Talk:Occitan language/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Status of the language: language or languages?

I have removed from the article the statement that languages are differentiated on the basis of mutual intelligibility - this cannot be backed up!

We could list many dialects which are perfectly, or to a large extent, mutually intelligible (or to be more accurate, dialects which form unbroken continua of intelligibility) but which are divided for political reasons into dialects - and just as easily, many 'languages' which are actually a plethora of vastly diverse dialects. I put just a few examples in the article.

In addition, it's impossible to decide which languages are mutually intelligible and which aren't - this isn't a yes/no issue. Spanish and Italian are mutually intelligible to some extent. To a Portuguese person, Castilian (Spanish) is perfectly understandable, but to a Spaniard, Portuguese is only intelligible to a limited extent. Catalans and Portuguese understand each other suprisingly well, however. Add to this that none of these languages is totally unified, but each form patchworks of dialects - how can we decide which are 'mutually intelligible' and which aren't in this mess? (This is also why I don't think it's fair to say that intelligibility between Occitan dialects is higher than between Occitan and Catalan - which dialects of Catalan and Occitan do you mean? The intelligibility between Provençal and Gascon is fairly low, whereas the intelligibility between southern Lengadocian and northern Catalan is fairly high - though it would be easy to find examples to the contrary.)

Kieron a m 16:22, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

(edit: oops forgot to sign, sorry ^_^ )

We cannot define if spoken varieties are separated languages or mere dialects of the same language only because they are mutually intelligible. This is a sociolinguistic question, not a pure linguistic one. Various german or arabic dialects are barely intelligible to each other's speakers and are considered varieties of the same language. At the same time Norwegian, Swedish and Danish (or for that matter Portuguese and Galician or Spanish) are largely mutually intelligible but considered to be different languages.

According to this article, Occitan is an artificial construct with virtually no social base. In Provence, for instance, most of the speakers consider Provencal to be a language of its own, different from Languedocian, Gascon, Auvergnian and Limousin:

http://www.uhb.fr/alc/erellif/credilif/ValenceEnglish.pdf

Sergio Morales

Then we are in agreement ^_^ kieron 11:41, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

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Sabiai pas que la pagina occitana de Wikipedia existissia.Cresiai que la lenga occitana era desbrembada e me regausissi donc de la descobrir. Comencèri de ne redigir una(Lupus Aquitanus) mas me maini que, fin'finala, es pas gaire necessari d'o far e qu'aquesta pagina esperava sonque de se balhar un contengut. Soi uros, benastruc, d'aver descobert aqueste siti enciclopedic.

Se i a de mond que s'alegran a parlar e escriure la lenga nòstra, aquò m'agradarà que jamai pus d'escambiar amb els e elas, de parlar de tot en occitan, e d'aprene de contunh , e pas sonque d'occitan( d'articles d'antròpologia, de botanica, de chinés e que te sabi mai, mas en occitan...).

A leu donc, e al còp que ven sul Wikepedia occitan

Lop l'Aquitan Lupus Aquitanus(Lupus, Lop paire d'Euda ,duc e primièr prince d'Aquitania).Lupus demorarà un siti a basa d'occitan ma s'avodarà puslèu a l'Aquitania.

P.S Benastrugui los qu'an creat aqueste projècte d'enciclòpedia respectuosa de la diversitat. Aprene e difusir dins la lenga d'una part dels mieus aujèols m'agrada.

Per avança mercés al mèstre de la tèla de m'aver assabentat sus l'existencia de l'interfacia occitana de Tarquin.

A perpaus,voldriai volentièr contribuïr amb d'autres a la concepcion del Oiquipedia occitan , mas cossi far per capitar lo prètzfach d'obtener de polidas paginas sul siti, sabi pas trèop plan utilizar l'utis encara?

