Occitan language

Map of the cities of Occitania, with toponymy in Occitan

Occitan or language of oc (occitan or lenga d'òc) is a language Europe romance. It is spoken by about two million people, while up to 12 million have some proficiency in the language, almost all of them in the south of present-day France —south of the Loire River—, as well as in Italy —in the Occitan Valleys— and in Spain —in the Aran Valley in the Lleida Pyrenees. The Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006 established the official status of the Occitan language throughout Catalonia, and it was ratified by the law approved in the Parliament of Catalonia in 2010, by which Occitan, in its Aranese variant, was declared a co-official language. in Catalonia, although it is used preferentially in the Aran Valley.

Historical, social and cultural aspects

Speakers

Bilingual signage in Toulouse

Dialects of the West

By 2001, there was evidence that 1,939,000 people —almost all of them in the French Midi, see maps— usually spoke one of the dialects of the Occitan language, with a total of currently around eight million people with some linguistic competence in the language although they do not have it as their main language, while seven million people understand it but do not speak it.^{[citation required]}

According to the University of Bordeaux^{[citation required]} today in the entire Occitan-speaking territory only the Béarne and Aude mountains exceed 50% of speakers and, above all, the old town of Nice and the Aran Valley. These four areas are also the only ones where there is still an appreciable number of young speakers. According to the UNESCO Interactive Atlas of Endangered Languages in the World, it is considered an endangered language.

Language name

supradialectal classification of the West according to Pierre Bec

The name of the language comes from the word òc, which in Occitan means “yes”, in contrast to the Northern French or lenguas de oïl (pronounced oí, ancestor of modern French oui). In medieval Catalan, and still today in the northern Catalan variety, the affirmative particle was also hoc (òc). The word òc comes from the Latin hoc, while oïl was derived from the Latin hoc ille. The word "occitan" comes from the name of the historical region of Occitania, which means "the country where the language of oc is spoken". Among the diachronic characteristics of Occitan as a Romance language are:

• Unlike the French, the a Latin accent (Latin mare  oc. sea, but  fr. ♪.)
• Like the French, it thunders u Latina by [y] and moves the series of subsequent vowels (u voluntaryy, o planu, O plan).
• The gascon initially changed the f initial Latina for [h] aspirated (latin filiu  gascon hilh), as in medieval Spanish (the gascon and Spanish suffered the influence of the Basque).
• Other phenomena of lention and palatalization that it shares with other Western Romance languages, particularly Catalan.

The current use of the term Occitan may seem somewhat confusing. Some authors consider that Occitan is a family of languages that include:

1. the Auvernense (auvernhat or alvernhat)
2. the limousine (lemosin)
3. the vivaroalpine (vivaroaupenc) or Provencal alpine or dolphin (dauphinat)
4. the gascon (of which the aranes, the moustre and the bearden are varieties)
5. the Languedociano (lengadocian)
6. the Provencal (Proveçau)
7. the shuadit o judeoprovenzal (considered extinct since 1977)

On the unity or diversity of Occitan

The West in the French Middle Ages during the centuryXX. can be seen in red tones and roses; in blue tones the set of tongues related to the west called arpitano.

Map of Occitan varieties spoken in Occitania (clearing names are not in Occitan but in French)

The main current dialects and subdialects of the West: The blue range indicates the whole of Southern West dialects (provenzal), the green and yellow to the whole of the North West, the rose to the West or Gascon.

Dialectometric variation of the Western domain according to Hans Goebl

All of these are taken by certain authors as independent languages. But many linguists and almost all Occitan writers disagree^{[citation needed]} with the view that Occitan is a family of languages and think that Limousin, Auvergne, Gascon, Languedocian and Provençal, as well as Alpine Provençal, are dialects of a single language. Despite the differences between these languages or dialects, most speakers of one can understand the usage of the other. On the other hand, the Catalan language was also considered an integral part of the Occitan language (formerly called Provençal or Limousin) until the end of the XIX century. Although there are differences between Catalan and the rest of the Occitan varieties (there are also differences between the Occitan varieties), the main reason for their segregation responds to the sociopolitical context of the moment. At the beginning of the XX century, Catalan and Occitan took divergent paths, a different elaboration with standard varieties and different spellings. Despite this, Occitan linguistics has closely followed the process of standardization of Catalan, which is more standardized and more widespread than standard Occitan, and the differences between modern Catalan and Occitan remain insignificant, taking into account the context of the Romance languages. For this reason, there are minority currents between Occitan and Catalan linguistics that still consider the two languages as different elaborations of the same language.

In France, all dialects spoken are called Occitan, while dialects spoken in the south-east, along the Rhône River (called Ròse in Occitan) as a semi-precise border and with the notable exception of Nîmes. The term Provençal is also used in Spanish, but according to the linguistic classification, Provençal is only one of the dialects grouped under the label of Occitan, the variant of the region of Provence, the literary dialect used by Frédéric Mistral and the Félibrige literary society.

