How different is Occitan from French?
Occitan is an official language of Catalonia, where a subdialect of Gascon known as Aranese is spoken in the Val d’Aran. Unlike other Romance languages such as French or Spanish, there is no single written standard language called “Occitan”, and Occitan has no official status in France, home to most of Occitania.
What language is Occitan close to?
Linguistically, it is very close to Catalan (and, indeed, some linguists contend that Catalan is a dialect of Occitan), and although Occitan does not have official status in France, it is an official language in Catalonia, Spain.
Who speaks Occitan?
Occitan is spoken primarily in rural areas of Southern France, Monaco, the Val d’Aran region in Spain, and the Occitan Valleys in Italy. There may be as many as 200,000 speakers who consider this Romance language their mother tongue.
What does Occitan sound like to French people?
Occitan sounds more like if french people would speak catalan with a French accent. For non-occitan people, Occitan sounds very similar to Spanish, just as Catalan sounds like Spanish to the non-spanish speakers, but it’s in fact, very different. French people from non-occitan regions or who didn’t have grandparents talking in occitan or
Is Occitan still spoken in Monaco?
Traditionally Occitan-speaking areas. In Monaco, Occitan, imported by immigrants coexisted in the 19th and 20th centuries with the Monégasque dialect of Ligurian. French is the dominant language. Poitou-Charentes – Use of Occitan has declined here in the few parts it used to be spoken, replaced by French.
How many different dialects of Occitan are there?
Nonetheless, specialists commonly divide Occitan into six main dialects: Gascon: includes the Béarnese and Aranese (spoken in Spain). Languedocien (lengadocian) Limousin (lemosin) Auvergnat (auvernhat) Provençal (provençau or prouvençau), including the Niçard subdialect. Shuadit language
Where does the name Occitan come from?
The name Occitan comes from the term lenga d’òc (“language of òc “), òc 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 lingua d’oc in writing.