Can An Italian Understand Occitan? From Provence?

Let's see if I can understand Occitan!
Links to the original creators
• The Sound of the Occit...
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• 🔊 Parler en Provençal ...
Occitan (English: /ˈɒksɪtən, -tæn, -tɑːn/;[10][11] Occitan: occitan [utsiˈta, uksiˈta][a]), also known as lenga d'òc (Occitan: [ˈleŋɡɔ ˈðɔ(k)] (listen); French: langue d'oc) by its native speakers, and sometimes also referred to as Provençal, is a Romance language spoken in Southern France, Monaco, Italy's Occitan Valleys, as well as Val d'Aran in Catalonia; collectively, these regions are sometimes referred to as Occitània. It is also spoken in Calabria (Southern Italy) in a linguistic enclave of Cosenza area (mostly Guardia Piemontese). Some include Catalan in Occitan, as the distance between this language and some Occitan dialects (such as the Gascon language) is similar to the distance between different Occitan dialects. Catalan was considered a dialect of Occitan until the end of the 19th century[12] and still today remains its closest relative.[13]
Occitan is an official language of Catalonia, where a subdialect of Gascon known as Aranese is spoken (in the Val d'Aran).[14] Since September 2010, the Parliament of Catalonia has considered Aranese Occitan to be the officially preferred language for use in the Val d'Aran.
Across history, the terms Limousin (Lemosin), Languedocien (Lengadocian), Gascon, and later Provençal (Provençal, Provençau or Prouvençau) have been used as synonyms for the whole of Occitan; nowadays, "Provençal" is understood mainly as the Occitan dialect spoken in Provence, in southeast France.[15]
Unlike other Romance languages such as French or Spanish, Occitan does not have a single written standard form, and does not have official status in France, home to most of its speakers. Instead, there are competing norms for writing Occitan, some of which attempt to be pan-dialectal, whereas others are based on a particular dialect. These efforts are hindered by the rapidly declining use of Occitan as a spoken language in much of southern France, as well as by the significant differences in phonology and vocabulary among different Occitan dialects.
According to the UNESCO Red Book of Endangered Languages,[16] four of the six major dialects of Occitan (Provençal, Auvergnat, Limousin and Languedocien) are considered severely endangered, whereas the remaining two (Gascon and Vivaro-Alpine) are considered definitely endangered.
#language #occitan #comprehension

[@israfil882]

I live in the south of France but I'm Brazilian. I find Occitan much easier to understand than French. They even share some similarities with Portuguese like the 'lh' in city names like Marselha. I'm very interested in the occitan culture, and I wish France had done a better job at respecting and maintaining it. It's also interesting how the occitan separatist movement claims all of Southern France(except the Basque Country), parts of Catalonia, Liguria and Piemonte, and for some reason they also claim a random small city in Calabria. I think a video on this would be quite interesting!

[@Nissardpertugiu]

Be careful with thoses occitanist separarist because they describe as this but they re very centralist. The domination mother tongue occitan never existed. Since mistral and fontan they tend to make everything in the Oc category. While historically what was not that long ago as Ponente liguria we re always in war with them but that theres after the Var river languages of Ahì ( like myself ) or Sci. And thoses not have to be made on that occitan banneer , neither identity. With friends of Mentone we often joke about them calling " the occitan planet " because if they could extand their occitania thing of one bloc without variations until Genova to Romania they would. For us, mainly separatist occitans are the horse of troia of the french state. Its just a centralisation like Paris under another flag from Catalogna to Italia basicly. While grandma in Gascogna don't care about including us in their group. We re italians for them and they re right.

[@unarealtaragionevole]

Hmm...I don't know if "claim" is the correct word there. Occitan, like all languages, has the ability transcend boundaries like nations, cultures, and even time. The problem with the pro-Occitan groups is that they are trying to use the regional spread of the language at its height in the past as the justification for their claim. Think about that logic for a second. How do we think these people would feel if the Vatican came in and said, "We are claiming everything because in the past this region spoke Latin, and we are trying to revive Latin." I don't think they would accept that ;o) Yes, they can fight to keep the language alive. They can try to reintroduce the language across the region it was the strongest...but that's it.

[@Jordi_Llopis_i_Torregrosa96]

Occitan separatism is even more unhinged than Catalan one, I say this as a pan-Catalanist Valencian myself lmao

[@bacicinvatteneaca]

Occitania is only a federal province in the great nation of Southern Galloromania, spanning from Catalunya to Marche

[@christopherellis2663]

It was a Bishop from there who codified Portuguese spelling

[@markcreemore4915]

Provençal has a very rich literary and musical culture in the work of the Medieval Troubadours, who were a decisive influence on Italian poets like Dante and Cavalcanti.

[@negy2570]

True. There is a small part in Occitan in Divina Commedia. It was the language of the Cathars who were strongly persecuted. In more recent years French government prohibited to speak Occitan in public and in schools. This is why the people in the video are manifesting. I think that video comes from Chambre d'Oc channel. There is an Italian academic who associate Dante with the Cathars.

[@nehylen5738]

@@negy2570 The French government cannot, and never forbade to speak Occitan in Public. In schools it would be shunned, indeed. But ever since the ordonnance de Villers-Coterêts (1539), the French government has arranged for French to be the only language spoken in any and every official capacity, or public institution (school, army and whatnot). The coup de grâce was effectively all modern medias (radio, TV) turning to French instead of all the "Patouès-es". Sadly, even accents are fading, at this stage. My grandparents had Occitan as their mother tongue, but their children only ever heard or were taught but a few words, as it was perceived as useless compared to French.

[@wasstl2153]

NO : Occitan is not limited to Provence. In France, the perimeter of Occitan spans from South Western France to South Eastern France. And yes, though close to each other, Occitan and Catalan are two distinct languages.

[@chongtak]

As an Occitan Speaker from Toulouse, I understand Catalan better than Gascon and Provencal.