Linguistic science contradicts the popular belief that Provençal and Occitan are two different languages, a belief that could date back to Frédéric Mistral himself. Despite the fact that Mistral was a republican, the Félibrige's objective was to promote the revival of Provençal, a claim that was very contrary to the republican ideal of reinforcing the unity of France by imposing the use of the French language. By asserting that Provençal and Occitan were two languages, it was probably intended to prevent people from the south-west of France from joining the Félibrige, since this region was (and remained for a long time) strong support for the left wing of the republicans..

Occitan was the vehicle of the first vernacular poetry of medieval Europe, that of the troubadours (as opposed to the lengua de oíl troubadours, from the XI). It was also an administrative language, an alternative to Latin, in the Middle Ages. With the gradual imposition of French royal power on the territory of Occitan, this language lost prestige from the 14th century. The Villers-Cotterêts Ordinance, signed by King Francis I of France in 1539, helped to establish the supremacy of French by imposing its use in administrative and legal acts, to the detriment of Latin or other languages. As for the other languages spoken in French territory, the great fall of Occitan occurred during the French Revolution, which imposed French as the only national language, in order to consolidate the unity of the country.

Although it remained the everyday language of most rural people in the South well into the XX century, it had been supplanted in most formal usages by French. Today there are still several million native Occitan speakers, although the majority belong to the older generation. Ethnic activism, particularly the Occitan pre-schools, the 'calandretas', have reintroduced the language to young people.

One of the most notable passages in Occitan in Western literature is found in canto XXVI of Purgatorio from The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, where the troubadour Arnaut Daniel responds to the narrator:

So m'abellis vostre cortes deman,

I'm not going to kill you.
Ieu sui Arnaut, who plor e vau sing;
consiros vei la passada folor,
e vei jausen lo joi qu'esper, denan.
Ara vos prec, per that value
that you guide the som of l'escalina,

sovenha vos a temps de ma dolor!

I so much like your polite question

I can't even hide from you.
I'm Arnaut, I cry and I'm singing.
Pensative I see the past slipping
and I see joyful the joy that I hope before me.
Now I beg you, for the same value
that guides you to the top of the staircase,

that you remember in good time of my pain.

In modern Occitan two opposite spellings are used:

• The "provenzal" or "mistralense", introduced by Mistral and the other Hebrew poets (Théodore Aubanel and Joseph Roumanille), in which the graphical conventions of the French are used to express the sounds of the Provencal dialect.
• The one of Loïs Alibèrt, known as a classic norm, which modernizes the classical spelling of the troubers, which adapts to all differences of pronunciation of the various dialects.

Linguistic description

Classification

Ethnologue classifies this language as:

Indoeuropeo  Itálico  Romance  Italo-Occidental  Galo-Ibérico Group Galo-Romance

The Gallo-Romance character of Occitan has been questioned, since its greatest affinities are with Catalan and then with Italian, although neither of these two languages is Gallo-Romance. Some authors postulate the existence of an Occitan-Romance group that includes Catalan and Occitan, without defining whether this group would be closer to Gallo-Romance or Ibero-Romance, so this other classification would admit the following phylogenetic groups:

Indoeuropeo  Itálico  Romance  Italo-Occidental  Occitanorromance

Regarding the internal classification of the Occitan variants, it is common to divide the Occitan dialects into three large groups:

• Western Dialectos or Gascon Language (which includes the Aranes, Catalan, Mustorrés and Bearden)
• Northern Dialects (which would include almsin, the Auvernés and the vivaroalpine)
• Eastern Dialects (which would include the Languedociano, Provencal and Ruergat)

Phonology

The phonological inventory of consonants is given by:

RASGS
	[+consonant]
	[-dorsal]		[+dorsal]
	[+lab][-cor]	[-lab][+cor]	[+pal][-vel]	[-pal][+vel]	[-pal][-vel]
[-son][-cont]	p, b	d		k, g
[-son]			,,,
[-son][+cont]	(v)	s, z	(		(h)
[+son][+nas]	m	n
[+son][-nas][+lat]		l
[+son][-nas][-lat]	())		j	(w)
[+son][-nas][-lat][+rot]		r			())

Phonemes in parentheses only appear in some regional variants. The vowel inventory is given by:

	previous		central		post
	+red	- Red.	+red	- Red.	+red	- Red.
closed	i	and			u
average	e
open	‐	(œ)	a

The previous system suffers important reductions in unstressed position, although this reduction is different if the reduction occurs in tonic or pretonic position. The following table indicates the reduced systems:

