1. Different Names.— Though the name Provençal is generally adopted to designate the Romanic idiom of this region, it must not be supposed that this name has been imposed by general consensus, or that it rests upon any very firm historical basis. In the southern part of Gaul, Romanic developed itself, so to say, in the natural state of language. Contrary to what took place in other Romanic countries, no local variety here raised itself to the rank of the literary idiom par excellence. While in Italy the Florentine, in France the French dialect proper (that is to say, the dialect of the île de France), succeeded little by little in monopolizing literary use, to the exclusion of the other dialects, we do not find that either the Marseillais or the Toulousain idiom was ever spoken or written outside of Marseilles or Toulouse. In consequence of this circumstance, no name originally designating the language of a town or of a small district came to be employed to designate the language of the whole of southern France; and on the other hand the geographical region described above, having never had any special name, was not able to give one to the idiom.
In the Middle Ages the idiom was spoken of under various appellations: Romans or lenga Romana was that most generally used. It is notably that employed by the authors of the Leys d? Amors, a treatise on grammar, poetry, and rhetoric, composed at Toulouse in the 14th century. But this term, which is capable of being applied, and which, in fact, has been applied, to each of the Romanic languages individually, is too general to be retained. It is, however, that which was revived in the beginning of the present century by Raynouard, the author of the Lexique roman. It is now abandoned. In the 13th century a poet born in Catalonia, on the southern slope of the Pyrenees, Raimon Vidal of Besalù, introduced the name of Limousin language, probably on account of the great reputation of some Limousin troubadours, but he took care to define the expression, which he extended beyond its original meaning, by saying that in speaking of Limousin he must be understood to include Saintonge, Quercy, Auvergne, &c. (Rasos de trobar, ed. Stengel, p. 70). This expression found favour in Spain, and especially in Catalonia, where the little treatise of Raimon Vidal was extensively read. The most ancient lyric poetry of the Catalans (13th and 14th centuries), composed on the model of the poetry of the troubadours, was often styled in Spain poesia lemosina, and in the same country lengua lemosina long designated at once the Provençal and the old literary Catalan.
The name Provençal as applied to language is hardly met with in the Middle Ages, except in the restricted sense of the language of Provence proper, i.e., of the region lying south of Dauphiné on the eastern side of the Rhone. Raimon Feraut, who composed, about 1300, a versified life of St Honorat, uses it, but he was himself a native of Provence. We can also cite the title of a grammar, the Donatz Proensals, by Hugh Faidit (about 1250); but this work was composed in north Italy, and we may conceive that the Italians living next to Provence employed the name Provençal somewhat vaguely without inquiring into the geographical limits of the idiom so called. In fact the name Provencal became traditional in Italy, and in the beginning of the 16th century Bembo could write, “Era per tutto il Ponente la favella Provenzale, ne tempi ne quali ella fiorf, in prezzo et in istima molta, et tra tutti gli altri idiomi di quelle parti, di gran lunga ρrimiera. Conciosiacosa ehe ciascuno, o Francese, o Flamingo, o Guascone,, o Borgognone, o altramente di quelle nationi ehe egli si fosse, il quale bene scrivere e specialmente verseggiar volesse, quantunque egli Provenzale non fosse, lo faceva Provenzalmente” (Prose, ed. 1529, fol. viii.).
This passage, in which the primacy of the Provençal tongue is manifestly exaggerated, is interesting as showing the name Provençal employed, though, with little precision, in the sense in which we now apply it.
