Klarinet Archive - Posting 000557.txt from 1998/09

From: Lee Hickling <hickling@-----.Net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Re: klarinet Digest 15 Sep 1998 08:15:02 -0000 Issue
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 02:08:45 -0400

Roger Shilcock's take on la langue d'oc sounds right to me:

>Occitan speakers from different areas can only speak to each other in
>French (if they haven't learned the same foreign language). ......The
modern >dialects are widely different from one another
>and from the old language, which was a largely artificial trans-regional
>and even international standard.

This is getting way, way off-topic, but since it seems to interest some
subscribers I want to add that, although I have no first-hand knowledge of
the status of Occitan today, I strongly suspect that it is like that of the
Celtic languages, Irish and Scots Gaelic, Welsh and Breton. The strong
contemporary movement among Celts to affirm their identity by resisting
the language and culture of their conquerors and former oppressors has
taken the form of requiring Irish in the public schools of Ireland,
publication of a growing number of magazines and books in Scots Gaelic,
even more such publications in Welsh, and other phenomena such as bilingual
road signs in Wales and even rock groups that sing in Cymraeg--which is the
proper name of Welsh. Attempts are being made to revive even the extinct
Cornish and Manx languages.

One trouble is, among other things, that even though the Gaelic languages,
Welsh and Breton still have thousands of native speakers apiece and many
more who are somewhat bilingual, English or French has so long been the
dominant language in those areas that learning one of the ancient tongues
is more of a political gesture than a useful accomplishment.

Getting back to Occitan (a word I never heard until now, and which is not
in my Larousse), what Roger says makes me suspect that it is, and perhaps
long has been, a syncretistic language manufactured to satisfy a wish for a
common tongue to be used by a long-oppressed people now asserting their
historic identify. I'm for it. I used to belong to Cymdeithas yr iaith, the
Welsh Language Society, But I have to be gloomy about the chances of Welsh,
Erse or Scots ever really becoming a living language. I don't know as much
about Occitan or Breton, but I tend to believe that their status is much
the same.

By the way, one of my French profs told me that southern French dialects,
because they pronounce U as oo and do not have all the nasals of standard
French, sound to a francophone a lot like someone with an American accent.
Cool.

Thanks. I feel better now, and I'm ready to get back to reeds, tuning
barrels and ligatures.

Lee Hickling <hickling@-----.net>

-------------------------------------------------------------------------