Les codes graphiques contemporains de l’occitan

• Published in: Lengas (Montpellier, Centre d'études occitanes, Université Paul Valéry) Vol. 86
• Main Author: Alain Viaut
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: French
• Published: Presses universitaires de la méditerranée 01-12-2019
• Subjects: dialectal variety; Gascon; Occitan; Provençal; spelling; standardisation
• ISSN: 2271-5703
• DOI: 10.4000/lengas.4009

The configuration of Occitan, without direct link with a historical-political entity, remains dominated by language. The hypothesis is that the political function which ends up being first assigned to the language contributes to explaining the present specificities of its normalisation process approached here from graphic systems.Faced with a name of the language which is sometimes disputed and in the absence of a standard operating at a global level, the common normative element most present in Occitan's linguistic territory is that of classical spelling or Occitan. Being a constituent part of language, it often ends up summing it up metonymically. It refers to the standard variety which only exists at this level in project stage, on a basis conceived in relation to its central dialect. The political deal is likely to favor standardisation, but it is generally lacking for Occitan. However, we see it playing a role (minor compared to what it is in the case of Basque for example) in the Gascon part of the area of Occitan, in particular in Val d'Aran, in Spain, where Occitan is a co-official language, and in Bearn. It is confronted, in these two cases, with debates on linguistic identity. In this strong cultural context, the question of the graphic code took on a particular relief while referring for some of its features to the situation of Occitan in general.