[@gerarmdr]

@@chongtak fr im from toulouse also

[@jaxonbasra9056]

For Occitan, the channel Parpalhon Blau is excellent. The presenter (Gabrieu) speaks both cultivated, Lengadocian Occitan and his native Nissart - which seems more French-influenced to the naked ear, if only because of the guttural R. I like his folk stories in particular, though he does more pedagogic content as well.

[@ArtemDowgaluk-Kowalski]

I wanted to suggest it too

[@user-vr1mp2ef7d]

Your comment on guttural R in Niçart is interesting. This also applies to many speakers of Corsican who learned the language at school, starting from French, compared to older native speakers.

[@Castilloplus-bu7gs]

The non rolled r is a caracteristic of a French influence and of the "learned" speakers

[@tchop6839]

That R sound is quite characteristic of the Nissard variety, there’s very little evidence that it’s French influence, most Provençal dialects in general are well known to have a mixed pronunciation system wherein both a trilled and a uvular r are phonemes found in different phonological environments, quite similar to Portuguese

[@tchop6839]

The fact that it’s not French influence is also evidenced by the fact that some varieties (namely Gascón and Lengadocia) are well attested to have only trilled and tapped r, and these same varieties seem to more generally form a different branch of the Oc with a number of other features distinct from the varieties of the north and east

[@andredulac4456]

I'm from the South East of France and when I was a child, like 20 years ago, I remember we learned a bit of Provençal in elementary school, mostly to sing traditional Christmas songs for the school spectacle at the end of the year. I believe my grand parents understood and could spoke a bit of Provençal, but it was mostly to understand their own parents and grand parents who still spoke it daily. I didn't really care when I was a kid, but now I kinda regret I don't know more about it, it's a beautiful language

[@ThePassionFwuit]

For a Spanish speaker, Occitan is so easy to passively understand. I need very little brainpower to follow along with someone speaking Occitan. I actually find it much easier to follow along with than Portuguese. It definitely depends on the accent, though. Love to all Occitans and your beautiful language!

[@davidsalazar2077]

Weird because I speak both spanish and french natively and barely understood jack ... Sounded like the heaviest southern-France accent ever to me, mixed with a bunch of words that aren't either french or spanish 🤷‍♂️

[@antoni-olafsabater9729]

Let alone for a Catalan speaker !!! Everyone knows it’s our closest language, by far !

[@MybeautifulandamazingPrincess]

Which region of Spain are you from if you're from the East then it's natural you'll understand Catalan or occitan. I'm a Galician speaker and naturally I can understand Portuguese almost 100%, and other Asturleonese dialects like Mirandés, since we're in the West

[@JuliusCaesar819]

As a native French speaker from Quebec, most basic words (salutations and counting) are surprisingly understandable. Also, strangely enough, some of the prounounciation resembles some accents from rural areas in Quebec. I am just speculating here, but considering the fact that about 20% of French immigrants to Quebec were from the Limousin (an area where occitan was spoken) it may have kept an influence abroad. Regardless, the accent of southern French nationals is very distinct from nothern French, and the rythm of their accent is almost like if they were speaking occitan. Very interesting but sad also to know that this language is in danger of being extinct.

[@rvnhty]

Weird, je trouve que ça ressemble pas mal plus à de l’espagnol. J’ai rien compris.

[@Pianoscript]

In Quebec we say " nous autres". I thought it was somehow from Spanish. Now I'm sure its from the Occitan " nosautres".

[@Dibipable]

Je suis marseillais et je ne vois strictement aucune ressemblance entre l’accent québécois et les accents occitans, à part peut-être pour « in ». Et « Nous autres », « Vous autres » sont utilisés par tous les français, surtout les anciens.

[@chongtak]

Plan mercé per lo tieu comentari.

[@tibsky1396]

"Parpalhon Blau" is also an excellent channel for Occitan. He speaks the Nissart and Lenguadocian variants too. But it remains intelligible for the other variants, even if it seems different from Provençal of Marseille you heard, for example. In Medieval times, "Lengua d'Oc" was really a prestigious language. Considered as the language of love through the Troubadours, or Trobairitz (women singers), notably under the influences of Eleanor of Aquitaine, the Counties of Toulouse, or Provence, etc... Even Richard Lionheart, or most of the Plantagenêts Kings knew how to speak it (The Gascon Variant of Course). Unfortunately, the Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229) will have the Frankish nobility of the South replaced by the Frankish nobility of the North (who had different mentalities). Although being all Romanized, if I must make it easier to understand, the Franks of the North still had remnants of the Germanic mentality, where those of the South were originally less numerous, so they easily assimilated to the Roman or Mediterranean mentalities. All that to say that the North and the South could be considered as France and Spain today at the cultural level. And of course, "Langues d'Oïl" took the ascendancy among the nobility, who will cultivate their own language more in songs or literature (Occitan/Provençal kept a big influence in it anyway), even if they had to know how to communicate with their peasants, since the population of Southern France continued to speak their respective variants of Occitan until the 20th century, when modern standard French really took the ascendancy today amongst the population. The process accelerated from the revolution, then the school of the third republic, where speaking one's own regional language in all France was seen as mind-numbing. Hence the sequence we saw where people parade to promote Occitan, and they want to maintain it with their children. You can really see the medieval banner of the County of Toulouse behind.

[@khelian613]

The Parpalhon Blau guy also made a full video in Nissart for wikitongues which is very articulate and understandable.

