Occitano-Romance languages

The Occitan-Romance or Occitan-Romance languages are Occitan and Catalan/Valencian, two very close Romance languages that form a transitional dialect continuum between the Gallo-Romance languages, the Gallo-Italic languages, and the Ibero-Romance languages. A Sometimes Aragonese is included.

Some sources classify both among the Gallo-Romance languages, others, such as Ethnologue, within the Ibero-Romance group and, traditionally, Catalan as Ibero-Romance and Occitan as Gallo-Romance. However, in their written form, modern Catalan and modern Occitan are highly intelligible, and with a percentage of shared lexicon higher than that between Spanish and Portuguese. Some Occitan linguists and philologists have even tried to include Catalan as part of the Occitan diasystem, since the Occitan linguists Pierre Bec and Domergue Sumien classified Catalan as an Occitan variant of the Aquitaine-Pyrenean type. In fact, there are well-founded reasons to consider the Occitan-Romance languages a valid phylogenetic group.

Classification

The term Ibero-Oriental group is a label used by Ethnologue for the classification of Romance languages. According to the available evidence, the Ibero-Oriental group is not discussed, unlike other higher-level groupings used by Ethnologue.

Ethnologue proposes the following hierarchical classification for the iberorromance group:

Indoeuropeo  Itálico /2005 GrupoRomance  Romance  Romance Languages Ite-Western romances  Grupo Ítalo-Occidental - Subgroup Occidental  Grupo Galo-Ibérico  Grupo Ibero-Romance.

The varieties of Catalan and Occitan together clearly form a phylogenetic group. There is some discussion as to whether these languages together with others form a broader phylogenetic group within the Romance languages. Some authors somewhat arbitrarily classify the Occitano-Romance languages as either a part of the Ibero-Romance languages or a part of the Gallo-Romance languages, although some of the features shared with these groups could be due to later influences or parallel developments.

The existence of numerous common features between the three languages has been pointed out, so it could possibly be spoken of a Pyrenean Romance group made up of Occitan, Catalan and Aragonese.

Internal sorting

Ethnologue divides Ibero-Romance languages into two groups: an Eastern group and a Western group. The internal classification for the Ibero-Oriental group basically coincides with the Occitan-Romance group. Nuclear Occitano-Romance would be made up of the following varieties of Occitan, Catalan/Valencian and Aragonese:

• Occitan
  • North West: Auvernés, Limosín, Vivaroalpino
  • Southeast West: Lengadocián, Provenzal
  • Southwest or Gascon: Aranés, Bearnés, Bigorrés
  • Shuadit or Judeoprovenzal (†)
• Catalan-valenciano-balear
  • Eastern Variant: Central Catalan, North-East Catalan, Alguerés, Balear: (Mallorquín, Menorquín, Ibicenco).
  • Western Variant: North-West Catalan, Leridano, Valencian transition, Valencian: (central or Apitxat, Northern Valencian, Southern Valencian, Alicantino).
  • Judeocatalán (†)

• Aragonese: the position of this language is less clear than the other two, but it is clear that it shares an important number of isogloses with the Catalan and the West, not present in the Iberian languages. However, the Aragonese as a whole has undergone major restructurings in the last centuries that have made it noticeably closer to the Iberian-Roman languages, obscuring some of the most clearly western features. The bridge between the west and the iberorromances could be considered, although the origin is clearly occitanorromance.

Supradialectal classification of Occitano-Romance

supradialectal classification of the occitanorromance.

The Occitan authors Pèire Bec and Domergue Sumien had described a supradialectal classification of Occitano-Romance, dividing it into two groups (Aquitano-Pyrenean and Auverno-Mediterranean) according to some phonetic or grammatical features.

• Auvernomediterráneo Group
  • Auvernés
  • Limosín
  • Vivaroalpino
  • Provenzal
• Anatanopirinary group
  • Lengadocián
    • Central lengadocián
    • Southern lengadocián
  • Gascon (including the aranes)
  • Catalan/Valenciano

Linguistic features

Similarities between Catalan/Valencian, Occitan and Aragonese

• Both the Occitan varieties and the Catalan varieties present apocope of the final Latin vowels - worship, worship (protorromance - Hey.). Without emblazoning the Aragone usually presents apocope of the -e but not of the -o, which varies in each dialect.

lat. TRNCENCIAM  Catalan and Occitan tronc [t luminous flux(k)] (against Spanish and Italian trunk and the French tronc)

lat. L LGNOSḳM  Catalan-valencian filled [ s ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] and West lenhós [le]us] (against Spanish) woody and the French ligneux)

