Occitan Language Guide

Official language in
Spain
Also spoken in
France, Italy, Monaco
Script
Latin

Where it's spoken

A primer of Occitan published by the Generalitat of Catalonia says the language is spoken in the southern third of the French State, in the Aran Valley, in about fifteen Alpine valleys that belong administratively to the Italian region of Piedmont, in the locality of La Gàrdia in Calabria, and in the Principality of Monaco, where it lives alongside a Ligurian variety. The Office public de la langue occitane adds Auvergne, the Drôme, the Ardèche and Provence to the Occitan-speaking territories of France.

As for official status, Article 2 of the French Constitution states that the language of the Republic is French, and Article 75-1 states that regional languages belong to the heritage of France. In Spain, Article 6.5 of the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia states that Occitan, called Aranese in Aran, is the language proper to that territory and is official in Catalonia. The Office public de la langue occitane describes Occitan as co-official in the Val d'Aran.

The same primer names the Provençal, Languedocian, Auvergnat, Gascon (Aranese included) and Limousin varieties of Occitan, and says the Languedocian dialects lie in the centre of the linguistic domain. It gives the standard it teaches as one based on central Occitan, and notes that the definite article differs by variety: lo, la, los, las in general Occitan, lei in Provence, and eth and era in Aranese. Some of this app's notes say that the form on the card is Languedocian: the note on la cambra ("Room") says the Languedocien form is cambra, not the Gascon cramba, and the note on the card for the time Son tres oras del vèspre says that in Languedocien vèspre means afternoon, not evening.

In its latest sociolinguistic survey the Office public de la langue occitane estimated that 7% of the people in the territory it covers speak Occitan, a share that varies from 2% to 22% across the French regions and reaches 62% in the Val d'Aran. Its definition of a speaker is a person who says they speak Occitan without difficulty or well enough to hold a simple conversation.

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Script & pronunciation

Occitan is written in the Latin alphabet. The primer says that lh and nh are the Occitan equivalents of the Catalan digraphs ll and ny, as in palha and Catalonha, and that at the end of a word and before s they are pronounced [l] and [n], as in banh [ban] and banhs [bans]. This app's card Ont son los banhs? ("Where are the baths?") contains banhs.

The primer also describes how some vowels are pronounced in the central standard it teaches. Ò and è are always open, e and é are always closed, and o and ó are pronounced [u]. A word-final a, or an a in a word ending in -as, is pronounced somewhat like an open o, and a final n is silent in many words. This app's cards contain these letters, as in Quant còsta? ("How much is it?"), Mercé ("Thank you") and Bonjorn ("Hello / Good day"), and in Bona nuèch ("Good night").

This app's Occitan cards carry no romanization, and they write the question mark directly after the last word, as in Parlatz anglés? ("Do you speak English?").

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Grammar essentials

The primer gives lo, la, los, las as the definite articles of general Occitan; lo and la take an apostrophe before a vowel, and the articles contract with some prepositions into al, als, del, dels, pel and pels. It also says that most words form the plural by adding -s. This app's card Quant còsta l'entrada als banhs? ("How much is the entrance to the baths?") shows the apostrophe in l'entrada and the contraction als, and its card for la cambra ("Room") shows a feminine noun with the article la.

Occitan puts pas after the verb to make a sentence negative; the primer gives plòu pas, and the Academia Occitana, quoting a grammar of the Occitan verb, says the basic negation is pas, which follows the verb. This app's card Parli pas francés ("I don't speak French") has pas after the verb, and the note on the card for Non says that there is no French-style ne. For "yes" the primer lists òc, and si as the emphatic yes or the answer to a negative question; this app's card Òc says the same of si.

In the present tense the primer's model verb cantar has the forms canti, cantas, canta, cantam, cantatz, cantan. This app's cards leave out the subject pronoun, and the note on Parlatz anglés? ("Do you speak English?") says the question is a subject-less one in ordinary word order, with rising intonation marking the question. The primer lists the question words cossí, quora, ont and quant, and the cards use cossí, ont and quant in Cossí anatz?, Ont son los comuns? ("Where is the toilet?") and Quant còsta?. The note on Quant còsta? adds that "when" is quora, not quant.

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Politeness & etiquette

The primer lists the plural tonic pronouns vosautres and vosautras, and its model verb has the second-person plural ending -atz, as in cantatz; its reflexive example uses vos lavatz. Lo Congrès's dictionary site dicodòc gives the verb tutejar, glossed in French as tutoyer, in Languedocian, Gascon, Provençal and Vivaro-Alpine dictionaries, and the verb vosejar, glossed as vouvoyer, in its Provençal and Vivaro-Alpine entries. These two sources give the forms and the verbs; they do not themselves say when the plural is used for one person.

This app's cards use the second-person plural to address one person politely. The note on Cossí anatz? ("How are you? (polite / plural)") says anatz is the second-person plural of anar, used as the polite singular, and the card says to use Cossí vas? with a friend. The note on Parlatz anglés? says to say Parlas anglés? to a friend. The note on Se vos plai ("Please") says vos is the polite second person.

The same cards mark greetings in this way. Adieu ("Hi / Bye (casual)") is used between friends, and its note says that for several people or respect one uses Adieussiatz; the note on Adieussiatz says that unlike French adieu, which is a final farewell, it is an everyday greeting.

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