Occitania

Occitania refers to the lands where the Occitan language is spoken.

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Occitania and Occitan language are retronyms. They were neologisms from the 19th century for the centuries-old set of Romance dialects that use ?c for yes.

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Occitania is composed of:

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• The southern half of the French state: Provence, Dr?me-Vivarais, Auvergne, Limousin, Guyenne, Gascony and Languedoc,
• The Occitan valleys in the Italian alps, where the Occitan language received legal status in 1999. These are fourteen Piedmontese valleys in the provinces of Cuneo and Torino, as well as in scattered mountain communities of the Liguria region (province of Imperia), and, unexpectedly, in one community (Guardia Piemontese) in the region of Calabria (province of Cosenza).
• The Aran valley, in the Pyrenees (Spanish state) where Occitan has been an official language since 1987.

Occitan or langue d'oc (lenga d'?c) is a Latin-based Romance language in the same way as Spanish, Italian or French. There are six main regional varieties with easy intercomprehension among them: Proven?al (including Ni?ois spoken in the vicinity of Nice), Vivarais-alpine, Auvergnat, Limousin, Gascon (including B?arnais spoken in B?arn) and Languedocien. All those varieties of the Occitan language are written and valid. Standard Occitan is a synthesis.

Occitania: Geography ►



 

Retronym: A retronym is a new word or phrase coined for an old object or concept whose original name has become used for something else or is no longer unique. "Retronym" is a neologism coined by Frank Mankiewicz http://www.bizforward.com/wdc/issues/2001-03/interview/ and popularized by William Safire http:/...

Romance dialect: Redirect Romance languages...

Latin: Latin is an Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. It gained great importance as the formal language of the Roman Empire. All Romance languages are descended from Latin, and many words based on Latin are found in other modern languages such as English. The ...