Occitan Language

Occitan is the language of Occitania, a historical region of southern Europe that encompassed parts of modern-day France, Monaco, Italy, and Spain. People in this region used the word oc rather than oui to mean "yes," leading to its distinction as langue d’oc as opposed to the northern langue d’oïl.

Occitan was the language of medieval troubadours, poets and writers who read poetry and sang songs in royal courts across Europe. Peaking in popularity between 1100 and 1350 CE, the troubadours’ tradition of writing and performing in their vernacular language inspired authors such as Dante and Petrarch.

The earliest known written Occitan is a refrain attached to a Latin poem that dates back to the tenth century. Although it has a written tradition, Occitan is mostly an oral language because upper class Occitans considered French the language of education and culture. Occitan speakers often use French as their "official and cultural language" but may use Occitan dialects for everyday and personal communications. The Occitan alphabet has twenty-three letters. The letters c or qu replace k; the letters v or o replace w; and i replaces y. An explosion of Occitan literature appeared in the twentieth century when authors such as Robèrt Lafont, Max Rouquette (or Roqueta), and Bernat (or Bernard) Manciet began to publish heavily in their native tongue.

History and Classification

Occitan descends from Vulgar Latin, making it an Indo-European language. It developed as an Ibero-Romance language strongly influenced by Latin. Celtic settlers in the north and Iberic-Aquitan (proto-Basque) in the southwest also heavily influenced the language. More recently, the language has been influenced by French, although its grammar and phonology are more similar to Spanish.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, Vulgar Latin remained in use in Occitania. The Occitan language developed and was recorded beginning in the tenth century as a separate and distinct tongue. Occitania comprised small feudal states, and Occitan was a common language for law, science, the arts, and everyday conversation. It developed simultaneously with Francien, the language that would ultimately become modern French.

From the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries, troubadour poets who traveled across Europe spoke Occitan. Their works were imitated in Sicilian and Italian dialects and in Galician-Portuguese and German. The language also was used by such figures as Eleanor of Aquitaine and her son, King Richard I of England (also known as "Richard the Lionheart").

In the early thirteenth century, Occitania was defeated during the Albigensian Crusades, which was a series of conflicts between the Catholic Church in France and Occitania's Cathars. After this defeat, France began to annex Occitania, a process completed in 1471 with the absorption of English-controlled Aquitaine. Occitania did not submit meekly, however, and the region continued to serve as a refuge for Calvinists, Huguenots, and other Protestants through the sixteenth century and maintained Occitan as a unifying cultural force.

In 1539, the Edict of Villers-Cotterêts banned the use of Occitan. It required the use of French, the language of Paris and the French Court, for all official and administrative purposes. All written Occitan was replaced, and the language was reduced to an oral tradition. The decline of Occitan was slow, with courtiers, bourgeoisie, merchants, traders, and government employees choosing to accept bilingualism as a necessity for success. Although actively discouraged, it was not until the French Revolution that the government condemned all languages and French dialects other than what was spoken in Paris. The government argued for linguistic unity as it worked to create a national French identity and language based on a Parisian standard. After the French Revolution, efforts to unify the language continued, and many regional dialects, including Occitan, were suppressed. Sometimes students were beaten for speaking their native languages on school premises.

In 1859, a group of intellectuals were inspired by Frédéric Mistral's publication of a long poem titled Mirèio. Written in Occitan, the poem sparked a revival of the language and received a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1904. The revival movement was known as the Félibrige, and its followers endeavored to produce literature using a standardized form of the Occitan language that was stripped of its French influences.

Geographic Distribution and Modern Usage

The main developmental center of Occitan was the court of Provence. The language was spoken widely across a region of southern Europe known as Occitania, which included parts of modern-day France, Monaco, Italy, and Spain. Occitania was bordered by the Loire River, the Atlantic Ocean, the Alps and Pyrenees mountain ranges, and the Mediterranean Sea. Occitania was composed of six French provinces. Each developed its own dialect.

By the twenty-first century, an estimated 1.5 million people—the majority of whom are elderly persons living in rural areas—speak Occitan daily. The language exists in somewhat of a paradox. Those who speak Occitan in their everyday lives are often illiterate, having never learned to read or write it. With contemporary interest and movements geared toward reviving and maintaining minority languages throughout Europe, however, Occitan is undergoing another sort of renaissance. Bilingual schools, state-run primary schools, high schools, and universities offer courses in Occitan. Whether students who learn the language will end up using Occitan in their everyday lives remains to be seen. A weekly newspaper, La Setmana, and a monthly magazine, Prouvènço d'Aro, are written in Occitan, and several regional newspapers and magazines publish columns in Occitan. In Spain’s Aran Valley, Occitan has co-official language status, along with Spanish and Catalan, and is used in official documents, on road signs, and in schools. Finally, modern troubadours recite the works of the medieval troubadours in their original Occitan.

Bibliography

Burckhardt, Olivier. "Modern-Day Troubadours: Contemporary Literature in the Occitan Languages." Contemporary Review 274.1596 (Jan. 1999): 33–37. Print.

Dalby, Andrew. "Occitan." Dictionary of Languages. London, UK: A&C Black, 2004. Print.

Gratton, N. "Occitans." Encyclopedia of World Cultures: Vol. 4: Europe. New York: Macmillan Reference, 1996. Print.

Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). "Occitan." Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Eighteenth Edition. Dallas, TX: SIL International, 2015. Web. 11 Aug. 2015. https://www.ethnologue.com/language/oci

"Occitan." Omniglot.com. Simon Ager. 2015. Web. 11 Aug. 2015. http://www.omniglot.com/writing/occitan.htm

"Occitan Language." Orbilat.com. Zdravko Batzarov. Web. 11 Aug. 2015. http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Occitan/Occitan.html