Pretonic	i	and	e		a	u
Tonic	i	and	e	‐	a		u
Postnic	i		e		or	u

The following table shows some of the dialectal alternations found between varieties:

Latin	Occitan (orthography)	Gascon	Langue-dociano	Provenzal
BALNEUM	banh (baby)	/ba//	/ban/	/bagil/
FvolvMU(M)	fum (humo)	/hym/	/fyn/	[fy pace]
FA(CIUNT)	fan (doing)	/hεn/	/fan/	[favorite]
D gift(M)	dent (dient)	/den(t)/	/den/	[dες]
HÃ ́B marginM(US)	avèm (we have)	/aшw transformationm/	/aшb transformationn/	[aengineering]
UNV(M)	vin (wine)	/big/	/bi/	[vigil]
ANNU(M)	an (year)	/an/	/an/	[ACHING]
CAMPU(M)	camp (field)	/kam(p)/	/kan/	[ka/25070/]
L)NGU(M)	long (long)	/lu rate(g)/	/lun/	[lyGUE]
LUNA(M)	Moon (moon)	/^	/хlyno/	[lyno]

Accent

Except in the varieties from Nice and Italy, where some proparoxytone or esdrújula words appear (mànega 'manga', diménegue 'domingo& #39;, 'parla-li 'talk to him), in Occitan the words are regularly paroxytone (flat), so in this language accents appear displaced with respect to the Latin forms, compare the following pairs of Occitan and Catalan words:

As can be seen in the former, there is always a change in the position of the accent, while in the Catalan forms the accent remains in the original position. On the other hand, words ending in a consonant are usually acute (except when the consonant is an inflectional morpheme, as in joves 'jovenes', díson & they say, cantàvam 'we sang').

Spelling

• The "o"/o" is always pronounced as the [u], except when it has a severe accent "ò":[]]
• When a word ends in -a or has a sharp accent "a", then it pronounces [o]/[.] (plaça: /хplas);/); instead, when it has a severe accent "-à", it sounds [a].
• The West, especially the Languedolian dialect, avoids the pronouncement of two consonants followed. For this the first is not pronounced while the second is strengthened (abdicar is pronounced [addiхka]; the "cc" is pronounced in Languedociano, so that West is pronounced [utsigilta]).
• In the West the tonic syllable of words tends to be the last; therefore there are very few llanas (some finished in -ia, as -"encyclopedia", "istòria" or "Occitània").
• It is preserved n end of the sharp words; however, it is mute in almost all dialects except Provencal and gascon (including blue).
• The digits lh and nh corresponds to the Castilian graphs ll and ñ; they were adopted from the Middle Ages by the Portuguese norms and then in the Romanesque graph of the Vietnamese language. The digit sh corresponds to the same sound in English.

Classical Occitan pronunciation is made according to constant and regular reading rules with few exceptions. The following is a brief summary of the pronunciation of Languedocian Occitan, considered the basis of Standard Occitan. Along with the letters, Occitan has diacritics that modify the pronunciation of certain letters or simply indicate the tonicity of the word without noticeably changing the pronunciation of the letters in the word, as occurs with the acute accent (´), the grave accent (`) and the umlaut (¨). The special signs of the phonemes correspond to the international phonetic alphabet.

Vocals

• a:
  • -a-, a- and à se pronuncia [a].
  • - Yeah. and to end is pronounced []] as in -, being in - atone.
• e:
  • e or E se pronuncia [e].
  • è se pronounce [fit].
• i or I is pronounced [i] or [y].
• or
  • or u or is pronounced [u] or [w].
  • ! is pronounced [.].
• u is pronounced [y] (or [.] in semi-vocálic position); when diptongo form, however, sounds [w].

Consonants

• b: [b]/[β]
• c: [k] or [s] in front of "e" or "i". When it's double cc It sounds [ts].
• ch: [t significant]
• ç: [s]
• d: [d]/[ð]
• f: [f]
• g: [g]/[people] in front of "a", "o", "u", while sounds [d urge] in front of "e" or "i". When it is final, it is pronounced [k] and in certain words [tь]. The digit gu in front of "e" or "i" is like in Spanish: [g]/[/25070/].
• h: as in Spanish, it is muda.
• j: (similar to English j)
• k: [k]
• l: [l]. When it's double ll, is pronounced geminada [l calling].
• lh: [.] (like the chaplain ll), although at the end of the word it sounds only like [l].
• m: [m], at the end of the word sounds [n]. When it is double (mm) sounds like in Spanish: [mm].
• n: It sounds [n], although it is silent at the end of the word, and it sounds [m] in front of "p", "b" and "m". [GRUNT] in front of c/qu and g/gu. [".] in front of "f." Groups nd and nt They sound [n].
• nh: [.], like the Castilian ñ. In final position [n].
• p: [p]
• What?: [k] in front of "e" or "i." [kw] in the other cases.
• r: [r] and [γ]. In final position it is silent in most words. Groups rn and rm Sounds [fix].
• s: [s]. [z] between vowels. ss It sounds [s].
• t: [t]. tg/tj sounds [tpit]. tz It sounds [ts]. In front of l, m and n serves to moan them.
• v: [b]/[β]
• w: [w], [b]/[β]
• x: [ts]. In an implosive position, it sounds only [s].
• and: [i]/[j]
• z: [z], [s] in final position.

