monseigneur Bienvenu:
"French: Né provençal, il s'était facilement familiarisé avec tous les patois du midi. Il disait: —|italic=no Occitan (post 1500);: E ben, monsur, sètz saget? French: comme dans le bas Languedoc. —|italic=no Occitan (post 1500);: Ont anaratz passar? French: comme dans les basses Alpes. —|italic=no Occitan (post 1500);: Pòrti un bon moton amb un bon formatge gras, French: comme dans le haut Dauphiné. [...] Parlant toutes les langues, il entrait dans toutes les âmes.|italic=no"
Translation:
"Born a Provençal, he easily familiarized himself with the dialect of the south. He would say, Occitan (post 1500);: E ben, monsur, sètz saget? as in lower Languedoc; Occitan (post 1500);: Ont anaratz passar? as in the Basses-Alpes; Occitan (post 1500);: Pòrti un bon moton amb un bon formatge gras as in upper Dauphiné. [...] As he spoke all tongues, he entered into all hearts."
Occitan (post 1500);: E ben, monsur, sètz saget?
So, Mister, everything's fine?
Occitan (post 1500);: Ont anaratz passar?
Which way will you go?
Occitan (post 1500);: 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 included a Gascon servant for comical effect in one of his short pieces, La generosa paliza.[79]
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.
French: Sur Occitania ont été formés les adjectifs latins occitanus, occitanicus et les adjectifs français occitanique, occitanien, occitan (ce dernier terme plus récent), qui seraient excellents et qui ne prêteraient pas à la même confusion que provençal.
Occitan (post 1500);: Ce terme fut surtout employé en Italie.
Occitan (post 1500);: "Ben ha mil e cent (1100) ancs complí entierament / Que fo scripta l'ora car sen al derier temps."
La Langue d'Oc est parlée actuellement par douze ou quatorze millions de Français ("Occitan is now spoken by twelve or fourteen million French citizens").
parlée dans le Midi de la France par quatorze millions d'habitants ("spoken in the South of France by fourteen million inhabitants").
...défendre une langue, qui est aujourd'hui la mère de la nôtre, parlée encore par plus de dix millions d'individus... ("protect a language, which is today the mother of ours, still spoken by more than ten million individuals")
French: Mais les différences de phonétique, de morphologie, de syntaxe et de vocabulaire ne sont pas telles qu'une personne connaissant pratiquement à fond un de nos dialectes ne puisse converser dans ce dialecte avec une autre personne parlant un autre dialecte qu'elle possède pratiquement à fond. (But phonetic, morphological, syntactical and lexical differences are not such that a person quite perfectly fluent in one of our dialects would not be able to have a conversation with another person speaking another dialect with an equally perfect fluency).
For a discussion of the unity of the Occitan diasystem in structural linguistics see .
The close ties between Gascon and others Occitan dialects have been demonstrated through a common diasystem.