The previous evolution is not given when the - Hey. gives rise to final consonant groups:

ÁRBORUND  cat. Anger, occ. Anger (against Spanish) tree and the French Anger)

QUATTUOR  QUATRO  cat. quatre, occ. quatreAra. quatre (four in Spanish and quatre in French)

Both preserve traces of the evolution of the Romance phoneme /*č/ > /ʦ/ > /ʣ/: Latin DĔCE(M) 'ten' > Proto-Romance *dɛče > Catalan -tze/-ze (catorze, quinze, setze 14, 15, 16) and Occitan détz, alternating with /z/ *deʣena 'tens' > Catalan/Occitan /dezena/.

• A large part of the lexicon is common, and in general in the Catalan and western written form they have a very high intelligibility, similar to that between Portuguese and Spanish. There are also notable lexical coincidences between Catalan/valencian, West and Aragonese:

Latin VÉC(U)LA   cat. vella, occ. vielhaArag. viella.

Latin MEDIU(M)   cat. mig, occ. miegArag. Me.

Latin EGκ 한 *E  cat. ♪, occ. Ieu ~ joArag. Me.

Latin SEQU giftRE  *SEGIRE  cat.to continue, occ. siegere ~ followArag. continue(e)

Latin FшLIA(M)  cat. fulla, occ. fuòlha ~ fuèlhaArag. Waslla~folla

Differences between Catalan/Valencian and Occitan

Most of the differences in the vowel system come from neutralizations that took place in the unstressed vowel system. In both languages, in a stressed syllable there is a greater number of possible different vowels, while in an unstressed syllable, phonologically different vowels end up articulating in the same way. Although this characteristic is common to both languages, the details of the neutralization differ remarkably. In Occitan the form of neutralization depends on whether a vowel is pretonic or postonic (a /ɔ/ is articulated as [u] in pretonic position and as [o] in postonic position, and as [ɔ] only in tonic position), while that in Catalan the neutralization is the same regardless of the position of the unstressed syllable (although it differs from dialect to dialect). Many of these changes occurred as late as the 13th or 14th century.

Slightly older are the palatalizations that Occitan and Catalan present before palatal or velar consonants:

Lexical comparison

The numerals in different Occitan-Romance varieties are:

GLOSA	North West		Occitano occ.	East West		Catalan/Valenciano		Aragonés	PROTO- OcRm
	Auvergnat	Lemosin	Gascon	Languedoc	Provençal	Eastern Variant	Western Variant
'1'	vyn / vyn / vun / vunå	/ / yn / One / One	and/or me One / ua	/ / yno One / One	yno One / One	a / a One / One	One/ One / One	a~one / a One. / One	♪ a ♪
'2'	dua dou / Duas	dua Two. / doas	dys / dyos dus / Duas	duos / duos Two. / doas	duas dous / douas	2 / duθ Two. / dues	Two. Two. / dues	2 / duas Two. / Duas	♪dos~dus ♪ ♪
'3'	t tei trei	trei Three.	Three. Three.	Three. Three.	teses Three.	tr Three.	tr Three.	t Three.	♪ three
'4'	kat ka catre	katre quatre	kwat quate	katre quatre	kat ka quatre	kwatr quatre	kwatre quatre	kwatro~kwatre quatro / quatre	*kwatre
'5'	・in without	・in cinc	sync cinq	sync cinq	sigil cinq	sigilk cinc	sigilk cinc	θiŭko~θiŭk 5 / cinc	*sigilk
'6'	・ei Yes.	・iei Yeah.	ARIAeis sheis	si Yes	Yes. Yeah.	Yeah. Yeah.	Yeah. Yeah.	6~sieis Six / six	♪
'7'	♪ I know.	MINE sèt	s sèt	s sèt	s sèt	s set	s set	siet~s transformationt siet / set	*
'8'	vø veu	jee uèch	weit ueit	e uèch	vee vue	vulit / vuit vuit	vuit / wit vuit / huit	weito~weit ueito / ueit	*weit
'9'	niø~nou nieu~No.	nuu No	nau nau	nuu No	nu No	nuu No.	nuu No.	nweu~nuu nueu / nou	♪
'10'	die~de Dié~♪	♪ detz	d dètz	d dèts	d dès	d deu	d deu	dieθ~deu Ten / deu	*d transformationʦ

The numerals '1' and '2' distinguish between masculine and feminine forms.

Cities and dialects of Occitania, West