Occitan (; ), also known by its native speakers as (; ), sometimes also referred to as Provençal, is a Romance language spoken in southern France, Monaco, Italy's Occitan Valleys and the Val d'Aran in northeast Spain; collectively, these regions are sometimes referred to as Occitania. It is also spoken in the southern Italian province of Cosenza (mostly in Guardia Piemontese), where it is referred to as Gardiol, which is considered a separate Occitanic language. The linguistic distance between Catalan and some Occitan dialects (such as the Gascon language) is similar to the distance between different Occitan dialects, and Catalan was considered a dialect of Occitan until the end of the 19th century and still today remains its closest relative. Occitan has a particularly rich lexicon. Lo Panoccinari, considered the most comprehensive dictionary ever published in this language, records over 250,000 unique wordsMica GBM (2025), Lo Panoccinari (Volume Four), p. 789. (more than 310,000 including dialectal variations).
Occitan is an official language of Catalonia, including the Val d'Aran, where a subdialect of Gascon known as Aranese is spoken.As stated in its Statute of Autonomy approved. See Article 6.5 in the Parlament-cat.net , text of the 2006 Statute of Catalonia (PDF) 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, in addition to Provençal (Provençal, Provençau or Prouvençau) later have been used as synonyms for the whole of Occitan; nowadays, the term "Provençal" is understood mainly as the Occitan dialect spoken in Provence, in southeast France.
Unlike other Romance languages such as French or Spanish, Occitan does not have a single written standard form, nor does it 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, 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.
Name History of the modern term The name Occitan comes from the term ("language of "), being the Occitan word for yes. While the term would have been in use orally for some time after the decline of Latin, as far as historical records show, the Italian medieval poet Dante was the first to have recorded the term in writing. In his , he wrote in Latin, ("for some say , others , yet others say "), thereby highlighting three major Romance literary languages that were well known in Italy, based on each language's word for "yes", the language (Occitan), the language (French), and the language (Italian).
The word came from Vulgar Latin ("this"), while originated from Latin ("this [is] it"). Old Catalan and now the Catalan of Northern Catalonia also have (). Other Romance languages derive their word for "yes" from the Latin , "thus [it is], [it was done], etc.", such as Spanish , Eastern Lombard , Italian , or Portuguese . In modern Catalan, as in modern Spanish, is usually used as a response, although the language retains the word , akin to , which is sometimes used at the end of yes–no questions and also in higher register as a positive response., 253.1 French uses to answer "yes" in response to questions that are asked in the negative sense: for example, ("You don't have any brothers, do you?" "Yes I do, I have seven.").
The name "Occitan" was attested around 1300 as , a crossing of and (Aquitanian).
Other names for Occitan For many centuries, the Occitan dialects (together with Catalan)Lapobladelduc.org , . The name of the language, in Catalan were referred to as Limousin or Provençal, after the names of two regions lying within the modern Occitan-speaking area. After Frédéric Mistral's Félibrige movement in the 19th century, Provençal achieved the greatest literary recognition and so became the most popular term for Occitan.
According to Joseph Anglade, a philologist and specialist of medieval literature who helped impose the then-archaic term Occitan as the standard name,: the word Lemosin was first used to designate the language at the beginning of the 13th century by Catalan troubadour Raimon Vidal de Bezaudun in his : The French language is worthier and better suited for romances and pastourelles; but [the language] from Limousin is of greater value for writing poems and cançons and sirventés; and across the whole of the lands where our tongue is spoken, the literature in the Limousin language has more authority than any other dialect, wherefore I shall use this name in priority.
The term Provençal, though implying a reference to the region of Provence, historically was used for Occitan as a whole, for "in the eleventh, the twelfth, and sometimes also the thirteenth centuries, one would understand under the name of Provence the whole territory of the old Provincia romana Gallia Narbonensis and even Aquitaine".Camille Chabaneau et al, , 1872, p. 170: The term first came into fashion in Italy.: .
Currently, linguists use the terms Provençal and Limousin strictly to refer to specific varieties within Occitan, using Occitan for the language as a whole. Many non-specialists, however, continue to refer to the language as Provençal.
History
One of the oldest written fragments of the language found dates back to 960, shown here in italics mixed with non-italicized Latin:
Carolingian litanies (), though the leader sang in Latin, were answered to in Old Occitan by the people (; ).