Grammar

In Occitan, as in the rest of the Romance languages, each noun or adjective has an inherent gender, which may or may not be indicated by a typical gender mark. The most frequent gender marks are -e (masculine) and -a (feminine), although the absence of a mark (morpho zero) is frequent in masculine genders. In Occitan, a great regularization has taken place, introducing -a in Latin adjectives with two endings (which in other Romance languages usually have the same form for masculine and feminine):

GLOSA	Male	Female
seller	vendeire	vendeira
Big	grand	grenade
mortal	mortal	mortal
Happy	alègre	alègra
red/a	roge	red
comfortable/a	comòde	Comòda

The personal pronouns are very similar to those found in Catalan:

Person/ Number	Non-possessive			Possive
	Tonic	Tune (dir.)	Tone (ind.)	Tonic	Tune
One without.	ieu	me.		mieu	Mon
2.a without.	You	you		Tieu	ton
3.a without. masc.	the	I do.	li	sieu	They are.
3.a without. fem.	Ela	the
3.a without. neu.	ço	or	i
1.a pl.	nosautres/-as	us.		Number	nòst(r)e
2.a pl.	vosautres/-as	You		Vòstre	vòst(r)e
3.a pl. masc.	el(i)s	the	lor	sieu~lor	son~lor
3.a pl. fem.	the	the

Lexical comparison with geographically close languages

Table comparing terms. Note that not only Latin-derived words are included, but also from other sources, such as the Germanic term "soap".

Grammatical comparison

This section presents the same text in various variants of Occitan; the text is:

A man had only two children. The youngest said to the father:

'It is time for me to be my own teacher and have money;/

I need to be able to go and see the world.

Divide your goods and give me what belongs to me.’

'Oh my son,' said the father, 'whatever you want, you're a/

bad boy and you will be punished.' Then he opened a drawer,

[and] divided his goods and made two parts.

Languedoc West (referential)

There's only one plane that's two bucks. Lo pus jove diguèt a son paire:

'It is pray per jeu of me to govern the sun and d’aver d’argent:

I'll be able to leave and see païs.

Despartisètz, the famous ben e donatz-me çò que devi aver. ’

'O mon filh,' diguèt lo paire, 'coma voldràs tu; if a

marrit e seràs penalt.' Apuei dubriguèt a tire,

despartiguèt lo sieu ben e ne faguèt doas parts.

Gascon

A òme n'avèva pas que dus hilhs. Lo mès joent digoc a son pair:

'Qu'e temps que siái mon mèste e qu'àujai argent:

that I beseech me’n anar and that véigai païs.

Partatjatz vòste ben e balhatz-me çò que divi aver.'

'Que òc, mon hilh,' digoc lo pair, 'coma volhes; qu’és un

maishant e que seràs punit.' La-vetz daureisoc un tiròer,

that partatgèc are ben e que'n hasgoc duas porcions.

Provenzal

One plane says two fiuss. Lo pus joine diguèt a son paire:

'Ei temps que fugue mon mèstre e qu'ague de sòus;

Fau que pòsque me'n anar e que vegue de païs.

Partatjatz vòste ben e donatz-me çò que duve aguer.'

'O mon fiu,' faguèt lo paire, 'come voudràs tu; if a

marrit e saràs punit.' E puei durbiguèt a shooter,

partatgèt son ben e ne'n faguèt doas parts.

Southern lemon

One more two filhs. Lo pus jòune dissèt a son pair:

'It is temps qu'iou siá mon mèstre e qu'age de l'argent;

chau que yache me'n anar e que vege del païs.

Partissètz vòstre ben e donatz-me çò que devi aver.'

'O mon filh,' dissèt lo pair, 'coma voudràs; sès un

maichent e Siràs punit.' Puei drubiguèt a tire,

partiguèt son ben e ne'n faguèt doàs parts.

Southern winter

One more two garçons. Lo pus joine diguèt a son paire:

'The moment is vengut that siáie mon mèstre è que age d'argent;

chal que yache me'n anar è que vege de païs.

Partatjatz voste ben e bailetz-me çò que duve avèdre.'

