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Occitan, known also as Lenga d'òc or Langue d'oc (Occitan: occitan, lenga d'òc) is a Romance language spoken in Occitania (i.e. Southern France, Monaco and some valleys of Italy and Spain). All of its subdivisions are generally mutually intelligible. The area where Occitan was historically dominant is home to some 14 million inhabitants. It may be spoken as a first language by as many as two million people in France, Italy, Spain and Monaco (Ethnologue, 2005). It is furthermore stated by some researchers that up to seven million people in France understand the language. However, these two estimates should be considered very optimistic upper bounds; the actual figures are almost certainly substantially lower (see Usage in France, below). More widely accepted wisdom suggests that as few as half a million proficient speakers remain in France, for example. In France, Italy and Spain, Occitan or Langue d'oc is the general name given to all dialects of the language. Provençal used to be a synonym of Occitan but since the second half of the 20th Century, it has been used mainly to refer to the dialect of Occitan spoken in Provence. In the English-speaking world, "Provençal" is often used to refer to all dialects of Occitan as well as to medieval versions of it also known as Langue d'oc.
History of the modern term The name Occitan comes from òc, the Occitan word for yes, as opposed to oïl as used in the Oïl languages spoken in the territory now covered by northern France, parts of Belgium and the Channel Islands, which was the ancestor of the word oui of modern French. Òc has been proposed as a possible origin of the English term "OK" (see WP article), but linguists are far from unanimous on this point. The medieval Italian poet Dante was the first to have used the term lingua d'oc. In his De vulgari eloquentia he wrote in Latin: "nam alii oc, alii si, alii vero dicunt oil" ("some say oc, others say si, others say oïl"), thereby classifying the Romance languages into three groups based on each language's word for "yes", the oïl languages (in northern France), the oc languages (in southern France), and the si languages (in Italy and Iberia). This was not, of course, the only defining character of each group. The word òc came from Vulgar Latin hoc ("that"), while oïl originated from Latin hoc ille ("that is it"). Other Romance languages derive their word for yes from the Latin sic, "thus", such as the Spanish sí, Italian sì, Catalan sí, or Portuguese sim. Other names for Occitan For many centuries, the Occitan dialects (together with Catalan) were referred to as Lemosin or Provençal, the names of two regions lying within modern-day Occitania. After Mistral's Félibrige movement in the 19th century, Provençal achieved the greatest literary recognition, and so became the most popular term for the Occitan language. Nowadays, strictly, the terms Provençal and Lemosin are used to refer to specific varieties within Occitania, whereas Occitan is used for the language as a whole. However, many non-specialists continue to refer to the language as Provençal, causing some confusion. Occitan around the world Linguistic characterization Jules Ronjat has sought to characterize Occitan by 19 principal criteria, as generalized as possible. Of those, 11 are phonetic, five morphologic, one syntactic, and two lexical. Close vowels (French: rose, yeux) are rare or absent in Occitan. This characteristic often carries through to an Occitan speaker's French, leading to a distinctive méridional accent. Unlike French, it is a pro-drop language allowing the omission of the subject (canti: I sing; cantas you sing). Among these 19 discriminating criteria, 7 are different from Spanish, 8 from Italian, 12 from Franco-provençal, and 16 from French. Differences between Occitan and Catalan As detailed above, the separation of Catalan from Occitan is largely politically (rather than linguistically) motivated. However, the variety that has become standard Catalan does differ from that which has become standard Occitan in a number of ways. The following are just a few examples: Writing systems differ slightly between the two languages. The modern Occitan spelling recommended by the Institut d'Estudis Occitans and the Conselh de la Lenga Occitana is designed to be a pan-Occitan system, whereas the Catalan system recommended by the Institut d'Estudis Catalans is specific to Catalan. For example, in Catalan, word-final -n is omitted, as this is not pronounced in any dialect of Catalan (so we have Català, Occità); central Occitan also drops word-final -n, but it is retained in the spelling, as some eastern and western dialects of Occitan do retain the final consonant (so we have Catalan, Occitan). Occitano-Roman linguistic group Despite these differences, Occitan and Catalan remain more or less mutually comprehensible, especially when written - more so than Spanish or French and either of them, for example. The two peoples share early historical, cultural, and amicable heritage. The combined Occitano-Roman area is 259,000 km² and represents 23 million speakers. However, the regions are not equal in terms of language speakers. According to Bec 1969 (pp.120–121), in France, no more than a quarter of the population in counted regions speak Occitan well, though around half can understand it; it is thought that the number of Occitan users has decreased dramatically since then. By contrast, in Catalonia, nearly three quarters of the population speak Catalan and 95% understand it *. Origins of Occitan Because Occitan is the most central of the Romance languages, external influences could have impeded its birth and development, making it only a tributary of standard Latin. However, many factors favored its development as a language of its own. Rich lexicon A comparison of terms and word counts between languages is not easy, as it is impossible to precisely count the number of words in a language. (See Lexicon, Lexeme, Lexicography for more information.) Some have claimed around 450,000 words exist in the Occitan language, a number comparable to English (The Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged with 1993 addenda reaches 470,000 words, as does the Oxford English Dictionary, Second edition.) The Merriam-Webster Web site estimates that the number is somewhere between 250,000 and 1 million words. The magazine Géo (2004, p. 79) claims that