Auvergnat ( / ˌ oʊ v ɛ r n ˈ j ɑː / ) or Occitan auvergnat ( endonym : auvernhat ) is a northern dialect of Occitan spoken in central and southern France , in particular in the former administrative region of Auvergne .
23-571: La Chaise-Dieu ( French pronunciation: [la ʃɛz djø] ; Auvergnat : La Chasa Dieu ) is a commune in the Haute-Loire department in south-central France . Its inhabitants are called Casadéens , from the Latin name of the city. La Chaise-Dieu occupies a 1082 m butte which dominates a plain between the mounts of Livradois and Velay . The closest cities are Brioude , Ambert , and Le Puy-en-Velay . The Senouire forms most of
46-428: A whole but allow for defining a boundary: Note that most Occitanists use rather 7 than 8 to define the southern boundary. Note some of the definition boundaries allow defining an internal variation. The most traditional one between Lower or Northern Auvergnat and Upper or Southern Auvergnat is the mutation of s before [k], [p], and [t] (line 9). Lower Auvergnat, defined by Teulat, is the light green area labelled 1 on
69-474: Is an independent language, distinct from Occitan, has found little resonance with linguists, especially Romance linguists. It is strongly defended by those who espouse the norme bonnaudienne a standardization of Auvergnat. An understanding of the vitality and overall usage of Auvergnat can be garnered from a survey carried out in 2006 in the Auvergne region. The largest group of the two languages spoken in
92-404: Is not really a true Auvergnat dialect but rather a vast northern Occitan linguistic area. The word "Auvergnat" is above all a local historiographical creation. According to linguist Jean Roux, "It is by simplification that we use this term, because in no case Auvergnat can be considered as an autonomous linguistic entity". With around 80,000 speakers in the Auvergne region at the beginning of
115-666: Is strong (41%) and is stronger still with the 35 and under demographic (58%). 71% of the region's inhabitants are favorable to the idea of maintaining the regional language and culture, with a stronger result in the 35-and-unders (76%). To achieve this desire, different institutions are expected to play a role (in percentage of those surveyed): The following are authors who have published in Auvergnat: Poets using Auvergnat: Songwriters using Auvergnat: Old Occitan Old Occitan ( Modern Occitan : occitan ancian , Catalan : occità antic ), also called Old Provençal ,
138-524: Is written mainly in French but which contains an Auvergnat section of 66 lines. Auvergnat had been replaced by French in official usage in the Montferrand already in 1388. French had also supplanted Auvergnat as the language of the upper classes, but it remained the language of rural communities. The effective borders of Auvergnat do not completely coincide with those of the current Region of Auvergne or
161-575: The Dance of Death (ca 1470) is a famous example of this motif, which gained wide currency following the visitations of the Black Death . The partners of the figures are skeletons and the parade strictly follows precedence of contemporary society, with Adam and Eve preceding all: the pope then the emperor, the legate, the prince, the cardinal, the High Constable, the patriarch, the knight, then
184-537: The Middle Ages , becoming the motherhouse of further congregations of Black Monks. Pope Clement VI began his vocation as a monk at Chaise Dieu and was the patron of the vast abbey church (built 1344–1350), a suitable setting for his tomb. The monks were driven out and the abbey secularized during the French Revolution . Clement's vast abbey church, his tomb and the abbey cloister remain. The fresco of
207-559: The 21st century, it is considered to be severely endangered . Auvergnat falls under the following categories and subcategories: Indo-European, Italic, Romance, Italo-Western, Gallo-Iberian, Gallo-Romance, Occitan. Several troubadours were from the Auvergne, including Castelloza , Dalfi d'Alvernhe , the Monje de Montaudon , the Vesques de Clarmon , Peire d'Alvernhe , Peire Rogier and Pons de Capduelh . They did not, however, compose in
230-526: The Auvergnat dialect, but in the standard literary register of Old Occitan . Official documents in Auvergnat become common around 1340 and continue to be found down to 1540, when the transition to French was complete. The high point for the use of Auvergnat as an official language was between 1380 and 1480. There is a passion play , Passion d'Auvergne , first performed in Montferrand in 1477, that
253-405: The Auvergne region is referred to as patois (78% of the population) compared with other regional terms, with certain cultural identities emerging, such as auvergnat (10%), occitan (8%), bourbonnais (5%) or langue d'oc (4%). The regional language, whether Occitan (in the whole of the Auvergne region) or Oïl (the north of Allier), represents a strong presence in the region: A large part of
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#1732786936504276-541: The abbot, the townsman, the merchant, the lady, ending with the lawyer, the minstrel, the clerk, the ploughman, the monk, the innocent child and the pilgrim. Between 1727 and 1740, the Jansenist bishop Jean Soanen was exiled to the abbey. French pianist Georges Cziffra started an annual festival of sacred music in La Chaise-Dieu in 1966. Auvergnat dialect Currently, research shows that there
