Wikipedia

Occitano-Romance languages

The Occitano-Romance or Gallo-Narbonnese (Catalan: llengües occitanoromàniques; Occitan: lengas occitanoromanicas), or rarely East Iberian,[2] is a branch of the Romance language group that encompasses the Catalan/Valencian and Occitan languages spoken in parts of southern France and northeastern Spain.[3][4]

Occitano-Romance
Gallo-Narbonnese
East Iberian
Geographic
distribution		France, Spain, Andorra, Monaco, Italy
Linguistic classificationIndo-European
Early forms
Subdivisions
GlottologNone
Occitan in shades of Purple, Catalan in shades of Red and Aragonese in shades of Yellow

Extent edit

The group covers the languages of the southern part of France (Occitania including Northern Catalonia), eastern Spain (Catalonia, Valencian Community, Balearic Islands, La Franja, Carche, Northern Aragon), together with Andorra, Monaco, parts of Italy (Occitan Valleys, Alghero, Guardia Piemontese), and historically in the County of Tripoli and the possessions of the Crown of Aragon. The existence of this group of languages is discussed on both linguistic and political bases.

Classification of Catalan edit

According to some linguists both Occitan and Catalan/Valencian should be considered Gallo-Romance languages. Other linguists concur as regarding Occitan but consider Catalan and Aragonese to be part of the Ibero-Romance languages.

The issue at debate is as political as it is linguistic because the division into Gallo-Romance and Ibero-Romance languages stems from the current nation states of France and Spain and so is based more on territorial criteria than historic and linguistic criteria. One of the main proponents of the unity of the languages of the Iberian Peninsula was Spanish philologist Ramón Menéndez Pidal, and for a long time, others such as Swiss linguist Wilhelm Meyer-Lübke (Das Katalanische, Heidelberg, 1925) have supported the kinship of Occitan and Catalan. Also, due to Aragonese not having been studied as much as both Catalan and Occitan, many people still label it as a Spanish dialect.[5]

From the 8th century to the 13th century, there was no clear sociolinguistic distinction between Occitania and Catalonia. For instance, the Provençal troubadour, Albertet de Sestaró, says: "Monks, tell me which according to your knowledge are better: the French or the Catalans? And here I shall put Gascony, Provence, Limousin, Auvergne and Viennois while there shall be the land of the two kings."[6] In Marseille, a typical Provençal song is called 'Catalan song'.[7]

Internal variation edit

Most linguists separate Catalan and Occitan, but both languages have been treated as one in studies by Occitan linguists attempting to classify the dialects of Occitan in supradialectal groups, such is the case of Pierre Bec[8] and, more recently, of Domergue Sumien.[9]

  •  
    Supradialectal classification of Occitano-Romance according to P. Bec
  •  
    Supradialectal classification of Occitano-Romance according to D. Sumien

Both join together in an Aquitano-Pyrenean or Pre-Iberian group including Catalan, Gascon and a part of Languedocien, leaving the rest of Occitan in one (Sumien: Arverno-Mediterranean) or two groups (Bec: Arverno-Mediterranean, Central Occitan).

The answer to the question of whether Gascon or Catalan should be considered dialects of Occitan or separate languages has long been a matter of opinion or convention, rather than based on scientific ground. However, two recent studies support Gascon's being considered a distinct language. For the very first time, a quantifiable, statistics-based approach was applied by Stephan Koppelberg in attempt to solve this issue.[10] Based on the results he obtained, he concludes that Catalan, Occitan, and Gascon should all be considered three distinct languages. More recently, Y. Greub and J.P. Chambon (Sorbonne University, Paris) demonstrated that the formation of Proto-Gascon was already complete at the eve of the 7th century, whereas Proto-Occitan was not yet formed at that time.[11] These results induced linguists to do away with the conventional classification of Gascon, favoring the "distinct language" alternative.[citation needed] Both studies supported the early intuition of late Kurt Baldinger, a specialist of both medieval Occitan and medieval Gascon, who recommended that Occitan and Gascon be classified as separate languages.[12][13]

