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Occitan language


Occitan (English pronunciation: /ˈɒksɨtən, -tæn, -tɑːn/; Occitan: [utsiˈta]; French: [ɔksitɑ̃]), also known as lenga d’òc (Occitan: [ˈleŋɡɔ ˈðɔ(k)]; French: langue d’oc) by its native speakers, is a Romance language. It is spoken in southern France, Italy’s Occitan Valleys, Monaco, and Spain’s Val d’Aran; collectively, these regions are sometimes referred to unofficially asOccitania. Occitan is also spoken in the linguistic enclave of Guardia Piemontese (Calabria, Italy). However, there are strong polemics about the unity of the language, as some think that Occitan is a macrolanguage.

Occitan is an official language in Catalonia, where a subdialect of Gascon known as Aranese is spoken. Occitan’s closest relative is Catalan. Since September 2010, the Parliament of Catalonia has considered Aranese Occitan to be the officially preferred language for use in the Val d’Aran.

Across history, the terms Limousin (Lemosin), Languedocien (Lengadocian), Gascon, and later Provençal (Provençal, Provençau orProuvençau) have been used as synonyms for the whole of Occitan; nowadays, “Provençal” is understood mainly as the Occitan dialect spoken in Provence.

Unlike other Romance languages such as French or Spanish, there is no single written standard language called “Occitan”, and Occitan has no official status in France, home to most of Occitania. Instead, there are competing norms for writing Occitan, some of which attempt to be pan-dialectal while others are based on particular dialects (e.g. Provençal in southeast France, or Gascon in theVal d’Aran of Spain, where it is known as Aranese). These efforts are hindered by the rapidly declining usage of Occitan as a spoken language in much of southern France, as well as by the significant differences in phonology and vocabulary between different Occitan dialects. In particular, the northern and easternmost dialects have more features in common with the Gallo-Italic and Oïl languages (e.g. nasal vowels; loss of final consonants; initial cha/ja- instead of ca/ga-; uvular ‹r›; the front-rounded sound /ø/ instead of a diphthong, /w/ instead of /l/ before a consonant), while the southernmost dialects have more features in common with the Ibero-Romance languages (e.g. betacism; voiced fricatives between vowels in place voiced stops; -ch- in place of -it-), and Gascon has a number of unusual features not seen in other dialects (e.g. /h/ in place of /f/; loss of /n/ between vowels; intervocalic -r- and final -t/chin place of medieval -ll-). There are also significant lexical differences, where again the northern dialects have words cognate with French, and the southern dialects have Catalan and Spanish cognates (maison/casa ”house”, testa/cap ”head”, petit/pichon ”small”,achaptar/crompar ”to buy”, entendre/ausir ”to hear”, se taire/se calar ”to be quiet”, tombar/caire ”to fall”, p(l)us/mai ”more”,totjorn/sempre ”always”, etc.). Nonetheless, there is a significant amount of mutual intelligibility.

The long-term survival of Occitan is in grave doubt. According to the UNESCO Red Book of Endangered Languages, four of the six major dialects of Occitan (Provençal, Auvergnat, Limousin and Languedocien) are considered severely endangered, while the remaining two (Gascon and Vivaro-Alpine) are considered definitely endangered.

occitan; lenga d’òc
Native to France; Spain; Italy; Monaco
Native speakers
estimates range from 100,000 to 800,000 (2007–2012)
Language family

  • Italic
    • Romance
      • Western
        • Gallo-Romance
          • Occitano-Romance
            • Occitan
Early forms
Old Occitan

  • Occitan
Aranese dialect
Official status
Official language in
Catalonia, Spain
Recognised minority language in
Italy (Law number 482 of 15 December 1999)
Regulated by Conselh de la Lenga Occitana; Congrès Permanent de la Lenga Occitana
Language codes
ISO 639-1 oc
ISO 639-2 oci
ISO 639-3 oci
Glottolog occi1239
Linguasphere 51-AAA-g & 51-AAA-f
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols.Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbolsinstead of Unicode characters.


