Is the language of Oc in danger of disappearing?

Audio 29:00

Several thousand people marched in Béziers on March 17, 2007 for "the defense and recognition" of Occitan.

© BORIS HORVAT / AFP

By: Chantal Lorho Follow

31 min

According to a recent study, Occitan, this thousand-year-old Romance language is only spoken by 542,000 people in southwestern France and in Val d'Aran, Spain.

Publicity

Occitan or the language of Oc has been spoken for centuries over a large part of French territory, from Creuse to Provence, via Béarn, but it has fewer and fewer speakers.

The OPLO, the public office for the Occitan language, based in Toulouse, works to protect it.

With: Charline Claveau

, President of

the OPLO

,

Thomas Baudoin,

of the Compagnie

Hart brut

, who sings in Occitan in Béarn and

Manu Théron

, singer in Occitan in Marseille.

► To read also:

the results of the socio-linguistic survey of the OPLO

And the column

"La Puce à l'oreille"

by 

Lucie Bouteloup

which is interested in the expression "to 

be gringue

 ".

Newsletter

Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_FR

  • Culture

  • Francophonie

  • French language

  • France

On the same subject

The dance of words

Occitan language: which cultures?

The dance of words

Occitan language: teaching and transmission

The dance of words

Occitan language: history and evolution