How alive is Occitan?
sim...@mygale.org
In article <5lt2s0$h...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
co...@euler.Berkeley.EDU (Coby (Jacob) Lubliner) wrote:
>
> >Just how much of a living language is Occitan? The EU lists it as
> >having 11 miliion speakers, clearly a gross exaggeration, and John
> >says about 2 million.
I should say it is somewhere between those to numbers. 6 millions, maybe ?
For now, no precise enquiry has been done, but I heard it would be done
in the coming months. Stay tuned on soc.culture.occitan
I travel quite often to southern France and have
> >never knowingly met a native speaker.
The situation might depend on the place you consider in Occitany :
My parents live near Toulouse, and there, almost every rural inhabitant
over 25 understand occitan, and speak it more or less frequently.
The problem is that you surely met several native speakers, even in
Gironde, but they did not tell you they were. The situation of
occitan nowadays is that of a "diglossy" : as all the native speakers
speak also French, the two languages are used according to the
situation. Especially with a stranger or a foreigner, occitan will
never be used or even mentionned. There is a widespread feeling of
shame [la vergonha] of speaking occitan.
And if you ask "do you speak Occitan" to some native speaker, they
will reply "no, I only speak the patois of my village". Which means
the occitan dialect of hies/her village.
If we want to save the language, there is a strong pedagogical work
to be done, to overcome the ideas that the centralist school instituation
left in the mind of millions of people.
> >But I do know that it was widely
> >spoken in the first half of this century in a variety of dialects.
In my area, the last children who where educated in occitan are born
at the end of the sixties. So it is quite more recent !
> >The
> >traditional line of demarcation cuts through the Gironde and is
> >supported by my own informants. My in-laws live near Libourne and say
> >that "le Gascon" was not spoken there, but in La Réole I was told by a
> >doctor that when he first went to the area (1950's?) he could not
> >communicate with some of the older local people beacause they only
> >spoke "patois".
Yes, patois is the "divide to rule" name given to all non-french languages
in France since the XVIth century. Actually, Libourne is very close to
the border between french and occitan, but still on the occitan side, as
you can see it e.g. in the "Atlas Linguistique de la Gascogne", based on
enquiries made in the 60's. But as all the language boundaries in the
romance world are not clear cut, but rather smooth, the dialect spoken
in Liborna should be somewhat close to french.
the criterium is: do (did) they say "nose" as A1 : "nas" or A2: "nez"
([a] or [e]) ? do (did) they say "car" as B1: "car" or B2 : "char" ?
A1: occitan
A2: french
B1: southern occitan
B2:northern occitan, french
>
> Where Occitan is most alive is not in France but just across the
> border in Spain, in the comarca ("county") called Vall (or Valh)
> d'Aran, which politically belongs to Catalonia but linguistically
> is Gascon; it is sometimes called "South Occitania". The local
> version, called Aranes, has de facto official status alongside
> Spanish and Catalan, and is commonly spoken by all the locals,
Yes, it is the only place where occitan is recognized as official
> while
> across the border in France one hardly hears a word of Gascon. The
> only areas of France that I know where people under 50 still speak
> Occitan are Bearn and the Nice area.
As you might have understood from what I wrote before, this is at
least partially wrong ! It would be easy to find some occitan native
speakers at "Lo pont deu Rei", Melas/Melles, and so on. If the information
is from your experience, I guess you didn't ask the right questions !
Asking this is a rather subtle thing, and to do so, you must know a lot
of the occitan social reality !
Good luck
Matias
http://www.mygale.org/09/simorre/OccitaNet.htm
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
Jean-Marc
sim...@mygale.org wrote:
>
> In article <5lt2s0$h...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
> co...@euler.Berkeley.EDU (Coby (Jacob) Lubliner) wrote:
> >
>
> > >Just how much of a living language is Occitan? The EU lists it as
> > >having 11 miliion speakers, clearly a gross exaggeration, and John
> > >says about 2 million.
For having doing personnal researches on ethnolinguistic stats in
the world, i often saw that (american) error on the number of
occitan-speaking peoples. In France there are approximatively
11/12 000 000 persons of occitan origin (occitan ethnic if you
want) but less than 1 000 000 speak occitan as first language.