Other famous pieces include the Boecis, a 258-line-long poem written entirely in the Limousin dialect of Occitan between the year 1000 and 1030 and inspired by Boethius's The Consolation of Philosophy; the Waldensian (dated 1100),: (–1076), the Romance of Flamenca (13th century), the Song of the Albigensian Crusade (1213–1219?), (12th or 13th century), (11th century) and (9th or 10th century).
Occitan was the vehicle for the influential poetry of the medieval troubadours () and : At that time, the language was understood and celebrated throughout most of educated Europe.Charles Knight, Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, Vol. XXV, 1843, p. 308: "At one time the language and poetry of the troubadours were in fashion in most of the courts of Europe." It was the maternal language of the English queen Eleanor of Aquitaine and kings Richard I (who wrote troubadour poetry) and John.
With the gradual imposition of French royal power over its territory, Occitan declined in status from the 14th century on. The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts (1539) decreed that the (French – though at the time referring to the Francien language and not the larger collection of dialects grouped under the name ) should be used for all French administration. Occitan's greatest decline occurred during the French Revolution, in which diversity of language was considered a threat.
In 1903, the four Gospels (, i.e. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) were translated into Provençal as spoken in Cannes and Grasse. The translation was given the official Roman Catholic Imprimatur by vicar general A. Estellon.
The literary renaissance of the late 19th century (in which the 1904 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, Frédéric Mistral, among others, was involved) was attenuated by World War I, when (in addition to the disruption caused by any major war) many Occitan speakers spent extended periods of time alongside French-speaking comrades.
Origins Because the geographical territory in which Occitan is spoken is surrounded by regions in which other Romance languages are used, external influences may have influenced its origin and development. Many factors favored its development as its own language. Mountains and seas: The range of Occitan is naturally bounded by the Mediterranean, Atlantic, Massif Central, Alps, and Pyrenees, respectively. Buffer zones: arid land, marshes, and areas otherwise impractical for farming and resistant of colonization provide further separation (territory between Loire and Garonne, the Aragon desert plateau). Constant populations: Some Occitan-speaking peoples are descended from people living in the region since prehistoric times. Deeper Roman influence: The Romans had established an earlier presence in Southern France in 121 BC beginning with Gallia Narbonensis, where the seeds of the Occitan language were first sown. According to Müller, "France's linguistic separation began with Roman influence" A separate lexicon: Although Occitan is midway between the Gallo-Romance and Iberian Romance languages, it has "around 550 words inherited from Latin that no longer exist in the langues d'oïl or in Franco-Provençal" Lack of Germanic influence: "The Frankish lexicon and its phonetic influence often end above the / line"
Occitan in the Iberian Peninsula Catalan in Spain's northern and central Mediterranean coastal regions and the Balearic Islands is closely related to Occitan, sharing many linguistic features and a common origin (see Occitano-Romance languages). The language was one of the first to gain prestige as a medium for literature among Romance languages in the Middle Ages. Indeed, in the 12th and 13th centuries, Catalan troubadours such as Guerau de Cabrera, Guilhem de Bergadan, Guilhem de Cabestany, Huguet de Mataplana, Raimon Vidal de Besalú, Cerverí de Girona, Formit de Perpinhan, and Jofre de Foixà wrote in Occitan.
At the end of the 11th century, the Franks started to penetrate the Iberian Peninsula through the Ways of St. James via Somport and Roncesvalles, settling in various locations in the Kingdoms of Navarre and Aragon enticed by the privileges granted them by the Navarrese kings. They settled in large groups, forming ethnic boroughs where Occitan was used for everyday life, in Pamplona, Sangüesa, and Estella-Lizarra, among others. These boroughs in Navarre may have been close-knit communities that tended not to assimilate with the predominantly Basque-speaking general population. Their language became the status language chosen by the Navarrese kings, nobility, and upper classes for official and trade purposes in the period stretching from the early 13th century to the late 14th century.
Written administrative records were in a koiné based on the Languedocien dialect from Toulouse with fairly archaic linguistic features. Evidence survives of a written account in Occitan from Pamplona centered on the burning of borough San Nicolas from 1258, while the History of the War of Navarre by Guilhem Anelier (1276), albeit written in Pamplona, shows a linguistic variant from Toulouse.