299-796: The basic sound system can be summarised as follows: Notes: Old Occitan is a non-standardised language regarding its spelling, meaning that different graphemic signs can represent one sound and vice versa. For example: Some notable characteristics of Old Occitan: Bela Domna·l vostre cors gens E·lh vostre bel olh m'an conquis, E·l doutz esgartz e lo clars vis, E·l vostre bels essenhamens, Que, can be m'en pren esmansa, De beutat no·us trob egansa: La genser etz c'om posc'e·l mon chauzir, O no·i vei clar dels olhs ab que·us remir. O pretty lady, all your grace and eyes of beauty conquered me, sweet glance and brightness of your face and all your nature has to tell so if I make an appraisal I find no one like in beauty: most pleasing to be found in all
322-580: The commune's eastern and western borders. La Chaise-Dieu means "the Seat of God" in French (from the Occitan "Chasa Dieu") and is a reference to the Benedictine abbey which was founded on the site in 1043 by Robert de Turlande , a kinsman of Gerald of Aurillac and canon of Saint Julian's church at Brioude, nearby. Robert served an apprenticeship at Cluny under Abbot Odilo , then served as abbot in
345-458: The community he founded in the wilderness here, initially in the company of a repentant knight, Stephen. The traditional date of the founding is 28 December 1043. The abbey had over 300 monks and 42 outlying priories depending on it when Robert de Turlande died, probably in 1067. After his death, Robert was quickly canonized (1095) as Saint Robert de Turlande (also known as Saint Robert of Chaise-Dieu). The Chaise-Dieu continued to grow throughout
368-634: The earliest records of Occitan are the Tomida femina , the Boecis and the Cançó de Santa Fe . Old Occitan, the language used by the troubadours , was the first Romance language with a literary corpus and had an enormous influence on the development of lyric poetry in other European languages. The interpunct was a feature of its orthography and survives today in Catalan and Gascon . The official language of
391-525: The historical region of Auvergne but can be described as follows: There are strong oppositions between Pierre Bonnaud (for whom the Auvergnat is a language of its own, see the light orange line on the map – note it is including the easternmost part of the Marchois dialect) and for instance Roger Teulat. Light blue area labelled fr is for French-Langue d'Oïl. Light purple area labelled frp is for Francoprovençal. These are not characteristic of Auvergnat as
414-685: The map. Upper Auvergnat, defined by Teulat, is the light brown-yellow area labelled 2 on the map. A broader area (light yellow) is generally defined. A Northwestern Auvergnat may be defined as well by 5 and 6. The Northeastern (East of 5 and 6, North of 9) has, according to Bonnaud, a stronger influence from French phonetics (a bit like Marchois). Auvergnat is most often categorized in the Northern Occitan dialect group, along with Limousin and Vivaro-Alpine . There are two primary distinctions in Auvergnat: The suggestion that Auvergnat
437-509: The population that understands or speaks even a little or, moreover, fluently, neither know how to write nor read in that language. Language learning is found to be essential within the home, according to the survey, (grandparents noted as 61%, or other family members at 50%) with a very weak result from the schools (10%). Herein is found the problem of language-transmission when dependent upon State sponsorship. 40% of adults who did not teach their language to their children report regretting it at
460-569: The sovereign principality of the Viscounty of Béarn was the local vernacular Bearnès dialect of Old Occitan. It was the spoken language of law courts and of business and it was the written language of customary law. Although vernacular languages were increasingly preferred to Latin in western Europe in the late Middle Ages, the status of Occitan in Béarn was unusual because its use was required by law: "lawyers will draft their petitions and pleas in
483-428: The time of the survey. This feeling is reported more strongly among the 35 or less demographic, at 58%. The desire to learn the local language is reported strongly, with increasing representation among the young, reported at 23%. According to the survey the desire to incorporate local language learning in schools is as follows: Haute-Loire (53%), Puy-de-Dôme (51%) et Cantal (74%). The desire to teach to their own children
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#1732786936504506-445: The vernacular language of the present country, both in speech and in writing". Old Catalan and Old Occitan diverged between the 11th and the 14th centuries. Catalan never underwent the shift from /u/ to /y/ or the shift from /o/ to /u/ (except in unstressed syllables in some dialects) and so had diverged phonologically before those changes affected Old Occitan. Old Occitan changed and evolved somewhat during its history, but
529-664: Was the earliest form of the Occitano-Romance languages , as attested in writings dating from the eighth through the fourteenth centuries. Old Occitan generally includes Early and Old Occitan. Middle Occitan is sometimes included in Old Occitan, sometimes in Modern Occitan. As the term occitanus appeared around the year 1300, Old Occitan is referred to as "Romance" (Occitan: romans ) or "Provençal" (Occitan: proensals ) in medieval texts. Among
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