Learning Occitan

[SaligoBay]

While I'm vaguely sympathetic to the cause of keeping up interest in dying or dead languages, I do wonder if the only reason to learn Occitan is to be able to write graffiti on walls and bus-stops. "Turista fuera" and "non à l'invasion, viva l'Occitana" spring to mind.   Don't see much evidence of it otherwise.

 

 

 

[letrangere]

I do wonder if the only reason to learn Occitan is to be able to write graffiti on walls and bus-stops. "Turista fuera" and "non à l'invasion, viva l'Occitana" spring to mind. 

Great start to the day reading this, thanks for making me laugh SB.  We hear so much about Breton and the efforts people go to to ensure it doesn't die out but is it the same with Occitan?  M

[Mpprh]

hi

I've seen the local news on TV in Occitan.

I think it is a five minute slot on a Saturday, and probably on TV3 ?

Peter

[Richardbk]

So having taken this temporary detachment from the Paris area to Toulouse, we are now well and truly installed in deepest darkest Tarn, where the Occitan is taught in the village school and the 3 year old now speaks with such a wicked south west accent that the other 2 just burst out laughing every time she speaks. Some villages here have 2 names and even our house name has 2 versions, an olde french version and I guess and even older olde Occitan version(which BTW is the name on the IGN map). Luckily my wife has decided to give free english lessons, which to the relief of the parents has reduced the need to give encouraging signs when their little darlings come up with another totally useless phrase.

In some ways it is shame that these languages are dying out, but I'm of the belief that they should only be taught as an interest subject if there is enough time in the school day - and there usually isn't. Surprisingly Occitan is not high on the list of desired languages when working at Airbus

regs

Richard

 

[letrangere]

speaks with such a wicked south west accent

I sat next to a young British woman on a flight between London/Paris not long ago whose French accent when talking to the cabin crew was so distinctively south west that I simply had to comment on it, nicely of course.  She explained that she'd spent the third year of her degree course at the University of Montpellier and even though she'd lived in Paris for a couple of years since, just couldn't shake it off.  I've often wondered whether any Forum members speak French with their local regional accent.

Surprisingly Occitan is not high on the list of desired languages when working at Airbus

Yet a lot of people do presumably?

M

[Diana]

Back in the 1970's my sister in law had an English boyfriend who was a very junior member of the aristocracy. He spent his gap year teaching English in a run down area of Le Harve. When he spoke English he sounded like a lord but when speaking French he sounded like a French docker. This was much to his mothers disgust but everyone else's amusement.

Diana

[Janey]

Around here a lot of the old people still speak Occitan between themselves and the odd Occitan word will often be thrown into the conversation. My daughter does it at College, she chose to do it as it,s not obligatire and she enjoys it and say,s it is very easy.(she would, she finds languages very easy anyway)

Janey

[Janey]

Oops..that was meant to read..obligatoire

Janey

[letrangere]

Apologies for going a little off the thread here but the subject of French accents interests me.  I've been told by several French friends - including teachers over the years - that the French do not place as much emphasis on accent as we may still do in Britain but I'm not so sure.  Anyone know more?  M

[SaligoBay]

They do, Margaret, but in a different way.

Parisian/standard French is very much the order of the day everywhere.   Not many strong regional accents doing the news, for example, you won't ever hear a report about "veng nouveau".

Dubbing is interesting too.  Obviously the same person always does, say, Sean Connery, but there's no attempt to give him a regional accent like wot Sean has, they just choose a voice and stick with it.  Same with Wallace in Wallace & Gromit - whereas we can give Wallace a whole imaginary history just from his accent, I'm assured there's nothing at all to be imagined from the voice of his double (i.e. you couldn't say "that's the way a Marseille docker talks" or anything like that).

Regional accents tend to stay in the regions, and within the regions, they follow pretty much the same pattern you see in any British region, in terms of how "strong" the accent is - old people who have spent all their lives on t'farm don't talk the same as, say, their aspiring university-educated grandchildren.

When this lotissement was built 30 years ago, the street signs were in Occitan.  Now they're in French, with the Occitan in small letters beneath.  The huge influx of non-locals has an effect.

 

[Mistral]

SB, have you ever watched les zinzins de l'espace in French (I think it's called "home to rent" in English?) all the, how to say this, "slightly rustic" characters speak with a distinctly rural (I'd put it at top of provance) accent.

Otherwise, you only get regional accents if the film/programme is very deliberately regional. Every summer there is always la fiction de l'été and it's always down south somewhere with the accents (but not to strong we don't want to upset the Parisians ) I have tried to avoid the new soap on Fr3 plus belle la vie, but since it's in Marseille (quartier Mistral if I remember right, fame at last!) I imagine they're allowed to have accents.

Fr3 has Fr3 mediterranée with at least one programme in provencal and the news (don't know the frequency) There was a whole film in provencal a few weeks back (at midnight)

Margaret; the first time I lived in France, it was in Carcassonne. I went there with a normal, flat, "learnt French in a British school" accent and came back pronouncing the final 'e'  on words and talking about peng, veng et bourseng. Years of living with a frenchman who doesn't have much accent of anywhere, have taken the edge off but it makes people laugh.

[Pucette<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Pucette<FONT><P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">"Qui ne connaît pas la campagne lhiver, ne connaît pas la campagne et ne connaît pas]

The Occitan taught in schools is very different from the local "patois" which is still in use here (24/87) - inevitable as the latter varies from village to village. Opinion varies as to the utility of teaching it in schools but many are glad that some vestige of their native tongue is to be preserved; the irony is that its brush with extinction owes much to the language being beaten out of kids at school earlier this century.