May 4 000 000 also know it as second language but nearly all of
occitan ethnic speak french. The situation is comparable to
celtic language in United Kingdom or Berbers in Maghreb : irish
or scottish "ethnics" don't speak their own original language in
majority but keep a strong "ethnico-cultural" sense.
By the way "Occitan" is a group of 5 language/dialects :
provencal, auvergnat, limousin, gascon, languedocien
(lengadoucian) and maybe "vivaro-alpine" (north provence). It is
relative to the catalan group language.
>
> I should say it is somewhere between those to numbers. 6 millions,
> maybe ?
exageration : may concerns those who know at least a few
sentences.
> For now, no precise enquiry has been done, but I heard it would be done
> in the coming months. Stay tuned on soc.culture.occitan
>
> I travel quite often to southern France and have
> > >never knowingly met a native speaker.
because it is spoken by few sparse peoples.
>
> > Where Occitan is most alive is not in France but just across the
> > border in Spain, in the comarca ("county") called Vall (or Valh)
> > d'Aran, which politically belongs to Catalonia but linguistically
> > is Gascon; it is sometimes called "South Occitania". The local
> > version, called Aranes, has de facto official status alongside
> > Spanish and Catalan, and is commonly spoken by all the locals,
there are also "occitans" in Italy (provenzale of Piedmont) and
further in Mezzogiorno !
>
--
Jean-Marc Merklin - Paris
http://www.worldnet.fr/~merklijm/me
sim...@mygale.org
Una rectificacion de las pichonas...
>> The local
> > version, called Aranes, has de facto official status alongside
> > Spanish and Catalan, and is commonly spoken by all the locals,
>
> Yes, it is the only place where occitan is recognized as official
Actually, this has just changed, since a few days, Occitan has
been recognized a special status in the Italian Alps (part of Piemont),
were it is also spoken.
France -the big piece- is the only remaining place where this
should be done
Coralament, a lču
Matiąs
Mauro Bertolino
Jean-Marc wrote:
> > I travel quite often to southern France and have
> > > >never knowingly met a native speaker.
>
> because it is spoken by few sparse peoples.
Well, I too think that the esteem of Matias is a little more exaggerated,
but I don't think that occitan is today only the language of a few sparse
peoples. Even now, in France there are communities where the occitan
language is still alive, for instance in the alps (Val Tinea, Val Ubaye,
Val Roya as pointed out just today in the mailing list list-oc, and
probably more others).
The problem is that even in the families where occitan is recognised as
culturally important the problem of transmitting it is relevant, due to
the fact that it is a "useless" language if compared to french, italian
or spanish, or english; if we add to this the feeling of "vergonha" as
already pointed out by Matias, evident in the fact that very rarely you
find people speaking with strangers in occitan, you can understand the
big problem for the survival of this language. And in parallel of the
feeling of vergonha I can testimony the "proudness" of speaking french or
italian...
But there is a little advantage if compared to the celtic languages:
while these languages differ very much from the "national" language of
the countries involved, english or french, it is very easy (for people
who really want it) to learn occitan starting from french, italian or
spanish.
> > > Where Occitan is most alive is not in France but just across the
> > > border in Spain, in the comarca ("county") called Vall (or Valh)
> > > d'Aran, which politically belongs to Catalonia but linguistically
> > > is Gascon; it is sometimes called "South Occitania". The local
> > > version, called Aranes, has de facto official status alongside
> > > Spanish and Catalan, and is commonly spoken by all the locals,
>
> there are also "occitans" in Italy (provenzale of Piedmont) and
> further in Mezzogiorno !
> >
Actually, I come from one of those valleys. And occitan (with piedmontese
dialect from italian) is still the everyday language; and if there was
once that "vergonha", now it is desappearing, and there has been a small
increment of speakers in the last few years. But we're only a population
of about 200000 people, with about more than 100000 speaking occitan.
In the southern Italy there are a few villages (notably Guardia
Piemontese in Calabria), but they are almost extinct now.
As Matias pointed out, occitan has been recognised from the Piedmont
region a few days ago (actually, it was already recognised by the central
government, but nothing changed), but we have still to wait, I think, to
see televisions programs or lessons in the schools in occitan, knowing
our political situation.
Areveire
Mauro
Stephane Dohet
On Tue, 27 May 1997 07:21:22 -0600, sim...@mygale.org wrote:
>Una rectificacion de las pichonas...
