Talk:Occitan language/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Not encyclopedic statement

"More widely accepted wisdom suggests that as few as half a million proficient speakers remain in France, for example." What the heck is "more widely accepted wisdom" suppposed to mean? The statement should either be supported with a citation, or deleted. Even if it's retained, it needs to be re-worded to more encyclopedic language (e.g., "Several widely accepted sources suggest..."). 4.243.152.88 05:54, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Orthographic norms

Which one is closer to the orthography of Catalan, the classical orthography of Occitan, or the Mistralian orthography? Th article should explain this. FilipeS 16:04, 26 October 2006 (UTC

The classical orthography is closer to the Catalan orthography.--Aubadaurada 23:41, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Gallo-Romance language >>> Occitan language

It is certainly more appropriate to classify the Occitan language under the family of Gallo-Romance languages rather than under the family of Ibero-Romance languages. The Occitan language belongs primarily to Southern France. The Occitan language extends to eastern Spain and Western Italy but the areas that interest these countries are minimal.

ICE77 -- 81.104.129.226 19:24, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

This question was already resolved by the linguist Pierre Bec: Occitan is a transition between Gallo-Romance and Ibero-Romance. When you say that "The Occitan language belongs primarily to Southern France", such an argument is ill-conceived. Linguistic classification follows linguistic criteria: state boundaries are uninteresting for linguistic classification.--Aubadaurada 22:46, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

If the Occitan language is a transitional language between Gallo-Romance and Ibero-Romance languages then it should be classified under the Gallo-Iberian languages and not under Gallo-Romance and Ibero-Romance at the same time. In Gallo-Iberian languages it's classified under Ibero-Romance and in Occitan language is classified under Gallo-Romance. It doesn't make much sense to talk about the same thing and have two separate classifications under two different pages.

ICE77 -- 81.104.129.226 22:06, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Read Pierre Bec. The only widely accepted set is the Romance languages. All its subsets (Ibero-Romance, Gallo-Romance, and so on) are controversial and not rigid. Transitional sets are perfectly possible because Romance languages are a continuum.--Aubadaurada 13:58, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

political vs. linguistic classification

Most of the conventional, but still in use, sub-families of romance languages were rather based on political facts than on linguistic study: actually the country in which a language or dialect is mainly spoken used to set its sub-group. Thus the fact that occitan is still often classified as gallo-roman, while catalan is sometimes said ibero-roman.

People can argue for centuries on similarities or differences. The fact remains that cat. & oc. are very close compared to the distance from each of them to any other roman language.

Just to compare, portuguese, galician & spanish (castilian) are usually described as closely related. Actually, studying them shows astonishing similarities in all aspects of the languages -- except for nasal vowels, while they share higher differences with other romance languages. They may be called sister languages and form together an (west-)iberian sub-family. Then, compared to that group, the catalan/occitan pair, or the set of catalan and occitan varieties or dialects, is even (much) closer. There are differences, such as the occitan -o feminine ending, still they are few compared to the ones between portuguese and castilian. I would call them twin languages, which may be appropriate in respect to history: some signs show that they formed a common set of dialects in the late middle ages, which eventually evolved on separated (political) paths.

Upon the relation between french and occitan, and catalan-occitan forming a bridge between gallo-roman and ibero-roman languages : I don't agree with that. On one side, french, or rather the set of oïl language varieties, form a highly different sub-family, compared to all other romance languages, including romanian. The catalan-occitan group may be said to form a bridge between other romance sub-families, excluding french. French is nearly as far to occitan (or catalan) than to italian or castilian. Below how I see the romance family :

romance
    northern romance/gallo-roman/franco-roman/french/oïl 
    southern romance
        rumanian (2)
        italian/official/center & south (2)
        northern italian (3)
        sarde (& corsican?)
        occitan-catalan
        ibero-roman (4)

(1) long term frankish rule (2) vowel plural ending (3) -s plural ending (4) long term arabic rule As an axample of typical occitan-catalan feature: they have lost masculine and neutral endings (-o in other southern romance) and very often kept the latin root unchanged. For instance latin 'focus' --> oc-cat 'foc', it. 'fuoco', span. 'fuego', port. 'fogo', rom. 'foc', fr. 'feu' -- think at en. 'focal'.

