# Occitan provençal: Grand Sant Vincent beu patron dou quarte



## Panpan

Hi all. I've found this inscription on an old country manor house right on the French/Italian border (on the French side, and near the coast). It appears to be a prayer to Saint Vincent. I would put the date at around 1800. Does anyone recognise the dialect please, and can you assist me with the translation?

Grand Sant Vincent beu patron dou quarte
Guado l'ave, lei besti emai lou galinie
Fai creisse lei missoun, leis aubre emai lei prado;
La lavando espandus; bagno ma valounado
Gardo l'oustau lei ben
Lei mieu, e ieu tambien!

(I'm guessing mostly, as you can probably tell, from a sadly shallow knowledge of modern French and Italian, but perhaps it could mean something like

Great Saint Vincent good patron (saint) of these (living) quarters,
(?You watched over? or ?guide?) our lives (our days?), our animals and birds always,
Improve (make grow) the (?purposes?), ... ... ... the (?prayers?);
The ... ... ; ... but ...
I see ... ... good (?well?)
(?For the best and forever? or ?You the best, and me too?).

Many thanks
Panpan


----------



## Panpan

I have now found out that this dialect is Provencal. I can't find anyone still alive who speaks it, though.
The inscription has been dated to around 1805.
Panpan


----------



## Outsider

Provençal still has some speakers. See here.


----------



## xarruc

I have had a look for some words. I can just about read occitan which uses the classic writing norm but not provençal which uses the mistralian writing norm. I havent found a good online provençal dictionary either.



> Grand Sant Vincent beu patron dou quarte
> Guado l'ave, lei besti emai lou galinie
> Fai creisse lei missoun, leis aubre emai lei prado;
> La lavando espandus; bagno ma valounado
> Gardo l'oustau lei ben
> Lei mieu, e ieu tambien!



beu = good
missourn = harvest
aubre = tree
espandu = spread

lei I think is li in occitan/catalan, the 3rd person indirect pronoun

Is this inscription good quality? - I am imagining a e.g. well weathered stone might lead to doubt over the letters. For example mai is occitan for more, emai?, tanben is occitan for also (cf també Catalan and tambien Spanish)


----------



## Outsider

I think _emai_ is _e_ + _mai_ "and more".


----------



## Panpan

xarruc said:


> Is this inscription good quality? - I am imagining a e.g. well weathered stone might lead to doubt over the letters.


 
Yes it is good quality. Although old, it is set into the side of a house, and has been protected from the weather by the eaves. I checked again only two days ago that I had copied it out correctly.

Thank you both very much for your input.

Panpan


----------



## Outsider

O.K., here's an attempt at a partial translation:

_Great Saint Vincent, good patron of (? -- quarte)
Protect the birds, the cattle, and the fowls
Make the harvest, the trees, and the orchards grow
(?)
Protect the (? -- oustau) them well
My own, and myself_


----------



## Hakro

_Oustau_ obviously means house.  
_ Gardo l'oustau lei ben_ - Protect the house well

In this site I found that _oustau = ostau_. Searching for _ostau_ I found that it's also a Portuguese word. My own Portuguese dictionary is very small and I couldn't find an on-line dictionary that could tell me about _ostau_ but after having waded several Portuguese sites I concluded that _ostau_ must mean "house". For example, _"Ostau tipic de Porto Covo"_.

Maybe Outsider can confirm that I'm right (or wrong).


----------



## Outsider

Although the Wikipedia entry you found is about a Portuguese region, the word _ostau_ itself is not Portuguese (I went to check in two print dictionaries, as it could always be an archaic word, but found nothing). 
Nevertheless, I agree that it clearly means "house", and with your translation. 

P.S. _Ostau tipic de Porto Corvo_ then means "typical house of Porto Corvo".


----------



## ampurdan

Panpan said:


> Grand Sant Vincent beu patron dou quarte
> Guado l'ave, lei besti emai lou galinie
> Fai creisse lei missoun, leis aubre emai lei prado;
> La lavando espandus; bagno ma valounado
> Gardo l'oustau lei ben
> Lei mieu, e ieu tambien!


 
I'd say it says something like:

"Oh! Great Saint Vincent, good patron of this place
Keep an eye on the birds, the cattle and also the hens
Make the harvest grow, the trees, and also the meadows
Spread the lavander; bathe my valley
Look after the house and the goods
My folks as well as myself!"