>
>>> The local
>> > version, called Aranes, has de facto official status alongside
>> > Spanish and Catalan, and is commonly spoken by all the locals,
>>
>> Yes, it is the only place where occitan is recognized as official
>
>Actually, this has just changed, since a few days, Occitan has
>been recognized a special status in the Italian Alps (part of Piemont),
>were it is also spoken.
>
>France -the big piece- is the only remaining place where this
>should be done
Hum, I think a lot of water will fall before the Republique recognize
any other official language in France than French.
It's amazing to note that in France one million Bretonnants, two
million occitan speakers, and the Corses, Basques, Catalans,
Flemings.. are not recognized, while in Belgium 69.000 German speakers
have full recognition : third Belgian official language, cultural
autonomy in 9 communes, a Government, an elected Parliament, one seat
in the Walloon parliament, one seat in the Belgian House of Deputies,
one seat in the European parliament...
It is sometimes said that Belgian German-speakers are the most
protected minority in Europe.
What can we do to force the Republique to recognize Occitan ?
--
Stephane Dohet, since 1978, Namur, Wallonia (EU)
Young European Federalists - http://www.alli.fi/~jef/
|Only federalism will lead to a democratic EU
My European page is http://www.ping.be/~pin00033/index.html
|===Blue Ribbon===Free Speech Online Campaign===Ruban Bleu===
French, English, German... are our first names,
European is our last name.
Jean-Marc
Stephane Dohet wrote:
> >France -the big piece- is the only remaining place where this
> >should be done
> Hum, I think a lot of water will fall before the Republique recognize
> any other official language in France than French.
> It's amazing to note that in France one million Bretonnants, two
> million occitan speakers, and the Corses, Basques, Catalans,
> Flemings.. are not recognized, while in Belgium 69.000 German speakers
> have full recognition : third Belgian official language, cultural
> autonomy in 9 communes, a Government, an elected Parliament, one seat
> in the Walloon parliament, one seat in the Belgian House of Deputies,
> one seat in the European parliament...
> It is sometimes said that Belgian German-speakers are the most
> protected minority in Europe.
> What can we do to force the Republique to recognize Occitan ?
France had always difficulties to recognize "ethnic" minorities
inside its territory. Prefers to speak of "patois" (which often
are not of the same family : alsatian, flemish, basque). But the
occitan is attached as part of the tragedy of the cathares and
Toulouse region : if you recognize occitan you attack in the same
time all a part of the history of france and its territorial
uniform integrity.
Jean-Marc
Mauro Bertolino wrote:
>
> Jean-Marc wrote:
> >
> > because it is spoken by few sparse peoples.
>
> Well, I too think that the esteem of Matias is a little more > exaggerated, but I don't think that occitan is today only the language >
of a few sparse
> peoples. Even now, in France there are communities where the occitan
> language is still alive, for instance in the alps (Val Tinea, Val > Ubaye, Val Roya as pointed out just today in the mailing list list-oc, >
and probably more others).
yes but if you see a map, you feel that occitan are the mountains
or in some "unreached" regions. And often, near the borders of
french territory. Exactly like the remnant of an ancient people
having being "pushed" away.
> But there is a little advantage if compared to the celtic languages:
> while these languages differ very much from the "national" language of
> the countries involved, english or french, it is very easy (for people
> who really want it) to learn occitan starting from french, italian or
> spanish.
of course, being issued of roman(ce) languages. Occitan was also
called "Provencal" and more often "Roman" in french, it is the
direct descent of the low latin (but not = to latin, the romance
language which is closer to an ex "country" latin language is romanian
of Romania).
>
> As Matias pointed out, occitan has been recognised from the Piedmont
> region a few days ago (actually, it was already recognised by the > central government, but nothing changed),
Italy doesn't seem to be in hurry in that domain... the 26
planned autonomous regioni are still 5...
> but we have still to wait, I think, to
> see televisions programs or lessons in the schools in occitan, knowing
> our political situation.
>
> Areveire
>
> Mauro
--
Claire Lejeune
Stephane Dohet wrote:
> Hum, I think a lot of water will fall before the Republique recognize
> any other official language in France than French.
>
I think so ......
> It's amazing to note that in France one million Bretonnants,
One million Bretonnants ? WHERE are they ?