History of the modern term

Main cities of Occitan, written in the Occitan language

Main cities of Occitan, written in the Occitan language

The name Occitan comes from lenga d’òc (“language of òc”), òc being the Occitan word for yes. While the term would have been in use orally for some time after the decline of Latin, as far as historical records show the Italian medieval poet Dante was the first to have recorded the term lingua d’oc in writing. In his De vulgari eloquentia, he wrote in Latin, “nam alii oc, alii si, alii vero dicunt oil” (“for some say òc, others , yet others oïl“), thereby highlighting three major Romance literary languages that were well known in Italy, based on each language’s word for “yes”, the òc language (Occitan), the oïl language (French), and the sì language (Italian). This was not, of course, the only defining characteristic of each group.

The word òc came from Vulgar Latin hoc (“this”), while oïl originated from Latin hoc illud (“this [is] it”). Old Catalan, and now the Catalan of Northern Catalonia (French: Catalunya Nord) also have hoc (òc). Other Romance languages derive their word for “yes” from the Latin sic, ”thus [it is], [it was done], etc.”, such as Spanish , Eastern Lombard , Italian , or Portuguese sim. In Modern Catalan, as in modern Spanish, is usually used as a response, although the language retains the word oi, akin to òc, which is sometimes used at the end of yes–no questions, and also in higher register as a positive response. French uses si in response to questions where a negative answer is expected: e.g., “Vous n’avez pas de frères?” “Si, j’en ai sept.” (“You have no brothers?” “Yes [I do], I have seven.”).

The name “Occitan” is sometimes considered a neologism; however, it was attested around 1300 as “occitanus”, a crossing of ocand aquitanus (Aquitanian).

Other names for Occitan

For many centuries, the Occitan dialects (together with Catalan) were referred to as Limousin or Provençal, the names of two regions lying within modern Occitania. After Frédéric Mistral’s Félibrige movement in the 19th century, Provençal achieved the greatest literary recognition and so became the most popular term for Occitan.

According to Joseph Anglade, a philologist and specialist of medieval literature who helped impose the then archaic term Occitan as the sole correct name, the word Lemosin was first used to designate the language at the beginning of the 13th century by Catalantroubadour Raimon Vidal de Besalú in his Razós de trobar:

La parladura Francesca val mais et [es] plus avinenz a far romanz e pasturellas; mas cella de Lemozin val mais per far vers et cansons et serventés; et per totas las terras de nostre lengage son de major autoritat li cantar de la lenga Lemosina que de negun’autra parladura, per qu’ieu vos en parlarai primeramen.

The French language is worthier and better suited for romances and pastourelles; but the language from Limousin is of greater value for writing poems and cançonsand sirventés; and across the whole of the lands where our tongue is spoken, the literature in the Limousin language has more authority than any other dialect, wherefore I shall use this name in priority.

As for the word Provençal, it should not be taken as strictly meaning the language of Provence, but of Occitania as a whole, for “in the eleventh, the twelfth, and sometimes also the thirteenth centuries, one would understand under the name of Provence the whole territory of the old Provincia Romana and even Aquitaine”. The term first came into fashion in Italy.

Currently, linguists use the terms “Provençal” and “Limousin” strictly to refer to specific varieties within Occitania, keeping the name “Occitan” for the language as a whole. Many non-specialists, however, continue to refer to the language as Provençal, causing some confusion.



De ista hora in antea non DECEBRÀ Ermengaus filius Eldiarda Froterio episcopo filio Girberga NE Raimundo filio Bernardo vicecomite de castello de Cornone… NO·L LI TOLRÀ NO·L LI DEVEDARÀ NI NO L’EN DECEBRÀ… nec societatem non AURÀ, si per castellum recuperare NON O FA, et si recuperare potuerit in potestate Froterio et Raimundo LO TORNARÀ, per ipsas horas quæ Froterius et Raimundus L’EN COMONRÀ.


Other famous pieces include the Boecis, a 258-line-long poem written entirely in the Limousin dialect of Occitan between the year 1000 and 1030 and inspired by Boethius’s The Consolation of Philosophy; the Waldensian La nobla leyczon (dated 1100), la Cançó de Santa Fe (ca 1054–1076), the Romance of Flamenca (13th century), the Song of the Albigensian Crusade (1213–1219?), Daurel e Betó (12th or 13th century), Las, qu’i non sun sparvir, astur (11th century) and Tomida femina (9th or 10th century).