[@YonWong]

I am a catalan speaker from Valencia and I have to say languedocian feels more like a far dialect. In school we start to study catalan literature from the trobadoresque lyric in Occitània. I am so happy for our language to have a so rich and interesting history and culture. We the Occitans and Catalans are brothers ❤

[@Nissardpertugiu]

Nissart here too. Unfortunally Parpalhon promotes the more modern Nissart which was occitanized to go with the french annexion around 1931 imposed uni laterally by traitor joseph giordan into the Academia Nissarda that fake norm that is a big treason to our idiome. Nissart is NOT occitan , its more a transition language with its own entity to the Ligurian and Piemontese idiomes with an italian grammatical influence, ( official linguage for 500 years ). And back then, even 1 century ago, 160, 200 years ago, it was written much differently than today, much more ligurian and italic. i write that form Me also beign from a Cuneese family. I roll the R and stuff. So i talk like archaic. Much enjoyable that Nissart of today with that frenchized faked provenzalized accent to ' Be accepted " in that " Accent of midi " rubbish thing. To the point that today Nissart think im " ün estrangier " while i talk the stuff before it went bad. Our ancients, such Enrico Sappia, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Giuseppe Bres, Eugene Ghis, Pier Isnard, Eugeneu Emanuel ( mentor of Nissa La Bella's Menica Rondelly ), Toselli to mention a few, where very against the Felibrige movement and occitanization of Nissart. Of course since occitanist infiltrated and profit the inculture of theses times to claim and centralize everything under the occitan banneer. But even historically Nissa and Provence we re always in war as they always tried to invade us. 1000 years they annoy us . From August to 1229, Nissa was in Liguria IX , and especially in 617, then 10th-13 th century was in tight relation and exchanges and protection with Genova, Counts of Ventimiglia and even Monaco and Pisa ( against the provençals ).in 1229 to 1388 was the provençal occupation with wars on wars before the dedition and protection by the Savoja realm , direction of Piemont. So of course, within Catalan / Aragonese invasions, Few expressions similar were in our language. But that not making it occitan. There s some genovese words absorbed in Corsican, does that mean it came from Genovese ? No.. i hope you get my point. One of the most old and famous nobility in Nissa were the Lascaris, which Luigi Ludivico Lascaris was one of the first to write poems and introduce vernacular italian in Nissa, and interact with the local tongue in 1300. Counts of Ventimiglia and Briga. The Trobador of the Tinea Raimon Feraud wrote in apologies to not be understood in 1300 " Mieu lengua es non del dreg proenzal " . So you have to deduce what to deduce. Its a different language. Honore Drago in 1500 was also demonstrating it was different and you can find a book by Murzio from Triest with his associated of Tuscany went in Nizza in 1542 for 15 months. Its in a book, page 98, called " Battaglia della lingua italiana " talking about Nissa , its written " Il Nizzardo , un popolo d'una città d' Italia " " Questa città ha la propria favellana, che è nè francesca , nè provenzale" . Lets remind that the " occitants languages " use Oc as affirmative. In Nissard we say that were " la lenga d'ahì", we say Ahì. Ahì i think is not the same word than OC. Also there's no liaison in S as plural but neutral and qualifacation adjectives and stuff in I , especially as feminine. Is much more roman and archaic too some vocabulary differences that make Nissart also at proper phonetic non aligned with what provençal and occitan languages can between them. Occitanist want even include sincd the Fontan movement and 50's Mentunasc, Brigascu, Tendascu as occitan. But thoses are " Lengua de Sci " also. I think Parpalhon is talented, i tried to inform him about the official story not what it was, he doesn't want to admit. And as many nissart today, he denies his italianity and the more adjacent nature of Nissard towards Piemontese and Intemelio. Sad But true. Its not to talk bad about him. But he s promoting the system " Version " of it. Not what it really is. I hope my article wasn't too long .

[@khelian613]

@@Nissardpertugiu That's interesting, I should look into that.

[@Nissardpertugiu]

@@khelian613 Most books i have were forbidden when France annexed us. Also you find it in italian archives under their original titles. But its written in Italian as it was our public using language as Nissard, Intemelio, cuneese etc... Its not english. Or french for most of them. Then you realize that we re privated from our real patrimonio. Because the numbers of Nizzardi authors by hundreds in vernacular as Italian in 1300 to 1900( often in exile ) is impressive and was very much a lot of contributions of italian litterature. Because he was a conspirator and agent of Mazzini as well, our Hero Enrico Sappia, was wanted ! By Napoli and Sicilia after he tried to kill Ferdinand II at age of 16 and went to jail until 23. So he went in his others profession ( writer , italian teacher ) under the name of E.Simone Serpentini ( including his mom's name ). Most italians today even fans of litterature don't realize that Simone Serpentini and Enrico Sappia are the same person.. Writer of the longuest poem ever in 6 volumes called " Cicerone " printed in Milano, Gian Carolo Passeroni , was also a Nizzardo, among hundreds of them. Most people see them as italian, which is also correct, but they forgot they re Nizzardi. This is valuable also for Garibaldi. People know that he s an italian heroe but most people don't realize that he s a Nissard too.

[@alfonsmartinez9663]

The fact is that most occitan speaker have a very strong French accent and also pronounce the language in a French way, which makes the language more difficult to understand. Those who have an authentic accent are much easier to understand.

[@ivanmolero7829]

Occitan is not only spoken in Provence, but also , among other places, in Languedoc and Gascogne.

[@poppinc8145]

Occitan was a pretty prominent language in the past. There were Occitan speakers in North America. France used to have many Occitan speakers but due to the French state's suppression of all other languages in France, its speakers declined. There's a lot of history about Cathars and even proto-Protestants that is believed to be lost because it was recorded in Occitan that others never bothered to translate to other languages that would have had surviving copies for people to look at today.

[@arx3516]

Cathars were gnostics, totally different thing from protestants.

[@poppinc8145]

@@arx3516 Do you speak English or just learning? Because nowhere did I imply Gnostic Cathars and proto-Protestants (like Waldensians) were the same.

[@niwoniwo]

As a native catalan and spanish speaker I find it 95% understandable

[@davidplonk3074]

The "problem" (is not really a problem, they try their best) with occitan is that most of them are not native speakers and they have a french accent that makes it more complicated to understand. If you read it, it's similar to catalan (catalan came from occitan tho) with french influences

[@derechoplano]

Yes. I am a Catalán speaker who knows French. I have been fascinated with Occitan for decades. Written Occitan seems like medieval Catalan. The resemblance is uncanny because Catalán started as a dialect of Occitan. But, when they speak it, it seems a French trying to speak Catalan

[@alejandror.planas9802]

I wouldn't say Catalan came from Occitan, rather, Catalan came from Old Occitan, as it's a sibling to modern Occitan rather than its decendent. Alternatively I'd say Catalan is Occitan, it's just a different "dialect" of Occitan like Lengadocian or Gascon or Provençau

[@poppinc8145]

@@alejandror.planas9802 Are you using the Italian/Chinese definition of "dialect" where mutually unintelligible languages are called dialects, or are modern Catalan and Occitan largely mutually-intelligible?