Linguistic variation edit

Similarities between Catalan, Occitan and Aragonese edit

  • Both Catalan and Occitan have apocope on terminal latin vowels -Ĕ, -Ŭ (later -e, -o). Aragonese however has apocope of -Ĕ and in some cases, depending on the dialect, of -Ŭ:
    Latin Catalan Occitan Aragonese Spanish
    Orthography IPA Orthography IPA Orthography IPA Orthography IPA
    TRÚNCU(M) [ˈt̪rʊŋ.kʊ̃ˑ] tronc [tɾoŋ(k)] tronc [tɾuŋ(k)] tronco [tɾoŋ'ko] tronco
    MANUS [ˈmänʊs̠] mà [ma] man [ma] man [man] mano

    This evolution does not occur when the ellision of -e or -o results in a terminal consonant cluster.

    Latin Old Occitan Catalan Occitan Aragonese
    ÁRBORE(M) ARBRE arbre arbre arbol*
    QUÁTTOR QUÁTRO quatre quatre quatre
    Due to the evolution of the word ÁRBORE(M) in Aragonese, this example doesn't show the conservation of -e or -o that prevents a terminal consonant cluster.
  • Another shared trait is the conservation of the Latin initial consonantic groups FL-/CL-/PL-:
    English Latin Occitan Catalan Aragonese
    key CLAVIS) clau clau clau
    flame FLAMMA) flama flama flama
    full PLĒNUS) plen ple plen ~ pleno
    Some dialects of both Occitan and aragonese palatalize these groups into FLL-/CLL-/PLL-.
  • A large part of the lexicon is shared, and in general written words in Catalan, Aragonese and Occitan are mutually intelligible. Similar to the differences in lexicon between Portuguese and Spanish (although this is not always the case with spoken language and varies from dialect to dialect). There are also notable cognates between Catalan, Occitan and Aragonese.
    English Latin Occitan Catalan Aragonese
    old VÉCLA(M) vielha vella viella
    night NOCTEM nuèit ~ nuèch nit nueit ~ nit
    to rise PODIŌ pujar pujar puyar
    to eat MANDŪCĀRE manjar menjar minchar
    to take PRĒNDŌ préner ~ prendre prendre prener ~ prenre
    middle / half MÉDIU(M) mièg mig meyo
    enough PRŌDE pro ~ pron prou prou ~ pro
    I ÉGO ieu ~ jo jo yo
    to follow SÉQUERE seguir ~ siegere seguir seguir(e)
    leaf FÓLIA(M) fuòlha ~ fuèlha fulla fuella ~ fulla

Differences between Catalan, Occitan and Aragonese edit

Most of the differences of the vowel system stem from neutralizations that take place on unstressed syllables. In both languages a stressed syllable has a great number of possible different vowels, while phonologically different vowels end up being articulated in the same way in an unstressed syllable. Although this neutralization is common to both languages, the details differ markedly. In Occitan the form of neutralization depends on whether a vowel is pretonic (before the stressed syllable) or posttonic (after the stressed syllable). For example /ɔ/ articulates as [u] in pretonic position and as [o] in posttonic position, and only as [ɔ] in stressed position. In contrast neutralization in Catalan is the same regardless of the position of the unstressed syllable (although it differs from dialect to dialect). Many of these changes happened in the 14th or late 13th century.

Slightly older are the palatalizations present in Occitan before a palatal or velar consonant:

Occitan Catalan English
vielha vella Old
mièg mig Middle/Half
ieu/jo jo I
seguir seguir To follow
fuèlha fulla Leaf

The diphthongs and also set all these three languages apart, having each language different patterns and systems. Most of these come from the diphthongisation of Latin words with monophthongs, such as the descendants of the words like FĒSTA (party) or OCULUS (eye), or the monophthongization of Latin words that already had a diphthong, like CAUSA (thing). Some examples:

English Catalan Occitan Aragonese
eye ull uelh uello
leaf fulla fuèlha fuella
bridge pont pont puent
party festa fèsta fiesta
thing cosa causa cosa
few, little poc pauc poco

Shared traits between Catalan and Aragonese edit

A noticeable difference head by speakers of Catalan and Aragonese is the use of rounded vowels in Occitan. Both Catalan and Aragonese lack rounded vowels. However Occitan has /y/ and /œ/ in words like luna and fuèlha respectively.

