The Language The French Forbade

9/16/2018 BBC - Travel - The language the French forbade
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The language the French forbade
Despite centuries of efforts to make standardised French the language of all of

France, Occitan, which is intrinsically tied to the local culture, could not be
suppressed.
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By Beebe Bahrami
11 September 2018
On a cold winter’s night nine years ago, I made my way along icy cobblestone streets, a howling wind
at my back, into the medieval town of Sarlat-la-Canéda in the Dordogne region of south-west France.
This area is famous for its prehistoric caves, medieval castles and truffles – but I was here for another
reason altogether. This was to be my first session of Café Oc, a monthly conversation circle at the
Café La Lune Poivre, where locals gather to practice the regional Occitan language.
Our Unique World Although many people have not heard of Occitan, also
known as Langue d’Oc, it’s one of several Romance
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180911-occitan-the-language-the-french-forbade 1/23
Our Unique World explores distinctive languages that evolved from vernacular Latin, and is still
subcultures around the globe in spoken in six major dialects across southern France as well
celebration of what makes us different.
as parts of north-western Italy and northern Spain. Anxious
Check back each week in August and
about being accepted as an outsider – but fascinated by the
September to discover a new, unique
world. language and culture and hoping to learn more – I pushed
open the door and prepared to make my case. Warm air
scented with spicy mulled wine rushed at me, as did a
collective greeting.
“Benvenguda a Café Oc,”exclaimed 10 people, all age 60 or older, in Occitan. I introduced myself in
French, and they assured me that I was welcome. One woman made a point to sit to my left and in
soft whispers translated the conversation into French for me. Their warmth, her kindness, and the
conversation that night deepened my affection for this ancient land of the Périgord, the older name of
the Dordogne, which also included a section of the Lot-et-Garonne region to the Dordogne’s south. It
is a region that has drawn humans to it for some 400,000 years.
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That night at Café Oc, participants spoke of many things, all wedded to the land and traditions. They
described growing up cultivating and producing all that their family needed to eat; how to hunt for
cepes (porcini); the medieval pilgrimage route that passes through their region toward Santiago de
Compostela; gathering and selling truffles at Christmas; and colourful folkloric characters, the most
memorable being the lébérou, Périgord’s version of a werewolf-like creature.
France’s Périgord region has drawn people to it for around 400,000 years (Credit: David Noton
Photography/Alamy)
I learned that Occitan was once the lingua franca of the south of France, and is best known as the
language in which the troubadours sang. But in 1539, King François I signed into law an edict, the
Ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts, which made Francien, the northern French dialect of Paris and the
Île-de-France, the entire county’s official language.
However, outside of official business and written documents (such as marriage, death and birth
certificates), much of daily life continued to be conducted far away from officialdom, and Occitan
remained the language of the home, field and family. Graham Robb, in his historical geography, The
Discovery of France, noted that despite three centuries of efforts to make standardised French the
language of all of France, in 1863 in the south of the country more than half the population remained
non-French speaking. In the Dordogne the numbers were even higher, where more than 90% of the
population was still largely Occitan speaking.
But a little more than 100 years ago at the turn of the 20th Century, the central government launched
an aggressive campaign to extinguish any language that was not the standardised French. Occitan
was forbidden to be taught in schools, and any children who used their mother tongue were
punished, a practice that infused deep shame in many people. Many older adults in the Dordogne still
tell stories about being humiliated in school for speaking Occitan.
Residents of Sarlat-la-Canéda, France, gather regularly to practice speaking their regional dialect, known as
Occitan (Credit: Images of Birmingham Premium/Alamy)
The Dordogne region is rich with rivers that have deeply carved the soft and gold-toned limestone
into caves and cliffs, fertile valleys and hilltop plateaus. It is an agricultural and herding region where
traditional small-scale farming and animal-rearing practices persist. Today, along with tourism, the
Périgord’s livelihood remains directly connected to the ancient land, where the past flows unbroken
into the present.
Soon after my first session of Café Oc, I joined Bruno Eluere and Béatrice Mollaret, local guides and
co-founders of regional tour company Dordogne Fellow Traveller on weekly treks exploring caves,
castles and forest tracts. I was curious about their experience with Occitan. It seemed that, despite
being brought up as French speakers, the language was still very close to their hearts.
Occitan is still spoken across southern France as well as parts of north-western Italy and northern Spain (Credit:
imageBROKER/Alamy)
“Occitan is part of my very first memories,” Eluere told me. “Andrea, my grand aunt's maid used to
call me moun cacalou, my little walnut, which became my first nickname.”
Mollaret went further, explaining that the language is intrinsically tied to Périgord culture and how
Occitan intimately describes aspects of life here, details that are lost if expressed in French or that
simply do not have French words.
“[Occitan] is really linked to the land, to the farm, to the traditions and legends,” she said. “Some
things concerning the animals, the plants, are only known in the former language. In the Dordogne, le
cluzeau [dug out rock or cave shelter], le cingle [looped or circular path], le téchou [pig] are always
expressed in Occitan.
“I like very much the poetry of some special words that others cannot understand, from one region to
another one,” she continued. “Just by travelling from the Dordogne to the Lot, very few kilometres,
sometimes I discover different expressions, different ways of calling the same bird or the same tree,
