Languedocien (French name, ), Languedocian or Lengadocian (), is an
Occitan Occitan may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain.
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France.
* Occitan language
Occitan (; o ...
dialect spoken in rural parts of southern France such as
Languedoc
The Province of Languedoc (; , ; oc, Lengadòc ) is a former province of France.
Most of its territory is now contained in the modern-day region of Occitanie in Southern France. Its capital city was Toulouse. It had an area of approximately ...
. It is sometimes also called Languedocien-Guyennais. Due to its central position among the dialects of Occitan, it is often used as a basis for a Standard Occitan.
About 10% of the population of Languedoc are fluent in the language (about 300,000), and another 20% (600,000) "have some understanding" of the language. All speak French as their first or second language.
Geographic distribution
Languedocien is spoken in certain parts of three French regions.
*
Occitanie Occitanie may refer to:
*Occitania, a region in southern France called ''Occitanie'' in French
*Occitania (administrative region)
Occitania ( ; french: Occitanie ; oc, Occità nia ; ca, Occità nia ) is the southernmost administrative region of ...
: south of the Dordogne, east of the Gironde, north-eastern two-thirds of Lot-et-Garonne, the southern fringe of Corrèze.
*
Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (ARA; ; frp, Ôvèrgne-Rôno-Ârpes; oc, Auvèrnhe Ròse Aups; it, Alvernia-Rodano-Alpi) is a region in southeast-central France created by the 2014 territorial reform of French regions; it resulted from the merger of Au ...
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
,
Limousin
Limousin (; oc, Lemosin ) is a former administrative region of southwest-central France. On 1 January 2016, it became part of the new administrative region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. It comprised three departments: Corrèze, Creuse, and Haute-Vienn ...
,
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
, and
Auvergnat
or (endonym: ) is a northern dialect of Occitan spoken in central and southern France, in particular in the former administrative region of Auvergne.
Currently, research shows that there is not really a true Auvergnat dialect but rather a vas ...
.
Characteristics
The following are the main characteristics of the Languedocien dialect:
*
occlusive
In phonetics, an occlusive, sometimes known as a stop, is a consonant sound produced by occluding (i.e. blocking) airflow in the vocal tract, but not necessarily in the nasal tract. The duration of the block is the ''occlusion'' of the consonan ...
s are kept at the end of a word: ''cantat'' anˈtat(in Provençal: ãnˈta;
* preservation of the final ''s'' of a word: ''los òmes'' uˈzɔmes(in Limousin: uzɔˈmej;
* the final ''n'' of a word is dropped: ''occitan'' tsiˈta(in Provençal: siˈtãn;
* absence of palatalisation of CA and GA groups: ''cantar'', ''gal'' (in Auvergnat: ''chantar'', ''jal'');
* preservation of the final ''l'' of a word (i.e. not vocalised): ''provençal'' (in Provençal and in Gascon: ''provençau'');
* lack of distinction between the sounds ''b'' and ''v'' (
betacism
In historical linguistics, betacism (, ) is a sound change in which (the voiced bilabial plosive, as in ''bane'') and (the voiced labiodental fricative , as in ''vane'') are confused. The final result of the process can be either /b/ → or /v ...
): ''vin'' i(in Auvergnat, Limousin and Provençal: jiiin.
None of these characteristics are unique to Languedocien; many are shared with one or more other
Occitan Occitan may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain.
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France.
* Occitan language
Occitan (; o ...
dialects. Languedocien is both a central and
conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
dialect. For these reasons, certain linguists are in favour of a standardisation of Occitan using Languedocien as a basis for this.
Variations
Languedocien encompasses a number of variations, the classification of which is still ongoing.
Louis Alibert
Adrien Louis Marie Alibert, known as Louis Alibert (''LoÃs Alibèrt'' in Occitan; 1884–1959) was a French linguist, born on October 12, 1884 in Bram in the Aude and died on April 16, 1959 in Montpellier. He specialized in Occitan and Langued ...
Domergue Sumien Domergue Sumien (in Occitan ''Domergue Sumien'', in French ''Dominique Sumien''; born July 5, 1968, in Compiègne, France) is an Occitan Occitan may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Mo ...
Pierre Bec Pierre Bec (; oc, Pèire Bèc; 11 December 1921 – 30 June 2014) was a French Occitan-language poet and linguist. Born in Paris, he spent his childhood in Comminges, where he learnt Occitan. He was deported to Germany between 1943 and 1945. Aft ...
and Domergue Sumien divide Languedocien into one or two supra-dialectal groups:
* Pierre Bec places Southern Languedocien dialects in the Aquitanian-Pyrenean group and the rest of the Languedocien dialects in the Central Occitanian group.
* Domergue Sumien classifies these Languedocien dialects similarly, but groups both Aquitanian-Pyrenean and Central Occitanian under the title of Pre-Iberian.
File:Bec supradialectal.jpg, Supradialectal classification of Occitan according to P. Bec
File:Sumien supradialectal.jpg, Supradialectal classification of Occitan according to D. Sumien
Usage
With the absence of a linguistic census, it is difficult to obtain exact figures on the number of speakers. The most recent global studies on Occitan say the number of speakers ranges from 500,000 to 700,000 for the language as a whole.
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
, which is the only organisation to treat Languedocien independently, estimates the number at around 500,000, and considers the language under serious threat.
See also
*
Occitan conjugation
This article discusses the conjugation of verbs in a number of varieties of the Occitan language, including Old Occitan and Catalan. Each verbal form is accompanied by its phonetic transcription. The similarities with Catalan are more noticeable ...
*
Languages of France
Of the languages of France, French is the sole official language according to the second article of the French Constitution. French, a Gallo-Romance language, is spoken by nearly the entire population of France.
In addition to French, several ...
*
Langue d'oc
Occitan (; oc, occitan, link=no ), also known as ''lenga d'òc'' (; 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 ...
*
Émile Mazuc Marie Joseph Émile Gaston Mâzuc (1832-1905) was a lawyer, landowner and scholar of the languages and dialects of the Languedoc region of France.Occitan languageLanguages of France