'O mon garçon,' diguèt lo paire, 'coma voudràs; if a

maissant è saràs punit.' E pueissa badèt a shooter,

partagèt son ben e ne'n faguèt dos morsèls.

History of the Occitan language

Occitan is the most central of the Romance languages. One hypothesis about the birth of Occitan says that it was a vehicular language among all the people of the neighboring areas^{[citation needed]}. In any case, Occitan must have ^{[citation required]} been influenced by unique circumstances in Europe such as:

• The orographic structure: the west is blocked on all its borders by natural barriers: the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, the Pyrenees, the Central Massif and the Alps.
• Abundance of areas not prone to agriculture, which strongly influenced the non-establishment of foreign colonies in ancient times.
• The immobility of the prehistoric peoples of the area, which generated a fairly homogeneous substrate.
• Less Celtization than neighboring regions.
• An old and long romanization.
• A weak germination.

Timeline

Cançó de Santa Fe de Agen written about 1040-1060.

• From the centuryV to the centuryXI: Progressive appearance of terms, phrases, even short passages in the West in Latin texts (latin late or protorromance).
• 880: Manuscript containing a short poem in Latin of 15 verses with musical notation, there is a chorus in the West. Cantalausa describes it in the Bilingual Alba as “the first literary jewel of our language”.
• centuryX- centuryXI: First literary texts in the "classic" West: Clermont Passion (about 950), Poem on Boecio (about 1000), the religious poems of San Marcial de Limoges (sixth century, the Song of Santa Fe de Agen (hacia 1040).
• centuryXI to the centuryXIII: Apogee of occitan lyric poetry.
• 1102: Ademar Ot document, the oldest bar used exclusively in the West as a writing language according to Clovis Brunel.
• 1229 and 1232: Jaime I de Aragón, originating from the lordship of Montpellier, conquers the islands of Mallorca and Ibiza as well as Valencia de los Musulmanes Almohades. The Catalan, not yet differentiated from the medieval West, replaces the Arabic language as an official language.
• Since the centuryXII to the centuryXIV: Important influence of the western literature (in koiné) and of the troubers on the Catalan.

Dante Alighieri has contributed to the dissemination of the term “oc language”.

• 1240: Apparition of the term "provenzal" which refers to the great Roman territory called "Roman Province" which spread from Provence to Languedoc.
• 1271: The first Latin texts indicate the term Occitan: under shapes occitanus and western linguarelated to the territory called Occitania.
• 1291: The first texts indicate the term langue d'oc.
• 1303-1305: Dissemination of the term langue d'oc from the essay De vulgari eloquentia by Dante Alighieri.
• 1323: Gay Knowledge Consistory Foundation or Gay science and the Floral Games in Toulouse.
• 1356: Promulgation in Toulouse of the Laws d'Amors led by the Tolossian Guilhem Molinier (treated with occitan grammar and rhetoric).
• 1492: First printed book known in the West. Publication in Turin de Lo Compendion de l'Abaco, de nizardo Frances Pellos. It's a math treatise.
• 1539: Promulgation of the Villers-Cotterêts Ordinance; Francis I of France imposes that justice be promulgated "in French and not another mother tongue", in opposition mainly to the use of Latin.
• 1562: Obligation of the written use of the Italian by the notaries of the Nice County.

Royal magazine Western Mixes (1831-1834)

• 1756: Apparition in Nîmes del Dictionnaire languedocien-français contenant un recueil des principal fautes que commettent, dans la diction & dans la prononciation françoises, les habitants des provinces méridionals, connues autrefois sous la dénomination générale de la Langue-d’Oc of Sauvage (1710-1795).
• 1790: Report of Abbot Grégoire on the dialects of France.
• 1791- 1794: During the French revolutionary era, the first linguistic political law to be imposed by French throughout the French nation (and in all revolutionary spirits) was established.
• 1802: Occitan translation Anacréon by Louis Aubanel.
• 1804: Fabre d'Olivet (1765-1825), public Le Troubadour, poésies occitaniques du XIIIe siècle
• 1819: Publication of Parnasse occitanien and one Essai d'un glossaire occitanien, pour serve à l'intelligence des poésies des troubadoursby Henri de Rochegude (1741-1834), former Marine and Deputy Officer in the Convention.
• 1842: Claude Fauriel (1172-1844) Histoire de la poésie provençale, cours fait à la faculté de lettres de Paris1847, The poésie provençale in Italie1842-1843,
• 1842: Histoire politique, religieuse et littéraire du Midi de la France by Jean-Bernard Mary-Lafon.

