Gascon dialect

Spoken in

Indo-European languages

  • Gascon

Oc ( Occitan )

Oci ( Occitan )

Oci ( Occitan )

The gaskognische language is a Gallo-Roman language, which is spoken in the area of ​​the historical county of Gascony in southwestern France and in the Aran Valley in the Aranese variety in the northwest of Spanish Catalonia. Official status has only Aranese in Catalonia.

Name and classification

The name Gascon ( Gascon gascognisch and French ) is the same etymological origin as the name of its neighboring language of the Basque ( Gascon basc, French Basque, Spanish vasco ). It goes back to Gallo-Roman Germanic pronunciation of the word waskon.

It is controversial whether Gascon is a separate language or a dialect of Occitan. A majority of linguists believe that Gascon is part of the Occitan language area; a minority of the opinion, if it were its own language.

In any case, the Gaskognische phonetic, syntactic and lexical peculiarities that distinguish it from the other Occitan dialects. This is partly explained by the existence of an Aquitanian substrate. The Aquitanian, which was spoken in Gascony in front of Romanization was closely related according to current knowledge with the Basque. In later times also could have increased as Adstrat this substrate effect Basque.

Dissemination

The traditional distribution area of ​​Gascon is roughly from the main ridge of the Pyrenees in the south (opposite the Catalan and Aragonese ), the course of the river Garonne and Gironde in the east and north-east (opposite the Languedokischen and belonging to the Langues d' oïl Poitevin Saintongeais ) and the Atlantic ( Bay of Biscay ) to the west, and the south against the Basque there is no clear natural boundary.

Gascognisch is spoken in the following French departments:

  • Hautes -Pyrénées
  • Country
  • Gers
  • Gironde ( Parts )
  • Pyrénées- Atlantiques: Béarn and bilingual Basque- gaskognisches area of Bayonne, Biarritz, Bidache, La Bastide- Clairence
  • Lot- et- Garonne ( Parts )
  • Haute- Garonne ( Parts )
  • Ariège ( Parts )

In Spain today is only the Aran Valley (Val d' Aran ) in Catalonia gaskognischsprachig. In the Middle Ages some of the coastal towns of the province of Gipuzkoa (Donostia- San Sebastián, Hondarribia, Pasaia ) were Gascon -Basque bilingual, who are Spanish -Basque bilingual today.

The current number of speakers of Gascon on French territory is estimated at just over 500,000, with the proportion of speakers in the total population varies greatly. The highest levels in the rural areas of the Pyrenees (35% in the Hautes - Pyrénées), at least in the larger cities (3% in the city of Bordeaux [ Gascon Bordeu ] ), where the Gaskognische has today been largely replaced by the French.

According to the 2001 census voice Aranese in Val d' Aran is of 6,712 people understood ( 88.88 % of the population ) and spoken by 4,700 people ( 62.24 %). 4,413 ( 58.44 %) can read it and write 2,016 ( 26.69 %).

Dialects

The Gaskognische divided into numerous dialects. While on the delimitation of Gascon broadly agreed to the outside, the summary of the Gascon dialect is difficult to a limited number of dialect groups, as the innergaskognischen isoglosses are rarely parallel. In addition, dialectal forms of speech on French territory by the speakers are traditionally usually simply referred to as patois, so that there is no widespread traditional name for such dialect groups.

As a Gascon dialects are often called Bearnesisch ( béarnais ) in Béarn, where, due to centuries of political independence, which was connected with the official use of the native language, a language independent consciousness exists, and Landesisch ( landais ) in the country. Occupies a special position from the current sociolinguistic perspective Aranese ( aranais ) in the Val d' Aran in Catalonia, as it has the only variety of the Gascon on a local level generally accepted codification and is used as an official language; spoke on the structural level, it differs but little from the neighboring Gascon varieties on the French side the state border.

Characteristics

The most striking characteristics that distinguish the Gaskognische simultaneously from the other Occitan dialects are phonetic and syntactic Art

  • Latin F in initial position is in the Gascon to h: FEMINA ( "woman" ) > hemna
  • Latin - LL is in the Gascon word-final intervocalic and to - th to r: CASTELLUM ( small castle, Schloss ) > Casteth, ILLA ( "those " ) > era ( " the ", certain feminine products in some Gascon dialects )
  • Latin intervokalisches -N- deleted: LUNA ( "moon " ) > lua
  • " Enunziativ ": Most Gascon dialects derive the predicate usually with one of several particles. The most common of these particles is queer, which is in normal declarative sentences: Que sabi ( " I know ").

See also on this subject: Characteristics of Aranese

361904
de