82-621: Uzès ( French pronunciation: [y.zɛs] ; Occitan : Usès ) is a commune in the Gard department in the Occitanie region of Southern France . Uzès lies about 25 kilometres (16 miles) north-northeast of Nîmes , 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Avignon , and 32 kilometres (20 miles) southeast of Alès . Originally Ucetia or Eutica in Latin, Uzès was a small Gallo-Roman oppidum , or administrative settlement. The town lies at
164-413: A French Historical Monument in 1862. Uzès is famous in the area for its Saturday market. Not only does the market offer local produce, but it also boasts textiles made in the region and many tourist delights. Tourism is one of the key industrial sectors, alongside the local arts scene and wine making. The region has a long history in the production of licorice . The German company Haribo maintains
246-535: A 1st-century AD temple dedicated to the first Roman Emperor, Augustus . There are monuments of the prestige of the former bishopric, once one of the most extensive of Languedoc, but extinguished at the Revolution, and private houses that witness the wealth that the textile trade brought in the 16th century. The town is also homes to three feudal towers, the Bermonde Tower (part of the château du Duché ),
328-553: A common origin (see Occitano-Romance languages ). The language was one of the first to gain prestige as a medium for literature among Romance languages in the Middle Ages. Indeed, in the 12th and 13th centuries, Catalan troubadours such as Guerau de Cabrera , Guilhem de Bergadan, Guilhem de Cabestany, Huguet de Mataplana , Raimon Vidal de Besalú, Cerverí de Girona , Formit de Perpinhan, and Jofre de Foixà wrote in Occitan. At
410-643: A consonant), whereas the southernmost dialects have more features in common with the Ibero-Romance languages (e.g. betacism ; voiced fricatives between vowels in place of voiced stops; - ch - in place of - it -), and Gascon has a number of unusual features not seen in other dialects (e.g. /h/ in place of /f/ ; loss of /n/ between vowels; intervocalic -r- and final -t/ch in place of medieval - ll -). There are also significant lexical differences, where some dialects have words cognate with French, and others have Catalan and Spanish cognates. Nonetheless, there
492-625: A construction material widely used by the Nazca culture. The time period in which they were constructed is still debated, but some evidence supports circa A.D. 540–552, in response to drought periods in the region. The Guayabo National Monument of Costa Rica, a park covering the largest archaeological site in the country, contains a system of aqueducts. The complex network of uncovered and covered aqueducts still functions well. The aqueducts are constructed from rounded river stones, which are mostly made of volcanic rock . The civilization that constructed
574-480: A design with ancient swastika -like elements. Ucetia was inhabited from at least the 1st century B.C. until the 7th century A.D. Ucetia was known to have been a source of water carried via aqueduct to many communities, especially ancient Nemausus (Nîmes), which grew to a population of about 30,000. The aqueduct system included the Pont du Gard . Construction of the aqueduct led to a "classic Roman tragedy" of greed in
656-398: A dialect of French spoken by Jews in southern France. Southern Jewish French is now estimated to only be spoken by about 50–100 people. Domergue Sumien proposes a slightly different supradialectal grouping. Aqueduct (water supply) An aqueduct is a watercourse constructed to carry water from a source to a distribution point far away. In modern engineering, the term aqueduct
738-605: A factory and museum in Uzès, which traces its roots back to the licorice factory Henri Lefont opened there in 1862. His company later merged with Ricqlès , and was then taken over by Haribo. Occitan language Italy Occitan ( English: / ˈ ɒ k s ɪ t ən , - t æ n , - t ɑː n / ; Occitan pronunciation: [utsiˈta, uksiˈta] ), also known as lenga d'òc ( Occitan: [ˈleŋɡɒ ˈðɔ(k)] ; French : langue d'oc ) by its native speakers, sometimes also referred to as Provençal ,
820-545: A fragment remains in Mexico City today. Extensive usage of elaborate aqueducts have been found to have been used in ancient Sri Lanka . The best example is the Yoda Ela or Jaya Ganga, an 87 kilometres (54 mi) long water canal carrying excess water between two artificial reservoirs with a gradient of 10 to 20 cm per kilometer during the fifth century AD. However, the ancient engineering methods in calculating