The treatment of the Latin geminate -nn- also differs in Occitan. While Catalan and Aragonese tend to reduce the -nn- into a [ɲ] while in Occitan it turned into a [n]:

English Catalan Aragonese Occitan
year any anyo an

On another page, while Occitan uses exclusively the simple past tense, Catalan (most dialects) and Aragonese (Eastern dialects) use another past tense called the periphrastic past. This tense is made of the sum of the conjugation of the verb to go plus the verb performing the action in infinitive form:

English Catalan Aragonese Occitan
I bought vaig comprar va crompar ~ voi crompar crompèri
you bought vas comprar vas crompar~ vas crompar crompères
he/she bought va comprar va crompar ~ va crompar crompèt
we bought vam comprar vam crompar ~ vom crompar crompèrem
you bought vau comprar vaz crompar ~ voz crompar crompèretz
they bought van comprar van crompar ~ van crompar crompèron

Shared traits between Catalan and Occitan edit

Something that sets apart Aragonese and some Catalan dialects (such as central Valencian or Ribagorçan Catalan) from Occitan and most of the Catalan dialects is the devoicing or desonorization that happened in the former group. Phonemes such as /dʒ/ and /z/, which were replaced by /tʃ/ and /θ/.

Aragonese is the only of the three languages to have the -mbr- consonant cluster between vowels. Note that Ribagorçan tend to lose them as well:

English Catalan Occitan Aragonese
hunger fam fam fambre
man home òme hombre

Shared traits between Occitan and Aragonese edit

Catalan also has some things that sets it apart from the other two is the palatalization of the initial L. From /l/ to /ʎ/.[14]

English Catalan Occitan Aragonese
tongue llengua lenga ~ lengua ~ linga luenga ~ lengua
to read llegir legir ~ léger leyer

It is important to note those dialects of Aragonese that palatalize the consonant clusters mentioned before, also palatalize the initial L:

English Catalan Ribagorçan
Tongue llengua lluenga ~ llengua
to read llegir llechir ~ lleyer

Another trait is the use of the descendants of the pronoun EGO when used as the object of a preposition. Most Catalan dialects and the Iberro-Romance languages distinguish between the pronoun used as a subject EGO and the object of a preposition MIHĪ̆, while both Aragonese and Occitan use the descendant of EGO:

English Catalan Occitan Aragonese
I jo ieu ~ jo yo
(with) me amb mi damb ieu ~ amb jo con yo

Lexical comparison edit

Variations in the spellings and pronunciations of numbers in several Occitano-Romance dialects:[15][16]

Numeral Occitan Catalan Aragonese[17] PROTO-
OcRm
Northern Occitan Western Occitan Eastern Occitan Eastern Catalan Northwestern Catalan
Auvergnat Limousin Gascon Languedocien Provençal
1 vyn / vynɐ
vun / vunå		 ỹ / ynɔ
un / una 		y / yo
un / ua 		ỹ / yno
un / una		 yŋ / yno
un / una 		un / unə
un / una 		un / una
un / una 		un~uno / una
un~uno / una		 *un / *una
2 du / dua
dou / duas		 du / dua
dos / doas 		dys / dyos
dus / duas 		dus / duos
dos / doas		 dus / duas
dous / douas 		dos / duəs
dos / dues 		dos/dues
dos / dues 		dos / duas
dos / duas		 *dos~dus / *duas
3 tʀei
trei		 trei
tres 		tres
tres 		tres
tres		 tʀes
tres 		trɛs
tres 		trɛs
tres		 tɾes
tres		 *tres
4 katʀə
catre		 katre
quatre 		kwatə
quatre 		katre
quatre		 katʀə
quatre 		kwatrə
quatre 		kwatre
quatre 		kwatre~kwatro
quatre / quatro		 *kwatre
5 ʃin
sin		 ʃin
cinc 		siŋk
cinq 		siŋk
cinq		 siŋ
cinq 		siŋ / siŋk
cinc 		siŋ / siŋk
cinc		 θiŋko~θiŋk
cinco / cinc		 *siŋk
6 ʃei
siei		 ʃiei
sieis 		ʃeis
sheis 		siɛis
sièis		 siei
sieis 		sis
sis 		sis
sis 		seis~sieis
seis / sieis		 *sieis
7 se
sé		 ʃe
sèt 		sɛt
sèt 		sɛt
sèt		 sɛ
sèt 		sɛt
set 		sɛt
set		 siet~sɛt
siet / set		 *sɛt
8 vø
veu		 jɥe
uèch 		weit
ueit 		ɥet͡ʃ
uèch		 vɥe
vue 		buit / vuit
vuit 		vuit / wit
vuit / huit 		weito~weit
ueito / ueit		 *weit
9 niø~nou
nieu~nou		 nɔu
nòu 		nau
nau 		nɔu
nòu		 nu
nòu 		nɔu
nou 		nɔu
nou		 nweu~nɔu
nueu / nou		 *nɔu
10 die~de
dié~dé		 diɛ~de
detz 		dɛt͡s
dètz 		dɛt͡s
dèts		 dɛs
dès 		dɛu
deu 		dɛu
deu		 dieθ~deu
diez / deu		 *dɛt͡s