Another designation, which is supported by the great authority of Dante, is that of langue d’oe. In his treatise De Vulgari Eloquio (bk i. chaps, viii. and ix.), the Florentine poet divides the languages of Latin origin into three idioms, which he characterizes by the affirmative particles used in each, oc, oïl, si; “nam alii oc, alii dil, alii si affirmando loquuntur, ut puta Hispani, Franci, et Latini.” As is seen, he attributes the affirmation oc to the Spaniards, which is of course erroneous, but there is no doubt that to the Spaniards he joined more correctly the inhabitants of southern France, for in the Vita nuova, chap. XXV., he speaks of the lingua d’oe as having been long celebrated for its poets, which can apply only to the language of the troubadours. The name langue d’oe occurs also as early as the end of the 13th century, in public acts, but with a different sense, that of the province of Languedoc, as constituted after the union of the county of Toulouse to the French king’s dominion in 1271. In the royal acts of the end of the 13th and of the 14th century partes linguae, occitanae or pays de langue d’oe designates the union of the five seneschalates of Périgueux, Carcassone, Beaucaire, Toulouse, and Rhodez, that is to say, the province of Languedoc, such as it existed till 1790. Some scholars, following the example of Dante, still actually use the term langue d’oe in opposition to langue d’oui, but these names have the inconvenience that they take such a secondary fact as the form of the affirmative particle as an essential character. Moreover it can hardly help to distinguish the other Romanic languages, as langue de si would cause a confusion between Italian and Spanish. Provençal, without being entirely satisfactory, since in principle it applies solely to the language of Provence, is, notwithstanding, the least objectionable name that can be adopted. In addition to its being in some sort consecrated by the use made of it by the Italians, who were the first after the Renaissance to study the works of the troubadours, it must not be forgotten that, just as the Roman Provincia, in which the name originated, extended across the south of Gaul from the Alps to Toulouse and the Pyrenees, so still in the Middle Ages Provincia, Provinciales, were understood in a very wide sense to designate not only Provence strictly so called, i.e., the present departments of Alpes Maritimes, Basses Alpes, Var, Bouches du Rhône, but also a very considerable part of Languedoc and the adjacent countries. Thus in the 12th century the chronicler Albert of Aix-la-Chapelle (Albertus Aquensis) places the town of Puy (Haute Loire) in Provincia.
2. General Characters of the Language in its Ancient State.— The Provençal language, within the limits above indicated, cannot be said to have any general characters really peculiar to it. Such of its characters as are found in all the varieties of the language are met with also in neighbouring idioms; such as are not found elsewhere are not general characters, that is to say, are manifested only in certain varieties of Provençal. In reality “Provençal language” does not designate, properly speaking, a linguistic unity; it is merely a geographical expression.
Tonic or Accented Vowels.— Latin a is preserved in an open syllable a märe, amar, amâtum, amat, as well as in a closed syllable carnem, earn. This character is common also to the Romanic of Spain ami Italy; but it is one of the best distinguishing marks between Provençal and French, for, to the north, this a, when in an open syllable, does not pass beyond a line which
would run approximately through Blaye, Coutras (Gironde), Riberac, Nontron (Dordogne), Bellac (Haute Vienne), Boussac (Creuse), Montluçon, Gannat (Allier), Montbrison (Loire). Starting eastward from Lyons or thereabouts, there appears a notable linguistic fact which is observable in varied proportions in the departments of Ain, Isère, and Savoie, and in Romanic Switzerland. This is, that accented Latin a in an open syllable, λvhen preceded by a mouillure, or palatalization (whatever the origin of this), becomes e; on the contrary, when there is no mouillure, it remains a. Thus we find in the Meditations of Marguerite d’Oingt (Lyons, about 1300) ensennier, deleitier, as against desirrar, recontar, regardar. Of these two endings, the former, -ier, is that which is found regularly in French, the second that which is regular in Pr. Pure Pr. would have -ar in both cases {enserihar, deleitar, desirrar, &c.); Fr. would have -ier {enseignier, debitier) and -er {desirer). Prof. Ascoli has given the name of Franco-provençal {franco-provenzale) to the varieties of Romanic in which we find this duality of treatment of Latin a, according as it was or was not preceded by a palatalized sound. Lat. ê, Ï become close e (Ital., e chiuso; Fr. é)·. hab ère aver, crëdet ere, me(n)sem 'mes, fïdem fe, pïlum pel. This character is not only common to Italian and Spanish, but also extends over the French domain on its western side as far as Britanny. Certain exceptions noticed in French do not occur in Pr.: thus mercëdem, cëra, pr (eh)e(n)sum, venënum, which give in Fr. merci, cire, pris, venin, where we should have expected mercei, ceire, preis, venein, give regularly in Pr. merce, cera, pres, vere. Lat. h preserves, as in Italy, the sound of open e (Ital., e aperto) : pedem, pe, levat, leva, leporem, lebre. In certain determinate cases, this e from about the 13th century onwards may diphthongize to ie ∖ ego, eu, then ieu, h ë r i, er, ier, f ë r i t, fer, fier. Lat. i is preserved, as in all the Romanic languages: amicum, ami, ripa, riba. Lat. ï is treated like i long when it precedes (with hiatus) another vowel: pium, pïa, piu, pia, via, via, ligat, lia. Lat. ô, U result in one and the same sound, that of Italian u, Fr. ou (Eng. oo). The same phenomenon takes place in the north of Italy, and in the Romanic of Switzerland. This sound, which is styled by the Donat Procnsal the o estreit (close o), is usually symbolized in the early texts by simple o, and is thus confounded in spelling, though not in pronunciation, with the open o (o larc of the Donatz Proensals)firhieh, comes from Lat. b. Lat. û becomes ü {i. e., Fr. u), as all over France, and also in North Italy and Catalonia: mûr um, mur ( = miir), durum, dur ( = diir). Lat. au is rigorously preserved over the whole extent of the Pr. domain: aurum, aur, alauda, alauza, pauperem, paubre. At present the preservation of Lat. au does not extend much outside the Prov. domain; it is, however, found in certain parts of the Ladino zone in Switzerland (upper Rhine valley), and in Friuli, and it is to be supposed to have been once general over the whole of that zone. It is attested as late as the 16th century in the Vaudois valleys of Piedmont, and there are also examples of it in old Catalan. Elsewhere the diphthong has regularly become open o (aurum, It. and Sp. oro, Fr. or, &c.).