902-483: A local high school, and represented material proof of Ucetia. The mosaics had depictions of animals such as a deer, an owl, an eagle, and bulls. These have been identified as "honor to the Roman gods". For many European cultures, deer represented deities of the woodlands, and the owl was a symbol of the goddess Athena . Together with the animals, decorations represented water, geometric shapes, colors, and patterns, including
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#1732772909592984-746: A part of a wider Occitano-Romanic group. One such classification posits three groups: According to this view, Catalan is an ausbau language that became independent from Occitan during the 13th century, but originates from the Aquitano-Pyrenean group. Occitan has 3 dialects spoken by Jewish communities that are all now extinct. A sociolect of the Gascon dialect spoken by Spanish and Portuguese Jews in Gascony . It, like many other Jewish dialects and languages, contained large amounts of Hebrew loanwords. It went extinct after World War 2 with
1066-540: A second Occitan immigration of this period was assimilated by the similar Navarro-Aragonese language , which at the same time was fostered and chosen by the kings of Aragon . In the 14th century, Occitan across the whole southern Pyrenean area fell into decay and became largely absorbed into Navarro-Aragonese first and Castilian later in the 15th century, after their exclusive boroughs broke up (1423, Pamplona 's boroughs unified). Gascon-speaking communities were called to move in for trading purposes by Navarrese kings in
1148-437: A series of well-like vertical shafts, connected by gently sloping horizontal tunnels. There are three types of falaj: These enabled large scale agriculture to flourish in a dry land environment. In Persia , starting around 3000 years ago a system of underground aqueducts called qanāts were constructed, a series of well-like vertical shafts, connected by gently sloping tunnels. This technique: Throughout Petra , Jordan,
1230-542: A single written standard form, nor does it have official status in France, home to most of its speakers. Instead, there are competing norms for writing Occitan, some of which attempt to be pan-dialectal, whereas others are based on a particular dialect. These efforts are hindered by the rapidly declining use of Occitan as a spoken language in much of southern France, as well as by the significant differences in phonology and vocabulary among different Occitan dialects. According to
1312-515: A source such as a river, spring, reservoir, qanat , or aqueduct for domestic consumption or agricultural irrigation of crop land uses. Rills were traditionally used in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean climate cultures of ancient and historical eras; and other climates and continents worldwide. They are distinguished from a 'water ditch ' by being lined to reduce absorption losses and to increase durability. The Falaj irrigation system at
1394-642: A third is from the Colorado River. In modern civil engineering projects, detailed study and analysis of open-channel flow is commonly required to support flood control, irrigation systems, and large water supply systems when an aqueduct rather than a pipeline is the preferred solution. In the past, aqueducts often had channels made of earth or other porous materials but significant amounts of water are lost through such unlined aqueducts. As water gets increasingly scarce, these canals are being lined with concrete, polymers , or impermeable soil. In some cases,
1476-476: A unitary language, as it lacks an official written standard . Like other languages that fundamentally exist at a spoken, rather than written, level (e.g. the Rhaeto-Romance languages , Franco-Provençal , Astur-Leonese , and Aragonese ), every settlement technically has its own dialect, with the whole of Occitania forming a classic dialect continuum that changes gradually along any path from one side to
1558-625: A written account in Occitan from Pamplona centered on the burning of borough San Nicolas from 1258, while the History of the War of Navarre by Guilhem Anelier (1276), albeit written in Pamplona, shows a linguistic variant from Toulouse . Things turned out slightly otherwise in Aragon, where the sociolinguistic situation was different, with a clearer Basque-Romance bilingual situation (cf. Basques from
1640-410: Is "probably not more divergent from Occitan overall than Gascon is". There is no general agreement about larger groupings of these dialects. Max Wheeler divides the dialects into two groups: Pierre Bec divides the dialects into three groups: In order to overcome the pitfalls of the traditional romanistic view, Bec proposed a "supradialectal" classification that groups Occitan with Catalan as