Breton is not commonly spoken by all the locals ;
Claire
Mauro Bertolino
Coby (Jacob) Lubliner wrote:
>
> In article <8647353...@dejanews.com>, <sim...@mygale.org> wrote:
> >Una rectificacion de las pichonas...
> >
> >>> The local
> >> > version, called Aranes, has de facto official status alongside
> >> > Spanish and Catalan, and is commonly spoken by all the locals,
> >>
> >> Yes, it is the only place where occitan is recognized as official
> >
> >Actually, this has just changed, since a few days, Occitan has
> >been recognized a special status in the Italian Alps (part of Piemont),
> >were it is also spoken.
>
> I mean the way French in Val d'Aosta or German in
> Trentino-Alto Adige or Slovene in Friuli-Venezia Giulia is official.
> And is it really spoken? I spent some time in the Upper Stura
> Valley, around Demonte, and all the conversations I overheard were
> in Italian. (Not Piemontese!)
>
> Coby
For the val d'Aran: occitan is the co-official language, along with
catalan and spanish. In the schools, there are 10 hours of aranes, 9 of
catalan and the rest in spanish a week.
For the Estura Valley: what a combination, I come from that valley!
You were a bit unlucky, to find someone who has also spent sometime
(about 30 years) in that place. Very amazed with your observations.
Just a few corrections: Demonte is the "capital" of lower estura valley,
while the upper part starts from Vinadio (Vinai) at about 15 km straight
ahead.
The linguistic border now is in the village of Aisone (pron. Aisoun),
between Demonte and Vinadio, meaning that occitan is spoken in the upper
part of the valley till Aisone, and piedmontese dialect (even with a
strong occitan influence) from Aisone to Demonte and Borgo San Dalmazzo.
What I really found very, very amazing is your sentence that everybody
speaks italian there, while my longtime personal experience leads me to
an opposite conclusion, being that everybody I know over there speaks
occitan or piedmontese.
It is true that is difficult to know who are the turists (a lot in summer
or winter) or the people of Cuneo who speak usually only italian; and
maybe, if you had read read the messages before, that it is very
difficult to find people who responds in occitan or piedmontese to
answers done in french or in italian . But it is still very, very
strange: I was there last sunday, and in the roads I have met people
speaking the occitan of the valley or piedmontese. And if you go in the
shops, like "Agnello" which is very renowned for its sweets or in all the
others on the main road you will very easily speak piedmontese or occitan
with all the people, if you speak one of the two languages. But it is so
easy to hear it all around!
For instance, last time I were in Vinadio was for a concert of an occitan
choral, and we all sang along with them (I speak of about 200 people out
of a population of 600); and there was only one language, occitan. Not to
speak of the recent film "La lengo de ma maire" of the Mountain community
of the valley with young people, the books how to teach occitan in the
schools, the very recent anthology of short poems (in occitan) of the
children of the valley, and I can go on.
My advice is, before speaking, to spend a lot of time observing, trying
to know local people and so on.
This series of messages started about the difficulty of foreigners to
understand the real situation of occitan, and this post is nothing else
than an evidence of that.
Amistats
Mauro
sim...@mygale.org
> France had always difficulties to recognize "ethnic" minorities
> inside its territory. Prefers to speak of "patois" (which often
> are not of the same family : alsatian, flemish, basque).
* Note that Occitan receives the same treatment, in spite of the
difference you mention just below.
> But the
> occitan is attached as part of the tragedy of the cathares and
> Toulouse region :
* the thing concerned a far bigger area than that of Tolosa/Toulouse :
from Rose/Rhone to the ocean.
* In this story, the Cathares were mostly a pretexte. And he "tragedy of
the Cathars" -i.e. the invasion of the major part of occitan speaking
countries by the French, lasted long after the death of Belibaste.
> if you recognize occitan you attack in the same
> time all a part of the history of france and its territorial
> uniform integrity.
* I should say more precisely : " if you recognize occitan you attack in
the same time a way France choosed to build itself". And to build itself,
it has developed a great number of theories -no matter how different
reality is- which are severely inconsistent with the existence of an
occitan people.
But France could have built itself on the same territory in a far less
uniform way. And it actually did, since reality was not homogene. The
occitan have a strong contribution to French culture [think of
Montanha/Montaigne, Montesquieu, Balzac, Cesana/Cezanne, and may more].
It might still be possible to change the way France thinks itself without
endangering too much the stability of the area. It is one of the major
stakes of "decentralization" [the real decentralization, not the ones
that failed till now].
