Information AboutOccitania |
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Occitania refers to the lands where the Occitan Language is spoken. ''Occitania'' and ''Occitan language'' are Retronym s. They were neologisms from the 19th century for the centuries-old set of Romance Dialect s that use ''òc'' for ''yes''. GEOGRAPHY Occitania is composed of:
Occitan or langue d'oc (''lenga d'òc'') is a (including Niçois spoken in the vicinity of Nice ), Vivarais-alpine , Auvergnat , Limousin , Gascon (including Béarnais spoken in Béarn ) and Languedocien . All those varieties of the Occitan language are written and valid. Standard Occitan is a synthesis. Catalan is a language very similar to Occitan and there are quite strong historical and cultural links between Occitania and Catalonia . OCCITAN HISTORY Written texts in Occitan appeared in the s, for instance. From the division of to the 13th Century , the Dukes Of Aquitaine , the Counts Of Foix , the Counts Of Toulouse and the Catalan Kings rivalled in their attempts at controlling the various '' Pays '' of Occitania. The and 13th Century , the Troubadour s invented courtly love (''fin'amor'') and the langue d'oc spread throughout all European cultivated circles. Actually, the terms ''langue d'oc'', and ''Occitania'' appeared at the end of the 13th century. But from the 13th to the 17th Century , the French Kings gradually conquered Occitania, sometimes slaughtering the population (one million people were killed during the Albigensian Crusade ). The nobility and bourgeoisie started learning French while the people stuck to the langue d'oc. In 1539 , Francis I issued the Ordinance Of Villers-Cotterêts that imposed the use of French instead of Occitan in administration. In power neutralized them. The 19th century witnessed a strong revival of the Occitan literature and the writer Frédéric Mistral was awarded the Nobel Prize In Literature in 1904 . But from , but French gained the upper hand during the 20th Century . The situation got worse with the media excluding the use of the langue d'oc. In spite of that decline, the Occitan language is still alive and trying to gain fresh impetus... A LIVING CULTURE There are 13 million inhabitants in Occitania today. According to the 1999 census, there are 610,000 native speakers and another million persons with some exposure to the language. Native speakers of Occitan are to be found mostly in the older generations. The Institut D'Estudis Occitans (I.E.O.) has been modernizing the Occitan language since 1945 . Nowadays Occitan is used in the most modern musical and literary styles such as rock'n roll, detective stories or science-fiction. It is on the internet. Association schools ('' Calandretas '') teach children in Occitan. The Occitan political movement for self-government has existed since the beginning of the 20th century and particularly since post-war years ( Partit Occitan ). The movement remains negligible in electoral & political terms. At the time of Europe's emerging Regions , it wishes Occitania to become a federation of strong regions, with a lively culture and open to the world. REFERENCES
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