[@bacicinvatteneaca]

@@poppinc8145 they're mutually unintelligible due to details in pronunciation, but their structure is identical and the vocabulary is veeery close. If you were to pronounce both of them like an older rural person might have pronounced them 50 years ago, they'd be perfectly mutually intelligible

[@tibsky1396]

And ironically, the Southern French has Occitan/Provençal accent when they speak French.

[@khelian613]

My grandmother's family is from Limousin, in the north-western occitan speaking area. Her mother was a Limousin language native speaker, and she could communicate with no issue at all with the italian lumberjacks that would sometimes come to work in her region.

[@tylere.8436]

Actually the last speaker was saying "reiredròlles" meaning grandchildren, so not far off, but a bit more of hoping the language survives for generations.

[@tylere.8436]

Btw I don't have an idea what the root for the word is, looks very unique to Occitan. If anyone knows, please inform us! :) EDIT: so the "reire-" part of the term means great- like French arrière [from Latin ad retro]; so the "drolles" has to mean children, but doesn't seem to have a Latin origin, perhaps Gaulish?

[@davidharvell3191]

I'm from the USA and I understand Occitan pretty well, mostly because I lived for several years in Catalunya and Occitan is really very similar to Catalan

[@Toreadorification]

My father's village in Italy (Peveragno) speaks Occitan!

[@KingChameleonsEye]

It is fascinating, some speakers had a Portuguese sounding accent, others sounded more French. But some did sound catalan 😅

[@KnightofAges]

For an European Portuguese, Occitan is fairly easy for us to understand. After the initial shock we can get used to it. Maybe that is why Metatron is feeling more problems with the language. We share several words that cannot be found in any other Romance language, especially terminations in "-nha" or "-lha/e" (these were molded into Portuguese by Occitan clerics that came to the Coimbra region in the XIIth century). That said, Provençal one of the easternmost dialects and one of the most influenced by the Langue d'Oil (Parisian French) and Italian. you can find more variations all over Southern France (Gascon is another Occitan dialect). Maybe purest Occitan might be harder even for Metatron?

[@HeAndrRoiz]

Can you give examples of such words? Most common Portuguese words ending with -lha or -nha have Galician cognates ending in -lla or -ña, it's just a different way to write the same sound, which naturally is influenced by Southern French dialects, but it's hardly a linguistic difference. Rolha/Rolla, cozinha/coziña, filho/fillo, pinha/piña, etc. All these have roots that are older than the event you presented. Most Occitan words that I'm familiar with are from Central Portugal (Castelo Branco), near the Tagus river, and are but regionalisms used by old folks, words such as falega (falet), afalcoado (afalhocat), garrudo (garrut), etc.

[@KnightofAges]

​@@HeAndrRoiz Of course. Here's some: Manhã, Vergonha, Montanha, Conhecer, Espanhol. I refer you to "Das Origens da Poesia Lírica em Portugal na Idade-Média" (Prof. Manuel Rogrigues Lapa), where it is noted that the phoneme 'nh' (Spanish 'ñ', French and Italian 'gn') comes directly from Provençal, same as 'lh'. As is the use of the 'ç'. In "Cancioneiro da Ajuda" (vol I, part XV, note 4) D. Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcelos notes that "it seems that it was during the rule of D. Afonso IV, or maybe even in D. Dinis, due to the reforms introduced by french writers (between 1270 and 1280) that the Provençal spelling 'nh', 'lh' became common use. The influence of Occitan minstrels was done through our poets, who sought to imitate the poetry of the 'troubadors', done in Provençal, almost always of the palatian variety. Other examples in Portuguese are the vocables 'mege, greu, cousir, solaz, palrar, lousinhar, cor, trova, trovador, endurar."

[@tomaszgarbino2774]

@@KnightofAges Aren't you mixing up "phoneme" with "grapheme"?

[@KnightofAges]

@@tomaszgarbino2774 Using 'phoneme' for 'fonema' and 'writing' for 'grafia'. Changed this last one now to 'spelling', if it is more accurate. The original really does not say 'grafema'. Sorry if the English translation might be less than accurate, but English is not my first nor second nor third language.

[@HeAndrRoiz]

@@KnightofAges Mañá, vergoña, montaña, coñecer all exist in Galician. It's just a different spelling which was indeed of Provençal origin, but most of the words themselves aren't. Espanhol is, but so is Español in Spanish itself. Spanish also used the letter ç in the past, but eventually dropped it. None of this makes Provençal easier for us to understand, just easier to read, but it's hardly an issue for Spanish who use ll for /ʎ/, and ñ for /ŋ/ anyway.

[@Perry-vg5hr]

The first video seems to be some variety of Lengadocian, the second is Provençal from Marseille. In the last one, the woman with the baby is definitely speaking a Pyrenean dialect of Gascon ("eths, mairau", "enqüèra"), and the first man said "nosaut[e]s" instead of "nosautres" so he's speaking Gascon too. The guy in the beret is harder to place, but probably Gascon as well given the location. I'll look for some Northern Occitan for you to listen to. It's got a different sound to it.

[@DoraEmon-xf8br]

The last man with the beret ’’sounds’’ Gascon, his conjugation sounds like some Gascon dialects too (typically Biarnes I’d say), but doesn’t use the affirmative ’que’. That‘s puzzling.

[@lesfreresdelaquote1176]

@@DoraEmon-xf8brHe said he learnt the language when he was 20...

[@DoraEmon-xf8br]

@@lesfreresdelaquote1176 So did I, even later. I’m not judgemental here, it’s just that I can’t guess clearly what variety he’s speaking. I just hoped anyone could have an answer to this.