I'm not 100%. I've just gathered what the other foreros have said and I've looked up this dictionary: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k7486f/f34.pagination


----------



## Panpan

You are fantastic, thank you so much!
Panpan


----------



## xarruc

Molt bé Amp!

I am pretty much in agreement with your translation.

The word galinie troubles me though. Instinct is saying hen, but in occitan there is the "lh" (c.f. lh portugese, gli italian, ll of catalan), which seems to have reverted to an l (though italian uses gallina which would be pronounced l·l rather than ll (cat)/ lh (port)

Also we have assumed guado and gardo are both from the same verb.

Salut!


----------



## ryba

Ampurdan, your translation is just *great*!



> lei I think is li in occitan/catalan, the 3rd person indirect pronoun


No no, the 3rd person singular indirect pronoun is _li_, just like in Catalan. _Lei(s)_ is a plural definite article.

_Elements bàsics de la llengua occitana_:

« A Provença apareix una forma invariable de plural, _lei_ o _leis_ (_lei pichons_ però _leis òmes_, davant de vocal). »



xarruc said:


> The word galinie troubles me though.



Hen is _galina_ in Southern Occitan (Provençal, Lengadocian), _jalina_ in northern dialects which palatalize initial _ca-_ and _ga-_ (Lemosin, Auvernhat, Vivaro-Alpine) and _garia_ in Gascon in which the result of Latin -_ll_- when found between vowels is –_r_- and in most varieties of which many words lost Latin –_n_-, again, when found between vowels. _Lou galinie_ is _lo galinièr_ in standard orthography, meaning ‘chicken coop’. 



Panpan said:


> Grand Sant Vincent beu patron dóu quarte
> Guado l'ave, lei besti emai lou galinie
> Fai creisse lei missoun, leis aubre emai lei prado;
> La lavando espandus; bagno ma valounado
> Gardo l'oustau lei ben
> Lei mieu, e ieu tambien!



My attempt at transcribing the text into the _grafia classica_:

Grand Sant Vincent, bèu patron dau quarte
Garda l'ave, lei bèstias, emai lo galinièr
Fai créisser lei missons, leis aubres, emai lei pradas;
La lavanda espandís; banha ma valonada
Garda l'ostau, lei bens
Lei mieus, e ieu tanben!


----------



## ryba

Oops.





ryba said:


> My attempt at transcribing the text into the _grafia classica_:
> 
> Grand Sant Vincent, bèu patron dau quarte
> Garda l'ave, lei bèstias emai lo galin*ie*r
> Fai créisser lei missons, leis aubres emai lei pradas;
> La lavanda espandís; banha ma valonada
> Garda l'ostau, lei bens
> Lei mieus, e ieu tanben!


Since we're trying to represent the dialect here (with its own phonology), it should read ‹galinier›, not ‹galinièr›. The suffix _-ièr_ [jɛ] (or /jɛ/ if we take the dialect as the point of reference) is Languedocien, in Provençal it's _-ier_ [je] (/je/).

Source:

Conselh de la Lenga Occitana. 2007. «Preconizacions del Conselh de la Lenga Occitana», _Lingüistica occitana_ (Montpelhièr) 6: 138, 140. (http://www.revistadoc.org/file/Linguistica occitana 6 CLO.pdf) (darrièra consulta: 13 julh 2011).


----------



## fdb

But if this is Mistral's orthography, it cannot be from "around 1800". Mistral lived from 1830 to 1914. Or am I wrong?


----------



## merquiades

Hi.  If you can read French, here is a French-Occitan dictionary online.   It seems pretty good.  It gives lots of explanations.


----------



## CapnPrep

fdb said:


> But if this is Mistral's orthography, it cannot be from "around 1800". Mistral lived from 1830 to 1914. Or am I wrong?


You're not wrong about the dates, but the inscription can still be from 1800. I think xarruc was just trying to say that he/she had a hard time reading Occitan/Provençal written using "Frenchified" spelling, and this text is definitely an example of that. Classical orthography, on the other hand, is much more accessible (in terms of comprehension) to anyone who knows Catalan or Spanish.


----------



## fdb

So let me put my question differently: Did anyone before Mistral write Provençal in French orthography, e.g. with <ou> for /u/?


----------



## CapnPrep

fdb said:


> So let me put my question differently: Did anyone before Mistral write Provençal in French orthography, e.g. with <ou> for /u/?