Occitan was the vehicle for the influential poetry of the medieval troubadours (trovadores) and trobairises: At that time, the language was understood and celebrated throughout most of educated Europe. It was the maternal language of the English queen Eleanor of Aquitaine and kings Richard I of England (who wrote troubadour poetry) and John, King of England. With the gradual imposition of French royal power over its territory, Occitan declined in status from the 14th century on. By the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts (1539) it was decreed that the langue d’oïl (Northern French) should be used for all French administration. Occitan’s greatest decline was during the French Revolution, during which diversity of language was considered a threat.

The literary renaissance of the late 19th century (which included a Nobel Prize for Frédéric Mistral) was attenuated by the World War I, when Occitan speakers spent extended periods of time alongside French-speaking comrades.


Because the geographical territory in which Occitan is spoken is surrounded by regions in which other Romance languagesare used, external influences could have influenced its origin and development. Many factors favoured its development as a language of its own


  • Little Celtic influence
  • Ancient and long-term Roman influence: Julius Caesar once said that the people of Aquitaine could teach the Romansthemselves to speak Latin more correctly. According to Müller, “France’s linguistic separation began with Roman influence”
  • A separate lexicon: Although Occitan is midway between the Gallo-Romance and Iberian Romance languages, it has “around 550 words inherited from Latin that do not exist in the langues d’oïl or in Franco-Provençal”
  • Little Germanization: “The Frankish lexicon and its phonetic influence often end above the oc/oïl line”

Occitan in Spain


At the end of the 11th century, the Franks, as they were called at the time, started to penetrate the Iberian Peninsula through the Ways of St. James via Somport andRoncesvalles, settling on various spots of the Kingdoms of Navarre and Aragon enticed by the privileges granted them by the Navarrese kings. They established themselves in ethnic boroughs where Occitan was used for everyday life, e.g. Pamplona, Sangüesa, Estella-Lizarra, etc. The language in turn became the status language chosen by the Navarrese kings, nobility and upper classes for official and trade purposes in the period stretching from the early 13th century to late 14th century. These boroughs in Navarre may have been close-knit communities with little mingling, in a context where the natural milieu was predominantly Basque-speaking. The variant chosen for written administrative records was a koiné based on the Languedocien dialect from Toulouse with fairly archaic linguistic features.


Things turned out slightly otherwise in Aragon, where the sociolinguistic situation was different, with a clearer Basque-Romance bilingual situation (cf. Basques from the Val d’Aran cited c. 1000), but a receding Basque language (Basque banned in the marketplace of Huesca, 1349). While the language was chosen as a medium of prestige in records and official statements along with Latin in the early 13th century, Occitan faced competition from the rising local Romance vernacular, the Navarro-Aragonese, both orally and in writing, especially after Aragon’s territorial conquests south to Zaragoza, Huesca and Tudela between 1118 and 1134. It resulted that a second Occitan immigration of this period was assimilated by the similar Navarro-Aragonese language, which at the same time was fostered and chosen by the kings of Aragon. The language fell into decay in the 14th century across the whole southern Pyrenean area and became largely absorbed into Navarro-Aragonese first and Castilian later in the 15th century, after their exclusive boroughs broke up (1423, Pamplona’s boroughs unified).

Gascon-speaking communities were called in for trading purposes by Navarrese kings in the early 12th century to the coastal fringe extending from Donostia to the Bidasoa River, where they settled down. The language variant used was different from the ones used in Navarre, i.e. a Béarnese dialect of Gascon, with Gascon being in use far longer than in Navarre and Aragon until the 19th century, thanks mainly to the close ties held by Donostia and Pasaia with Bayonne.

Geographic distribution

Usage in France

“Speak French, Be Clean” written across the wall of a Southern French school



This bilingual street sign in Toulouse, like many such signs found in historical parts of the city, is maintained primarily for its antique charm; it is typical of what little remains of thelenga d’òc in southern French cities.

