Old Occitan

Old Occitan
Old Provençal
Region	Provence
Era	8th–14th centuries
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Western Gallo-Romance Occitano-Romance Old Occitan
Language codes
ISO 639-2	pro
ISO 639-3	pro
Glottolog	oldp1253[1]

Old Occitan (Modern Occitan: occitan ancian, Catalan: occità antic), also called Old Provençal, was the earliest form of the Occitano-Romance languages, as attested in writings dating from the eighth through the fourteenth centuries.^[2][3] Old Occitan generally includes Early and Old Occitan. Middle Occitan is sometimes included in Old Occitan, sometimes in Modern Occitan.^[4] As the term occitanus appeared around the year 1300,^[5] Old Occitan is referred to as "Romance" (Occitan: romans) or "Provençal" (Occitan: proensals) in medieval texts.

History

Among the earliest records of Occitan are the Tomida femina, the Boecis, and the Cançó de Santa Fe. Old Occitan, the language used by the troubadours, was the first Romance language with a literary corpus and had an enormous influence on the development of lyric poetry in other European languages. The interpunct was a feature of its orthography, and survives today in Catalan and Gascon.

The Old Catalan language diverged from Old Occitan between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries.^[6] Early texts in the Catalan dialect are the Homilies d'Organyà, Cançó de Santa Fe and the Greuges de Guitard Isarn. Catalan never underwent the shift from /u/ to /y/ or the shift from /o/ to /u/ (except in unstressed syllables in some dialects) so it had diverged phonologically before those changes affected Old Occitan.

Phonology

Old Occitan changed and evolved somewhat during its history, but the basic sound system can be summarised as follows:^[7]

Consonants

Old Occitan consonants

	Bilabial	Labio- dental	Dental/ alveolar	Postalveolar/ palatal	Velar
Nasal	m		n	ɲ
Plosive	p   b		t   d		k   ɡ
Fricative		f   v	s   z
Affricate			ts   dz	tʃ   dʒ
Lateral			l	ʎ
Trill			ɲ
Tap			ɾ

Notes:

• Written ⟨ch⟩ is believed to have represented the affricate [tʃ]; but, since the spelling often alternates with ⟨c⟩, it may also have represented [k].
• Word-final ⟨g⟩ may sometimes represent [tʃ], as in gaug "joy" (also spelled gauch).
• Intervocalic ⟨z⟩ could represent either [z] or [dz].
• Written ⟨j⟩ could represent either [dʒ] or [j].

Vowels

Monophthongs

Old Occitan vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i   y	u
Close-mid	e	(o)
Open-mid	ɛ	ɔ
Open	ɡ	ɑ

Notes:

• [o] apparently raised to [u] during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; but the spelling was unaffected, hence flor /fluɾ/ "flower".^[8]
• The open-mid vowels [ɛ] and [ɔ] appear as allophones of /e/ and /u/ respectively under certain circumstances in stressed syllables.

Diphthongs and triphthongs

Old Occitan diphthongs and triphthongs

IPA	Example	Meaning
falling
/aj/	paire	father
/aw/	autre	other
/uj/	conoiser	to know
/uw/	dous	sweet
/ɔj/	pois	then
/ɔw/	mou	it moves
/ej/	vei	I see
/ew/	beure	to drink
/ɛj/	seis	six
/ɛw/	breu	short
/yj/	cuid	I believe
/iw/	estiu	summer
rising
/jɛ/	miels	better
/wɛ/	cuelh	he receives
/wɔ/	cuolh	he receives
triphthongs stress always falls on middle vowel
/jɛj/	lieis	her
/jɛw/	ieu	I
/wɔj/	nuoit	night
/wɛj/	pueis	then
/wɔw/	uou	egg
/wɛw/	bueu	ox

Extracts

• From Bertran de Born's Ab joi mou lo vers e·l comens (ca. 1200, translated by James H. Donalson):

Bela Domna·l vostre cors gens E·lh vostre bel olh m'an conquis, E·l doutz esgartz e lo clars vis, E·l vostre bels essenhamens, Que, can be m'en pren esmansa, De beutat no·us trob egansa: La genser etz c'om posc'e·l mon chauzir, O no·i vei clar dels olhs ab que·us remir.

O pretty lady, all your grace and eyes of beauty conquered me, sweet glance and brightness of your face and all your nature has to tell so if I make an appraisal I find no one like in beauty: most pleasing to be found in all the world or else the eyes I see you with have dimmed.

See also

• Occitan conjugation
• Occitan phonology

Further reading

• Nathaniel B. Smith, Thomas Goddard Bergin, An Old Provençal primer, Garland, 1984, ISBN 0-8240-9030-6
• Paden, William D. 1998. An Introduction to Old Occitan. Modern Language Association of America. ISBN 0-87352-293-1.
• Povl Skårup, Morphologie élémentaire de l'ancien occitan, Museum Tusculanum Press, 1997, ISBN 87-7289-428-8
• Romieu, Maurice; Bianchi, André (2002). Iniciacion a l'occitan ancian / Initiation à l'ancien occitan (in Occitan and French). Pessac: Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux. ISBN 2-86781-275-5.

References

1. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Old Provençal". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
2. Rebecca Posner, The Romance Languages, Cambridge University Press, 1996, ISBN 0-521-28139-3
3. Frank M. Chambers, An Introduction to Old Provençal Versification. Diane, 1985 ISBN 0-87169-167-1
4. "The Early Occitan period is generally considered to extend from ca. 800 to 1000, Old Occitan from 1000 to 1350, and Middle Occitan from 1350 to 1550" in William W. Kibler, Medieval France: An Encyclopedia, Routledge, 1995, ISBN 0-8240-4444-4
5. Smith and Bergin, Old Provençal Primer, p. 2
6. Riquer, Martí de, Història de la Literatura Catalana, vol. 1. Barcelona: Edicions Ariel, 1964
7. The charts are based on phonologies given in Paden, William D., An Introduction to Old Occitan, New York 1998
8. See Paden 1998, p. 101

External links

• A site with a presentation of Old Occitan