The Langue of Oc vs. Oil and Croissant

All credits here at the outset to Graham Robb and his fine book, The Discovery of France. He studied in libraries and rode his bike through the countryside of France for 14 years and one of the fascinating things he mentions is the sharp line that demarcates the areas that grow wheat and speak one language from the areas that are forested and speak another, and the areas that have vineyards and speak yet another.

If you've ever heard of the area in France just north of the Pyrenees called 'Languedoc' (that's where I'm running the Scanner's Retreat in April of 2009, described at 'www.geniuspress.com) or seen the words 'l'Occitaine' on a smart shop in the downtown area of your city, you might not know that they're talking about languages that are defined and differentiated from one another by the way they say the word 'Yes.'

They could have picked any word, but they picked this one. Nice touch.

After the revolution it became important to the leaders in Paris that everyone should speak one language. At the time, French was already the 'lingua franca' (as English is today), that is, the international language for all cultivated Europeans (including Russians) -- all of them, that is, excepting those in France itself. In France, a name which most of us (and many of the French) take to mean 'Paris,' this international language is really just the Parisian dialect -- and until recently (and even in some places, to this day) most of the people in France neither spoke, nor understood it.

p 51: (ca. 1794) "The fringes of France were already known to be dominated by languages quite different from French: Basquie, Breton, Flemish and Alsatian. But the two Romantic languages that covered most of the country -- French in the north, Occitan in the south -- also turned out to be a muddle of incomprehensible dialects...'Such disorder reigns that the prayer recited by fathers when the family is together at evening can be understood only by the Supreme Being.'

When the great writer, Jean Racine (who was to later write plays that would be 'hailed as the purest expression of classical French), went to visit relatives in Provence he said 'I cannot understand the French of this region and no one can understand mine.'

What he didn't know is that the language of his relatives home wasn't a form of French at all. "Long before reaching [his uncle's village], he had crossed the great divide between the northern 'oil' or French languages and the southern 'oc' or Occitan languages (so named in the Middle Ages after the words for 'yes').

Here's a little more fun and clarity from Robb: The word for 'bird' in English, Latin, Occitan and French is, in that order, 'bird,' 'aucellus, 'aucel,' and 'oisearu. 'Horse,' in the same order is: 'horse,' 'cabullus,' 'caval,' and 'cheval,' and so on.

But there's an unusually sharp divide between them that can't be explained away by the lines of old feudal holdings, and since I'm trying to see where the crops differ, I read the following words with much interest:

"The curiously sharp division of Oc and Oil does appear to follow the boundaries of medieval provinces for part of its course, but it also matches several other ancient divisions. North of the line, roofs usually have a slope of forty-five degrees and are made of flat tiles or slate; to the south, they slope at thirty degrees and are made of rounded tiles." North of the line, farmers planted 3 times a year and used a plough, where farmers in the south planted twice a year and used a primitive, wheel-less plough called an 'araire'.

I forgot that part about the roofs when I was there last fall, and kept my eyes peeled for the different crops (which I never found, of course) but today I'm looking for the passage that speaks of the different crops, right next to each other. I mean, you could step from one to the other.

"A major Roman road, the Via Agrippa ... follows the language divide quite closely. Like most Roman roads it was almost certainly build on a much earlier route...This line can still be followed on the ground. In 2005, I cycled along sections of the Oc-Oil...frontier for a total of about 50 miles [Oh, lord, gotta do that!!] ...
"By using the 1873 data, it is possible to find the point at which Oc, Oil and [a third language] Croissant, intersected [!]"

Exclamation point is mine, and if you don't think that sentence deserves an exclamation point, you might not really be a Scanner. What follows actually makes my heart beat a little faster, no kidding:

"This watershed of three language groups is one of the most obscure and significant locations in the historical geography of France. It lies on a tiny road north-east of Angouleme where the Braconne Forest ends abruptly and opens out onto the plains and valley of the Charente. By chance, the landscape has arranged itself in a textbook illustration of the north-south divide: the Croissant is marked by the forest, the northern, Oil side by a wheat field, and the southern, Oc side by a vineyard."

Okay. That's what I was trying to say. See?!

Feeling like a child who has brought in a worm to show her Mommy, I leave you to ponder what you have read and find your own delight or boredom. I am smiling happily, feeling great satisfaction and delight. And now I shall contentedly return to doing my work.