Lou Tresor dóu Felibrige

• 1840-1848: Publication by fascicles Dictionnaire provençal-français (in fact pan-western) of the docteur Honnorat (1783-1852).
• 1854: Félibrige Foundation for seven primadiersincluding Frédéric Mistral, Théodore Aubanel and Joseph Roumanille.
• 1859: Publication of Patoise poetry by Antoine Bigot in Nîmes (the imitated fables of La Fontaine).
• 1859: Publication of Mirèio (Mireille), poem by Frédéric Mistral.
• 1876: Charles de Tourtoulon publishes his Étude sur la limite géographique de langue d’oc et de la langue d’oïl (avec une carte) (1876), with Octavien Bringier
• 1879: Publication of Dictionnaire patois-français du département de l'Aveyron abbot Aimé Vayssier
• 1885: Publication of Lou Tresor dóu Felibrige, by Frédéric Mistral, Provencal-French dictionary (in fact, pan-West: under the title it expressly indicates that the work "collects the various dialects of modern oc language").

The poet Prosper Estieu is one of the founders of the College of Occitania in Toulouse.

• 1895: J. Roux of Limousin publishes a "Muslim grammar" in which he shows an graph close to that of the troubers.
• 1904: Frédéric Mistral is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
• 1919: Foundation of The west.
• 1927: Foundation of the College of Occitania by Estieu (1860-1939) and Father Salvat, at the Catholic Institute of Toulouse.
• 1931: Catalonia achieves the status of autonomy and actively protects the western language.
• 1934: Catalan intellectuals officially proclaim the separation of Catalan and West.
• 1935: Publication of the Gramatica occitana segon parlars lengadocians Louis Alibert.
• 1941: The Vichy regime authorizes the teaching of "dialectal" languages, such as Breton or West, in primary schools. The official ethnic languages in other regions are not authorized: corso (Italian dialects), German Alsaciano (German dialect), French Moselano and Alsaciano (German dialects), Flemish.
• 1943: First chair of Languedociano in Toulouse.
• 1945: Foundation of the Institut d'Estudis Occitans (IEO), a cultural association that has as its principle the maintenance and development of the Occitan language and culture by the direction, harmonization and normalization of all works that concern the Occitan culture as a whole.

PNO Manifestation

• 1951: The Deixonne Act authorizes, on an optional basis, the teaching of certain regional languages. It is the first law that officially refers to the "West Language" in France. This law, revoked on 22 June 2000, was replaced by the Code de l'éducation.
• 1959: Creation of the Occitan Nationalist Party (PNO) by François Fontan. It's the first Western political party.
• 1972: First West University of summer.

The West is an official language of the Aran Valley since 1990.

• 1975: Haby (France) Act, which, in its article 12, affirms “the teaching of regional languages and cultures can be developed throughout schooling”.
• 1975: Bas-Lauriol (France) Act: the use of the French language is compulsory (in the detriment of the West language) for the tasks relating to goods and services: presentation, advertising, mode of employment or use, extension and warranty conditions, as well as invoices and receipts. The same rules apply to all information or presentations of broadcasting and television programmes (this law is now overturned).
• 1979: Creation of the first Calandreta school in Pau.
• 1987: Partit Occitan Foundation which is currently the western party that dominates in France.
• 1990: The Aranese West is official in the territory of the Aran Valley in Catalonia.
• 1992: Creation of Occitan-Oc language CAPES (conducting) and early education payments from Occitan (France).
• 1992: Article 2 of the French Constitution: “The language of the Republic is French”.
• 1993: Tasca Bill adopted by the government. It was not presented in Parliament due to the change of majority. Although the Toubon law has continued with the essentials.

Map of the West or West Valades Valleys according to the law on linguistic minorities in Italy of 1999 (Italian law 482/99)

• 1994: Toubon Law: the French language is the only language in France (in the detriment of others) of teaching, work, exchanges and public services. This law must not be opposed to the use of France ' s regional languages, but this provision is rejected and does not constitute real protection.
• 1999: The president of the Félibrige and the president of the IEO agree on the mutual respect of two "mistralian" and "classical" graphs.
• 1999: The West is part of the languages protected by the law on linguistic minorities in Italy.
• 2001: Decree No. 345 of the President of the Italian Republic of 2 May 2001. It is the law enforcement regulations of 15 December 1999, no. 482, it upholds the laws of protection of historical linguistic minorities
• 2002: The European Office of Minority Languages (EBLUL) officially requests the organizers of the Winter Olympics in Turin in 2006 to use the West Bank and even declares itself the official language of those Games.
• 2003: The General Delegation of the French Language and the Languages of France seeks to coordinate the movements of oc in order to find a unique interlocutor on the issues of linguistic organization.
• 2004: Drastic reduction in the number of new positions of teachers in the West in France.
• 2005: Publication of a common Western/Catalan terminology on scientific or technological terms.
• 22 October 2005: Manifestation of more than 12 000 people in Carcassonne for the recognition of the language.
• 2006: The West has co-official status at the Turin Olympic Games (English, French, Italian and West).

