Gascon dialect
Gascon is the vernacular Romance variety spoken mainly in the region of Gascony, France. It is often considered a variety of larger Occitan macrolanguage, although other authors consider it a separate language due to hindered mutual intelligibility criteria and earlier separation from the other Occitano-Romance varieties.
Gascon is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn in southwestern France and in the Val d'Aran of Catalonia.
Aranese, a southern Gascon variety, is spoken in Catalonia alongside Catalan and Spanish. Most people in the region are trilingual in all three languages, causing some influence from Spanish and Catalan. Both these influences tend to differentiate it more and more from the dialects of Gascon spoken in France. Most linguists now consider Aranese a distinct dialect of Occitan and Gascon. Since the 2006 adoption of the new statute of Catalonia, Aranese is co-official with Catalan and Spanish in all of Catalonia.
Linguistic classification
While it is generally accepted that Occitan constitutes a single language, some authors reject this opinion and even the name Occitan: instead, they argue that the latter is a cover term for a family of distinct lengas d'òc rather than dialects of a single language. Gascon, in particular, is distinct enough linguistically to have been described as a language in its own right.Basque substrate
The language spoken in Gascony before Roman rule was part of the Basque dialectal continuum ; the fact that the word 'Gascon' comes from the Latin root vasco/''vasconem, which is the same root that gives us 'Basque', implies that the speakers identified themselves at some point as Basque. There is a proven Basque substrate in the development of Gascon. This explains some of the major differences that exist between Gascon and other Occitan dialects.A typically Gascon feature that may arise from this substrate is the change from "f" to "h". Where a word originally began with in Latin, such as festa 'party/feast', this sound was weakened to aspirated and then, in some areas, lost altogether; according to the substrate theory, this is due to the Basque dialects' lack of an equivalent phoneme, causing Gascon hèsta or. A similar change took place in Spanish. Thus, Latin facere gives Spanish hacer . Another phonological effect resulting from the Basque substrate may have been Gascon's reluctance to pronounce a at the beginning of words, resolved by means of a prothetical vowel.
Although some linguists deny the plausibility of the Basque substrate theory, it is widely assumed that Basque, the "Circumpyrenean" language, is the underlying language spreading around the Pyrenees onto the banks of the Garonne River, maybe as far east as the Mediterranean in Roman times. Basque gradually eroded across Gascony in the High Middle Ages, with vulgar Latin and Basque interacting and mingling, but eventually with the former replacing the latter north of the east and middle Pyrenees and developing into Gascon.
However, modern Basque has had lexical influence from Gascon in words like beira, which is also seen in Galician-Portuguese. One way for the introduction of Gascon influence into Basque came about through language contact in bordering areas of the Northern Basque Country, acting as adstrate.
The énonciatif'' system of Gascon, a system that is more colloquial than characteristic of normative written Gascon and governs the use of certain preverbal particles has also been attributed to the Basque substrate.
Gascon varieties
Gascon is divided into three varieties or sub-groups:- Western Gascon, which includes Landese dialect and North-Gascon
- Eastern or interior Gascon, known as parlar clar
- Pyrenean or southern Gascon, which includes Aranese dialect
Béarnais, the official language when Béarn was an independent state, does not correspond to a unified language: the three forms of Gascon are spoken in Béarn.
| French | Landese | Béarnese and Bigourdan | Aranese | Commingeois and Couseranais | Interior Gascon | Bazadais and High-Landese | Bordelese | |
| Affirmation: He is going | Il y va | Qu' i va. | Que i va. | I va. | Que i va. | Que i va. | i va/vai. | I vai. |
| Negation: He wasn't listening to him | Il ne l’écoutait pas | Ne l’escotèva pas | Non / ne l’escotava pas | Non la escotaua | Non l’escotava cap | Ne l’escotava pas | l’escotèva pas | Ne l'escotava pas/briga |
| Plural formation: the young men – the young women | Les jeunes hommes – les jeunes filles | Los gojats – las gojatas | Eths / los gojats – eras / las gojatas | Es gojats – es gojates | Eths gojats – eras gojatas | Los gojats – las gojatas | Los gojats – las gojatas | Los gojats – las dònas/gojas |
Usage of the language
A poll conducted in Béarn in 1982 indicated that 51% of the population could speak Gascon, 70% understood it, and 85% expressed a favourable opinion regarding the protection of the language. However, use of the language has declined dramatically over recent years as a result of the Francization taking place during the last centuries, as Gascon is rarely transmitted to young generations any longer.By April 2011, the Endangered Languages Project estimated that there were only 250,000 native speakers of the language.
In fact, there is no unified Béarnais dialect, as the language differs considerably throughout the province. Many of the differences in pronunciation can be divided into east, west, and south. For example, an 'a' at the end of words is pronounced "ah" in the west, "o" in the east, and "œ" in the south. Because of Béarn's specific political past, Béarnais has been distinguished from Gascon since the 16th century, not for linguistic reasons.
Influences on other languages
Probably as a consequence of the linguistic continuum of Romance languages|western Romania] and the French influence over the Hispanic Mark on medieval times, shared similar and singular features are noticeable between Gascon and other Latin languages on the other side of the border: Aragonese and far-western Catalan.Gascon is also one of the Romance influences on the Basque language.
Examples
Image:VirgendeLourdes.JPG|thumb|According to the testimony of Bernadette Soubirous, the Virgin Mary spoke to her in Gascon saying: Que soy era Immaculada Councepciou, confirming the proclamation of this Catholic dogma four years earlier.| Word | Translation | IPA |
| Earth | tèrra | |
| heaven | cèu | |
| water | aiga | |
| fire | huec | |
| man | òmi/òme | / |
| woman | hemna | |
| eat | minjar/manjar | / |
| drink | béver | / |
| big | gran | |
| little | petit/pichon/pichòt | // |
| night | nueit | |
| day | dia/jorn | / |