Occitan
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A highly fragmented situation cannot be described in a global way
The situations of Oc languages are very different from one another: e.g. the status and development of Provençal are much higher than those of Auvergnat. The population of Béarn is very different from the population of Nice area. They should be descrived separately in the page.
No action taken.
alternative names are more precisely located
"Patois" is a general alternate name used everywhere in France to name all local languages. Ir was spread by the French Governement Schools all along the XIXth and XXth centuries to despise those languages. In the Oc area, it is barely used in Provence where the local langua ge name is mostly "Provençal" (in French and "Prouvençau" in Provençal. In other Oc regions, alternate names are mostly "Béarnais" in Béarn, "Gascon" in Gascony, "Nissart" in Nice area, "Auvergnat" in Auvergne and "Limousin" in Limousin area.
We will remove the name "Patois" from the Occitan [oci] entries in the Ethnologue and add appropriate alternate names for the language.
various recent scientific surveys of uses of oc languages
Several regional surveys about uses and users of so called "occitan" languages have been made recently:
- http://portal-lem.com/images/fr/occitan/08_Enquete_sociolinguistique_occitan_en_Aquitaine_2009.pdf
- http://www.ddl.cnrs.fr/led-tdr/pageweb/sources/FORA_rapp.pdf (about Gascon and Occitan, 2009)
- http://www.observatori-occitan.org/documents/2010_Midi_Pyrenees_etude_sociolinguistique.pdf (about Occitan)
- https://www.ofici-occitan.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/OPLO_Enquete-sociolingusitique-occitan-2020_Resultats.pdf (about Gascon and Occitan)
- https://luniversitenumerique.fr/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Provençal-UOH-Blanchet-avec-liens-interneslogo.pdf (2020, about Provençal)
Figures are much higher than what is said in The Ethnologue website (all added gives about 1 million regular users and 1 million more occasional users). A summary of the whole situation was recently published (see https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333487187_La_mosaique_d'oc_un_espace_pluriel_en_question_au_coeur_du_monde_roman)
We will update the L1 speaker population for Occitan [oci] in France, for inclusion in the next edition of the Ethnologue.