[@user-vr1mp2ef7d]

A question. I have a Mexican friend whose family name is Vignau. I believe this is a Gascon name that would be Vigneron in French, right? As far as we know, her ancestor came from Béarn, via Spain, and nothing to do with Maximilian. The largest French community in Mexico comes from Barcelonette in Haute Provence.

[@Perry-vg5hr]

@@user-vr1mp2ef7d Vignau (classic spellng: Vinhau) is the most common form in both regions. There's a mix of -al and -au in most of Occitania, with -al dominating in Languedoc, southern Auvergne, and some areas in Piedmont, and -au dominating moth other places, including around Bearn and Barcilona (Barcelonette).

[@SniaVillagePunk]

As a lombard speaker with french basic level, i got around 50-60% listening and 100% reading

[@cahallo5964]

Check the song, "Senhor, per los nostres pecattz" Much easier to understand than the heavy french accents

[@P.Glisia]

Attention please :-)!!! You are making a mistake, Occitan does not only stop in the south-east of France!!! As a Béarnais (Béarn is in the southwest of France) my father with his brothers and sisters and parents spoke Béarnais (Occitan Gascon) they were forbidden to speak it at school my father had his fingers slapped with a rule when he spoke it at school. This language has been banned and sullied by France, an image of peasants and "uneducated people" has been stuck on this magnificent language by "the French Parisians" PLEASE don't forget all these people who suffered. .. it is also spoken in the southwest of France but there are some differences in pronunciation. These are Occitan Provençal for the southeast and Occitan Gascon for the southwest. That said, even in Béarn between certain fairly close villages there are some differences in pronunciation (less obvious than between Occitan Provençal and Occitan Gascon of course) but for me who had the chance to hear this language spoke everydays I can understand Provençal Occitan with some kind of difficulty.

[@senescur3787]

Déjà que l'appellation de "provençal" et "gascon" induisent en erreur vu que ce ne sont pas des dialectes uniformes mais des appellations regroupant des dialectes qui sont tous différents.

[@xolang]

As far as İ understand it, Provençal is a variety of Occitan spoken in the southeast of France. Occitan itself is traditionally spoken in perhaps a third of the hexagon. From an area stretching from Valence, Clairmont Ferrand, Limoges, up to Bordeaux, covering the whole region going up to the Mediterranean Sea and the border with Spain.

[@kirikoucortex7042]

Yes, definitely And in most french people's mind, it is more associated with southwestern France rather than the east (not the provençal dialect)

[@mll1836]

Provençal is Not a variety of occitan... Provençal is provençal !!

[@mll1836]

In Provence ,provençal is spoken, and not occitan

[@chongtak]

Occitan speaker here, thank you to take the time to make this video about my language.

[@Svnfold]

Salut

[@peterng25]

I speak French, I am Vietnamese, and I reacted exactly the same way you did

[@erkkinho]

Attention, it actually, hypothetically, spoken in whole Southern France.

[@ROMANTIKILLER2]

Interesting. My parents spoke Piedmontese at home (dialect in the North of Turin), I had never heard Occitan before but I was able to understand most of what the people interviewed in the last video were saying, despite getting little of the narration in the second. I noticed how the first chap used the word "masna" to say "children", just like we have in Turin varieties, and not something closer to either "enfants " or "bambini".

[@robertolang9684]

look my friend north italics swiss austrian , aquitanian spanish basques portuguese , slovenians croatas romanians all the same people they are related , celtic alpine people LOS CELTAS, THE REST JUST NARRATIVES OF THE TIMES

[@marsNemophilist]

According to Wikipedia the Romanian vocabulary has: 43% - borrowings from Western Romance languages (of which 38.40% from French); 20% - words inherited from Latin; 11.5% - borrowings from Slavic languages (Old Slavonic, Bulgarian, Serbian, Ukrainian, Russian); 3.60% - borrowings from Turkish; 2.40% - borrowings from Greek; 2.17% - Hungarian language loans; 2% - German-language loans.

[@Kim-J312]

It sounds like a person w Spanish accent speaking French. I recognize it as French, I studied it back in college 25yrs ago

[@bacicinvatteneaca]

It sounds like extremely (1000+ years) conservative French, bastardised into being pronounced with the sounds and prosody of modern French.

[@judoboy83]

You choose as an example of occitan with a very strong accent from Marselha / Marseille, a very quick and fluent locator and a quite technical vocabulary about a harbour / fisherman’s location. I am myself perfectly bilingual of the maritime variant of the Provençal dialect of the Occitan language and I had to pay attention as I wasn’t familiar with some words. My great grand father that was a professional fisherman would have been probably able to understand and speak like that… as an example, “coífa amb’ canon” was a traditional hat from Marseille’s nineteenth century lady’s fish seller, not a chance you would understand what it was as I barely knew it!

[@jausepcaraven4756]

As rason, a pas chausit lo tèxte lo mai aisit 😁

[@brunobassi2440]

Coffa

[@Pianoscript]

I'm from Quebec and my family name is from the city of Arreau in Occitania. Oddly enough my y-chromosome is R-M167 which has a peak occurence at Vielha Spain in Val D' Aran where occitan is the official language. It is 42 km from Arreau. My family name is Garon, similar to the Garonne river which also has its source in Val D' Aran. This is why I'm so interested in Occitan. My ancestors also passed through Piedmont ( Livorno-Ferraris) circa 1500.

[@lorenzor2555]

For me, as a northern italian from Milano, it is pretty understandable. It could be an italian regional language, which indeed, in part actually is

[@Border_patrol974]

Just like lombard, it's a gallo-romance language

[@SaadAltuilaai]

Maybe because you looked at the translation. The trick lies into listening without reading.

[@jausepcaraven4756]

No it's not (anymore). Occitan and catalan are apart from gallo romance languages. But arpitan (franco-provençal) is. @@Border_patrol974

[@emiliosaymon5096]

Eu tenho certeza que você não compreendeu nada.

[@jeandupond9605]

Es fòrça bella aquella lenga!

