You did the cut perfectly, but I think you used a "what you see is what you get" format client instead of HTML. If you edit your entry (click on the blue pencil at the top of this page), find all the parts that say < and replace them with <, and replace all > with >. That should fix it. :)
Thank you - that probably happened because I wrote it first in Word and copied it. I knew lj didn't like it, but it seems all better now, except for the font and span bits, which I won't even think about.
I feel I ought to be able to help, as I live in the Midi-Pyrenees, but unfortunately I haven't studied Occitan at all. None the less I could try to ask around if you like...there are people who speak patois around, and I suppose that must be a descendant?
That's something I'm not sure of - is Occitan/Provencal, as known today, a dead language that is being revived based on historic texts (which would explain why the 'vocabulary' in language sites is limited to about 2,000 words), or is it a living language surviving as a patois? If the latter, why isn't there a full vocab for at least the things which have always existed around the region, including herons? You might have to borrow for new inventions, like aeroplanes and computers, but wildlife words should have survived.
As I understood it, Provencal was closer to Spanish than French, and I suppose you might be able to distinguish if what the people are speaking is a patois of French or a survival of Provencal.
But if you could ask around, it would be great. And I envy you living in the Midi-Pyranees. Such beauty.
The patois is certainly still alive, if not all that healthy. It ressembles a sort of dog-latin to me, I remember an old man referring to a cat as "cattus" and a shirt as a "camis" but I don't know any spanish, so maybe I'm going in the wrong direction. When I lived in Creuse which is Massif Central, the patois had a definate italian feel, but I have forgotten the few words that I picked up... The children can learn Occitan in school, but Raphael opted for spanish, and the girls both did german. I will ask the other parents at the parents meeting on Friday how it relates to patois. It's an interesting question which I hadn't given any thought to until now. I'll get back to you.
According to the Logos dictionary, Chamisa is Occitan for shirt, and Cat for cat, so it could be. But there were different dialects in the old days too, and probably some sort of drift since then. And I'd expect an Italian influence to the East and a Spanish one to the South.
The poetic output of the troubadours does seem to have ended in the thirteenth century, which implies that the language was dropped by the 'educated' classes and bedded down in the countryside amid the peasants - which again ties in with what I gathered from 'Montaillou'. That it can have survived is no stranger than that Welsh survived.
I will be very interested to know what your fellow parents say, and perhaps the Occitan teacher can say whether 'pons d'airon' and 'mas rana' are OK.
Like all the minority languages of France, Occitan was in rude health until relatively recently. Although the seeds of its downfall were planted during the Albigensian Crusade, it survived in a state of benign neglect until the French Revolution. This was the point at which French really became the language of France. (For more details, this site is an excellent place to start.)
Modern Occitan is definitely a survival of the ancient language, not a mere patois or artificial revival. But it's normal for vocabulary to change over time, even vocabulary for "everyday things"--particularly when they become no longer quite so everyday. I was genuinely surprised recently when I asked some of my friends to identify what I thought were quite common local plants. What was supposed to be a questionnaire to elicit variant names for these plants turned into a test of whether they could come up with any names at all
( ... )
No need to do that. You have a least three possibilities: bernat pescaire, guiraud pescaire, and galejon.
The first two are listed in the Cantalausa dictionary, which is based on the Lengadocian (Western) dialects. (Bernat pescaire seems to be the preferred term, since guirard pescaire refers back to it.) Lagarde's dictionary lists bernat pescaire and galejon, but the latter seems to be a Provençal (Eastern) term, at least judging by the fact that it's also given in Coupier's Provençal dictionary (alongside bernat pescaire) and that most of the citations I find online are in Provençal orthography (i.e. galejoun) and refer to the Camargue.
Personally, I like the sound of Pont dou Galejoun much better than Pont de Bernat Pescaire, which sounds more like "Bridge of Bernard Fisher". Even if the term isn't used west of the Rhône nowadays, the association with Provençal would give it a poetic air that would well suit a historical novel.
BTW, I don't know about Occitan, but in Catalan rana can also refer to a species of small marsh
( ... )
I absolutely love Pont dou Galejoun. It is now definitely the name of the village/bridge, which lies between Uzes and Bagnols. The Bernat Pescaire will be the name of the Catalan boat that comes into the plot towards the end (or at least, sails by like a ship passing in the night). Which makes for a neat tie in with the book (which is called Heron's Bridge). Thank you so much.
Frogs is what I want round my farm (the herons can eat them). I think I'd better leave the reed buntings out of it, for now (unless I want to put in ever more layers of meaning, for scholars to wonder over!)
Comments 17
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
As I understood it, Provencal was closer to Spanish than French, and I suppose you might be able to distinguish if what the people are speaking is a patois of French or a survival of Provencal.
But if you could ask around, it would be great. And I envy you living in the Midi-Pyranees. Such beauty.
Rosina
Reply
The children can learn Occitan in school, but Raphael opted for spanish, and the girls both did german. I will ask the other parents at the parents meeting on Friday how it relates to patois. It's an interesting question which I hadn't given any thought to until now.
I'll get back to you.
Reply
http://www.lexicool.com/dictionary_logos.asp
The poetic output of the troubadours does seem to have ended in the thirteenth century, which implies that the language was dropped by the 'educated' classes and bedded down in the countryside amid the peasants - which again ties in with what I gathered from 'Montaillou'. That it can have survived is no stranger than that Welsh survived.
I will be very interested to know what your fellow parents say, and perhaps the Occitan teacher can say whether 'pons d'airon' and 'mas rana' are OK.
Reply
Reply
Modern Occitan is definitely a survival of the ancient language, not a mere patois or artificial revival. But it's normal for vocabulary to change over time, even vocabulary for "everyday things"--particularly when they become no longer quite so everyday. I was genuinely surprised recently when I asked some of my friends to identify what I thought were quite common local plants. What was supposed to be a questionnaire to elicit variant names for these plants turned into a test of whether they could come up with any names at all ( ... )
Reply
Reply
The first two are listed in the Cantalausa dictionary, which is based on the Lengadocian (Western) dialects. (Bernat pescaire seems to be the preferred term, since guirard pescaire refers back to it.) Lagarde's dictionary lists bernat pescaire and galejon, but the latter seems to be a Provençal (Eastern) term, at least judging by the fact that it's also given in Coupier's Provençal dictionary (alongside bernat pescaire) and that most of the citations I find online are in Provençal orthography (i.e. galejoun) and refer to the Camargue.
Personally, I like the sound of Pont dou Galejoun much better than Pont de Bernat Pescaire, which sounds more like "Bridge of Bernard Fisher". Even if the term isn't used west of the Rhône nowadays, the association with Provençal would give it a poetic air that would well suit a historical novel.
BTW, I don't know about Occitan, but in Catalan rana can also refer to a species of small marsh ( ... )
Reply
Frogs is what I want round my farm (the herons can eat them). I think I'd better leave the reed buntings out of it, for now (unless I want to put in ever more layers of meaning, for scholars to wonder over!)
Reply
Leave a comment