and I like the way everyone is trying to catch the reality in his own way.”
Occitan is perhaps best known as the language in which the troubadours sang (Credit: tradewinds/Alamy)
This intimate and detail-oriented relationship between language and land was reinforced on the many
solo countryside walks that I love to make when I visit, which has been nearly every year since I first
came nine years ago.
Once I met a man standing among his grapevines, whispering Occitan incantations of
encouragement to them to grow and thrive – his eyes closed, his fingers brushing their leaves, his
palms facing the sky – an effort that he later explained to me was as important as rain, soil and
pruning.
"
I like the way everyone is trying to catch the reality in his own way
Another time, I passed a man weeding his garden who put out a small dish of water so that the
resident rouge-gorge (European robin) – known by at least three names in Occitan, depending on
who you ask (barbarós, papach-rós and rigal) – would fly down from the tree for a visit.
I also spoke with a farmer who explained that each year, after he ploughed the field, new stone tools
emerged, some from Neanderthals and others from Cro-Magnons. I learned that the name Cro-
Magnon itself was Occitan: Cro means ‘hole’ or ‘hollow’ in Occitan (creux in French), and Magnon
was the family name of the gentlemen on whose property workers, in 1868 in the village of Les
Eyzies, discovered five 27,000-year-old skeletons.
Despite centuries of attempts to make standardised French the language of all of France, Occitan has prevailed
(Credit: Hemis/Alamy)
The fact that the language is so intertwined with the culture is perhaps why it has never completely
faded away. Despite being classified as ‘severely endangered’ by Unesco, it has survived in
traditional spheres: in homes, at bedtime in folktales, in fields during planting and harvesting, with
herding and transhumance (moving animals between summer and winter pastures), in the forests
during hunting seasons, and in the music and poetry. It is also most definitely heard in the sayings
that naturally fly off the tongue, such as, ‘se la barba donava de sen, totas las cabras serían doctors’
(if a beard were the sign of wisdom, all goats would be doctors), or ‘l’aiga va totjorn d’aval’ (water
always flows down; things are as they are).
Since the 1950s, Occitan and other minority regional languages in France – such as Breton, Basque,
Flemish and Alsatian – have returned to wider public engagement and are taking on positive
associations, casting off the negative connotations assigned them by the central government 100
years ago. In 1993, France’s government informed teachers across the nation to prepare to teach
bilingual curricula in places where regional languages persisted.
Today, no longer banned, Occitan is experiencing a small but healthy revival, with around three
million speakers across all the southern regions of France, according to estimates from the Académie
Bordeaux, part of the Ministry of Education. Occitan is now an elective in some (but not all) schools;
and some schools in the Dordogne offer bilingual curricula. For people of all ages, local language
groups promote Occitan lectures, concerts and conversation circles, such as Café Oc.
While French is still the prominent language throughout region, if you pause to listen to locals
shopping in the market or chatting at cafes, you will soon hear the mellifluous sounds of Occitan
instead of French, or a blending of the two languages.
Béatrice Mollaret: “[Occitan] is really linked to the land, to the farm, to the traditions and legends” (Credit: ASK
Images/Alamy)
One evening on a recent visit in late May, I followed the plaintive melody of a lone flute to Sarlat’s car
park known as La Grande Rigaudie. That night the space had been transformed into a dance floor for
the two-day springtime festival, La Ringueta, which celebrates Sarlat’s and the Périgord’s Occitan
culture with traditional games (such as nine pins, tug-of-war and ring tosses), bilingual classes and
craft workshops.
There is also a large communal meal (often goose or pork roasted all day over open coals), and the
festival culminates with the ‘Bal Trad’, a traditional dance. Drawn to the music, I entered the car park,
its trees hung with fairy lights and people resting around the edges or watching the dancers, pair by
pair, swirling to the music in a sultry waltzing rhythm. When the flute ended its lament, a guitar and
accordion joined in with a rowdy tune. The couples parted and formed a large circle, and people of all
ages joined in, holding hands and taking me with them. With a few fancy steps left and few more
fancy steps right, we moved in an intoxicating circle of belonging.
Never have I felt the Périgord culture more alive than in that moment. As I was woven seamlessly
into the circle, I felt the true depth of this culture and the reason why it and its language persists.
Today there are around three million Occitan speakers across southern France (Credit: Loop Images/Getty
Images)
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9/16/2018 BBC - Travel - The language the French forbade

Home News Sport Weather Shop Earth Travel

Europe France Language

The language the French forbade

Despite centuries of efforts to make standardised French the language of all of

You may also be interested in:

The labyrinth the Nazis never mastered

France Arts & Architecture History

Adventure & Experience

France's new and thriving style hub

Paris Fashion Design

Adventure & Experience

A French village committed to deception

Follow BBC Travel

Our Unique World

To the Ends of the Earth

Welcome to Our House

More amazing Travel stories

The cities that make living easy

Adventure & Experience

Why Edinburgh's clock is never on time

Edinburgh Scotland Arts & Architecture

Adventure & Experience

The strange story behind Canary Wharf

Spain Island History

Welcome to Our House

The birthplace of the coffee bean?

Africa Hospitality Food & Drink

Welcome to Our House

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The US islands of slave descendants

USA Cultural Traditions Island

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How much can we shrink the workweek?

An easy way to seem more persuasive

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Make It Digital Taster

Terms of Use About the BBC

Privacy Policy Cookies

Accessibility Help Parental Guidance

Contact the BBC Get Personalised Newsletters

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