Occitan

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From the Smithsonian:

Alidé Sans, a 25-year-old singer-songwriter known for her soulful voice and upbeat, rumba- and reggae-inspired guitar riffs, grew up in the Catalonia region of northeastern Spain. As a child, though, she spoke neither Spanish nor Catalan.

Sans first learned to express herself in Aranese, a critically endangered dialect of a Romance language called Occitan (also endangered) that is spoken in Monaco and southern France, as well as smaller areas in the north of Spain and Italy. “I have always been aware that I grew up in a place with a strong identity,” she says. “I could feel it every time that we left the valley, every time my family would come from France or elsewhere in Catalonia.”

Sans also grew up with music.

Her mother, a music teacher, was the first to adapt the biblical creation song to Occitan, and she instilled a love of sonic beauty in her daughter at an early age. When Sans was 15, she began writing her own music, in Spanish, working with a group that played rumba and flamenco. She quickly realized, however, that she could not ignore a growing “internal conflict” regarding her native Aranese, which is spoken only in Val d’Aran, a 240-square-mile valley nestled amongst the green, rugged peaks of the Pyrenees. “I was communicating to an audience in Spanish, and I felt that my language—with which I had learned to speak, read, write—was in danger,” Sans says. “I decided to write and sing in Occitan.”

Link to the rest at the Smithsonian

1 thought on “Occitan”

  1. IIRC, technically, a subdialect. Occitan -> Gascon -> Aranès. I can understand old occitan, written, with some effort. I can barely grasp anything of Aranès. It’s quirky.

    I can’t recall the political situation in France these days, only that it was seriously mischaracterized after the French Revolution and pushed into oblivion (one country, one language tends to favour political power). What little Occitan I read in Avignon some years ago seemed to be more a sprinkle.of tradition than language awareness. It is, however, an official language in Aran. Admittedly, the place is the size of a county (with a bit extra of political power, maybe), but still…

    Take care.

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