--Denispir (talk) 09:46, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Poitiers

Was Poitiou never part of the Aquitaine?64.134.101.98 08:54, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Destroy 200 Years of Culture

Occitans, as a result of nearly 200 years of conditioned suppression and humiliation …

I don’t know much about the history of the region, but does this strike anybody else as POV? —Wiki Wikardo 19:00, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree--it should be deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.21.148.162 (talk) 01:22, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Categorization

Please see Talk:Romance languages#Confusion in categories. Any input is appreciated. --Amir E. Aharoni 12:46, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Concerning Occitan, Catalan and the Occitano-Romance subgroup, a response is there.--Aubadaurada 13:38, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Occitan language in Monaco

One of the last interests of Aubadaurada is to include Monaco in the Occitan language aerea. He already tried on WP fr: (and he is tempting on WP it:). His only sources (Bec, Arveiller) tell the exact contrary: nobody speaks Occitan there (except a big mistake, once again, of Ethnologue.com that states that 4,500 people speaks Occitan in Monaco… It is just a big confusion). I do recognize that, between 1860 and 1930' (and perhaps the 40s), few people, mainly immigrants from Nice and Cannes, were Occitan speakers. But there are more Russian, English or Italian speakers in Monaco than Occitan ones…-Enzino 14:13, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

It's historicaly impossible that Occitan language arrived to Monaco, because in the coastal area is Ligurian that enters in France no the Occitan in Italy. Some years ago there was an attempt to insert two Liguria villages in the Occitan area.But that was made by some local politicians just to have some funds , that the government gives to areas where there are linguistic minories to protect. People that can speak Italian and are interested in the case of the ligurian villages that tried to become Occitans can enter to the following link.

http://www.ald-monaco.org/uploads/pages/Langues_Dialectales_de_l_Aire_Latine/L_occitanizzazione_delle_Alpi_liguri_e_il_caso_del_brigasco_in_Quem_Tu_Probe_Meministi_Torino_Centro_Studi_Piemontesi_2009.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.57.253.199 (talk) 23:03, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

audio

Are there any links to audio files of someone speaking Occitan? Preferably with subtitles in English (or French). Have any feature films been made in the Occitan language? Or are there any Youtube clips? In any event, an audio file would be a useful addition to this article, either as media or as an external link. I tried the link to radio-occitania.com but it does not seem to have streaming audio. --Cinematical (talk) 01:34, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Here you go: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0483206/ Dësbela Ambërbojada (talk) 23:27, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Sentence in the Lourdes statue

I have changed the sentence that appears in the statue to "Que soy era immaculata councepciou", as it reads in the image. --Eleder (talk) 14:48, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

You're wrong. The correct and codified orthography is the former one: "Que soi era Immaculada Concepcion".--Nil Blau (talk) 22:03, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Some small changes in Occitan phonology...

Hi, I've made some changes in the transcription of the final unstressed -a. Some people may (/will) disapprove it but actually the usual description (Bec, Coustenoble, the diverse Linguistic Atlas) state that this vowel seems to be a mid-back rounded vowel just like in Spanish and many other languages. Some modern trends think it is an open-mid back vowel however it is really far from sounding just like the -ò- de pòrta for instance. See you, de còr e d'òc, Capsot (talk) 11:44, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Requested move (2008)