1722-631: Is a Romance language spoken in Southern France , Monaco , Italy 's Occitan Valleys , as well as Spain 's Val d'Aran in Catalonia ; collectively, these regions are sometimes referred to as Occitania . It is also spoken in Calabria ( Southern Italy ) in a linguistic enclave of Cosenza area (mostly Guardia Piemontese ). Some include Catalan in Occitan, as the linguistic distance between this language and some Occitan dialects (such as
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#17327729095921804-464: Is a significant amount of mutual intelligibility . Gascon is the most divergent, and descriptions of the main features of Occitan often consider Gascon separately. Max Wheeler notes that "probably only its copresence within the French cultural sphere has kept [Gascon] from being regarded as a separate language", and compares it to Franco-Provençal, which is considered a separate language from Occitan but
1886-532: Is believed to have some of the earliest aqueducts. Evidence can be found at the sites of present-day Hampi, Karnataka . The massive aqueducts near Tungabhadra River supplying irrigation water were once 15 miles (24 km) long. The waterways supplied water to royal bath tubs. In Oman from the Iron Age , in Salut, Bat, and other sites, a system of underground aqueducts called falaj or qanāts were constructed,
1968-656: Is called a qanat. One historic example found in Syria, the Qanat Firaun, extends over 100 kilometers. Modern aqueducts may also make extensive use of pipelines. Pipelines are useful for transporting water over long distances when it needs to move over hills, or where open channels are poor choices due to considerations of evaporation , freezing, pollution, or environmental impact. They can also be used to carry treated water . Historically, agricultural societies have constructed aqueducts to irrigate crops. Archimedes invented
2050-671: Is derived from the Latin words aqua ( water ) and ductus ( led or guided ). Although particularly associated with the Romans, aqueducts were devised much earlier in Greece, the Near East , Nile Valley , and Indian subcontinent , where peoples such as the Egyptians and Harappans built sophisticated irrigation systems. The Aztecs and Incans also built such systems independently later. Roman-style aqueducts were used as early as
2132-590: Is dwarfed by aqueducts in the far west of the country, most notably the 242-mile (389-km) Colorado River Aqueduct , which supplies the Los Angeles area with water from the Colorado River nearly 250 miles to the east and the 701.5-mile (1,129.0 km) California Aqueduct , which runs from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to Lake Perris . The Central Arizona Project is the largest and most expensive aqueduct constructed in
2214-413: Is the other native language. Up to seven million people in France understand the language, whereas twelve to fourteen million fully spoke it in 1921. In 1860 , Occitan speakers represented more than 39% of the whole French population (52% for francophones proper); they were still 26% to 36% in the 1920s and fewer than 7% in 1993. Occitan is fundamentally defined by its dialects, rather than being
2296-723: Is used for any system of pipes, ditches, canals, tunnels, and other structures used for this purpose. The term aqueduct also often refers specifically to a bridge carrying an artificial watercourse . Aqueducts were used in ancient Greece , the ancient Near East , ancient Rome , ancient Aztec , and ancient Inca . The simplest aqueducts are small ditches cut into the earth. Much larger channels may be used in modern aqueducts. Aqueducts sometimes run for some or all of their path through tunnels constructed underground. Modern aqueducts may also use pipelines. Historically, agricultural societies have constructed aqueducts to irrigate crops and supply large cities with drinking water. The word aqueduct
2378-467: Is worthier and better suited for romances and pastourelles ; but [the language] from Limousin is of greater value for writing poems and cançons and sirventés ; and across the whole of the lands where our tongue is spoken, the literature in the Limousin language has more authority than any other dialect, wherefore I shall use this name in priority. The term Provençal , though implying a reference to
2460-475: The òc language (Occitan), the oïl language (French), and the sì language (Italian). The word òc came from Vulgar Latin hoc ("this"), while oïl originated from Latin hoc illud ("this [is] it"). Old Catalan and now the Catalan of Northern Catalonia also have hoc ( òc ). Other Romance languages derive their word for "yes" from the Latin sic , "thus [it is], [it