[@zemartinho9779]

Ironic that you considered Catalan the easiest to understand, even easier than Spanish, and then Occitan, the most difficult to understand. Some consider Catalan and Occitan varieties of the same Romance language. I think there is even debate as to which dialect falls into which category given that they exist on a linguistic continuum. Also, very odd that these Occitan varieties would be those geographically, and hence, linguistically closest to the Italian languages. As an English and Portuguese speaker who can get by in Spanish, I found this one to be one of the hardest you've done as well. Interesting.

[@9grand]

I think because he was never in contact with occitan , but if he studied it, he would find that it is very close to italian.

[@shrektheswampless6102]

I'm Italian I only understood like 2 words 😢 catalan was way easier

[@alessandronavone6731]

I think there's a strong French influence that still makes it pretty difficult for us Italian and Iberian folks, while Catalan didn't have that. Maybe it wasn't like this in previous centuries, but I have no clue.

[@regisdumoulin]

@@alessandronavone6731 It wasn't like that in the past. But the French state pretty much killed it and modern speakers are just trying their best, but have lost the accent and intonation of people from the past. For instance my grand father, now deceased, used to speak it with a very "singing" sort of intonation, rolling the R's and all, with an accent very close to what I could hear in Catalan. Unfortunately a lot of modern Occitan speaker speak it a bit like Antoine de Caunes was speaking English in Eurotrash (kzbin.info/www/bejne/d6XGXnyajrekrqs)!

[@Nissardpertugiu]

Let it make relativly simple : Occitanist consider every language of the coast beign occitan, even language of Si, Bò, Ahì, Sci. They morphed into Imperialist with a regional revendication smoke screen.

[@juanpiedrahita-garcia5138]

I’ve been waiting for this!

[@Afgrundsvisioner]

Can’t wait for an episode on Arpitan.

[@rodrick7775]

I speak a particular variant of occitan, gasconha (gascougne), who is very different because of the influence of the euskadi. Occitan can be awkward for other people and "roman" people to, but when who live in the "occitan space" their is very specifics accent who come from the occitan way of prononciation so this much easy to understand and speak.

[@Svnfold]

Can you understand Aranese? It's a subdialect of Gascon? 🤔

[@rodrick7775]

@@Svnfold Yes but it's more similar with southern gascon. I speak black gascon, the northern variant.

[@Svnfold]

@@rodrick7775 what are some of the differences? 🤔

[@rodrick7775]

@@Svnfold The biggest one is that the "a" in the end of words will be saying "e" in the north and "o" in the south. There is some usual expression who are different too : like "how do you do" is "quin va" in the south and "com vas" in the north.

[@davidlericain]

I speak french well so I thought I'd understand a fair amount of this, but I got NOTHING. It's much more different than I would have thought.

[@leconglomeratscrevesoffici850]

the hardest thing with occitan is how the langage changes depending on where you are, I speak occitan, but only the variant from my part of the south, which is south west of France, in Dordogne, here some examples: we don't say the s the same as those in your videos, we have more of a ch sound, like saying the word for castle for example, we would say "lou cachtel" and people more from the south east would say lou castel, also we don't turn our v into b, some variations of occitan say it like "a bistou de nas" (expression meaning "more or less", like when you are estimating something) but we would say a vichtou de nas, and last example,, to prove local variations are really hard, we don't say the final letters of most words, like in your first video they say 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 as un dos tres quatre cinc sieis set uech nou detz but we say u, dou, tré, quatre, cin chei, che, uech, nove, det yeah that's confusing, that's also why even as an occitan speaker I can't understand some people speaking occitan, because it got so many variations that even if it's technically the same langage it doesn't sound the same at all

[@wasstl2153]

In some French dialects south west of the Oïl area, "drôle" means child, and specifically a boy (girl is "drôlesse"). This usage is also present in the Oc area, with a slightly different pronounciation. Un "drôle", probably of Dutch origin (from a word meaning "an elf"), designates a "jolly or funny person", generally a small person in French, hence the meaning it has taken in the South of France (child).

[@hetwitblad6544]

As a native Dutch speaker I found this very weird, as I know drol to mean turd. Indeed french sites seem to link it to this word, but we no longer use it in this sense

[@latinoamante38]

I was waiting for this video, I was hoping you know this language great video

[@olivierdebouchervillebaiss7310]

was waiting for this one :) mercès plan!

[@Tameko79]

Glad you know the channel "I love languages", which I follow. Saluti dal Canada.

[@TunahTak]

Occitan is the most important langue to understand all ancient and medieval age of France and Europe and the transition of modern era, Occitan is the most important lang of France and from Western Europe to understand the process of cultural change in all West Europe and France til today.

[@khelian613]

I often listen to an occitan music band called Lou Dalfin, which is from the italien Piémont. Nice to see you look into minority languages too! Occitan counts many varieties too, like my region speaks Auvernhat, which is closer to french than Provençal. Occitan along with catalan is also, I think, the easiest to read for a french speaker among all other romance languages. (Btw, I've found that I could understand north-western languages of Italy better than some italians, especially the occitan ones. It really depends though - like older speakers including in my region tend to have thicker, more idiomatic accents and dialects)

[@familhagaudir8561]

In songs at least, Lo Dalfin's speech is authentic Occitan accent. Used to sound pretty-much the same elsewhere before the language got "frenchified". Some speakers in France still have good accent, but it's rare now.

[@M.M.83-U]

Da piemontese, io sento una pesantissima influenza spagnola, nella pronuncia ancor più che nel lessico. P.S. l'Occitano è parlato (si fà per dire) solo nelle vallate a sud della Dora, l'unico posto in Torino città dove puoi, forse, sentirlo è il Tempio Valdese.

[@skyalmillegra2532]

A Ëngrèunha!

[@thierryf67]

there's a lot of occitan words that were included in the french, since medieval times. So may be the words that sounds french were occitan words incorporated in french... and also french words were included in occitan in the exchange, especially in recent times.