Demonstration in Béziers in 2007

• 18 June 2006: The West is registered as a co-official language along with Catalan and Spanish in Catalan status in the territory of Catalonia (Spain).
• 17 March 2007: Manifestation of more than 20 000 people in Béziers for the recognition of the Occitan language and culture.
• 10 December 2007: the General Council of the Eastern Pyrenees approved the "Chart for Catalan" which also concerns the West.
• 20 December 2007: the Regional Council of Southern Pyrenees adopts a Regional Development Scheme of the West Bank.
• 23 July 2008: Introduction of Article 75-1 of the Constitution of the V French Republic: "Regional languages belong to the heritage of France. »
• 9 July 2009: The Rhone-Alpes Regional Council votes for deliberation Recognize, value, promote the West and Franco-Best, Rhone-Alpes regional languages
• September 22, 2010: the Catalan parliament adopts the law on the Aranese that makes the Occitan an official language throughout Catalonia.
• 20 May 2011: decision of the Constitutional Council (France) on article 75-1 which stipulates that the French constitutional law does not create any rights in the regional languages.
• 22 November 2012: Treatment of the Western demands at the level of the European Parliament.

The Medieval Golden Age (10th–13th century)

Occitan was the cultural language of present-day southern France and neighboring regions throughout the medieval period, particularly with the troubadours and trobairitz (from Old Occitan trobar, "to make verses").

Starting in the 12th century, the development of troubadour poetry spread throughout Europe. More than 2,500 poems and some 250 melodies have been preserved. Occitan poetry is at the origin of European lyric poetry. In oil language, the troubadours inspired the troubadours; in German will inspire the Minnesang.

The troubadours invented courtly love by spreading the new idea of fidelity to the lady more than to the lord. His values and the ideology of fin'amor, cortezia and coexistence will spread rapidly throughout Europe. they created the refined lifestyle in the manorial courts. This bears witness to the fact that Occitan literature was more varied than literature written in other Romance languages in the early Middle Ages, although many other languages are known in written form at about the same time.

Ricardo I of England: King of England, Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitiers was also a famous poet and writer in his time notably for his compositions in the language of oc.

It is necessary to note that beyond the language of oc region, the King of England Richard the Lionheart practiced Occitan and was considered a troubadour.

Finally, during the Middle Ages, Occitan was one of the first languages to have an academy (Academy of Floral Games ), a grammar (the Leys d'amors) and a literary contest (the Floral Games).

Some major works of medieval Occitan literature are: the Song of the Crusade, a poem in verse about the crusade against the Albigensians, and the Roman de Flemish, a courteous poem on the theme of desire and jealousy. Some chronicles in Occitan have been preserved, their writing dates from the XII century to the beginning of the XIV: the Romance chronicle of Montpellier called Petit Thalamus (1088-1428), the Chronique du siège de Damiette (13th century), the Chronique des comtes de Foix (XV), the Histoire journalière (1498-1539) of Honorat de Valbelle.

• The Portuguese alphabet was created on the basis of the western alphabet:

It only includes 23 Latin letters: K, W and Y do not exist, except in words of foreign origin. The "nh" and "lh" are also used.

• Dante and the West:

In the Middle Ages, Dante, with his work De vulgari eloquentia (1303-1305) allowed the spread of the term «lingua d'oc» (Language of or c). He opposed the name lengua de oc (Occitan) to the lengua de oil (French and its dialects) and to the lengua de si (the Italian, his mother tongue). It was based on the particle due to the following statement: in the first, «yes» it was said òc in Old Occitan and in Old Catalan, but oïl in Old French, and yes in Italian dialects. The three terms come from Latin: hoc est (is this) for the first, illud est (is that) for the second and sic est (is so) for the third.

One of the most important passages in Western literature is canto 26, in which the troubadour Arnaut Daniel responds to the narrator in Occitan:

So m’abellis vostre cortés deman,
I don't want you to cook.
Ieu sui Arnaut, who plor e vau sing;
consiros vei la passada folor,
e vei jausen lo joi qu’esper, denan.
Ara vos prec, per that value
that you guide the som of l’escalina,
sovenha vos a temps de ma dolor.

First diglossia: relative stability

Under the monarchy

Although French (oil literature) acquired a certain literary prestige, in the 14th century and XV, Occitan literature enters a phase of relative decline and does not play a determining role at European level. This situation is nothing more than a threat to the practice of Occitan. And this leads to a replacement of Occitan by French as a written language.