En vacancas fins al 21/08/2003

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Occitan is an Ibero-Romance language, isn't it? I know French and Spanish and I hope I can contribute... It is not very difficult for me to understand the gist of the Occitan so I'll summarize: "I didn't know the Occitan Wikipedia page existed. I thought that the language had been dissolved, and I didn't expect to find one..... ....I want to contribute to the Occitan version of the site" (Sorry for my incompletion)

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hi. I'm afraid nobody speaks occitan here. Could you write in english (or in french -- we can talk on the french wikipedia). is this about help setting up the Occitan Wikipedia? or does it say "if you can read this, go help with the occitan wikipedia"? -- Tarquin 21:03 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I wonder if that line at the end means "I'm on vacation till August 21, 2003." -- ESP 23:26 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I'm almost sure -- Error 03:29, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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The following are translations of "Occitan" into several languages. In my understanding of interlanguage links, you only link to existing pages. It is not intended as a multilanguage dictionary. So I left only those links to existing pages with some information.

af:Occitaans ar:الأوكسيتانية az:Oksitanca be:Правансальская bh:oseetan bs:oksitanski ca:Occità cs:okcitánština cy:ocitan da:occitansk el:Οσιτανικά eo:Okcitana es:Occitano eu:Okzitaniera fa:فرانسوی fi:oksitaani fr:occitan fy:Oksitaansk ga:Ocatáinis gl:occitano hu:Okcitán ia:occitano id:Occit it:Occitano ja:オック語 la:Aquitana lt:provansalų lv:ocitāņu mk:Окситански nl:Occitaans no:provençalsk oc:occitan pl:Prowansalski pt:Occitano ru:Окситанский sk:ocitánčine sl:ocitanščina sq:Oksitanisht sr:oksitanski su:Ossita sv:occitanska sw:Kiositani te:Occitanu th:ภาษาออกซิตัน uz:Oksitan tilida zh:歐西坦語 zu:Isi-Osithani

-- Error

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Why is this warning at the bottom of the page:

(The views presented on this site are contrary to the opinion of the vast majority of linguists.)

It does not say which views specifically are against common scholarly opinion. If no one can make it clearer then I'll remove it. Kricxjo 03:02, 30 Sep 2003 (UTC)

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Ericd', I don't appreciate you moving the mention of Dante and then changing "Provencal" to "Occitan". According to virtually every critical apparatus on Purgatorio, the language which Dante puts in Arnaut's mouth is Provencal. Similarly, the language in which Arnaut composed his love poetry is specfically Provencal. By taking the mention of Dante out of Provencal and putting it here, you are contradicting centuries of Dantean study by people much more qualified in the matter than any of us. Kricxjo 14:25, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

About Dante I'm not sure to be right but see my comment on the talk page for Provencal. The use of Provencal for Langue d'Oc seems to be common in English. I'll try to have a look at some study of Dante in French. Ericd 20:04, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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languedocien, auvergnat, limousin, gascon and provençal are dialects of occitan and not languages. [Gnu_thomas]

Unfortunately, there is debate on that issue. Many English-language and Italian-language resources treat Provencal as separate from Occitan. Seeing as some dialects of Provencal are not mutually intelligible to speakers from, for example, Toulouse, that's IMHO valid. Kricxjo 14:49, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

for the IEO (institut d'estudis occitans) which can be considered as the "académie française" for the occitan, occitan is a set of dialects inter-intelligible. There are also errors on the specific dialects page. The dialect the closest of old occitan used by trobadors is the languedocien not the provençal. The limit of the limousin doesn't correspond to the limit of the adminstrative region, as reader can understand seeing the map. [Gnu_thomas]

About language versus dialects : This inter-intelligibillity thing is the typical exemple of a case where human sciences classifications have problem to deal with real life. Inter-intelligibillity is not a binary notion a large number or language are more or less inter-intelligible. For instance I'm a French speaker and can understand a few Italian or Spanish without having learned them....

Ericd 18:51, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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The discussion of the Latin origins of Romance language names for "yes" seems to be incorrect; the Latin word from which "si" and similar Romance language words for "yes" is derived is "sic" (thus, so), not "si" (if, whether). Right?

-- Seth Schoen (not registered on Wikipedia)

Deleted sentence

"The word Occitan is modelled after the historical region of Occitania, which in turn is modelled after Aquitania, a former Roman administrative region."

This sentence contradicts those prior to it. It is my understading that "Occitania" is derived from "Occitan" and not the other way around. Also, the area some call Occitania is much larger than Auquitain. Nathan 02:33, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)