Though it was still an everyday language for most of the rural population of southern France well into the 20th century, it has been all but replaced by the systematic imposition of the French language. According to the 1999 census, there are 610,000 native speakers (almost all of whom are also native French speakers) and perhaps another million persons with some exposure to the language. Following the pattern of language shift, most of this remainder is to be found among the eldest populations. Occitan activists (calledOccitanists) have attempted, in particular with the advent of Occitan-language preschools (the Calandretas), to reintroduce the language to the young.



Occitan’s decline is somewhat less pronounced in Bearn because of the province’s history (a late addition to the Kingdom of France), though even there the language is little spoken outside the homes of the rural elderly. The village of Artix is notable for having elected to post street signs in the local language.

Usage outside France

Aranese signage in Bossòst, Val d’Aran, Spain

Aranese signage in Bossòst, Val d’Aran, Spain

  • In Italy, Occitan is also spoken in the Occitan Valleys (Alps) in Piedmont and Liguria. An Occitan-speaking enclave also has existed at Guardia Piemontese (Calabria) since the 14th century. Italy adopted in 1999 a Linguistic Minorities Protection Law, or “Law 482″, which includes Occitan; however, Italian is the dominant language. It should be noted that the Piedmontese language is extremely close to Occitan.
  • Scattered Occitan-speaking communities exist in different countries:
    • In the Americas, Occitan speakers exist:
      • in the United States, in Valdese, North Carolina

Traditionally Occitan-speaking areas

  • Aquitaine – excluding the Basque-speaking part of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques in the western part of the department and a small part ofGironde where the langue d’oïl Saintongeais dialect is spoken. The towns of Biarritz, Anglet and Bayonne are originally Occitan-speaking, with Basque-speaking groups, but their Basque populations grew sharply during the industrial revolution.
  • Midi-Pyrénées – including one of France’s largest cities, Toulouse. There are a few street signs in Toulouse in Occitan, and since late 2009 the Toulouse Metro announcements are bilingual French-Occitan, but otherwise the language is almost never heard spoken on the street.
  • Languedoc-Roussillon (from “Lenga d’òc”) – including the areas around the medieval city of Carcassonne, excluding the large part of the Pyrénées-Orientales where Catalan is spoken (Fenolheda is the only Occitan-speaking area of the Pyrénées-Orientales).
  • Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur – except for the Roya and Bévéra valleys, where there is a transitional dialect between Ligurian and Occitan, (Roiasc, including the Brigasc dialectof Ligurian). There were former and now extinct isolated towns that spoke Ligurian in the department of Alpes-Maritimes. The Mentonasc dialect of Ligurian, spoken in Menton, is an Occitan transition dialect with a strong Ligurian influence.
  • In Monaco, Occitan coexists with the Monégasque dialect of Ligurian. French is the dominant (and imposed) language.
  • Auvergne – The language’s use has declined in some urban areas. The department of Allier is divided between a southern, Occitan-speaking area and a northern, French-speaking area.
  • Val d’Aran – part of Catalonia that speaks a mountain dialect of Gascon.

Number of speakers

The area where Occitan was historically dominant is home to some 16 million inhabitants. Recent research has shown it may be spoken as a first language by as many as 789,000 people in France, Italy, Spain and Monaco. In Monaco, Occitan coexists with Monégasque Ligurian, which is the other native language. Some researchers state that up to seven million people in France understand the language, while twelve to fourteen million fully spoke it in 1921. In 1860, Occitan speakers represented more than 39% of the whole French population (52% for francophones proper); they were still 26% to 36% in the 1920s and fewer than 7% in 1993.


