الشام القديمة

Occitan (lenga d'òc, occitan) is the historic Romance language of southern France, parts of Italy's Occitan Valleys and Spain's Val d'Aran (where the Aranese variety is co-official). Six major dialects: Gascon, Languedocien, Provençal, Limousin, Auvergnat, Vivaro-alpin. Occitan was the prestige literary medium of medieval Europe — the troubadours (12th-13th c., Bertran de Born, Bernart de Ventadorn) created the first major lyric poetry in a European vernacular and shaped European notions of courtly love. Suppressed by France's centralizing 1539 Villers-Cotterêts ordinance and 19th-century universal French schooling; now critically endangered with ~200K active L1 speakers.