2542-640: The Romance of Flamenca (13th century), the Song of the Albigensian Crusade (1213–1219?), Daurel e Betó (12th or 13th century), Las, qu'i non-sun sparvir, astur (11th century) and Tomida femina (9th or 10th century). Occitan was the vehicle for the influential poetry of the medieval troubadours ( trobadors ) and trobairitz : At that time, the language was understood and celebrated throughout most of educated Europe. It
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2624-675: The Al Ain Oasis , in present-day Abu Dhabi Emirate , uses rills as part of its qanat water system. Sometimes in the Spanish language they are called Acequias . Rills are also used for aesthetic purposes in landscape design. Rills are used as narrow channels of water inset into the pavement of a garden , as linear water features , and often tiled and part of a fountain design. The historical origins are from paradise garden religious images that first translated into ancient Persian Gardens . Rills were later exceptionally developed in
2706-631: The Enigma machine . Uzès has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate ( Köppen climate classification Csa ). The average annual temperature in Uzès is 14.5 °C (58.1 °F). The average annual rainfall is 809.4 mm (31.87 in) with November as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in July, at around 23.7 °C (74.7 °F), and lowest in January, at around 6.1 °C (43.0 °F). The highest temperature ever recorded in Uzès
2788-595: The Gascon language ) is similar to the distance between different Occitan dialects. Catalan was considered a dialect of Occitan until the end of the 19th century and still today remains its closest relative. Occitan is an official language of Catalonia, Spain, where a subdialect of Gascon known as Aranese is spoken (in the Val d'Aran ). Since September 2010, the Parliament of Catalonia has considered Aranese Occitan to be
2870-954: The Moorish (Spanish) Gardens of Al-andalus , such as at the Alhambra in Granada ; and also in other Islamic gardens, cultures, and countries. Early 20th century examples are in the María Luisa Park gardens in Seville, Spain; and at the Casa del Herrero gardens in Montecito, California . Aqueducts sometimes run for some or all of their path through tunnels constructed underground. A version of this common in North Africa and Central Asia that has vertical wells at regular intervals
2952-590: The Nabataean engineers took advantage of every natural spring and every winter downpour to channel water where it was needed. They constructed aqueducts and piping systems that allowed water to flow across mountains, through gorges and into the temples, homes, and gardens of Petra's citizens. Walking through the Siq , one can easily spot the remains of channels that directed water to the city center, as well as durable retention dams that kept powerful flood waters at bay. On
3034-681: The South–North Water Transfer Project aims to connect the Yangtze River basin to Beijing through three separate systems. The project will reuse part of the Grand Canal of China . The simplest aqueducts are small ditches cut into the earth. Much larger channels may be used in modern aqueducts, for instance the Central Arizona Project uses 7.3 m (24 ft) wide channels. A major factor in
3116-468: The UNESCO Red Book of Endangered Languages , four of the six major dialects of Occitan (Provençal, Auvergnat , Limousin and Languedocien) are considered severely endangered , whereas the remaining two ( Gascon and Vivaro-Alpine ) are considered definitely endangered . The name Occitan comes from the term lenga d'òc ("language of òc "), òc being the Occitan word for yes. While
3198-582: The Val d'Aran cited c. 1000 ), but a receding Basque language (Basque banned in the marketplace of Huesca, 1349). While the language was chosen as a medium of prestige in records and official statements along with Latin in the early 13th century, Occitan faced competition from the rising local Romance vernacular, the Navarro-Aragonese , both orally and in writing, especially after Aragon's territorial conquests south to Zaragoza , Huesca and Tudela between 1118 and 1134. It resulted that
3280-476: The water screw to raise water for use in irrigation of croplands. Another use for aqueducts is to supply large cities with drinking water. They also help drought-prone areas with water supply . Some of the Roman aqueducts still supply water to Rome today. In California , United States, three large aqueducts supply water over hundreds of miles to the Los Angeles area. Two are from the Owens River area, and
3362-451: The 16th century, and religious and class conflicts played out in the Wars of Religion. The Languedoc region suffered considerable violence: Protestants trashed and burned many of the city's churches. Only two have survived to the 21st century. Saint-Étienne was reconstructed after the violence. Ucetia is the name of a Gallo-Roman oppidum in the Roman province of Occitania . Its existence
