Occitan language

It is spoken in Southern France, Italy's Occitan Valleys, Monaco, as well as Spain's Val d'Aran; collectively, these regions are sometimes referred to as Occitania.

]The Occitan Valleys (Valadas Occitanas, Valli Occitane, Vallées Occitanes) are the part of Occitania (the territory of the Occitan language) within the borders of Italy.

It is spoken in Southern France, Italy's Occitan Valleys, Monaco, as well as Spain's Val d'Aran; collectively, these regions are sometimes referred to as Occitania.

Occitania (Occitània,, or ) is the historical region in southern Europe where Occitan was historically the main language spoken, and where it is sometimes still used, for the most part as a second language.

Today, Occitan is an official language in Catalonia, where a subdialect of Gascon known as Aranese is spoken in the Val d'Aran. According to Joseph Anglade, a philologist and specialist of medieval literature who helped impose the then archaic term Occitan as the sole correct name, the word Lemosin was first used to designate the language at the beginning of the 13th century by Catalan troubadour Raimon Vidal de Besalú(n) in his Razós de trobar:

The official languages are Catalan, Spanish, and the Aranese dialect of Occitan.

Some include Catalan in Occitan, as the distance between this language and some Occitan dialects (such as the Gascon language) is similar to the distance among different Occitan dialects. Across history, the terms Limousin (Lemosin), Languedocien (Lengadocian), Gascon, and later Provençal (Provençal, Provençau or Prouvençau) have been used as synonyms for the whole of Occitan; nowadays, "Provençal" is understood mainly as the Occitan dialect spoken in Provence, in southeast France.

Gascon is a dialect of Occitan, considered by some linguists to be a separate language.

Occitan, also known as lenga d'òc (langue d'oc) by its native speakers, is a Romance language. In his De vulgari eloquentia, he wrote in Latin, "nam alii oc, alii si, alii vero dicunt oil" ("for some say òc, others sì, yet others say oïl"), thereby highlighting three major Romance literary languages that were well known in Italy, based on each language's word for "yes", the òc language (Occitan), the oïl language (French), and the sì language (Sicilian and Italian).

Across history, the terms Limousin (Lemosin), Languedocien (Lengadocian), Gascon, and later Provençal (Provençal, Provençau or Prouvençau) have been used as synonyms for the whole of Occitan; nowadays, "Provençal" is understood mainly as the Occitan dialect spoken in Provence, in southeast France.

Limousin (Lemosin) is a dialect of the Occitan language, spoken in the three departments of Limousin, parts of Charente and the Dordogne in the southwest of France.

Across history, the terms Limousin (Lemosin), Languedocien (Lengadocian), Gascon, and later Provençal (Provençal, Provençau or Prouvençau) have been used as synonyms for the whole of Occitan; nowadays, "Provençal" is understood mainly as the Occitan dialect spoken in Provence, in southeast France.

Languedocien (French name) or Lengadocian (native name) is an Occitan dialect spoken in rural parts of southern France such as Languedoc, Rouergue, Quercy, Agenais and Southern Périgord.

Unlike other Romance languages such as French or Spanish, there is no single written standard language called "Occitan", and Occitan has no official status in France, home to most of Occitania.

Additionally, it has absorbed vocabulary from other languages, particularly other Romance languages—French, Italian, Andalusi Romance, Portuguese, Galician, Catalan, Occitan, and Sardinian—as well as from Quechua, Nahuatl, and other indigenous languages of the Americas.

After Frédéric Mistral's Félibrige movement in the 19th century, Provençal achieved the greatest literary recognition and so became the most popular term for Occitan.

The Félibrige (Lo Felibritge in classical Occitan, Lou Felibrige in Mistralian spelling, ) is a literary and cultural association founded by Frédéric Mistral and other Provençal writers to defend and promote the Provençal language (also called the Occitan language or langue d’Oc) and literature.

It is spoken in Southern France, Italy's Occitan Valleys, Monaco, as well as Spain's Val d'Aran; collectively, these regions are sometimes referred to as Occitania.

The area corresponds in large part to Occitania, the territory in which Occitan (langue d'oc) — as distinct from the langues d'oïl of Northern France — was historically the dominant language.

The word òc came from Vulgar Latin hoc ("this"), while oïl originated from Latin hoc illud ("this [is] it").

The Romance languages, such as Catalan, French, Italian, Occitan, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish all evolved from Vulgar Latin and not from Classical Latin.

After Frédéric Mistral's Félibrige movement in the 19th century, Provençal achieved the greatest literary recognition and so became the most popular term for Occitan.

Frederic Mistral (Josèp Estève Frederic Mistral, 8 September 1830 – 25 March 1914) was an Occitan writer and lexicographer of the Occitan language.

