Falling into the Abyss: the Tragic Decline of Occitan
Ever heard of Occitan? No, not the cosmetics company L’Occitane, but the language (or group of languages, depending on who you ask) which is still spoken, to varying degrees, in the Occitania region, spanning Southern France, Monaco, and smaller parts of Italy and Spain. Linguistically, it is very close to Catalan (and, indeed, some linguists contend that Catalan is a dialect of Occitan), and although Occitan does not have official status in France, it is an official language in Catalonia, Spain. Once celebrated as a language of poetic beauty, and even spoken by the English queen Eleanor of Aquitaine and kings Richard I and John, several of its dialects are now considered to be “severely endangered” by UNESCO. This is the story of a language whose tragic decline came about largely as a result of suppression by the French state, proving the age-old maxim that ‘a language is a dialect with an army and navy.’
The decline of Occitan can be traced back to the 14th century, with the increasingly hostile view of the French monarchy leading to a gradual, but decisive, imposition of Francien (pre-standardised French) over Occitan and any other language spoken in France at the time. The key turning point in this linguistic struggle came with the legislative reform that was the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts in 1539, which decreed that all legal documents should henceforth be written solely in Francien. Though the goal of this law was to ensure that Latin would no longer be the language of law in France, its effect on Occitan and other regional languages was profound, especially given that Occitan had competed with Latin as one of the main legal and administrative languages in France during the High Middle Ages.
Image credit: Joul Relay, Twitter @Joulmusique.
The worst, however, was yet to come. With the dawn of the French Revolution in 1789, language once more became a subject of heated debate, and though the revolutionaries initially favoured liberty of language, this policy was subsequently dropped in favour of the universalisation of French for the sake of national unity. Occitan’s greatest decline occurred in this period, as linguistic variety started to be seen as a threat to French identity, and the language that had once been spoken by royals and troubadours (performers of Old Occitan lyric poetry) alike was increasingly repressed. Indeed, all throughout the years of the Third Republic and even up until the 1950s, all primary school teaching was only allowed to take place in French, and Occitan speakers are still haunted by signs which read “Parlez Français. Soyez propres” [“Speak French. Be clean”].
One of the most shocking and demoralising aspects of Occitan’s decline is that, to a great extent, its repression is still ongoing in the present day. The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML), which asks for its signatories to protect and promote regional languages, still has not been ratified by France, on the grounds that it contains unconstitutional provisions, since the Constitution states French to be the language of the Republic. That a modern-day liberal democracy should turn its back on Occitan is a sad reflection of the lack of support that endangered languages typically receive to this day.
The scars of hundreds of years of linguistic repression and humiliation are widespread in the Occitania region, to such an extent that Occitan has a word to describe this disheartening phenomenon: vergonha. Literally translated as ‘shame’, this word encapsulates the struggle not only of Occitan speakers, but also that of other minority and regional language speakers in France who have suffered enormously under suffocating government policies. The notion of vergonha reflects the widespread misconceptions and prejudices towards minority languages in France, which are often pejoratively labelled as merely ‘patois’ [dialects], connoting a lack of education and sophistication since the term originally referred to rough, clumsy or uncultivated speech. Though the question of whether systematic linguicide has occurred in Occitan-speaking territories is still hotly contested, the very existence of vergonha does suggest that, at the very least, Occitan speakers have rarely been made to feel welcome speaking their native language.
Tracing the current status of Occitan in terms of number of speakers, as well as its significant decline over time, is complicated by the fact that these statistics often vary enormously. In spite of this, it is still worth examining the rough change in speakers over time in order to understand the magnitude of Occitan’s tragic decline. This is evident in the comparison of an estimate from 1860, which suggested that there were 14 million Occitan speakers in France (39% of the French population at the time)¹, with estimates from 2007-2012, which range from 100,000 to 800,000 total speakers (0.15% to 1.25% of the French population)². Moreover, it is important to note that defining a speaker of a language is difficult, as this could include both a native speaker who uses the language every day, as well as someone who can form basic sentences, but does not use the language frequently; the true number of native speakers could well be significantly lower than any total speaker count.
Is there anything we can do to slow or stop this decline? Well, some things are already being done: conversation classes such as Café Oc allow locals to immerse themselves in Occitan in Southern France, and in Toulouse, bilingual street signs and metro train announcements are reminders of the area’s linguistic heritage. Though these efforts are certainly to be admired, the stark reality remains that the language is mostly spoken by older populations and is facing a continued decline over the coming years. The only real long-term solution to keep it alive is to encourage its uptake by the next generation, and as such, the existence of Calandretas - schools where Occitan is a medium of instruction alongside French - is a step in the right direction. Unless drastic action is taken to protect this fascinating and historic language, not only do we risk losing the language itself, but also an entire universe of rich cultural and literary beauty which, until only a few centuries ago, was one of the dominant forms of culture and discourse in Western Europe.
¹ De Baecker, Louis. 1860. Grammaire comparée des langues de la France. p. 52.
² Bernissan, Fabrice. 2012. "Combien l'occitan compte de locuteurs en 2012?". Revue de Linguistique Romane (in French). 76: 467–512.