The numbers 1 and 2 have both feminine and masculine forms agreeing with the object they modify.

References edit

  1. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian (2022-05-24). "Glottolog 4.8 - Shifted Western Romance". Glottolog. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Archived from the original on 2023-11-27. Retrieved 2023-11-11.
  2. ^ "Ibero-Romance". Retrieved 4 October 2017.
  3. ^ "Mas se confrontam los parlars naturals de Catalonha e d'Occitania, i a pas cap de dobte, em en preséncia de parlars d'una meteissa familha linguistica, la qu'ai qualificada d'occitano-romana, plaçada a egala distància entre lo francés e l'espanhòl." Loís Alibèrt, Òc, n°7 (01/1950), p. 26
  4. ^ Lozano Sierra J, Saludas Bernad A.. Aspectos morfosintácticos del Belsetán. Saragossa: Gara d'Edizions, 2007, p. 180. ISBN 84-8094-056-5.
  5. ^ Tomás Arias, Javier. Elementos de lingüística contrastiva en aragonés: estudio de algunas afinidades con gascón, catalán y otros romances (Thesis). Universitat de Barcelona, 2016-07-08
  6. ^ Monges, causetz, segons vostre siensa qual valon mais, catalan ho francés?/ E met de sai Guascuenha e Proensa/ E lemozí, alvernh’ e vianés/ E de lai met la terra dels dos reis.
  7. ^ Manuel Milá y Fontanals (1861). De los trovadores en España: Estudio de lengua y poesía provenzal. J. Verdaguer. p. 14.
  8. ^ Pierre BEC (1973), Manuel pratique d’occitan moderne, coll. Connaissance des langues, Paris: Picard
  9. ^ Domergue SUMIEN (2006), La standardisation pluricentrique de l'occitan: nouvel enjeu sociolinguistique, développement du lexique et de la morphologie, coll. Publications de l'Association Internationale d'Études Occitanes, Turnhout: Brepols
  10. ^ Stephan Koppelberg, El lèxic hereditari caracteristic de l'occità i del gascó i la seva relació amb el del català (conclusions d'un analisi estadística), Actes del vuitè Col·loqui Internacional de Llengua i Literatura Catalana, Volume 1 (1988). Antoni M. Badia Margarit & Michel Camprubi ed. (in Catalan)
  11. ^ Chambon, Jean-Pierre; Greub, Yan (2002). "Note sur l'âge du (proto)gascon". Revue de Linguistique Romane (in French). 66: 473–495.
  12. ^ Baldinger, Kurt (1962). "La langue des documents en ancien gascon". Revue de Linguistique Romane (in French). 26: 331–347.
  13. ^ Baldinger, Kurt (1962). "Textes anciens gascons". Revue de Linguistique Romane (in French). 26: 348–362.
  14. ^ Elementos de lingüística contrastiva en aragonés: estudio de algunas afinidades con gascón, catalán y otros romances http://hdl.handle.net/10803/401328
  15. ^ "Indo-European numerals (Eugene Chan)". Archived from the original on 2012-02-12. Retrieved 2019-05-15.
  16. ^ Cardinals en l'argonés
  17. ^ "Los números en aragonés: Cardinales". Archived from the original on 2019-04-21. Retrieved 2019-05-15.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
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