Copy of the preamble and articles of the Villers-Cotterêts Ordinance, put into force in France since 1539

The decline of Occitan as an administrative and literary language lasted from the end of the XIV century to the XIX, Occitan did not stop of losing its status as an erudite language. In the courts of the XVI century, the script previously in use fell into oblivion (which was accentuated with the Ordinance of Villers -Cotterêts that imposed the administrative use of French). Pierre Bec specifies that in 1500 pronunciation and writing still corresponded but that in 1550 the separation took place. In 1562, the Duke of Savoy ordered the notaries of the County of Nice to draw up their acts in Italian from then on. From this, the writings of patois that take the official languages as a reference proliferate.

The language of the King of France will end up being imposed throughout the country orally (former Occitan-speaking provinces such as Poitou, Saintonge, Aunis, Angoumois, Marche and Lower Auvergne, as well as a part of Rhône-Alpes). The first texts appear from the end of the XIV century in the north of Auvergne. On the other hand, French only prevailed in administrative and legal writings (in Occitan-speaking regions). Over the course of the XVI century, French massively and definitively replaced Occitan as the official written language.

Statue of Colbert in the Louvre Palace

The latest texts are written from 1620 in Rouergue and eastern Provence. In Aveyron, the parish register of Rieupeyroux is written in Occitan until 1644. Béarn is an exception, it is in Occitan-Bearnese that legislation was written (les Fors). Occitan retained its use as an administrative language (along with the increasing use of French) for various legal acts until the French Revolution of 1789, even around 1815 by certain notaries.

On the literary level, Occitan continued to be used; in the Renaissance by the Gascon Pèir de Garròs, in Provence by Loís Bellaud de la Bellaudièra; in the 17th century with the poetry of Pierre Goudouli, in the theater with Francés de Corteta; at the end of the XVIII century with the abbot Joan Baptista Fabre and also at the opera thanks to the composer Jean-Joseph de Mondonville.

Second diglossia: linguistic substitution

During the Revolution

The French Revolution will confirm this trend in the time of the Jacobins to favor national unity in which they imposed French as the only official language, which will not mean that the language of oc ceases to be used in the oral sphere, even it will be used by revolutionaries to more effectively propagate their ideas.

French Empire and Restoration

The language, despite its literary productions written between the XVI century and the XIX, survives only in rarely written popular usages until the renewal of the Félibrige. The Occitan media themselves become ardent opponents of Occitan:

Ce malheureux baragouin (Note: l’occitan) qu’il est temps de proscrire. Nous sommes Français, parlons français.

a reader of L’Écho du Vaucluse, 1828

Le patois porte la superstition et le séparatisme, les Français doivent parler la langue de la liberté.

La Gazette du Midi, 1833

Détruisez, si vous pouvez, les ignobles patois des Limousins, des Périgourdins et des Auvergnats, forcez les par tous les moyens possibles à l’unité de langue française comme à l’uniformité des poids et mesures, nous vous rerouverons de grandus cœur

Le Messager, 24 September 1840

Under the Republic: the school, the administration and the army

«Parlez français, soy propres»: Poster on the wall of a school in southern France

Jules Ferry is at the origin of the Jules Ferry School Laws of the Third French Republic.

Occitan will be, for a large majority, the only language spoken by the people until the beginning of the XX century. At this time, the school (before, during and after the Third French Republic) plays a great role in the disappearance of the oral use of the Occitan language. Despite school becoming free and compulsory for all, after the Jules Ferry School Laws, it continues to cause a significant setback to the Occitan language due to the return of a policy of denigration and blaming of speakers of languages other than English. French. The repression of the use of the language within the school is very important and consists mainly in humiliating the patoisants instead of giving a distinctive sign. The term patois is moreover as debatable as it is pejorative. This is intended to make people forget that Occitan is a true language and to make people believe that the use of patois was obscure >.

Paradoxically, during the same period, Occitan literature was rewarded abroad by the Nobel Prize awarded to the Provençal writer and founder of the Félibrige Frédéric Mistral.

Social and demographic changes

Social changes of the early 19th century and XX are also at the origin of the contempt for the language. With the industrial revolution and urbanization, not speaking more than Occitan was an impediment to accessing important positions. Many parents then have to choose not to speak more than French with their children. However, for themselves, French was the language of the school and of the administration, but it was not their mother tongue.

Occitan has been more than the language of acculturation of emigrants to the Occitan territory, which has contributedEmpty reference (help) ..

Modern forms of anti-occitanism

Occitan's opponents still exist today, in various guises. Thus, the member of the French Academy Danièle Sallenave (seat number 30) expressed in a statement to Le Monde in 1999: «Notre vision des « langues » et des « cultures » régionales, [... ], baigne dans la niaise brume des bons sentiments écolo-folkloriques et se nourrit d'images d'un passé revisité… Ce ne peut être un objectif national» —Our vision of "languages" and "cultures" regional, submerged in silly mists of good folk sentiments that feed on an idealized past... It cannot be a national objective.—