Occitan

[chessfou]

Anyone here learning (or speaks) Occitan?

I'm looking for recommendations for a basic course (for French speakers unless there is something exceptional for English speakers) on CD/DVD/line.

Any ideas?

[Tony F Dordogne]

I have a couple of Occitan dictionaries and books and know somebody who teaches it - but he's rather aged now and tells me that he doesn't have many students.

From what he says, Occitan is a dying language mainly sopoken by older people and there is no call now to learn it formally - but somebody else may have heard differently.

[Chauffour]

i came from the Piemonte region, just over the alps in Italy and the language i speak with my family and most of my friends is Piemontese.

one day i was listening to a local Perigueux radio,  the whole program was in Occitan and it's incredible how may words are the same or sound similar! Even Tracy who only knows 1% of the words was picking them up!

i think it's all to do with the langue d'oc and how spread it was at the time.

..and it's sad but also Piemontese is dying... the kids of my 3 sisters they al undertand  but never use it, so in another generation it will be dead...

 

[Quillan]

Some of the old guys in Cavirac speak it on a day to day basis but knowbody else understands them. I believe there is a revival going on locally and there is an option as a 3rd language to take it at the school in Quillan. Just a conversation I overheard so I may not be correct.

[Ormx]

yes revival is happening... the education nationale have a programme where any school can choose to become bilingual with a local language (e.g. in Brittany this can be Breton but, interestingly, in the 13e arrondissement in Paris this could be Chinese and French). Our region has chosen Occitan (we're in the Gascony area so the dialect is Gascon) and there are some schools around Hautes Pyrenees/Ariege etc that have been doing this for a few years. Our school (maternelle) started last year (the first school in the Gers dept) and my daughter at ripe old age of 3 was one of the first. She has 1/2 day doing her normal lessons in French and the other 1/2 in Occitan (and English at home but that's an exception!). The plan is that the teaching will follow her up through her school years, this year the Moyenne section and Grande section maternelle are involved, next year it will be MS, GS and  CP etc. etc. By the time she's ready to sit her brevet she should be completely bilingual and be allowed to sit it through occitan. That's the theory. So far so good, the Occitan teacher speaks to them only in Oc and they seem to understand, most of the class who are in their 2nd year respond well (and don't even realise they're speaking another language). So far I've only picked up "adios"!!!

I went to a talk about it last year and remember only a few points, but the main one was that bilingualism is hugely advantageous to our children in more ways than actually communicating in that language (2 language centres are created in the brain and it give advantages in other things like mathematical problem-solving, spelling and other things I can't remember). So the gov has decided to provide this opportunity using a local language (and NOT English!), and believe learning another language later (in lycee) will be easy-peasy by then. I believe it - that's why I sent my unsuspecting 3 y.o to Occitan!!!!!!!!

to answer the original question: i haven't a clue where you could get a book but I did come across this: http://www.dobl-oc.com/Frances/C222Leng1_fr.htm#4

[Bones]

Our seven year old learns it at school.

Pointless as Cornish as far as I'm concerned -- but the missus reckons that the rich tapestry of life is being eroded by the loss of so many of our beautiful regional languages. What about esperanto then?!