Adissiatz
Matias
Mauro Bertolnio
Jean-Marc wrote:
> yes but if you see a map, you feel that occitan are the mountains
> or in some "unreached" regions. And often, near the borders of
> french territory. Exactly like the remnant of an ancient people
> having being "pushed" away.
Yes, this is quite true.
I have just read the (too) long series of messages on the decline of
welsh speakers in Wales, and it seems that also over there the
communities of welsh-speakers are confined in villages, mountains... And
they also (much more than us) are struggling to find new ways to improve
the welsh speaking community.
There could be an advantage from the fact you pointed out: I mean, now
that the occitan speakers community is so small, and so confined, there
could be no danger for France to change its behaviour towards this
language.
> > As Matias pointed out, occitan has been recognised from the Piedmont
> > region a few days ago (actually, it was already recognised by the > central government, but nothing changed),
>
> Italy doesn't seem to be in hurry in that domain... the 26
> planned autonomous regioni are still 5...
>
No, actually not. While in France there has been a strong political
effort against the "other" languages of the republic after the
revolution, in Italy there has been no interest at all from political
parties.
Well, the question of autonomous regions has grown up only a few years
ago, after the strong political success in northern Italy of "Lega
Nord"; on the contrary, the linguistic minorances are asking a
protection for their languages since longtime, but till now it has been
accorded only to german in Sudtirol, french in Aosta Valley and slovene
in the east. Article 6 of the constitution (1948) for the other
languages of Italy still waits for its application.
But the times of politics in Italy are very, very slow...
A leu
Mauro
Gwen Rozec
Claire Lejeune wrote:
>
> Stephane Dohet wrote:
>
> > Hum, I think a lot of water will fall before the Republique recognize
> > any other official language in France than French.
> >
> I think so ......
>
> > It's amazing to note that in France one million Bretonnants,
>
> One million Bretonnants ? WHERE are they ?
>
> Claire
En effet "seulement" 200 000 personnes parlent le breton, 600 000 le
comprennent mais avant la guerre 14-18, au moins 1 000 000 le parlaient.
La politique intégrationniste de la France a laminé le brezhoneg à tel
point que le Bretons ont eu honte de leur propre langue. Cela veut dire
que la pression de l'Etat français a été et reste forte.
Mais cela fait des décennies qu'on nous annonce sa disparition mais il
résiste et ce sans l'aide d'un état hyper-centralisateur qui a imposé le
français comme seule langue de la République maintenant toutes les
autres à l'état de "sous-langues".
"Brezhoneg eo ma bro" - "Le breton est mon pays"
Amicalement - Kenavo, ar wec'h all
Gwen Rozec
Claire Lejeune wrote:
>
> Stephane Dohet wrote:
>
> > Hum, I think a lot of water will fall before the Republique recognize
> > any other official language in France than French.
> >
> I think so ......
>
> > It's amazing to note that in France one million Bretonnants,
>
> One million Bretonnants ? WHERE are they ?
> Breton is not commonly spoken by all the locals ;
>
> Claire
En effet "seulement" 200 000 personnes parlent le breton mais ils
étaient bien 1 000 000 au début du siècle. Depuis le laminoir de la
seule langue reconnue de la République est passé par là.
La pression contre le brezhoneg a été forte et brutale au point de
donner aux Bretons eux-mêmes la honte de leur langue.
Cela fait des décennies qu'on nous annonce sa disparition mais il
résiste et ce, sans l'appui d'un état hyper-centralisateur.
'Brezhoneg eo ma bro' - 'Le Breton est mon pays'
Amicalement - Ken' a wec'h all -
Jean-Marc
sim...@mygale.org wrote:
>
> > France had always difficulties to recognize "ethnic" minorities
> > inside its territory. Prefers to speak of "patois" (which often
> > are not of the same family : alsatian, flemish, basque).
>
> * Note that Occitan receives the same treatment, in spite of the
> difference you mention just below.
I didn't say the contrary. The french language and the national
education of Jules Ferry had the same impact in all the areas
without distinction of original languages/patois which were not
all "romance" like french, occitan, corsican, catalan,
francoprovencal but also germanic (flemish, alsatian,
franconian), celtic (breton), basque.