American English literature can be more easily translated into Occitan than French, excluding modern technological terms that both languages have integrated. A comparison of the lexical content can find more subtle differences between the languages. For example, Occitan has 128 synonyms related to cultivated land, 62 for wetlands, and 75 for sunshine (Géo). The language went through an eclipse during the Industrial Revolution, as the vocabulary of the countryside became less important. At the same time, it was disparaged as a patois. Nevertheless, Occitan has also incorporated new words into its lexicon to describe the modern world. The Occitan word for web is oèb, for example. Learning other languages Native speakers of Occitan are predisposed, according to Géo magazine (p. 79), to learning other languages, often times offsetting the increase in difficulty of learning a new language at an advanced age. Furthermore, Occitan's geography as a central Romance language facilitates comprehension of neighboring languages (Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese.) Among languages in its family, it has the most points in common with the others. Below is a comparison of Occitan (central dialect) with other Romance languages: History of Occitan Occitan was the vehicle for the influential poetry of the medieval troubadours. With the gradual imposition of French royal power over its territory, Occitan declined in status from the 14th century on. By the Edict of Villers-Cotterets (1539) it was decreed that the langue d'oil (Northern French) should be used for all French administration. Occitan's greatest decline was during the French Revolution, where diversity of languages was seen as a threat. The literary renaissance of late 19th century, including a Nobel Prize for Frederic Mistral was however watered down by the First World War where Occitan speakers spent extended lengths of time alongside French-speaking comrades. Usage in France Though it was still an everyday language for most of the rural population of the South well into the 20th century, it has been all but replaced by French. According to the 1999 census, there are 610,000 native speakers (almost all of whom are also native French speakers) and perhaps another million persons with some exposure to the language. Following the pattern of languages in decline, most of this remainder is to be found among the eldest populations. Ethnic activists have attempted, particularly with the advent of Occitan-language preschools (the Calandretas) to reintroduce the language to the young. Nonetheless, the number of proficient speakers of Occitan appears to be dropping precipitously. A tourist in the cities in southern France is unlikely to hear a single Occitan word spoken on the street (or for that matter, in a home), and will likely 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. Usage outside France In the Val d'Aran, a valley in the north of Catalonia (in north-eastern Spain), Aranese (a dialect of Occitan) is treated as an official language, together with Catalan and Spanish. In Italy Occitan is also spoken in some Alpine valleys of the Province of Cuneo in Piedmont. Occitan-speaking colonies have existed in Calabria (Italy) since the 14th century, and in Württemberg (Germany) since the 18th century, the latter as a consequence of the Camisard war. Traditionally Occitan-speaking areas Features of Occitan Among the diachronic features of Occitan as a Romance language: Occitan orthography There are two main linguistic norms currently used for Occitan, one (known as classical) which is based on that of Mediaeval Occitan, and one (sometimes known as Mistralian, due to its use by the Felibres, including Mistral) which is based on modern French orthography. Sometimes, there is some conflict between some 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 only used 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. Debates concerning linguistic classification and orthography The vast majority of scholars think that Occitan constitutes a single language. Some authors, constituing a tiny minority, refuse this opinion and even the name Occitan: they think that there is a family of distinct languages (called langues d'oc / lengas d'oc in plural) rather than dialects. Many Occitan linguists and writers, particularly those involved with the pan-Occitan movement centred on the Institut d'Estudis Occitans, disagree with the view that Occitan is a family of languages and think that Limousin, Auvergnat, Languedocien, Gascon, Provençal and Alpine Provençal are dialects of a single language. Though there are some noticeable differences between these varieties, there is a very high degree of mutual intelligibility between them; they also share a common literary history, and in academic and literary circles, have been identified as a collective linguistic entity — the langue d'oc — for centuries. Some Provençal authors continue to support the view that Provençal is a separate language. Nevertheless, the vast majority of Provençal authors think that Provençal is a part of Occitan. This debate about the status of Provençal should not be confused with the debate concerning the spelling of Provençal. The question of Gascon is more controversial still, as Gascon presents a number of significant differences from the rest of the language; but despite of these differences, Gascon and other Occitan dialects share a very important common lexical and grammatical material, so they could never be considered as different as, for example, Spanish and Italian.• In addition, the fact that Gascon is included within Occitan despite its particular differences, can be also justified because there is a common elaboration (''Ausbau'') process between Gascon and the rest of Occitan. The vast majority of the Gascon cultural movement considers itself as a part of the Occitan cultural movement. And the official status of Val d'Aran (Catalonia, Spain), adopted in 1990, says that Aranese is a part of Gascon and Occitan. The exclusion of Catalan from the Occitan sphere, although Catalan is a language closely related to Occitan, is justified because there has been a conscience of it being different to Occitan since the later Middle Ages and the elaboration (Ausbau) processes of Catalan and Occitan (including Gascon) have been quite distinct since the 20th Century. Occitan quotes
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