If Napoleon hadn't come along, half of France might still speak the Occitan language. But Napoleon did come along, and he forged a highly centralized state. Paris became its capital and the language ...

Despite centuries of efforts to make standardised French the language of all of France, Occitan, which is intrinsically tied to the local culture, could not be suppressed. Our Unique World Our Unique ...

Of the twenty-odd so-called regional languages spoken in metropolitan France, six are classed under the heading of Occitan or Langue d’Oc. Despite being spoken by over half a million people, and being ...

Participants carry flags with the Occitan cross in Montpellier, southern France on October 24, 2015, during a demonstration in favor of the Occitan language (langue d'oc), the ratification of the ...

In southern France, a private TV initiative takes the safeguarding of the Occitan language to the next level by mainstreaming Occitan content for all age-category audiences over traditional and social ...

Jill Kitson: A late 12th century troubadour's song of love, written in Occitan. Hello and welcome to Lingua Franca. This week: the language of the troubadours. Mireille Vignol reports on the language ...

AT A school near the Pyrenees, snowy hills rising behind, children are learning to read. Their teacher speaks gently, urging them to copy her pronunciation. Her words have some of the feel of Catalan, ...

RFI reports from the recent Accents du sud festival in Paris which gave pride of place to the Occitan language from the south of France. Singers from the Béarn province in the Pyrenees showed why ...

Despite centuries of efforts to make standardised French the language of all of France, Occitan, which is intrinsically tied to the local culture, could not be suppressed. Our Unique World explores ...