--- In cybalist@..., "Stephane Bourdoncle"
<stephane.g.bourdoncle@...> wrote:
> May I suggest many corrections on oc languages' map in the file
> titled Romance. ...
Is there such a map for the whole of France? I get the impression that
(up to the 19th century) all sorts of variant languages and dialects
were spoken in various parts of France. For example, in a patois
spoken in the Marne region "we" nominative was {je}, not "nous", and
the 3rd person plural verb ending carried the stress: {ils donnENT}
like in the present participle. I even read somewhere of `th' as in
"thing" and/or `ch' as in German "ach" appearing in some French
dialects, and of dialects where the masculine / feminine difference in
inanimate nouns had vanished.
It seems that some French dialects did not drop `s' before consonants:
Latin "costellus" became standard French "côteau", but the `s'
persists in the wellknown name Cousteau. I scuba dive. Cousteau was
born in Bordeaux (shown as Bordeu in your map). (How common is that
surname in various parts of France?)
Is the north border of Occitanian sharp? Some books seemed to say
that, of various features distinguishing Occitanian from French, one
feature had one northern limit of territory, and another feature had
another. E.g. the north limit of the area where Latin single`t'
between vowels persisted (the "aimeé / amada" line) has one route, and
some other isoglosses have other routes.
How well is Occitanian (and other regional languages of France)
holding out against standard French in common spoken usage?
The dialect region marked "Gascon" is the area that the Romns called
Aquitania. Some say that all of Aquitania spoke Basque when Julius
Caesar came. Is there anything that points to a Basque substratum in
Gascon language or placenames? What evidence is there of the north
limit of Basque speech at various times in the past?