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus to move. JPG-GR (talk) 17:28, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Occitan language → Occitan — The term "Occitan" does not appear to have any other primary meaning than the language. There's no evidence of an "Occitan people", despite claims in previous move requests. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (languages) states that any term that isn't actually in need of the "language" disambiguator should not use it. I'm hoping we won't repeat the previous polarized reflex-polling, but rather that we weigh conventions, guidelines and the arguments of individual editors to make an informed decision. — Peter ^Isotalo 12:35, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Oppose - I see no need for this. It would be a change for change's sake. The current name is not misleading and i find "Occitan language" clearer than "Occitan". Also, a lot of links point to "Occitan language". --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 12:44, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Is this really necessary? The conventions are perfectly clear about this. I feel that your opposition is what's being done for it's own sake. What's the reason for making this article an exception to both common practice and long-standing guidelines? If it hadn't been for the fact that Occitan was a redirect that had been edited, I would've simply moved the article as a formality instead of going through the whole WP:RM procedure. Peter ^Isotalo 13:11, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Read the previous move proposals, they answer all your questions. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 13:18, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

They make no sense at all. First people opposed the move because they thought it was against conventions (which it was not) or that it had to be disambiguated from the "Occitan people" (that doesn't exist). Again, why is it so important to make this an exception from the convention? Peter ^Isotalo 17:31, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

It is not terribly against the letter of the convention and it certainly against its spirit. The whole idea of good article naming is to make articles easier to find, read and link to. "Occitan language" is easier to find, read and link to than "Occitan". Count the links to it, for example. Leaving this article at "Occitan language" is hardly an exception from the written convention, but renaming it to "Occitan" is an inconvenient exception from the de facto convention of naming nearly all language articles with the word "language". I'm not saying anything new - the comments at the previous discussion say the same and make a lot of sense. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 08:16, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The spirit of the convention as far as I can tell is to have short, unambiguous titles which are easy to link to. It's even worded in the "in a nutshell"-summary. "Occitan" appears to fulfill both criteria quite nicely. "Occitan language" merely adds one more word without any benefit. I'm quite aware that people are insisting on that an ethnic group called "Occitan people" exists, but no one appears to be able to support it with references. As far as I can tell, it's about as relevant as an "Esperanto people" or "Yiddish people". Peter ^Isotalo 12:10, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• Support. There's nothing to disambiguate with, so the "language" bit is superfluous in the title.--Boffob (talk) 17:57, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - I also do not see the need. Also, in spite of the comment above, Occitan could be used in reference to Occitania and not restricted to just language. Dionix (talk) 20:29, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Disambiguations are relevant only to nouns, not adjectives. The term "Occitan" has only one meaning in an encyclopedic context, just like Latin, Hindi, Inuktitut, etc. Moreover, Occitania is an area dependent on the language, not the other way around. The language is far more well-known than the area which defines its extent. Peter ^Isotalo 07:43, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
    • There are people who will disagree to the statement that it's only a language and not an area. I don't necessarily agree with them, but there is no clear consensus about it. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 08:16, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - If that move would be accepted, then when somebody will create for instance Occitan people it will have to be moved back again. I would suggest to be practical and leave it as it is instead of wasting time with changes back and forth. --Carles Noguera (talk) 08:12, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
• Neutral. "Occitan" already redirects here, and that's convenient. But "Occitan" would also be the appropriate adjetival form of Occitania, from which Occitan was formed by backformation. Perhaps we need a hatnote to Occitania. That would satisfy me and then I would support the move. Srnec (talk) 19:12, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Both Occitania and this article link to each other in the first sentence of the lead. Hatnotes seems a bit excessive. Peter ^Isotalo 10:51, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
    • I dislike unnecessary hatnotes as much as anybody, but in this case I worry that the adjetival form of Occitania might be taken to be "Occitanian" and the term Occitan thought to only refer to the language. Srnec (talk) 16:19, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - no compelling need; current title is clearer. Biruitorul ^Talk 20:12, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