Uzès - Misplaced Pages Continue
3444-482: The 5th century. Saint Ferréol , Bishop of Uzès, was said to have admitted them to his table. Complaints were made of him to King Childebert I for this issue, whereupon the bishop was required to turn against them, expelling those Jews from Uzès who would not convert to Christianity. After his death (581), many of the converts who had been baptised returned to Judaism. In 614 the Christian government expelled Jews from
3526-622: The 7th century BC, when the Assyrians built an 80 km long limestone aqueduct, which included a 10 m high section to cross a 300 m wide valley, to carry water to their capital city, Nineveh . Although particularly associated with the Romans , aqueducts were likely first used by the Minoans around 2000 BCE. The Minoans had developed what was then an extremely advanced irrigation system , including several aqueducts. The Indian subcontinent
3608-669: The Bishop Tower and the Royal Tower. Uzès Cathedral was destroyed in the Albigensian Crusade , rebuilt, and destroyed again in the 16th century Wars of Religion . Rebuilt again in the 17th century, it was stripped out during the French Revolution. The 11th century Romanesque Tour Fenestrelle ("Window Tower"), with its paired windows, is probably the most famous icon of the city. It was listed as
3690-632: The Frankish Pepin the Short . In 753 the stronghold rebelled against the Franks after Ansemund's assassination, but the uprising was suppressed and a Frankish trustee of Pepin imposed. In the 13th century, Uzès hosted a small community of Jewish scholars, as well as a community of Cathars . Like many cloth-manufacturing centers (Uzès was known for its serges ), residents of the city and the surrounding countryside had become strongly Protestant during
3772-613: The Judeo-Occitan dialects, Judeo-Niçard was spoken by the community of Jews living in Nice , who were descendants of Jewish immigrants from Provence, Piedmont, and other Mediterranean communities. Its existence is attested from a few documents from the 19th century. It contained significant influence in both vocabulary and grammar from Hebrew. All three of these dialects have some influence in Southern Jewish French,
3854-850: The United States. It stretches 336 miles from its source near Parker, Arizona to the metropolitan areas of Phoenix and Tucson . An aqueduct in New Zealand, "the Oamaru Borough Race", was constructed in the late 19th century to deliver water (and water-power) about 50 km from the Waitaki River at Kurow to the coastal town of Oamaru . In Spain, the Tagus-Segura Water Transfer system of aqueducts opened in 1979 and transports water 286 kilometres (178 mi) from north to south. In China,
3936-604: The aqueduct system remains a mystery to archaeologists; it is suspected that Guayabo's aqueducts sat at a point of ancient cultural confluence between Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas. When Europeans saw the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan , early in the 16th century, the city was watered by two aqueducts. One of these, Chapultepec aqueduct , built c. 1420 , was rebuilt by the Spanish almost three hundred years later. Originally tracing part of its path over now-gone Lake Texcoco , only
4018-452: The cities in southern France is unlikely to hear a single Occitan word spoken on the street (or, for that matter, in a home), and is likely to only find the occasional vestige, such as street signs (and, of those, most will have French equivalents more prominently displayed), to remind them of the traditional language of the area. Occitan speakers, as a result of generations of systematic suppression and humiliation (see Vergonha ), seldom use
4100-493: The design of all open channels is its gradient. A higher gradient allows a smaller channel to carry the same amount of water as a larger channel with a lower gradient, but increases the potential of the water to damage the aqueduct's structure. A typical Roman aqueduct had a gradient of about 1:4800. A constructed functional rill is a small canal or aqueduct of stone, brick, concrete, or other lining material, usually rectilinear in cross section , for water transportation from
4182-408: The duke of Uzès to cry out, " Le Roi est mort. Vive le Roi! " at each state funeral, and defend the honour of the queen mother. Twenty-one dukes have been wounded or killed as hereditary Champion of France over the centuries. The present-day city retains the trace of its walls as a circuit of boulevards. A Capuchin chapel, built in 1635 to house the mortal remains of the dukes, occupies the site of