[@cleytoncabral8616]

If i heard this occitan speak in the street I would have thought it he was speaking an italian dialeto from the mountains

[@pierrehenry8208]

The origin of French and Occitan is very interesting : at the fall of the western roman empire, the elites were speaking classic latin, and the people were speaking vulgar latin. The modern languages are evolution of vulgar latin and differ from place to place because there was not enough social link between regions to make it evolve in a consistant manner. Hence the bigger differences beetwen roman languages come from mountain ranges. But in France there was two different evolutions, because of the Franks rule. North of the river Loire, that is to say the northern half of the country, most of the aristocracy had Franks, a germanic language, as mother-tongue, and so they keep speaking Frank a very long time. During all that time, the language evolve with a strong germanic influence, creating the "langues d'oil", which are the familly of old French dialects. And it's one reason for the complexity of French. Meanwhile in the southern half of France, Franks were far less numerous, so they quickly adopted the local language, and vulgar latin has evolved with far less influence from germanic languages, resulting on a different group of languages : the "langue d'occ" or occitan. As Occitan has less germanic influence, all the letter are pronounced, which is far easier to understand for speakers of other romanic languages... And according to what I just listenned in the video, a part of the vocabulary is very similar to French, and another part is more like Italian and Spanish vocabulary, but it's not enough to generalize.

[@mimib4310]

occitan spoken everywhere in southern france, not just in the southeast, there are different dialects, gascon in the south west, linguadoc in the south and provencau in the southeast

[@alansmithee8831]

Hello Metatron. We were introduced to this at school in England during French lessons, together with a bit about Basque, in case we came across them on our travels. I found it like trying to understand Dutch from German and English - very difficult. I am glad you had the same response as I do not feel so bad about not getting it, though I seem to get more than you sometimes, from French. I also found the similarity to Portuguese interesting. I wonder if it is a celtic thing, going from the Iberian language video on History With Hilbert channel?

[@TheZapan99]

Metatron should definitely check out the band Boisson Divine, they sing folk metal in the Gascon dialect of Occitan. Their song Libertat is especially interesting and includes subtitles in English and Occitan. I'm sure they would be glad to have their music featured on the channel for a linguistic analysis of Gascon.

[@ironiccookies2320]

As a non Romance speaker, Occitan from Provence looks like French (obviously) mixed with like Catalan or Spanish, but sounds mostly like French

[@moderatedoomer2945]

English speaker, currently learning Catalan. The word for "both,"/ambos, in Castilian, is "with"/amb in Catalan. So just knowing that really helped me understand what these Occitans were saying.

[@georgerichardson7560]

Great video! A great one in Occitan is a song by the Martin Best Medieval ensemble 'Maravillosos et piadosos' I was able to understand a little with my beginner to intermediate Spanish. Would great to see a video on this one :)

[@patrisss]

For me the channel Parpalhon Blau is easy to understand, sounds very clear. I’m Spanish and Catalan speaker.

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

Occitano é mais fácil que francês !

[@KnightofAges]

É de onde a nossa língua Portuguesa teve origiem...

[@robertolang9684]

@@KnightofAges NAO E PRA ADMIRAR SOMOS PARENTES DOS AQUITANIOS DO SUL DE FRANCA ELES PERTENCEM AS NOSSAS TRIBOS CISALPINAS

[@guyfoucher4805]

I am a french of south ( occitania ) I speak and undestand occitan , and I confirm that an italian can uderstand occitan , bur also spanish and above all catalan

[@jaumejoseoranies7948]

Can you, Metatron's Acadeny, distinguish between French Catalonian and Occitan? (And everybody accepts French Catalonian and Spanish Catalonian is the same language but one in Spain and the other in France). Occitan and Catalonian are "almost" the same language.

[@kyomademon453]

Rossellonès is just a dialect of catalan influenced by occitan and french phonology

[@James-yp6lu]

Please do one on Piedmontese! Edit: Or Lombard

[@ostsan8598]

Perhaps Quebecer French or Louisiana Creole would be interesting.

[@Gabriel8OD]

There's a spoken language in the south of Brazil called "Talian." Make a video of it.

[@ThibaultHock]

For Occitan, try Viure al pais " le magazine en langue occitane de France 3" a lot of occitan, from all the occitan speaking regions in France.

[@renrams]

you should try the aranese version of occitan! i feel like it’s so much easier

[@vitorguise8933]

I really enjoy your videos. Maybe you can try the other oficial language in Portugal. O Mirandês!

[@ObvsCam93]

The first things that make Occitan difficult to understand are the pronunciation of final a, and the use of i as the first person. Lengadocian Occitan is much easier at least from listening to Parpalhon Blau, written Occitan is for the most part almost identical to Catalan and then naturally as you look at the variants closer to Italy they resemble the northern Italian languages.

[@ghostdog7575]

Occitan is very beautiful. Literary medieval occitan is marvellous, magnificent, possibly the most beautiful language in the histtory of logos.

[@trufkenpiwke]

definitely try some music, there are some metal bands whose songs are in gascon/occitan: Boisson Divine, Hantaoma, Aorlhac, even an Italian band called Lou Quinse

[@PeakDealsCanada]

Sounds a lot like Portuguese from Sao Miguel (Micaelense dialect) in the Azores. Which has it's roots from Occitan via Beira Baixa in Portugal where people from southern France settled, then made their way to the Azores. Povoação was the first settlement in Sao Miguel, sound familiar. Those settlers came from Beira Baixa

[@guillaumecombe9668]

Hi, didn't read every coms, perhaps it's said, but you have to know that Occitanie (the region) and Provence are different (bonded) regions. True these languages are quite similar, but not the same: there is the occitan, and there is the provençal. When I get my Baccalaureate, that year I was in school in Montpellier (occitanie) but my entire schooling before was in Provence where I learnt provençal, so at my exam in Provençal (I learnt it at school), the teacher spoke occitan and me provençal, it was understandable but quite words weren't the same and verbe endings were different too. It's like if you say le breton (Bretagne's language) is spoken in Normandie. Nevertheless, good video !