>
> > But the
> > occitan is attached as part of the tragedy of the cathares and
> > Toulouse region :
>
> * the thing concerned a far bigger area than that of Tolosa/Toulouse :
> from Rose/Rhone to the ocean.
Then again I agree, wanted just to show one example which was
strong and still alive as a symbol of the french occitan
autonomists. by the way "Occitan" is often reserved for the
non-provencal and non-catalan area : the provence of F. Mistral
have its own will and sense of particularism which slightly
differs of the "western (proper if you want) occitans" (occitan >
langue d'oc from the Languedoc region)
> > if you recognize occitan you attack in the same
> > time all a part of the history of france and its territorial
> > uniform integrity.
>
> * I should say more precisely : " if you recognize occitan you attack
> in the same time a way France choosed to build itself".
you used the right words.
Jean-Marc
va...@spamfree.velizy.inst.slb.com wrote:
>
> M'agradariá saber d'ont tenes aquestas idèias...
> En "França" la lenga d'oïl es l'eiretièra naturala del latin al Nòrd, e
> la lenga d'òc es l'eiretièra naturala del latin dins lo Miègjorn. La > lenga d'oïl a subi
>
> E vesi pas cap perqué lo romanés seriá "mai latin" que las autras > lengas neo-latinas. En romanés i a un fum de paraulas d'origina grèca, >
ongresa, turca, slava
>
> -=-=-=-
>
> I'd like to know where you picked up such ideas...
> In "France" the Langue d'oïl is the natural heir of the Latin spoken in
> the north, and the Langue d'oc is the natural heir of the Latin spoken
> in the south. Th
I didn't say the contrary
>
> And I don't see why Rumanian should be considered as being "more Latin"
>than the other Romance languages. In Rumanian, you have many words
>borrowed from Greek,
>
> Coralament
> Gianni, París
I didn't mean that romanian is the closest language to latin of
Rome but linguists say that it is the closest to "one"
dialect/language of the "country" which was spoken in this roman
empire area. Of course after it had lot of greffed elements from
the different invasions you have cited.
Cordialement, jm
Jean-Marc
Mauro Bertolnio wrote:
>
> There could be an advantage from the fact you pointed out: I mean, now
> that the occitan speakers community is so small, and so confined, there
> could be no danger for France to change its behaviour towards this
> language.
You are right : when you consider the way the UK have to
recognize welsh and scottishs they still have a (little) autonomy,
representations in sports game and so on as if they were sovereign
countries, strong sense of being of celtic origin but
nearly all are speaking (a local) english.
>
> > Italy doesn't seem to be in hurry in that domain... the 26
> > planned autonomous regioni are still 5...
> > on the contrary, the linguistic minorances are asking a
> protection for their languages since longtime, but till now it has been
> accorded only to german in Sudtirol,
You point off the Sudtyrol, I would like to know : is this new
autonomous region is limited by "bolzano/bozen" area ? What is
happening to the "Trentin-Alto-Adige" ? I have also heard that a
small communauty of "Cimbrian" (austrobavarian-like people)
wanted - or obtained? - his autonomy ? what are the things ?
Mauro Bertolino
Jean-Marc wrote:
> > > Italy doesn't seem to be in hurry in that domain... the 26
> > > planned autonomous regioni are still 5...
> > > on the contrary, the linguistic minorances are asking a
> > protection for their languages since longtime, but till now it has been
> > accorded only to german in Sudtirol,
>
> You point off the Sudtyrol, I would like to know : is this new
> autonomous region is limited by "bolzano/bozen" area ? What is
> happening to the "Trentin-Alto-Adige" ? I have also heard that a
> small communauty of "Cimbrian" (austrobavarian-like people)
> wanted - or obtained? - his autonomy ? what are the things ?
No, No, it is not at all a new autonomous region.
Sudtirol is the german name for "Alto Adige", and I find it proper for
that country of german language, while the italian name has been imposed
after. It is important to notice that it is not a "real" autonomous
region, but the ensemble of two autonomous provinces, Trento and
Bolzano/Bozen, each one with different kind of autonomy depending from
history, geography and so on. For instance, in trentino german is widely
considered but it is a land of italian language and traditions (apart
from a few valleys where ladin is spoken), and a completely different
linguistic status is accorded to the province of Bozen/Bolzano. Over
there, not only german but also ladin are recognised as official
languages and taught in schools (it is easy to find people who speak or
understand a very limited quantity of italian), while in Trentino with a
different status the ladin language has still to wait for this.