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#17327729095924264-490: The early 12th century to the coastal fringe extending from San Sebastian to the river Bidasoa , where they settled down. The language variant they used was different from the ones in Navarre, i.e. a Béarnese dialect of Gascon. Gascon remained in use in this area far longer than in Navarre and Aragon, until the 19th century, thanks mainly to the fact that Donostia and Pasaia maintained close ties with Bayonne . Though it
4346-524: The empire, and set a standard of engineering that was not surpassed for more than a thousand years. Bridges, built in stone with multiple arches, were a distinctive feature of Roman aqueducts and hence the term aqueduct is often applied specifically to a bridge for carrying water . Near the Peruvian town of Nazca, an ancient pre-Columbian system of aqueducts called puquios were built and are still in use today. They were made of intricately placed stones,
4428-921: The end of the 11th century, the Franks , as they were called at the time, started to penetrate the Iberian Peninsula through the Ways of St. James via Somport and Roncesvalles , settling in various locations in the Kingdoms of Navarre and Aragon enticed by the privileges granted them by the Navarrese kings . They settled in large groups, forming ethnic boroughs where Occitan was used for everyday life, in Pamplona , Sangüesa , and Estella-Lizarra , among others. These boroughs in Navarre may have been close-knit communities that tended not to assimilate with
4510-430: The exact elevation between the two reservoirs and the exact gradient of the canal to such fine precision had been lost with the fall of the civilization in 13th Century. Modern aqueducts are a central part of many countries' water distribution infrastructure. The United States' aqueducts are some of the world's largest. The Catskill Aqueduct carries water to New York City over a distance of 120 miles (190 km), but
4592-534: The geographical territory in which Occitan is spoken is surrounded by regions in which other Romance languages are used, external influences may have influenced its origin and development. Many factors favored its development as its own language. Catalan in Spain's northern and central Mediterranean coastal regions and the Balearic Islands is closely related to Occitan, sharing many linguistic features and
4674-498: The island of Samos , the Tunnel of Eupalinos was built during the reign of Polycrates (538–522 BC). It is considered an underground aqueduct and brought fresh water to Pythagoreion for roughly a thousand years. Roman aqueducts were built in all parts of the Roman Empire , from Germany to Africa, and especially in the city of Rome, where they totalled over 415 kilometres (258 mi). The aqueducts supplied fresh water to public baths and for drinking water, in large cities across
4756-476: The language at the beginning of the 13th century by Catalan troubadour Raimon Vidal de Besalú(n) in his Razós de trobar : La parladura Francesca val mais et [es] plus avinenz a far romanz e pasturellas; mas cella de Lemozin val mais per far vers et cansons et serventés; et per totas las terras de nostre lengage son de major autoritat li cantar de la lenga Lemosina que de negun'autra parladura, per qu'ieu vos en parlarai primeramen. The French language
4838-409: The language in the presence of strangers, whether they are from abroad or from outside Occitania (in this case, often merely and abusively referred to as Parisiens or Nordistes , which means northerners ). Occitan is still spoken by many elderly people in rural areas, but they generally switch to French when dealing with outsiders. Occitan's decline is somewhat less pronounced in Béarn because of
4920-422: The language. Following the pattern of language shift , most of this remainder is to be found among the eldest populations. Occitan activists (called Occitanists ) have attempted, in particular with the advent of Occitan-language preschools (the Calandretas ), to reintroduce the language to the young. Nonetheless, the number of proficient speakers of Occitan is thought to be dropping precipitously. A tourist in
5002-408: The larger collection of dialects grouped under the name langues d'oïl ) should be used for all French administration. Occitan's greatest decline occurred during the French Revolution , in which diversity of language was considered a threat. In 1903, the four Gospels ( "Lis Evangèli" , i.e. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) were translated into Provençal as spoken in Cannes and Grasse. The translation
