# Use of Occitan in France



## panjabigator

For those of you that have been to the south of France (or any Occitan-speaking area) can you comment on its general usefulness?  Were there signs in the language and were people conversing in it amongst themselves?  

I was surprised that some French do not even know it exists!


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## Thomas1

panjabigator said:


> For those of you that have been to the south of France (or any Occitan-speaking area) can you comment on its general usefulness? Were there signs in the language and were people conversing in it amongst themselves?
> 
> I was surprised that some French do not even know it exists!


Hi,

When I went to France some time ago I met a French guy who played me a few songs of an Occitan hip-hop band. I didn't understand anything as back then even my French was so poor. Anyway, he said that he understood much of it but there was a lot that he idn't and also told me that it was a language used by the elderly. I stayed in the south of France (a hundred kms west from Montpellier) and I think this is the region where more people know of/have something to do with Occitan. I didn't however meet anyone using it.

Another sign of its existence I came across not too long ago. While listening to the Radio France, and if I remember well, they reported that an Occitan TV station was about to emerge. I don't know if it's available yet, but I think it's an important proof that the language is still alive and in use. I also came across a few radiostations in this language.


Tom


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## panjabigator

Thank you Thomas.

I was in Catalunya for several months and while there, I discovered that many people where aware of its proximity to Catalan but that they never heard it.  I also read a great book where the author devoted a chapter to Provençal/Occitan, and revealed that a great part of the issue is a feud between the languages on which would be offical and which would be designated as a dialect.  

Of the friends I made who hailed from the South of France, some had grandparents who spoke a variety of languages including Occitan, but none of them had been passed down.


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## Nikola

Some people say Catalan and Occitan (langue d'oc) are the same language separated by the mixture of French and Spanish.
Occitan language (also called Provençal or Languedoc) is a Romance language spoken by about 1,500,000 people in southern France. All Occitan speakers use French as their official and cultural language, but Occitan dialects are used for everyday purposes and show no signs of extinction.

The situation of present-day Occitan is rather paradoxical. On the one hand, there are people, mainly old, who still use it in every day life as their natural way of communication, at work or at home. Yet those people, for the most, are unable to read or write it as they never learned to do so. On the other hand, due to the movements and associations supporting the revival of minority languages in Europe and in France, Occitan is more and more taught in bilingual associative schools (Calandretas), in state-run primary schools, in high schools and Universities. Yet what is at issue now, is whether those people, who will be able to read and write Occitan, will use it in everyday life.   From here:
http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Occitan/Occitan.html


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## panjabigator

If the language is spoken by mainly older generations, how could the language not be in any danger of extinction?


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## Illuminatus

A French friend of mine who stays in Marsaille told me that his grandparents always used to speak with him in Occitan and so he understood it, but it wasn't use much amongst youngsters. He said it was more like a mixture of French and Spanish


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## panjabigator

It's Catalan's closest relative, and if you youtube it, you can hear some interesting sound clips, some replete with Catalan subtitles.


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## Pedro y La Torre

From what I know many in the south have a grasp of it but would never use it if around "outsiders". There are still a rather large number of native speakers but they are almost all elderly, and are obviously increasingly dying off.

The policies of the French state were intended to impose French as the native language to the detriment of the local "patois'", and in this they've succeeded rather well.

I think it's very close to extinction, I hope I'm wrong though.


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## elirlandes

I see it used for signs and some local documentation in towns and villages in eastern Alps Maritimes (near Nice) and Monaco. I suspect that the contested nature of this area over the last few centuries (Savoie, Comté de Nice, Italy etc) has played havoc with the language as French and Italian have variously been imposed on the local populations.

What I see of it is clearly more similar to Catalá then it is to French or Italian. Most of the locals in the area I kinda live in have Italian surnames - I am not sure I have ever come across anyone with a surname that I would guess to be of Langue d'Oc derivation...


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## merquiades

From my experience in the Avignon, Nimes, Montpellier area, Occitan is pretty much not used anymore...  You hear very old people speaking it occasionally, some of them even have trouble with French, but in general the trend was that they didn't teach it to their children who didn't learn it in school or anywhere else... They generally believed it was better that way, since they are not so very nationalistic people, only citizens of France.  I've been told that by many elderly people who don't regret their decision...  Why learn patois, they say...  So their children in turn couldn't teach it to their children, and over the years there is more and more French...  I thinks the Catalans had a drive to keep their language alive and they succeeded. It was clear to them they were different from other people in Spain....  In France it's not the case, the people from southern France are French and identify strongly with that... I wouldn't go so far to say that it's dead, but you don't hear it or see it anyway... But it's partially due to the French system of oppressing 100% all regional tongues...  Even in Corsica where the people are nationalistic, I've heard that only 40% can speak it.


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## Pedro y La Torre

While the language has been suppressed, at times somewhat brutally as has been said, there are certain movements today to restore its stature such as the Calandretas, marches in southern cities supporting Occitan language rights, increased radio/television programmes in Occitan etc.

Having recently spent some time in Hautes-Pyrénées, I often came across posters, flyers and graffiti saying things like "Occitània es un país" etc. hence the "national consciousness" is still there for many.

So, while the culture and language of the South have been gallicized to a great degree, there are still strong vestiges left in the local accent and slang. Given the relative success of the Breton _diwans_, with virtually no help from an unresponsive French state, perhaps the same can be achieved in Occitania. It remains to be seen.

There is even an Occitan independence party.


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## ryba

panjabigator said:


> For those of you that have been to the south of France (or any Occitan-speaking area) can you comment on its general usefulness?



I haven't but I do have some idea on that. Just look at WordReference Forums, as far as I know there's only one guy (Jacme) who claims to be a "Native Speaker of Occitan" and he's posted here once so far.