Atonic Vowels.— The atonic vowels {i.e., vowels of the unaccented syllables) which precede the accented syllable present no very characteristic phenomenon; but it is otherwise with those that follow the accented syllable, ihc post-tonic vowels. The Pr. is one of the Romanic idioms which, like the French, but unlike the Castilian and the dialects of central and northern Italy, admit of only one syllable after the accent. But the rules are not quite the same as in French. In French the only vowel which can stand after the accented syllable is “e feminine,” otherwise called “e mute.” In Prov. a and e are the most frequent vowels in this position, but i and o also occur. In French the first of the two post-tonic vowels of a Lat. proparoxytone always disappears; in Prov. it tends to be preserved, when followed by one of the consonants n, r, I, d: teτminum, te"rmen, ho ’ minem, o"men, a i ngelum, a"ngel, se - calem, se"guel, cre ’ scere, crei"sser, te ’ pidum, te’bez. Finally, Prov. presents in certain words coming from Lat. proparaxytones the trace of forms which (like I tai.) admitted two atonic vowels after the accented syllable: thus we have porte" gue and po"rgue (po'rticum), Fabre"ga, a place name, and fa"rga (fa'Brica), perte" ga and pe"rga (peτtica), feme"na and fe"mna (fe - mina). We have also lagre ’ ma (la ’ cryma), but a form accented like Fr. larme does not exist. There seems to be no doubt that these forms in which a displacement of the Latin accent is observed were at an earlier period pronounced as proparaxytones {po ’ rtegue, fa"brega, pe"rtega, fe"mena, la^grema). Consonants.— The boundary usually recognized between Prov. and French is founded upon linguistic characters furnished by the vowels, especially a·, if it had been determined by characters furnished by the consonants, the line of demarcation would have to be drawn farther south, because the consonantal system which is regarded as proper to French really extends in its main features over the northern zone of the Provençal region as defined above. As with the vowels, only a few of the salient facts can here be indicated. C initial, or second consonant of a group, before a (caballum, mercatum), preserves its Lat. sound (=⅛) in the greater part of the Prov. region. But in the northern zone it takes· the sound of tch (Eng. ch in chin) as in 0. Fr., and this sound is still pretty well preserved, although there is here and there a tendency to the present sound of ch in Fr. {=sh Eng.). The place names Castellum, Castanëtum, Casale, give Chastel, Chastanet, Ghazal, in Dordogne, Haute Vienne, Corrèze, Puy de Dôme, Cantal, Haute Loire, the north of Lozère, of Ardèche, of Drome, of Isère, and of Hautes Alpes, and Castel, Castanet, Cazal, farther to the south. Analogously, g initial, or second consonant of a group, followed by a, becomes j {i.e., dzh=G. Fr. and Eng. j in jam) in the same zone; Garrica is Jarrija, Jarria in. Dordogne, Corrèze, Cantal, Haute Loire, Isère, and Garriga farther south. Between two vowels t becomes d: edat, emperador, nadal, amada (aetatem, imperatorem, natale, amata). This was also the case in 0. Fr. until the course of the 11th century {honurede, emperedur, lavadures, &c., in the Life of St Alexis). But in the northern zone this d representing a Lat. t fell aλvay as early as in Fr.; in an 11th-century text from the environs of Valence, we read muraor, coroaa (*muratorem, corrogata), Fr. corvée (P. Meyer, Recueil d’anciens textes, Provençal section, No. 40). In the south, d between two vowels was preserved almost everywhere until about the middle of the 12th century, when it became z (as in Fr. and Eng. zero): cruzel, azorar, auzir, vezer (crudëlem, adoräre, audire, vidëre). In the 14th and 15th centuries this z, like every z or s soft of whatever origin, was liable to become r (lingual, not uvular): aurir, veren (audire, videntem). In Béarn and Gascony d remained; but in the northern zone Lat. d, instead of changing into z, r, disappeared as in Fr. and quite as early. The poem of Boetius, of which the MS. is of the 11th century, shows in this respect great