>
> I'm not sure "Occitan" is anything but a kind of political myth recently
> invented to subsume the diverse dialects : provençal, franco-provençal,
> gascon, etc.
> Provençal and gascon speakers are so adamant their own variety is like
> nothing else that it has always foiled all attempts at a common
> orthography
> for "Occitan".
> What are the ten major differences between Catalan and French in the first
> place ?
>
Although Arnaud is a French imperialist
======
Since when ?
Do you understand the word "imperialism" ?
A.
======
and I won't talk to him (BTW, France holds the northern part of Catalonia
since the 17th century and for French imperialism Barcelona is the southern
vertex of the hexagon) due to his lack of respect towards me,
========
Read again your own mails,
You may understand what happened.
A.
=======
I'd recommend to the interested readers Pèire (Pierre) Bec's book La langue
occitane. He devises an Occitano-Romance language group comprising
Languedocian, Provençal, Gascon and Catalan among other varieties.
Franco-Provençal DOESN'T form part of this group.
===========
For what reasons ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occitan
On this site, they claim valleys in Italy speak "occitan" (I suppose it's
the franco-provençal val d'Aoste !).
A.
=====
In this way, "Occitan" is a label which commonly includes all varieties
except Catalan. Like Bec, I think Gascon and Catalan should be both
considered languages on its own within Occitano-Romance but apart from
Occitan proper. But in a more restricted sense, "Occitan" refers to
Languedocian, the central variety and the one with more demographical and
geographical extension. The Languedocian stardard was raised by Lois Alibèrt
in his Gramatica occitana segons los parlars occitans, published by the
Centre d'Estudis Occitans inspired after the work of the Catalan filologist
Pompeu Fabra (Institut d'Estudis Occitans).
The Gascon dialect of the Aran valley (politically united to Catalonia in
the Middle Ages) has official status and has been standarized coherently
with Languedocian. In contrast, the French government doesn't recognize any
official status to any languages other than French. No wonder is this the
cause of the lack of a common standard for all varieties, as it's also a
major danger for thier survival.
=====
The main problem is this "occitan" thing is a complete historical fiction.
Note that the word "occitan" itself is recent : invented in 1886 by Mistral,
who by the way never wrote anything but Provençal !!
http://www.cnrtl.fr/etymologie/occitan
By the way, what's the use of all these dialects ?
These people never had any idea they could unite until they became French...
A.