Pierre Bec (; , ; 11 December 1921 – 30 June 2014) was a French Occitan-language poet and linguist. Born in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, he spent his childhood in

Comminges The Comminges (; Occitan language, Occitan/Gascon language, Gascon: ''Comenge'') is an ancient region of southern France in the foothills of the Pyrenees, corresponding approximately to the arrondissement of Saint-Gaudens in the departments of Fran ...

, where he learnt

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, spoken in parts o ...

. He was deported to

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

between 1943 and 1945. After returning, he studied in Paris, where he graduated in 1959. He was one of the founders of the IEO or

Institut d'Estudis Occitans The Institut d'Estudis Occitans (English: Occitan Studies Institute or Institute for Occitan Studies; ), or IEO, is a cultural association that was founded in 1945 by a group of Occitan and French writers including Jean Cassou, Tristan Tzara, Is ...

(Institute of Occitan Studies) as well as its president from 1962 to 1980.

Life

Pierre Bec spent his childhood in Cazères-sur-Garonne where he learned Gascon. In 1938, he was an interpreter for the Spanish Republican refugees who had crossed the Pyrenees, and he discovered Catalan. He was deported in March 1943 to

as part of the compulsory labor service. Bec was titular professor at

Poitiers Poitiers is a city on the river Clain in west-central France. It is a commune in France, commune, the capital of the Vienne (department), Vienne department and the historical center of Poitou, Poitou Province. In 2021, it had a population of 9 ...

university and assistant director of the ''Centre d'Études Supérieures de Civilisation Médiévale'' (Centre for high studies in medieval civilisation). He is considered one of the most important specialists in Occitan

dialectology Dialectology (from Ancient Greek, Greek , ''dialektos'', "talk, dialect"; and , ''-logy, -logia'') is the scientific study of dialects: subsets of languages. Though in the 19th century a branch of historical linguistics, dialectology is often now c ...

and in mediaeval Occitan literature. His activity is distributed among Occitanist politics, philological research and literary creation. He collaborated with publications like ''Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale'', ''Revue de Linguistique Romane'', ''Estudis Romànics'', ''Oc''. In 1982 he took part in the Linguistic Normalisation commission for

Aranese Aranese () is a standardized form of the Pyrenean Gascon dialect, Gascon variety of the Occitan language spoken in the Val d'Aran, in northwestern Catalonia close to the France–Spain border, Spanish border with France, where it is one of the t ...

, with Jacme Taupiac and Miquèu Grosclaude: they established some linguistics norms, officialised in 1983, following IEO's indications for Gascon. Bec died in

on 30 June 2014, at the age of 92.

Importance for Gallo-Cisalpine language(s)

As a linguist, Pierre Bec stated, within his ''Manuel pratique de Philologie romane'' (2nd volume, p. 316) that some kind of diachronical unity holds between Rhaeto-Romance languages (i.e. Romansh, Friulian and Ladin) and

Northern Italian Northern Italy (, , ) is a geographical and cultural region in the northern part of Italy. The Italian National Institute of Statistics defines the region as encompassing the four Northwest Italy, northwestern Regions of Italy, regions of Piedmo ...

or Cisalpine ones (

Western Lombard Western Lombard is a group of varieties of the Lombard language, a Romance language of the Gallo-Italic subgroup. It is spoken primarily in Italy and Switzerland. Within Italy, it is prevalent in the Lombard provinces of Milan, Monza and Brianz ...

Eastern Lombard Eastern Lombard is a group of closely related variants of Lombard, a Gallo-Italic language spoken in Lombardy, mainly in the provinces of Bergamo, Brescia and Mantua, in the area around Cremona and in parts of Trentino. Its main variants are ...

Piedmontese Piedmontese ( ; autonym: or ; ) is a language spoken by some 2,000,000 people mostly in Piedmont, a region of Northwest Italy. Although considered by most linguists a separate language, in Italy it is often mistakenly regarded as an Italian ...

, Venetan, Emiliano-Romagnolo and Ligurian). This issue has been further investigated by the

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

linguist Geoffrey Hull.

Works

Literature

* ''Petite anthologie de la lyrique occitane du Moyen Âge'' (1954) * ''Les saluts d'amour du troubadour Arnaud de Mareuil'' (1961) (editor) * ''La langue occitane'' (1963) * ''Burlesque et obscénité chez les troubadours'' (1984) * ''Chants d'amour des femmes troubadours'' (1995) (

Anthologist In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs, or related fiction/non-fiction excerpts by different authors. There are also thematic and ge ...

) * ''Au briu de l'estona'' (1955) poetry * ''Sonets barròcs entà Iseut'' (1979) poetry * ''Lo hiu tibat'' (1978) Novel * ''Sebastian'' (1980) Novel * ''Raconte d’una mort tranquilla'' (1993) Short Story * ''Contes de l'unic'' (1977) Short Story

Linguistics

* ''Manuel pratique d'occitan moderne'' (Picard, 1973; 2e édition 1983) * ''Manuel pratique de philologie romane'' (Picard, 1970 (vol. 1), 1971 (vol. 2) - reedit. 2000) * ''Les Interférences linguistiques entre gascon et languedocien dans les parlers du Comminges et du Couserans'' (PUF, 1968): Essai d'aréologie systématique.

References