Sure, lots of people. Just search for something like "Prouvenço" on Google Books with some appropriate date range. You'll come up with old editions of authors like Joan de Cabanas or Dieulofet.


----------



## Phosphorus

_"Grand Sant Vincent beu patron dou quarte
Guado l'ave, lei besti emai lou galinie
Fai creisse lei missoun, leis aubre emai lei *prado*;
La lavando espandus; bagno ma valounado
Gardo l'oustau lei ben
Lei mieu, e ieu *tambien*!"_

I checked some of the above words in Occitan Wikiccionari and got rather surprising points. According to this source Occitan equivalents for "meadow" and "also" are "prat" and "tanben" respectively. While the discussed inscription holds "prado" and "tambien" for these words, which are the same as their Spanish counterparts. I wonder is it due to a dialectal divergence in the realm of Occitan language or these words have only undergone a rather drastic change during last two centuries?

By the way for "quarte", I guess they have "quartier" (stated in the above source) in sense of "part of a city" or "neighborhood". _Also "aubre" may, in my perspective, represent a specific kinship with its Spanish cognate in terms of development: aubre < ? albre* < albore* < arbole*  < arbor-_ [existence of two other variants, "arbre" and "abre", does not support such a notion]. I had a glance at a linguistic material on Occitan and it appeared to me that in particular cases Occitan "u" stands for Spanish "l", I am not sure if I have get it right though.


----------



## Nanon

_Lei prado_ is not exactly identical to Spanish: it is a plural - the article is _lei_.


----------



## CapnPrep

Nanon said:


> _Lei prado_ is not exactly identical to Spanish: it is a plural - the article is _lei_.


It's also feminine… derived from the Latin plural form _prata_ (whereas Spanish _prado_ and Occitan _prat_ are from _pratum_). Similarly, Catalan has both _prat_ and _prada_.


----------



## Phosphorus

Yes it was my bad. I failed to notice "prada" in the aforesaid source, which has cited it as derivative of "prat". Also "los prats", in a text by Marcela Delpastre (as the page says), deceived me-however my current Romance ken is terrible anyways.

By the way any ideas for "tambien" vs. "tanben"?


----------



## fdb

Occitain is actually a cluster of different dialects. You should accept that there are many different forms for the same word in diverse regions.


----------



## Phosphorus

fdb said:


> Occitain is actually a cluster of different dialects. You should accept that there are many different forms for the same word in diverse regions.



Yes through my initial readings in regard with Occitan, I got aware of its rather intense dialectal divergence. But it predisposed me to be fairly surprised to see an exactly Spanish-_like_ variant only on the French-Italian border, some two centuries ago. However having both "dia" (Gasconian) and "jorn" (with at least two confirmed pronunciations), for "day", simultaneously; could sap any senses of further surprising, I think.


----------



## Nanon

I don't have any substantiated explanation for this Spanish-looking _tambien_, but could it be a contamination from French _bien_? In which case that form would not originate from Spanish.
Note that I have nothing against Spanish, much on the contrary. I am only thinking about likelihood .


----------



## Phosphorus

Nanon said:


> I don't have any substantiated explanation for this Spanish-looking _tambien_, but could it be a contamination from French _bien_? In which case that form would not originate from Spanish.
> Note that I have nothing against Spanish, much on the contrary. I am only thinking about likelihood .


 
Plausible suggestion. Specially since it is apparently a combination of "tant" plus "bien": tanbien* > tambien. I could not fully ascertain how come such a Spanish-looking variety could show up in that geography, but your suggestion now fills in this gap.

By the way is "los prats", in Delpastre's literature, the masculine form of "lei prada" or I have just confused them and they are not related in this way? And if they are related, then what for "prat" is once appeared masculine and another time feminine?


----------



## ampurdan

I would like to know if this diphthongization from Latin "bene" to "bien", like in French or Spanish, is usual in Provençal or maybe it's just a French influence. At least it does not seem to be reflected in any writing norm.


----------



## CapnPrep

ampurdan said:


> I would like to know if this diphthongization from Latin "bene" to "bien", like in French or Spanish, is usual in Provençal or maybe it's just a French influence.


It is not usual in Provençal, as shown by _lei b*e*n_ in the preceding line. Occitan and Catalan are similar in this respect. Occitan does have conditioned diphthongization before yod and [w] (as in _lei m*ie*u _in the text).


----------