Occitan dialects according to Pierre Bec

Occitan dialects according to Pierre Bec

Supradialectal classification of Occitan according to Bec

Supradialectal classification of Occitan according to Bec

Supradialectal classification of Occitan according to Sumien

Supradialectal classification of Occitan according to Sumien

Occitan is fundamentally defined by its dialects, rather than being a unitary language. That point is very conflictual in Southern France, as many people do not recognize Occitan as a real language and think that the next defined “dialects” are languages. Like other languages that fundamentally exist at a spoken, rather than written, level (e.g. Rhaeto-Romance, Franco-Provençal, Astur-Leonese, and Aragonese), every settlement technically has its own dialect, with the whole of Occitania forming a classic dialect continuum that changes gradually along any path from one side to the other. Nonetheless, specialists commonly divide Occitan into six main dialects:

  • Gascon: includes the Béarnese (sub-)dialect and Aranese (spoken in Spain).
  • Languedocien (lengadocian)
  • Limousin (lemosin)
  • Auvergnat (auvernhat)
  • Provençal (provençau or prouvençau), including the Niçard subdialect.
    • Shuadit language
  • Vivaro-Alpine (vivaroaupenc), also known as “Alpine” or “Alpine Provençal”, and sometimes considered a subdialect of Provençal

Gascon is generally considered the most divergent, and descriptions of the main features of Occitan often consider Gascon separately. Max Wheeler notes that “probably only its copresence within the French cultural sphere has kept [Gascon] from being regarded as a separate language”, and compares it to Franco-Provençal, which is considered a separate language from Occitan but is “probably not more divergent from Occitan overall than Gascon is.”

There is no general agreement about larger groupings of these dialects.

Max Wheeler divides the dialects into two groups:

  • Southwestern (Gascon and Languedocien), more conservative

Pierre Bec divides the dialects into three groups:

  • Gascon, standing alone
  • Southern Occitan (Languedocien and Provençal)
  • Northern Occitan (Limousin, Auvergnat, Vivaro-Alpine)

Bec also notes that some linguists prefer a “supradialectal” classification that groups Occitan with Catalan as a part of a wider Occitano-Romanic group. One such classification posits three groups:

  • “Arverno-Mediterranean” (arvèrnomediterranèu), same as Wheeler’s northeastern group, i.e. Limousin, Auvergnat, Provençal and Vivaro-Alpine
  • “Central Occitan” (occitan centrau), Languedocien, excepting the Southern Languedocien subdialect
  • “Aquitano-Pyrenean” (aquitanopirenenc), Southern Languedocien, Gascon and Catalan


Domergue Sumien proposes a slightly different supradialectal grouping.

  • Pre-Iberian (preïberic)
    • Central Occitan (occitan centrau), same as in Bec
    • Aquitano-Pyrenean (aquitanopirenenc), same as in Bec



All these regional varieties of the Occitan language are written and valid. Standard Occitan, also called occitan larg (i.e., ‘wide Occitan’) is a synthesis that respects and admits soft regional adaptations (which are based on the convergence of previous regional koines). So Occitan can be considered as a pluricentric language. The standardisation process began with the publication of Gramatica occitana segon los parlars lengadocians, grammar of the languedocien dialect, by Louis Alibert (1935), followed by the Dictionnaire occitan-français selon les parlers languedociens (French-Occitan dictionary according to Languedocien) by the same author (1966), completed during the 1970s with the works ofPierre Bec (Gascon), Robèrt Lafont (Provençal) and others. But it has not been achieved yet. It is mostly supported by users of the classical norm. Due to the strong situation of diglossia, some users still reject the standardisation process and do not conceive Occitan as a language that could work just as other standardised languages.

Writing system

There are two main linguistic norms currently used for Occitan, one (known as “classical”), which is based on that of Mediaeval Occitan, and one (sometimes known as “Mistralian”, due to its use by Frédéric Mistral), which is based on modern French orthography. Sometimes, there is conflict between users of each system.
  • The classical norm (or less exactly classical orthography) has the advantage of maintaining a link with earlier stages of the language, and reflects the fact that Occitan is not a variety of French. It is used in all Occitan dialects. It also allows speakers of one dialect of Occitan to write intelligibly for speakers of other dialects (e.g., the Occitan for dayis written jorn in the classical norm, but could be jour, joun or journ, depending on the writer’s origin, in Mistralian orthography). The Occitan classical orthography and theCatalan orthography are quite similar: They show the very close ties of both languages. The digraphs lh and nh, used in the classical orthography, were adopted by theorthography of Portuguese, presumably by Gerald of Braga, a monk from Moissac, who became bishop of Braga in Portugal in 1047, playing a major role in modernizing written Portuguese using classical Occitan norms.


