As I recall, it was French policy dating back to the 19th century to suppress the dialects and Occitan, just as the government eliminated the old regions tied to various local monarchs (e.g., Savoy, etc.) in favor of departments named for rivers. It was all part of a secular, republican, nationalist program.
I remember being surprised in 1992 to see Basque and Provencal names in smaller lettering under the French town names at the outskirts of towns. I’d not seen that on visits in the 80s.
Dialects seem to be having a revival everywhere. I know they are in Italy, and I have German cousins in the Black Forest who speak Schwabisch at home.
Pronunciation of proper names is a nightmare in any language - try explaining to someone French why Beauchamp Place is pronounced “beetshem playsh”, or why Beaulieu is “bewlee”!
In SW France, they enjoy catching out other French people - it is not just the “s” which is sounded, but often the “t” as well!
In Les Landes, the département south of the Gironde départment, where I lived on arrival in France, there are lots of villages with “interestingly” pronounced names:
Castets - now you would think it would be “Kasstay”, which is how all Parisians say it when asking directions to it - but no, it is “Kastetts”.
Lit-et-Mixe - likewise, all Parisians happily say “Lee-ay-Mix” only for the locals to grin and tell them it is “Litt-ay-Mix”
Moliets-et-Maa - “mollietts-ay-ma” although everyone just says “molietts”
For those interested in a discussion of the five major languages that were spoken in France really through the 19th century, I recommend the Discovery of France by Graham Robb. It should be remembered that Occitan is a grouping of numbers of dialects. Though they would be very similar, in fact, when the dialects were widely spoken as a first language, people living as close as twenty miles apart or so might speak them differently enough so as not be be able to understand each other. There was a 19th century movement in Provence to keep Provencale alive led by Frederic Mistral and his group, the Felibre. I have no idea whether this kept the language more active than other versions elsewhere or not, but if it did, than Otto’s figures might not reflect an even spread of say how many people spoke Gascon and how many people some other variant of Occitan.
By the way, the idea that the purest French is spoken in the Loire is a hangover from the 19th century. Linguistically, of course, no form of pronunciation is “purer” than another. In any case, since the 20th century,the Parisian accent has been taken to be standard just as English as spoken by the upper middle class in London is taken to be standard there and the entirely artificial Middle Atlantic newscaster pronunciation is standard in the US.
I appreciate producers that have audio clips on their sites to educate the uneducated on pronunciation, but I really don’t sweat the way I butcher the names. Precisely because these are proper nouns and many times have idiosyncratic pronunciations, or come from some dialect/regionalism/language that does not follow the “ordinary” rules, I make my best guess and move on. I am 100% sure that the “sounds” I hear inside my head when I read a name are wrong 50% of the time.
One of the things my French friends always tell me about English is how many exemptions there are to the “rules” of grammar and how this makes it a difficult language to learn. Pronunciation of consonants at the end of words is always my retort — a lot of times you just need to “know” whether or not it’s done … though a fluent speaker can usually guess correctly.
I understand objecting to yak, given how Americans pronounce the word yak. But yuck, at least as Americans pronounce the word yuck, is also not quite right. I might say jock as Brits pronounce the word jock (if that word exists in British English) or ah as Americans pronounce the ah-so with a slightly more clipped a sound.
I’m surprised about this one. Usually you pronounce the t when joining to a vowel? But I know there are some exceptions where it changes the meaning of the word.
I would say yes. I hear “yak” in d’Armailhac. Maybe it’s because in French “ak” in yak and “ac” in Armailhac sound 100% identical. But I don’t hear a “yuck” in there. But then again, I’m French Canadian, grew up in western Africa, have a French wife from Bretagne and speak English half the time because of work. So I’m probably wrong somehow .
Yes, definitely in French “ak” in “yak” and “ac” in Armailhac are identical. However, in American English (as it sounds in the example video I posted) “yak” is pronounced (with international phonetic alphabet) as /jæk/ and “yuck” is pronounced (with IPA) as /jʌk/, which is closer to Armailhac’s /-ak/ -ending - although I do agree that that vowel is too closed to be truly accurate. Jim’s “yahk” might be the most accurate example so far, to emphasize that the vowel there is /a/ and not /æ/.
As I said above, I agree that the American or even British pronunciation of yak isn’t the sound. But neither is the u in yuck. I agree that Jim’s yahk would be the better transliteration, but, in English pronunciation, I don’t know that you would like it any better.
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