Occitania refers to the land of the Occitan language.
Occitania and Occitan language are retronyms. They were neologisms from the 19th century for the centuries-old set of Romance dialects that used oc for yes.
Geography
Occitania is composed of:
Occitan or langue d'oc is a Latin language in the same way as Spanish, Italian or French. There are six main regional varieties with easy intercomprehension between them: Provençal (including «Niçois »), Vivarais-alpine , Auvergnat, Limousin, Gascon (including «Bearnais ») and Languedocien. All those varieties of the Occitan language are written and valid. «Standard Occitan» is a synthesis.
Catalan is a language very similar to Occitan and there are quite strong historical and cultural links between Occitania and Catalonia.
1200 years' history
The Occitan language appeared in the 9th century: it was used at once in legal then litterary, scientific and religious texts.
Occitania in the Middle Ages was a free country, united by its culture, but divided between its sovereigns: from the 11th to the 13th century, the dukes of Aquitaine, the counts of Toulouse and the Catalan kings rivalled in their attempts at unifying the country.
The Occitan literature was glorious and flourishing at that time: in the 12th and 13th century, the troubadours invented courtly love (fin'amor) and the langue d'oc spread throughout all European cultivated circles. Actually, the terms langue d'oc, Occitan and Occitania appeared at the end of the 13th century.
But from the 13th to the 17th century, the French kings gradually conquered Occitania, sometimes slaughtering the population (one million people were killed during the Albigensian crusade).
The nobility and bourgeoisie started learning French while the people stuck to the langue d'oc. In 1539, François I issued the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts that imposed the use of French instead of Occitan in administration.
In 1789, the revolutionary committees tried to re-establish the autonomy of the «Midi» regions: they used the Occitan language but the Jacobin power neutralized them.
The 18th century witnessed a strong revival of the Occitan litterature and the writer Frédéric Mistral was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1904.
But from 1881 onwards, the children who spoke Occitan at school were punished in accordance with minister Jules Ferry's recommendations. That led to a depreciation of the language: everyone spoke Occitan in 1914, but French gained the upper hand during the 20th century. The situation got worse with the media excluding the use of the langue d'oc. In spite of that decline, the Occitan language is still alive and trying to gain fresh impetus...
A living culture
There are 13 million inhabitants in Occitania today: 6 million (nearly one half) understand Occitan and 3 million speak it. The Institut d'Estudis Occitans (I.E.O.) has been modernizing the Occitan language since 1945. Nowadays Occitan is used in the most modern musical and litterary styles such as rock'n roll, detective stories or science-fiction. It is on the internet. Association schools (Calandretas ) teach children in Occitan.
The Occitan political movement for self-government has been developping since the beginning of the 20th century and particularly since post-war years (Partit Occitan ). At the time of Europe's emerging Regions, Occitania can become a federation of strong regions, with a lively culture and open to the world.
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