Classical norm Mistralian norm Bonnaudian norm Escòla dau Pò norm
Totei lei personas naisson liuras e egalas en dignitat e en drech. Son dotadas de rason e de consciéncia e li cau (/fau) agir entre elei amb un esperit de frairesa.
Tóuti li persouno naisson liéuro e egalo en dignita e en dre. Soun doutado de rasoun e de counsciènci e li fau agi entre éli em’ un esperit de freiresso.
Niçard Provençal
Niçard Provençal
Touti li persouna naisson liéuri e egali en dignità e en drech. Soun doutadi de rasoun e de counsciència e li cau agì entre eli em’ un esperit de frairessa.
Totas las personas naisson liuras e egalas en dignitat e en dreit. Son dotadas de rason e de consciéncia e lor chau (/fau) agir entre elas amb un esperit de frairesa.
Ta la proussouna neisson lieura moé parira pà dïnessà mai dret. Son charjada de razou moé de cousiensà mai lhu fau arjî entremeî lha bei n’eime de freiressà. (Touta la persouna naisson lieura e egala en dïnetàt e en dreit. Soun doutada de razou e de cousiensà e lour chau ajî entre ela am en esprî de freiressà.)
Totas las personas que naishen liuras e egaus en dignitat e en dreit. Que son dotadas de rason e de consciéncia e que’us cau agir enter eras dab un esperit de hrairessa.
Gascon (Febusian writing)
Toutes las persounes que nachen libres e egaus en dinnitat e en dreyt. Que soun doutades de rasoû e de counscienci e qu’ous cau ayi entre eres dap û esperit de hrayresse.
Totas las personas naisson liuras e egalas en dignitat e en drech. Son dotadas de rason e de consciéncia e lor chau (/fau) agir entre elas emb un esperit de frairesa.
The same extract in five neighboring Romance languages and English for comparison
The same extract in five neighboring Romance languages and English for comparison
Tutti gli esseri umani nascono liberi ed uguali in dignità e in diritti. Sono dotati di ragione e di coscienza e devono comportarsi fraternamente l’uno con l’altro.

Debates concerning linguistic classification and orthography

The majority of scholars believe that Occitan constitutes a single language. Some authors, constituting a minority, reject this opinion and even the name Occitan: they think that there is a family of distinct languages (called langues d’oc / lengas d’oc in plural) rather than dialects.

Many Occitan linguists and writers, particularly those involved with the pan-Occitan movement centred on the Institut d’Estudis Occitans, disagree with the view that Occitan is a family of languages and think that Limousin, Auvergnat, Languedocien, Gascon, Provençal and Alpine Provençal are dialects of a single language. Though there are some noticeable differences between these varieties, there is a very high degree of mutual intelligibility between them; they also share a common literary history, and in academic and literary circles, have been identified as a collective linguistic entity—the langue d’oc—for centuries.

Some Provençal authors continue to support the view that Provençal is a separate language. Nevertheless, the vast majority of Provençal authors and associations think that Provençal is a part of Occitan.



For example, the classical (pan-Occitan) spelling writes Polonha where the Mistralian spelling system has Poulougno, for [puˈluɲo], ‘Poland’.

The question of Gascon is similar. Gascon presents a number of significant differences from the rest of the language; but, despite these differences, Gascon and other Occitan dialects have very important common lexical and grammatical features, so authors such as Pierre Bec argue that they could never be considered as different as, for example, Spanish and Italian. In addition, the fact that Gascon is included within Occitan despite its particular differences, can be also justified because there is a common elaboration (Ausbau) process between Gascon and the rest of Occitan. The vast majority of the Gascon cultural movement considers itself as a part of the Occitan cultural movement. And the official status of Val d’Aran (Catalonia, Spain), adopted in 1990, says that Aranese is a part of Gascon and Occitan. A grammar of Aranese by Aitor Carrera, published in 2007 in Lleida, presents the same view.