The same for the "mocheni" community in Trentino and the "cimbrian"
community in Veneto, but it is important to notice that we are speaking
of a two very small communities. I too have heard something about a
change of attitude towards these people, but they are quite far away
from my country, so I can't tell you more. I fear it is nothing else as
that done by the Piedmont region towards us occitans (and walser,
franco-provencal and piedmontese dialect), that is to say words.
So, apart from a few very lucky sistuations, due to very different but
very important external factors, all the linguistic minorances in Italy
(and among them we occitans) are waiting for a new attention to these
questions.
Amistats
Mauro
PS about our occitan valleys in Italy, if somebody is interested there
is a page at
http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Trails/4541/valdoc.htm
but it is only in occitan. An english version will appear, sometimes in
hte future....
Mauro Bertolino
Jean-Marc
Salut Mauro
You taught about "mocheni" (near cimbrian), what is that people i
have never heard about ?
Mauro Bertolino
I'm sorry, but unfortunately I have only a few informations about them:
it should be the population of a small valley in Trentino, with a
particular language (I don't know if it has a ladin or german origin)
where the word "mochen" appears very frequently.
I know they have been widely studied from linguists in Italy, but I have
nothing more to say about them.
Amistats
Mauro
Alwyn Thomas
Mauro Bertolino wrote:
> I'm sorry, but unfortunately I have only a few informations about them:
> it should be the population of a small valley in Trentino, with a
> particular language (I don't know if it has a ladin or german origin)
> where the word "mochen" appears very frequently.
> I know they have been widely studied from linguists in Italy, but I have
> nothing more to say about them.
Are you referring to the archaic High-German dialect that is known in
German as *Zimbrisch*?
I suggest that their *mochen* is equivalent to *machen* in standard
German and "make" in English.
Alwyn
Antoine Leca
[encoded with ISO 8859-1 for the necessary c-cedilla, ç]
Jean-Marc wrote:
>
> sim...@mygale.org wrote:[snip]
> >
> > * the thing concerned a far bigger area than that of Tolosa/Toulouse :
> > from Rose/Rhone to the ocean.
> [snip]
> by the way "Occitan" is often reserved for the
> non-provencal and non-catalan area : the provence of F. Mistral
> have its own will and sense of particularism which slightly
> differs of the "western (proper if you want) occitans" (occitan >
> langue d'oc from the Languedoc region)
This is merely nit-picking (we all know that linguistics' borders
aren't precise the way countries' borders are), but I was always told
that:
- Catalan is a separate language, as Franco-provençal is;
- Occitan is the reunion of many "sublanguages" (choose the word
you prefer here), with a main distinction between the Eastern
one named Provençal, the Central named Languedocian or
Language d'Oc, and the Western one named Gasconian.
BTW, Gasconian is official in the Valley of Aran, in Spain.
Antoine
can...@mygale.org
Antoine Leca wrote:
> - Occitan is the reunion of many "sublanguages" (choose the word
> you prefer here), with a main distinction between the Eastern
> one named Provençal, the Central named Languedocian or
> Language d'Oc, and the Western one named Gasconian.
> BTW, Gasconian is official in the Valley of Aran, in Spain.
>
Well, I don't agree with this distinction, even if you started well by
saying that occitan is the "reunion of many sublanguages".
_Occitan_ is another name, the one mainly used in this century (even if
it goes back in the centuries, to the "patriae linguae occitanae" of the
french administration) for the _Lenga d'Oc_, referring to the WHOLE
ensemble of dialects or, if you wish, sub-languages.
For instance, the felibritge movement (alive mainly in Provencza) which
doesn't speak, for ideological reasons, of Occitania and occitan
language always speak of Lenga d'Oc to define the ensemble of dialects.
Lengadocian is nothing else that the central dialect of occitan or
lenguage d'oc, the one mainly conservative and the basis of the
"normalised" literary language of this century.
There are other dialects, such as the Provenczal, the Gascon, and the
ensemble of nord-occitan dialects such as Lemosin, Auvernhat and
Vivaro-Alpin. You can have a look at the page
http://www.mygale.org/09/simorre/oc/presoc.htm
where you can find the main features of the principal dialects and the
differences between them.
A leu
Mauro