According to the very optimistic French Wikipedia there are between 3'500'000 and 12'000'000 native speakers of Occitan or, in any case, at least 6'000'000-7'000'000 passive or active bilinguals, "_3,5 à 12 millions (dont plus sûrement 6 à 7 millions de bilingues passifs ou actifs)_". I've read somewhere else that it is estimated that an intensive linguistic immersion would raise the number of competent native speakers to 6'000'000 out of 15'600'000 people living in Occitània but, honestly, as people in French Oc Country don't seem to be going to have much opportunity to be immersed in a language that has been condamned to death by the _République_ and most of fluent Occitan speakers in France are elderly, we can predict that in a couple of years we'll talk about Occitan rememberers rather than "passive bilinguals".



panjabigator said:


> Were there signs in the language and were people conversing in it amongst themselves?



Occitan was THE language in big cities across Occitània before the Second World War. Nowadays most Frenchmen think Occitan is already extinct as they don't get to hear it even if they live in the South of France because you can't actually hear it on the street unless you go to towns like Pau, Besièrs (French: _Bésiers_) where I've heard it is still alive in the street. In general those who can and want to speak it do it at home and probably would be surprised if a stranger approached them on the street and spoke them in Occitan. If you google up "Montpelhièr en òc !" you'll see there are people who want to practice their Occitan and organize meetings to do that.

As far as signs are concerned, there are more and more bilingual signs in Occitània, fruit of the hard work occitanists do, but not as many as in Brittany or Corsica. I recommend you that you read this article on what's being done in Toulouse: "Occitan : faut-il en faire encore plus ?" (link) and take a glance at the forum below. Most of the comments are really worth reading, I consider these ones a must read for anyone interested in languages:

On n'est pas indépendantiste (par guglielmo313 - 14/10/2009 09:44)
Des faits, pas du pathos : (par Batko - 20/10/2009 12:12)

This one is written in both French and Occitan so if you don't speak French but you do speak Catalan you'll understand it quite easily:

Réactions sur certains dénigrements précédents. (par Peirot - 04/11/2009 17:19) 



panjabigator said:


> I was surprised that some French do not even know it exists!



Perhaps if you had asked them about _patois_...


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## CapnPrep

Most estimates of the number of speakers are completely unrealistic. Proponents of the language inflate the numbers in every possible way, and detractors will go so far as to claim that there are no speakers. They may get their wish within a few short generations. The most reliable data I know of come from a 1999 INSEE survey where they asked people:


If they grew up hearing Occitan from one or both parents. Estimated results: 610,000 usually + 1,060,000 occasionally
If they spoke Occitan with their own children. Estimated results: 60,000 usually + 180,000 occasionally
If they spoke Occitan with their spouses, friends, colleagues, shopkeepers, etc. Estimated result: 526,000
I took these numbers from this publication: Language transmission in France in the course of the 20th century.

And in other reports about the same survey, I have seen the overall estimated number of adult speakers of Occitan to be *786,000*. (Maybe for question #3 the results were actually 526,000 usually + 260,000 occasionally, something like that.) The majority of these people live in rural communities.

The main problem, of course, is the huge difference between the numbers in #1 and #2. Nine out of 10 people who potentially acquired Occitan when growing up failed to transmit the language to their own children. Unless this trend is reversed very quickly, a handful of calandretas, a parade here and there, and all the bilingual signs and metro announcements in the world will not save Occitan.


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## Ajura

panjabigator said:


> Thank you Thomas.
> 
> I was in Catalunya for several months and while there, I discovered that many people where aware of its proximity to Catalan but that they never heard it.  I also read a great book where the author devoted a chapter to Provençal/Occitan, and revealed that a great part of the issue is a feud between the languages on which would be offical and which would be designated as a dialect.
> 
> Of the friends I made who hailed from the South of France, some had grandparents who spoke a variety of languages including Occitan, but none of them had been passed down.


I find it very unfortunate that Occitan fell from it's Linguafranca status.


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## ryba

When I was in Spain last June hanging out in a bar on a visit to my Erasmus city I got to know an Erasmus student from Tolosa (Fr.: _Toulouse_…) and, as I already could speak some Lengadocian at that point, when presented to him I said a sentence or two in it to see how he reacted. He was shocked and nicely surprized when he learned I was from Poland and learning « this language nobody speaks anymore ! ». When I told him I could read Occitan Wikipedia and understand 90% of what was written he congratulated me on that but said he himself had no idea of written Occitan. He said his parents and grandparents spoke Occitan among themselves but always used French when adressing him so he could understand some Occitan without actually being able to speak it. His surname is Occitan (_lh_ digraph !). He could have learned to speak Occitan when he was a kid but no one cared to teach him to. Linguistically, his Occitan language status is « rememberer ». Quite good for a younster from Tolosa. As I later learned, when Occitan names of the stations in metro announcements were added last summer many adolescents thought it was « _de l'espagnol _». 

Thanks a lot for the data, CapnPrep!



CapnPrep said:


> Unless this  trend is reversed very quickly, a  handful of calandretas, a parade here  and there, and all the bilingual  signs and metro announcements in the  world will not save  Occitan.


Well, personally, I'd prefer the subway to be fully bilingual, with entire announcements (_Prochaine station_…, etc.) in Occitan (I understand it might make them too long, though) and I find it important for graphic signs to be bilingual too so that people see what the correct Occitan spelling of the station names they hear is. Tisséo, the metro company is working on both issues.

I agree initiatives like that cannot save the language themselves but they can contribute to the already initiated process of attitude change in the society of Southern France and without a massive attitude adjustment Occitan's dead.


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