Linguistic characterisation


Features of Occitan


Features of Occitan as a whole






  • Original /aw/ preserved.
  • Various assimilations in consonant clusters (e.g. 〈cc〉 in Occitan, pronounced /utsiˈta/ in conservative Languedocien).

Features of some Occitan dialects


  • Loss of final consonants.
  • Vocalization of syllable-final nasals to nasal vowels.
  • Uvularization of some or all 〈r〉 sounds.


  • Loss of word-final single /n/ (but not /nn/, e.g. an ”year” < ānnvm).


  • Change of -ll- to 〈r〉 /ɾ/, or 〈th〉 word-finally (originally the voiceless palatal stop /c/, but now generally either /t/ or /tʃ/, depending on the word). This is a unique characteristic of Gascon.


  • Palatalization of /jt/ (from Latin ct) to /tʃ/ in most dialects or /(j)t/: lach vs lait (Gascon lèit) ‘milk’, lucha vs luta (Gascon luta) ‘fight’.

Comparison with other Romance languages and English

(all nouns in the ablative case)
(including main regional varieties)
Catalan French Ladin (Gherdëina) Lombard
cantare c(h)antar cantar chanter cianté cantà
clave clau clau clé tle ciav
ecclesia, basilica (e)glèisa església église dlieja giesa
nocte nuèch (nuèit) nit nuit nuet nocc
platea plaça plaça place plaza piasa
ponte pont (pònt) pont pont puent punt
Italian Spanish Portuguese Sardinian Romanian English
cantare cantar cantar cantare cânta(re) ‘(to) sing’
capra cabra cabra craba capră ‘goat’
chiave llave chave crae cheie ‘key’
chiesa iglesia igreja gresia/creia biserică ‘church’
formaggio queso queijo casu caş ‘cheese’
lingua lengua língua limba limbă ‘tongue, language’
notte noche noite nothe noapte ‘night’
piazza/platea plaza praça pratza piaţă ‘square, plaza’
ponte puente ponte ponte punte ‘bridge’



Some have claimed around 450,000 words exist in the Occitan language, a number comparable to English (the Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged with 1993 addenda reaches 470,000 words, as does the Oxford English Dictionary, Second edition). The Merriam-Webster Web site estimates that the number is somewhere between 250,000 and 1 million words.



One interesting and useful feature of the Occitan language is its virtually infinite ability to create new words through a number of interchangeable and imbeddable suffixes, giving the original terms a whole array of semantic nuances.

Differences between Occitan and Catalan

The separation of Catalan from Occitan is seen by some as largely politically (rather than linguistically) motivated. However, the variety that has become standard Catalan does differ from that which has become standard Occitan in a number of ways. The following are just a few examples:

  • Phonology
    • Standard Catalan (based on Central Eastern Catalan) is unique in that Latin short e developed into a close vowel /e/ (é) and Latin long e developed into an open vowel /ɛ/(è); this is precisely the reverse of the development that took place in Western Catalan dialects, and the rest of the Romance languages, including Occitan. Thus Standard Catalan ésser [ˈesə] corresponds to Occitan èsser/èstre [ˈɛse/ˈɛstre] ’to be;’ Catalan carrer [kəˈre] corresponds to Occitan carrièra [karˈjɛɾo̞] ’street.’
    • The distinctly Occitan development of word-final -a, pronounced [o̞] in standard Occitan (e.g. chifra ’figure’ [ˈtʃifro̞]), did not occur in general Catalan (which has xifra [ˈʃifrə]). However, some Occitan varieties also lack this feature and some Catalan (Valencian) varieties have the [ɔ] pronunciation mostly happening during a vowel harmonyprocess.
    • When in Catalan word stress falls in the antepenultimate syllable, in Occitan the stress is moved to the penultimate syllable: for example, Occitan pagina [paˈdʒino̞] vs. Catalan pàgina [ˈpaʒinə], “page”. However, some varieties of Occitan (e.g., around Nice) keep the stress on the antepenultimate syllable (pàgina) while some varieties of Catalan (in Northern Catalonia) put the stress on the penultimate syllable (pagina).
    • Diphthongisation has evolved in different ways, e.g. Occitan paire vs. Catalan pare ’father;’ Occitan carrièra (carrèra, carrèira) vs. Catalan carrera.
    • Also, many words that start with /l/ in Occitan start with /ʎ/ in Catalan, e.g. Occitan libre [ˈliβɾe] vs. Catalan llibre [ˈʎiβɾə], ‘book.’ This is perhaps one of the most distinctive characteristics of Catalan amongst the Romance languages, only shared with Asturian, Leonese and Mirandese. However, some transitional varieties of Occitan, near to the Catalan area, also have initial /ʎ/.
    • While /l/ is always clear in Occitan, in Catalan it tends to be velarized [ɫ] (“dark l”). In coda position, /l/ has tended to be vocalized to [w] in Occitan, while remained dark in Catalan.
    • Standard Eastern Catalan has a neutral vowel [ə] whenever a or e occur in unstressed position (e.g. passar [pəˈsa], ‘to happen,’ but passa [ˈpasə], ‘it happens’), and also[u] whenever o or u occur in unstressed position, e.g. obrir [uˈβɾi], ‘to open’, but obre [ˈɔβɾə], ‘you open’. However, this does not apply to Western Catalan dialects, whose vowel system usually retains the a/e distinction in unstressed position, nor to Northern Catalan dialects, whose vowel system does not retain the o/u distinction in stressed position, much like Occitan.
  • Morphology
    • Catalan has a distinctive past tense formation, known as the ‘periphrastic preterite,’ formed from a variant of the verb ‘to go’ plus the infinitive of the verb: donar ’to give,’ va donar ’he gave.’ This has the same value as the ‘normal’ preterite shared by most Romance languages, deriving from the Latin perfect tense: in Catalan, donà ’he gave.’ The periphrastic preterite only exists in Occitan as an archaic or as a very local tense.
  • Orthography

Occitano-Romance linguistic group



Occitan quotes

the Virgin Mary

According to the testimony of Bernadette Soubirous, the Virgin Mary spoke to her (Lourdes, 25 March 1858) in Gascon saying: Que sòi era Immaculada Concepcion (“I am the Immaculate Conception”, the phrase is reproduced under this statue in the Lourdes grotto with a Mistralian/Febusian spelling), confirming the proclamation of this Catholic dogma four years earlier.

One of the most notable passages of Occitan in Western literature occurs in the 26th canto of Dante’s Purgatorio in which the troubadour Arnaut Daniel responds to the narrator:

“Tan m’abellís vostre cortés deman, / qu’ieu no me puesc ni voill a vos cobrire. / Ieu sui Arnaut, que plor e vau cantan; / consirós vei la passada folor, / e vei jausen lo joi qu’esper, denan. / Ara vos prec, per aquella valor / que vos guida al som de l’escalina, / sovenha vos a temps de ma dolor”
Modern Occitan: Tan m’abelís vòstra cortesa demanda, / que ieu non pòdi ni vòli m’amagar de vos. / Ieu soi Arnaut, que plori e vau cantant; / consirós vesi la foliá passada, / e vesi joiós lo jorn qu’espèri, davant. / Ara vos prègui, per aquela valor / que vos guida al som de l’escalièr, / sovenhatz-vos tot còp de ma dolor.

The above strophe translates to:


Another notable Occitan quotation, this time from Arnaut Daniel’s own 10th Canto:

“Ieu sui Arnaut qu’amas l’aura
e chatz le lebre ab lo bou
e nadi contra suberna”

Modern Occitan:

“Ieu soi Arnaut qu’aimi l’aura
e caci [chaci] la lèbre amb lo buòu
e nadi contra subèrna.


“I am Arnaut who loves the wind,
and chases the hare with the ox,
and swims against the torrent.”

French writer Victor Hugo’s classic Les Misérables also contains some Occitan. In Part One, First Book, Chapter IV, “Les œuvres semblables aux paroles”, one can read about Monseigneur Bienvenu:



E ben, monsur, sètz saget?: So, Mister, everything’s fine?
Ont anaratz passar?: Which way will you go?




Michael Crichton features Occitan in his Timeline novel.

Published - August 2014

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