hesitation: e.g., d preserved in chaden, credet, tradar, veder (cadentem, *credë’dit, *tradare, vidëre); d fallen away in creessen, feeltat, traazo, veut, far (*credessent, fidelitatem, Gradationem, *vidiitum, p. pie. of vidëre, fidâre). One of the most general facts in Pr. is the habit of rejecting Lat. final t, of which examples to any number are presented by the verbs. In Fr. this t was formerly retained when it followed a vowel which remained, aimet, entret (amat, intrat), and still remains (in writing at least) when, in Latin, it follows a consonant, aiment, fait, ini (amant, facit, *fact, vivit, *vivt); but in Pr. the t is dropped in all cases, even in the most ancient texts: aman, fai, viu. Yet in the northern zone we find the t retained in the 3d per. pl. of verbs, -ant, -ont (Lat. -ant, -unt). H has gone completely (or at least only appears through orthographic tradition, and very intermittently, {h)erba, (h)onor, {h)umil, &c.), not only in words of Lat. origin, which is the case in O. Fr., but even in Teutonic words {anta, ardit, arene, ausberc, elm, Fr. honte, hardi, hareng, haubert, heaume, with h aspirated). By this feature, the northern limits of which are not yet well determined, the Provençal attaches itself to the Romanic of the southern countries. N final, or standing in Lat. between two vowels of which the second is to be dropped, disappears in the whole central part of the Pr. domain: gran gra, ben be, en e, ven ve, fin fi, un u (granum, bene, in, venit, finem, unum). The forms with n belong to the eastern part (left of the Rhone), the western part (Gascony, but not Béarn), and the region of the Pyrenees. It is possible that this loss of n went along with a lengthening of final vowel; at least, in Béarnese when the n falls away the vowel is doubled: caperaa, besii, boo (capellänum, vicinum, bonum), &c.
These are the most important characteristics of the consonants, in relation to the extent of space over which they prevail. Others, which appear only within a more limited area, are perhaps more curious on account of their strangeness. It will suffice to mention a few which belong to the district bounded on the west and south by the Atlantic, the Basque provinces, and the Pyrenees, and which extends northward and eastward towards the Garonne and its affluents, as far as the Gironde. (This includes Béarn, Bigorre, and Gascony. ) Here the sound v no longer exists, being replaced generally by b ; between two vowels, in Gascony, by w with the sound of Eng. w. Initial r assumes a prosthetic a: arram, arrc, Arrobert (rämum, rem, Robertum). LI between two vowels becomes r : aperar, caperan, or (Béarn) caperaa, bera, era (a p e 1- lare, cap el la num, bella, el la). On the contrary, at the end of words (viz., in Romanic) ll becomes g or t, d∙, the former change seems to belong rather to Hautes and Basses Pyrénées, Landes, the latter to Gironde, Lot et Garonne, Gers: eg, ed, et (ille), arrasteg, -ed, -et (r a s t e 11 u m), casteg, -ed, -et (c a s t e 11 u m), capdeg, -ed, -et (capitellum), whence Fr. cadet (in 16th century capdet, originally a Gascon word). For further details upon the consonants in this region of south-west France, see Romania, iii. 435-38, v. 368-69.
Flexion.— Old Provençal has, like Old French, a declension consisting of two cases for each number, derived from the Latin nominative and accusative. In certain respects this declension is more in conformity with etymology in Provençal than in Old French, having been less influenced by analogy. The following are the tvpes of this declension, taking them in the order of the Lat. declensions. 1. Words in -a coming from Lat. 1st decl., increased by certain words coming from Lat. neuter plurals treated in Prov. as feminine singulars; one form only for each number: sing, causa, pl. causas. 2. Words of the Lat. 2d decl., with a few from the 4th; two forms for each number: sing, subject cavals (caballus), object caval (c a b a 11 u m); pl. subject caval (caballi), object cavals (caballos). 3. Words of Lat. 3d decl. Here there are three Lat. types to be considered. The first...