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#17327729095925084-406: The last speakers being elderly Jews in Bayonne . About 850 unique words and a few morphological and grammatical aspects of the dialect were transmitted to Southern Jewish French. Judeo-Provençal was a dialect of Occitan spoken by Jews in Provence . The dialect declined in usage after Jews were expelled from the area in 1498, and was probably extinct by the 20th century. The least attested of
5166-772: The latter term for the language as a whole. Many non-specialists, however, continue to refer to the language as Provençal . One of the oldest written fragments of the language found dates back to 960, shown here in italics mixed with non-italicized Latin: De ista hora in antea non decebrà Ermengaus filius Eldiarda Froterio episcopo filio Girberga ne Raimundo filio Bernardo vicecomite de castello de Cornone ... no·l li tolrà ni no·l li devedarà ni no l'en decebrà ... nec societatem non aurà , si per castellum recuperare non o fa , et si recuperare potuerit in potestate Froterio et Raimundo lo tornarà , per ipsas horas quæ Froterius et Raimundus l'en comonrà . Carolingian litanies ( c. 780 ), though
5248-440: The leader sang in Latin , were answered to in Old Occitan by the people ( Ora pro nos ; Tu lo juva ). Other famous pieces include the Boecis , a 258-line-long poem written entirely in the Limousin dialect of Occitan between the year 1000 and 1030 and inspired by Boethius 's The Consolation of Philosophy ; the Waldensian La nobla leyczon (dated 1100), Cançó de Santa Fe ( c. 1054 –1076),
5330-401: The lords' (and later dukes') military skill and fealty to the Crown propelled their rise through the nobility, until, after the treason of the last Duke of Montmorency , beheaded in 1632, the title of First Duke of France fell to Uzès, who retain their stronghold in the center of town today, which has expanded round the 11th century Tour Bermond . If France were a kingdom, it would be the job of
5412-415: The modern Occitan-speaking area. After Frédéric Mistral 's Félibrige movement in the 19th century, Provençal achieved the greatest literary recognition and so became the most popular term for Occitan. According to Joseph Anglade , a philologist and specialist of medieval literature who helped impose the then archaic term Occitan as the standard name, the word Lemosin was first used to designate
5494-424: The nearby cities and towns that affected Ucetia and other communities. From September 1940 to 9 November 1942, PC Cadix operated at Château des Fouzes near Uzès, in Vichy France . It was a cryptographer team organized by French major Gustave Bertrand , comprising 15 Polish men from the Polish Cipher Bureau , 9 Frenchmen and 7 Republican Spanish refugees. From there, they worked against Axis ciphers including
5576-422: The negative sense: for example, "Vous n'avez pas de frères?" "Si, j'en ai sept." ("You have no brothers?" "But yes, I have seven."). The name "Occitan" was attested around 1300 as occitanus , a crossing of oc and aquitanus ( Aquitanian ). For many centuries, the Occitan dialects (together with Catalan ) were referred to as Limousin or Provençal , after the names of two regions lying within
5658-488: The officially preferred language for use in the Val d'Aran. Across history, the terms Limousin ( Lemosin ), Languedocien ( Lengadocian ), Gascon , in addition to Provençal ( Provençal , Provençau or Prouvençau ) later have been used as synonyms for the whole of Occitan; nowadays, the term "Provençal" is understood mainly as the Occitan dialect spoken in Provence , in southeast France. Unlike other Romance languages such as French or Spanish , Occitan does not have
5740-424: The other. Nonetheless, specialists commonly divide Occitan into six main dialects: The northern and easternmost dialects have more morphological and phonetic features in common with the Gallo-Italic and Oïl languages (e.g. nasal vowels ; loss of final consonants; initial cha/ja- instead of ca/ga- ; uvular ⟨r⟩ ; the front-rounded sound /ø/ instead of a diphthong, /w/ instead of /l/ before
5822-431: The predominantly Basque -speaking general population. Their language became the status language chosen by the Navarrese kings, nobility, and upper classes for official and trade purposes in the period stretching from the early 13th century to the late 14th century. Written administrative records were in a koiné based on the Languedocien dialect from Toulouse with fairly archaic linguistic features. Evidence survives of
5904-662: The province's history (a late addition to the Kingdom of France), though even there the language is little spoken outside the homes of the rural elderly. The village of Artix is notable for having elected to post street signs in the local language. The area where Occitan was historically dominant has approximately 16 million inhabitants. Recent research has shown it may be spoken as a first language by approximately 789,000 people in France , Italy , Spain and Monaco . In Monaco, Occitan coexists with Monégasque Ligurian , which