I am not voting in this poll, but in the long linguistic tradition of forcing everything to look like Latin, I guess the proposal makes sense. And if/when someone decides to write an article about the Occitan people, they can call it "Occitans" (cf. Latins). And then we can AfD it. CapnPrep (talk) 12:23, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

It strikes me that several of the articles associated with this one also refer to their subjects as "languages", when they might be more accurately referred to as "dialects". We have Aranese language and Limousin language, which could be profitably moved to Aranese dialect and Limousin dialect (cf. Kansai dialect, Kunming dialect, Cumbrian dialect, etc.). If this ends up moved to the plain title, I suppose Provençal should remain where it is now. Dekimasuよ! 03:28, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Just a comment: I read a grammar of Aranese (in Aranese) and a few articles about it, and the tendency is to call it a "language", and to admit at the same time that it is a variety of Gascon Occitan. It is a bit confusing, but nevertheless there are external sources that call it a language, so we should do the same. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 21:41, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Sources tend to refer to languages with a disambiguator only when it is necessary for clarity. Pretty much the same as is the case here on Wikipedia.

Peter ^Isotalo 06:39, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

English language

The word Occitan was entirely new to me. I found the article very interesting, but directed a bit too much to the specialist, i.e., linguist. The English on the whole is good, but there are numerous places that show it to be written by a non-English speaker or speakers. I say this from nearly thirty years of experience correcting scientific texts written by non-native speakers. When I read something that contains what I see as language errors, I become suspicious of whether other parts of the text mean what I think they mean. Ami Ralph (talk) 01:06, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

First map on page

The first map would be helpful if the surrounding countries are labeled, because otherwise, one would have no idea where the Occitan language is spoken if they looked quickly at the article. The map pictured doesn't give one a sense of area at all. 74.69.7.20 (talk) 15:56, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree. The map is only useful if you consult another map at the same time. That's nutty. I thank the person who took the time to make it, but it needs labels! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.237.255.106 (talk) 08:13, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

typo in Gascon sample?

Totas las personas que naishen liuras e egaus en dignitat e en dreit. Que son dotadas de rason e de consciéncia e que'us cau agir enter eras dab un esperit de hrairessa.

Looks as if the fourth word "que" might be redundant here? Flapdragon (talk) 16:51, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Not at all. This use of que before a verb is perfectly normal in Gascon Occitan. It indicates an affirmative sentence.--Nil Blau (talk) 15:58, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Tributary, etc.

external influences could have impeded its origin and development, making it only a tributary of standard Latin.

Huh? I can't figure out what this is trying to say. 72.75.81.72 (talk) 03:10, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Written Occitan is generally understandable by readers who have some knowledge in any other Romance language

Where did you find that ? Would you say that "Written Spanish/Italian/French/Portuguese/etc. is generally understandable by readers who have some knowledge in any other Romance language" ?? 87.231.100.108 (talk) 03:31, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I propose to remove this sentence, since it's non sense, agree ? 193.203.192.15 (talk) 10:45, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok I do that, you will correct it if you think I am wrong. 193.203.192.15 (talk) 13:12, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Occitano-Romance linguistic group

In that section, it states, “Speakers of both languages share early historical, cultural, and amicable heritage”… “Amicable heritage?” Is this a mistranslation from a Gallo-Iberian language, or some usage with which I’m unfamiliar? I’d fix it only I’m not quite sure what they’re getting at. —Wiki Wikardo 06:38, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Addition to Occitan-speaking communities

Occitan is thought to be spoken in La Serena, Chile. A small wave of immigrants from Occitan speaking regions of France, esp. Languedoc-Roussillon, settled there in the late 19th century. The Chilean government sponsored immigration and land sale programs in the subarid Northern and forested Southern halves of the country. Among the 100,000 French immigrants whom came, an estimated 5,000 Occitans live in Chile. A small poetry reading club and an A capella song-and-music group by descendants of Occitan French settlers are preserving the language in Chile. Mike D 26 (talk) 03:52, 25 January 2011 (UTC)