Name of the language: Occitan
| Other names | In French, “Langue d’oc”. For many centuries, the Occitan dialects (together with Catalan) were referred to as Lemosin or Provençal, the names of two regions lying within modern "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, linguists use the terms Provençal and Lemosin strictly to refer to specific varieties within Occitania, whereas Occitan is used for the language as a whole. Many non-specialists, however, continue to refer to the language as Provençal, causing some confusion |
| Spoken in ... | Southern France (from Limoges and Clermont-Ferrand to Baiona and Nice) + Valli occitane and Guardia Piemontese (in Italy), Val d’Aran (in Spain) and Monaco. |
| Number of speakers | Estimations vary dramatically from 600000 to 12 millions |
| Legal status |
French is the only official language but the French Constitution states that “regional languages belong to French patrimony.” In Italy, a law issued on December 15th, 1999, under the title “Regulations on the subject of protection of historical linguistic minorities” recognises 12 linguistic minorities including Occitan (Law n. 482, 1999, art. 2, sub-section 1). In Spain, Occitan is co-official in Catalonia (as well as Catalan and Spanish). French is the only official language in Monaco |
| Source(s) | http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occitan |
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Short explanation about the history |
The name Occitan comes from lenga d'òc (i.e. òc language), which comes from òc, the Occitan word for yes. The Italian medieval poet Dante wrote in Latin: "nam alii oc, alii si, alii vero dicunt oil" ("some say òc, others say sì, others say oïl"), thereby highlighting three major Romance literary languages which 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 (Italian). This was not, of course, the only defining character of each group. |
| For more information (other web sites) |
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occitan http://www.pluzz.fr/jt-19-20-edition-nationale-2011-04-16-19h28.html |