Occitan is also spoken in the linguistic enclave of Guardia Piemontese (Calabria, Italy).

Guardia is an Occitan linguistic enclave.

Nonetheless, there is a significant amount of mutual intelligibility.

Other famous pieces include the Boecis, a 258-line-long poem written entirely in the Limousin dialect of Occitan between the year 1000 and 1030 and inspired by Boethius's The Consolation of Philosophy; the Waldensian La nobla leyczon (dated 1100), la Cançó de Santa Fe (c.

La nobla leyczon (, La nòbla leiçon in modern Occitan, "The Noble Lesson") is an anonymous text written in Old Occitan.

1054–1076), the Romance of Flamenca (13th century), the Song of the Albigensian Crusade (1213–1219?), Daurel e Betó (12th or 13th century), Las, qu'i non sun sparvir, astur (11th century) and Tomida femina (9th or 10th century).

Daurel e Betó ; Daurèl e Beton in modern Occitan, Daurel et Beton in French, "Daurel and Beton"), is an anonymous chanson de geste in Old Occitan which full title reads Lo romans de Daurel e de Betó.

According to Joseph Anglade, a philologist and specialist of medieval literature who helped impose the then archaic term Occitan as the sole correct name, the word Lemosin was first used to designate the language at the beginning of the 13th century by Catalan troubadour Raimon Vidal de Besalú(n) in his Razós de trobar:

He is notable for authoring the first tract in a Romance language (Occitan) on the subject of grammar and poetry, the Razós de trobar (c.

It is spoken in Southern France, Italy's Occitan Valleys, Monaco, as well as Spain's Val d'Aran; collectively, these regions are sometimes referred to as Occitania. Today, Occitan is an official language in Catalonia, where a subdialect of Gascon known as Aranese is spoken in the Val d'Aran.

Aranese is the standardized form of the local Gascon variety of the Occitan language.

Occitan was the vehicle for the influential poetry of the medieval troubadours (trovadores) and trobairitz: At that time, the language was understood and celebrated throughout most of educated Europe.

The word trobairitz is used very rarely in medieval Occitan, as it does not occur in lyrical poetry, grammatical treatises or in the biographies (vidas) of the trobairitz or troubadours.

1054–1076), the Romance of Flamenca (13th century), the Song of the Albigensian Crusade (1213–1219?), Daurel e Betó (12th or 13th century), Las, qu'i non sun sparvir, astur (11th century) and Tomida femina (9th or 10th century).

Flamenca is a 13th-century romance, written in the Occitan language in Occitania.

The Garonne (, also, ; Occitan, Catalan, and Garona, ; Garumna or Garunna) is a river in southwest France and northern Spain, with a length of 602 km.

Franco-Provençal has several distinct dialects and is separate from but closely related to neighboring Romance dialects (the langues d'oïl and Occitan, Rhaeto-Romance, Lombard, Piedmontese).

Across history, the terms Limousin (Lemosin), Languedocien (Lengadocian), Gascon, and later Provençal (Provençal, Provençau or Prouvençau) have been used as synonyms for the whole of Occitan; nowadays, "Provençal" is understood mainly as the Occitan dialect spoken in Provence, in southeast France.

The second half of the 19th century saw a revival of the Provençal language and culture, particularly traditional rural values.

In particular, the northern and easternmost dialects have more morphological and phonetic features in common with the Gallo-Italic and Oïl languages (e.g. nasal vowels; loss of final consonants; initial cha/ja- instead of ca/ga-; uvular ; the front-rounded sound instead of a diphthong, instead of before a consonant), whereas the southernmost dialects have more features in common with the Ibero-Romance languages (e.g. betacism; voiced fricatives between vowels in place of voiced stops; -ch- in place of -it-), and Gascon has a number of unusual features not seen in other dialects (e.g. in place of ; loss of between vowels; intervocalic -r- and final -t/ch in place of medieval --).

Linguists divide the Romance languages of France, and especially of Medieval France, into three geographical subgroups: the first two are Langues d'oïl and occitan, both named after their words for 'yes' (oïl and òc, respectively), and the third is Franco-Provençal (Arpitan).

In his De vulgari eloquentia, he wrote in Latin, "nam alii oc, alii si, alii vero dicunt oil" ("for some say òc, others sì, yet others say oïl"), thereby highlighting three major Romance literary languages that were well known in Italy, based on each language's word for "yes", the òc language (Occitan), the oïl language (French), and the sì language (Sicilian and Italian).

He compiles a map of the geographical position of the languages he knows, dividing the European territory into three parts: one to the east, with the Greek languages; one to the north, with the Germanic languages, which he believed included Magyar and Slavic languages; one to the south, separated into three Romance languages identified by their word for 'yes': oc language (from hoc), oïl language (from hoc illud) and sì language (from sic).