5986-517: The region of Provence , historically was used for Occitan as a whole, for "in the eleventh, the twelfth, and sometimes also the thirteenth centuries, one would understand under the name of Provence the whole territory of the old Provincia romana Gallia Narbonensis and even Aquitaine ". The term first came into fashion in Italy . Currently, linguists use the terms Provençal and Limousin strictly to refer to specific varieties within Occitan, using
6068-601: The region. In early 8th century, Uzès was a fortified civitas and bishopric under the Archbishop of Narbonne. During the Umayyad conquest of Gothic Septimania , Uzès became the northernmost stronghold of Muslim Spain circa 725. Charles Martel laid siege to the stronghold in 736, but it remained in Gothic-Andalusian hands up to 752. That year counts loyal to Ansemund of Nîmes ceded numerous of strongholds to
6150-519: The source of the Alzon river, at Fontaine d'Eure, from where a Roman aqueduct was built in the first century AD, to supply water to the city of Nîmes , 50 kilometres (31 miles) away. The most famous stretch of the aqueduct is the Pont du Gard , now a UNESCO World Heritage Site , which carried fresh water over splendid arches across the Gardon river. Jews were apparently settled there as early as
6232-632: The term would have been in use orally for some time after the decline of Latin, as far as historical records show, the Italian medieval poet Dante was the first to have recorded the term lingua d'oc in writing. In his De vulgari eloquentia , he wrote in Latin, "nam alii oc, alii si, alii vero dicunt oil" ("for some say òc , others sì , yet others say oïl "), thereby highlighting three major Romance literary languages that were well known in Italy, based on each language's word for "yes",
6314-466: Was 43.9 °C (111.0 °F) on 28 June 2019; the coldest temperature ever recorded was −12.1 °C (10.2 °F) on 2 March 2005. The title of Duke of Uzès , in the Crussol family , is the premier title in the peerage of France , coming right after the princes of the blood. The title of seigneur d'Uzès is attested in a charter of 1088. After part of Languedoc was attached to royal demesne (1229),
6396-444: Was done], etc.", such as Spanish sí , Eastern Lombard sé , Italian sì , or Portuguese sim . In modern Catalan, as in modern Spanish, sí is usually used as a response, although the language retains the word oi , akin to òc , which is sometimes used at the end of yes–no questions and also in higher register as a positive response. French uses si to answer "yes" in response to questions that are asked in
6478-484: Was given the official Roman Catholic Imprimatur by vicar general A. Estellon. The literary renaissance of the late 19th century (in which the 1904 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, Frédéric Mistral, among others, was involved) was attenuated by World War I , when (in addition to the disruption caused by any major war) many Occitan speakers spent extended periods of time alongside French-speaking comrades. Because
6560-569: Was recorded on a list of eleven other settlements on a stela in Nîmes (ancient Nemausus) on which its name appears as "VCETIAE". It was under the administration of Nemausus, to which it provided water via a Roman aqueduct . Ucetia was also known as Castrum Uceciense , which is in the Notitia of the Provinces of Gallia. In 2017, Roman mosaics were discovered by accident during construction at
6642-543: Was still an everyday language for most of the rural population of southern France well into the 20th century, it is now spoken by about 100,000 people in France according to 2012 estimates. There is a movement in regions of France where Occitan was widely spoken to introduce educational programs to encourage young people in these regions to learn the language. According to the 1999 census, there were 610,000 native speakers (almost all of whom were also native French speakers) and perhaps another million people with some exposure to
6724-521: Was the maternal language of the English queen Eleanor of Aquitaine and kings Richard I (who wrote troubadour poetry) and John . With the gradual imposition of French royal power over its territory, Occitan declined in status from the 14th century on. The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts (1539) decreed that the langue d'oïl (French – though at the time referring to the Francien language and not
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