BASIC FACTS
Occitan is romance
language, that is the result of the evolution of spoken latin after
the fall of the roman empire,like french, spanish, italian, portuguese,
catalan,
romanian and rhetian. This evolution has
been widely influenced by the languages spoken before the arrival of the
romans, i.e. celtic Gallic in the northern part of Occitania and Iberic
Aquitan (probably the languange of the Basques' ancestors) in the southwestern
part. Then the evolutions have spread over the domain and the differences
have slightly been smoothed. This entails that occitan is an intermediary
step between iberic tongues on the one hand (like Castillan or Portuguese)
and French on the other hand, which has undergone deep changes after the
germanic invasions in the IVth-VIth century. It must be added that occitan
is very similar to Catalan and in fact, many scientists think occitan and
Catalan should be regarded as different dialects of the same Catalano-occitan
language.
Occitània is just the collection
of Occitan speaking areas, in the form of its six main dialects : Provençal,
Languedocien, Gascon, Auvernhat, Limousin and Alpine. This territory has
never konw any political unification, but mutual understanding between
the diferent dialects, as well as a large number of cultural similarities
in the fields of mentalities, cooking, architecture etc are the reason
to consider it as a genuine entity..To know more about this territory,
visit the Occitan countries section.
Main characteristics of the language
: Occitan vs. French
-
French changed most of Latin A latinas into
[e], while Occitan retained the latin sound. Compare Latin NASUM, Occitan
nas and French nez.
-
French changed many Latin O into [oe], while
Occitan retained them. Compare Latin FLOREM, Occitan flor and French
fleur.
-
French changed many Latin E into [wa], while
Occitan retained them [e] sound. Compare Latin PERAM, Occitan pera
French poire.
-
French changed the Latin AU group into [o],
Latin AI into [e] and Latin EI into [wa], while Occitan retained the Latin
[au], [ai] e [ei] sounds. Compare Latin AURICULAM, Occitan aurelha
and French oreille, or (spoken) Latin FAITUM (for FACTUM), Occitan
fait
and French fait (pronounced [fè]), or (spoken) Latin DREITUM
(for DIRECTUM), Occitan dreit and French
droit.
-
French just suppressed many of non stressed
Latin vowelswhile Occitan retained them. Compare Latin CABALLUM, Occitan
caval, French
cheval (the e is dropped in the pronounciation
: [shfal]), Latin LUNA, Occitan luna, French
lune (Again,
the e is dropped [lün]).
-
French also suppressed a lot of Latin consonants
which Occitan retained. Compare Latin MATURUS, Occitan madur and
French mûr, or Latin EXCADENTIA, Occitan escasença
and French échéance.
Actually, all these caracteristics make Occitan
closer to Spanish than French. To be elliptic, one could say that Occitan
is Spanish without final O's and with French u.
Occitan is no "distorted French". French
institutions, among which most of the school teaachers have spread the
idea that Occitan is only a "patois", a distorted form of French. This
is of course definitely wrong. Occitan and French are just two different
languages which formed themselves independently out of Latin. Moreover,
the differences above show that Occitan remained closer to Latin than French
did. If the relationship was relevant, one should then consider French
as distorted, over evoluted Occitan.
If you are interested in more details,
visit the linguistics section. |