You are here in Occitan country! The language of Oc, derived from Latin, has nourished the words of its inhabitants for centuries ...
A Romance language
Occitan es una lenga romana, coma sas vesinas, lo catalan, lo castilhan, lo portugués, italian, lo roman, lo còrse e lo francés (aquesta es la mens romana de totas). Ven del mescladís entre las lengas de las populacions autoctònas e lo Latin dels colonizadors romans.
The oldest texts date back to the XNUMXth century. It is in Occitan that the trobadors disseminated throughout Europe, through their songs, the original values of the company.
Occitan foguèt the primièra lenga modèrna to endow itself with a system of description of itself; las primièras gramaticas datan de la debuta del sègle XIII.
The name “langue d'oc” comes from the affirmative particle òc. The expression in Latin, lingua occitana appears in a document of the Royal Chancellery in 1306. The names Occitan and langue d'oc have the same value. Its territory extends from the Val d'Aran in the Pyrenees to the foothills of the Alps (the province of Còni / Cuneo), from Fenouillèdes on the edge of Roussillon to the march north of Limoges; a very vast and varied space geographically, historically, economically, humanly, linguistically.
After the rich hours of the troubadours, the language fell victim to the vicissitudes of history. The 19th century gave it a literary revival, where the felibre Aquiles Mir, born in Escales, excelled. Occitan remains a second nature to the inhabitants of this territory, a constitutive element of their identity., a prism to understand the region and an opening to the world.
Òc al present
La place de l'occitan in society has shifted from general presence at the beginning of the 20th century, a role of language of integration for Catalan, Spanish and Italian immigration, to a minority language status in less than a century. The decline, driven by the pressures of society, accelerated after the Second World War when the language was less and less transmitted in families. Excluded from the media and from school, she was able to change her status to remain present and be a strong factor in the identity of the territory, making it possible to understand it and opening up perspectives.
This dynamic manifests itself, among others, in the bilingual classes (public service in Lézignan-Corbières; Calandreta associative schools) and a rich and dynamic artistic creation, around the Minervois foyer with Laurent Cavalié, Bartàs, Mal-Coiffée, the Minervois fanfare, the Grop Òc walking in the footsteps de Mans de Breish and de La Sauze who took part in the revival of Occitan song with Claude Martí in the early 1970s.
The Occitan artists meet the public in various one-off or regular events on the territory of Corbières and Minervois: La Rués vers l'Oc / A fum cap a l'Òc week at the Espace Culturel des Corbières / Airòl cultural de Corbièras de Ferrals, Promaude events, Maison Gibert programs, -vous of June of Total Festum, Occitan Festival of Canet d'Aude, in March, the presence at the Feast of the story in Cucugnan in July, the Festen 'Òc of Camplong at the beginning of August, the events of L'Abribus in Montlaur,…
In June, the Encontrada brings together for a day of entertainment in Capendu thousands of children from Audoise schools who have followed an awareness of the Occitan language and culture.
Departmental or local cultural associations are places of encounter and action for the language: Institut d'Estudis Occitans d'Aude, Grop Occitan de Fabresan, Grop Occitan de la MJC de St-André de Roquelongue, Grop Occitan de Canet d 'Aude ,, ...
Minervois and Corbières are in the broadcasting area of the Occitan associative radio Ràdio-Lenga d'Òc-Narbona - 95,5 MHz which mainly speaks Occitan against a background of Occitan, Latin and Mediterranean music.
The action of this active and diverse cultural movement consists in continuing the transmission between generations and in allowing and developing the use of the language in the field of the media, institutions, educational bodies and in everyday life. To get an idea of the evolution of rural society during the 20th century, we advise you to consult, as we did to feed this site, the works of the Vilatges al País operation.
To take stock of your practice of Occitan, you can embark on a vira-lenga without stumbling in the course of the syllables:
Aviái una cabeta against quatrepecolhat
Anèri a çò del quatrecontrepecolhair
The contrequatrepecolhaire i didn't have the consquatrepecolhèri
E siaguèt tan plan contre quatrepecolhada
Coma is the counterquatrepecolhaire
Me aviá counterquatrepecolhada
Vilatges al País-Canton of Durban