[@thepolarbear8449]

#suggestion Hello Metatron. Thank you for all the awesome content. I have 4 suggestions, maybe if you like them, you can do a video on them: 1. Review of how realistic was the actual duel from filmThe Last Duel 2. Sicilian - Italian comparison 3. The Mafia - reality versus myth 4. The victors write the history, this one bothers me a lot, because it makes it like no written history is legit because it was all written by the victors.

[@lugo_9969]

Irish polyglot here.....sounds like italian mixed with catalan....plus Toulouse. Sounds like a movie from the year 1200 AD.

[@MrRabiddogg]

it's always interesting to hear a language from a region that was absorbed by multiple regions or which broke away from multiple regions to become a single one. they tend to blend languages. I wonder how you would do with say Belgium where there are between the Romance and Germanic regions.

[@edgarbm6407]

I'm a French speaker from Canada. I used to live in Belgium as a child and I could understand the French spoken there, but they do have some words that are different.

[@henrystoes6508]

you should do a video trying to understand ladino (judeo-spanish)!

[@calebhightower6676]

Fun fact: Richard the Lionheart spoke Occitan, along with french

[@luke211286]

Analysis of an outsider who speaks some basic Italian and is familiar how major Romance languages sound: Occitan seems to be an intersection between French, Catalan, and Portuguese (could be Galician)

[@Frilouz79]

On the "Pòrta de mut" channel, you can hear recordings of native speakers in different dialects. I recommend the video "Memòria obrièra en occitan - Las Brigadas internacionalas", a 1975 recording that is an excellent example of Languedoc Occitan.

[@adrien5834]

Most modern speakers of Occitan are also French speakers, so French strongly influences their pronunciation of Occitan. I'm pretty sure a century ago the language would have been much more intelligible for an Italian or Spanish listener.

[@Oszczywilski]

It is a good video, but I have one advice. That's you should include in this kind of videos a section about reading from their wikipedia. I remember that in the case of Portuguese you understood a way more from reading than from listening.

[@michaelchen8643]

I think a lot of Latin base languages that are far north of the Iberian peninsula and the Italian peninsula have a lot of dramatic language influences like “ Blau” For the color blue This is even more pronounced in metropolitan French and old French, especially going up toward Normandy Yes, I’ve outside the lines of Occitan However, a lot of German influences started to take shape with the follow the Roman Empire

[@Maksym_Ch]

I wonder why you stopped reading the wikipedia, I was actually expecting it in the video. In any way, thanks for the content!

[@enezjaniw493]

The comparative of how much (forgive the translation) langue d'oil and Occitain have absorbed from historaical (Gothic, Frankish, Burgundian) and modern neighbouring (German, Frisian/Dutch and English) would be interesting.

[@BigNews2021]

In an alternate time-line Occitan became the official language of France making it a thousand times easier to learn as a second or third language. As a Spanish speaker it certainly would be relatively easy.

[@Bombur888]

Occitan really is the missing link (in modern times) between French and the rest of the Romance languages.

[@patricialavery8270]

Since I studied French this has many familiar words.Was the one where you said"fishermen" about bullfighting?That's what the words looked like to me.

[@mimisor66]

Seeying the words in written form makes in easier to distingush between words and understand (some) words.

[@pn4960]

YEEEES ! finally ^^

[@enquetedhistoire]

Interesting! Have you tried the Corsican language? I'm sure it's easier to understand than Occitan or Ladin for a native Italian speaker! There a guy named Paulu who speaks it well on the WIKITONGUES channel if you're interested. Anyway thanks for all your cool videos ;)

[@framegrace1]

I would say Catalan is the closer language to Occitan, appart of the other languages of the Occitan family. THe similarity is more clear on the "Gascon" kinds, like the Aranes, where the french phonetics are not so strong. As a Catalan I can read it pretty well, but is hard to understand.

[@robertolang9684]

BECAUSE IS PORTUGUESE

[@marcosturla8716]

If you are italian , you probably know that we have dialects. And for some italian used to hear or speak lombard ligurian or piemontese ( unfortunately not the young si), understanding occitan is easyer than french. A lot of words look piemontese, the problem is that nobody study or speak it , the occitan, generslly and so we have to get habit to the sound. I think slso the catalan can understand something, mostly written. For italian from centre and south is more difficult

[@stefanoenricosalvadorebesu1445]

In Spanish, shower is ducha, and bathroom is just baño. Occitan is also spoken in a region called Val d'Aran, the northwestern tip of Catalonia. If it sounds a bit like French, it's because, in France, it's spoken with Franch accent. I Val d'Aran it's spoken with a more "Iberian" accent (and I undeestand Aranese very well).

[@UnintentionalSubmarine]

If you want to try again, then I suggest a search for the song 'A l'entrada del temps clar'. I don't know any Romance language, but that song is so clearly enunciated. I suggest it from the channel M Korda, as it provides Occitan, English and French subtitles. Also, that song it just very good and pretty amusing.

[@EddyBF]

Occitan is a language that was spoke on all the south of france, from east to west. But consider that some areas spoke occitan with little differencies. But yes, occitan is like the parent of actual spanish that the different spanish kindoms spreaded during the reconquista. Now, in south of france, occitan is sadly perishing... but is still used in some spanish area.

[@teresamerkel7161]

still facinating

[@jordicm]

As a catalan speaker I found occitan as an ancian catalan, obiously both has se same roots, like french and romaní language.

[@vince0717]

I’m french, and I barely understood anything. However, something I found amusing, was that the way he spoke, the specific “melody” of his speech, sounded like the Marseille accent of french, but the words were different. It almost sounded like someone from Marseille trying to speak Spanish or something, very interesting.

[@ncgallagher]

I have heard that all Occitan speakers mainly speak French in public and at work. Which is much less true for Catalan speakers. So I have to imagine that French has impacted Occitan in terms of pronunciation and word choice quite a bit as a result.

[@Svnfold]

Try listening to the other Occitan varieties such as Gascon (sub dialect Aranese), Limousin or Nisart,

[@monicabello3527]

Occitan dialects in Piedmont are spoken in Val Susa and Valli di Lanzo, Tourin province not Cuneo, and also Val d'Aosta (patois valdotain)