Is the Occitan mutually intelligeble with Paris French?

Welsh is classed as a 'minority' language, although that is a slightly misleading term. It's spoken by about 20% of the population overall, but that is skewed by the most heavily populated areas being the most Anglicised. This wiki chart shows the distribution of Welsh speakers (population percentage) around Wales:


I come from a '12.5 - 25%' region, not far from the border with an area of '50 - 62.5%' Welsh speakers. Although my father's family (including him) speak Welsh (and my late grandmother's first language was very much Welsh), my mother does not, so English was the language of the home when I grew up. I was also educated through English. I did have Welsh lessons, and have made some effort to learn the language in later years, but I'm not fluent.

The history of the Welsh (and Irish) is obviously one of deliberate and systematic attempts (for centuries) to eradicate it from accross the border, much as what happened, as I understand it, with other languages in France. Fortunately, through the last couple of decades, things have changed considerably, and with much more Welsh-medium education (with many non-Welsh speaking parents having their kids educated via Welsh) and much more official support, Welsh speaking rates are now on the increase. Unfortunately, as I understand it the government in France has a far less enlightened view of such things than the UK government has been forced to do, and still sees French as the only language for the people of all of France to speak. Personally I find that a very sad attitude.

As it happens, there was an excellent program on the TV last night on just this subject, talking (amongst other things) about language and identity, the way different languages effect the way we think, and about the disappearence of many smaller minirity languages (including those mentioned in this thread).

Part 1 (of 4) of it is here:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZRAKjL3v9I"]Stephen Fry's Planet Word[/ame]

I hope it's viewable to non-UK people (I know such youtube videos sometimes aren't) - I suspect it will be a fascinating program for contributers to this thread!

 

It's viewable. Thanks a stack. I will watch them later on.

As I too understand it, France has had a rather aggressive stance with its official language. At least up until the first part of the 20th Century, many communities speaking another language have been heavily dealt with to force them to speak French. That is sad indeed.

 

I wonder if someone who speaks Romanian would understand Occitan ( since Romanian is a hybrid of French and Italian or so I am led to believe.)

 

I didn't see the Fry prog, but wondered if he mentioned this dimly remembered incident involving Humboldt the explorer, and found this looking for a reference!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/parrots-speak-lost-rainforest-tongue-721627.html

 

It's possible. I have a hard time understanding Romanian myself but in written form.

 

My spouse who is fluent in French and thus can understand some Italian was able to understand some of a conversation conducted in Romanian.

 

Just been watching a cartoon in Romanian to check again. Sounded much like Italian to me somehow but I had a harder time understanding it. Perhaps I am just not used to hearing it as much as Italian.

 

Not really. Romanian doesn't have much of a connection to French, outside of them both being a Romance language. Romanian evolved from Latin (like French, Italian, Spanish, Occitan, Romansh, Portuguese, Catalan, etc) but it has been influenced a lot by Slavic languages, which isolates it somewhat from the other Romance languages. I speak Spanish and a bit of French, and I can't really understand much of what Romanians say.

 

I agree.
As Italian native speaker I can try to understand French, Spanish or Portoguese...

but to understand something of Romanian is really hard. (well, Chinese is worst....but...)