A SHORT OCCITAN TUTORIAL

• In the Occitan schools called Calandretas.
• Pau University.
• Montpelhièr University.
• L'Institut d'Estudis Occians de París.

How to read Occitan?

Due to its intermediary position between French, Italian and Spanish, Occitan shares pronuciations with these three languages.

Stress

The rules to know where the stress lies in a word are simple. If a word ends in a vowel or s (plural), the stress is on the syllable before the last one. If the word ends in a consonant except s, the stress lies on the last syllable. All other cases are explicitly written with an accent on the vowel.

Vowels

• a or à is to be read [a] as in (southern) French, Spanish and Italian. About the same sound as in English 'fat'. One should notice that an 'a' at the end of the word is the feminine ending, which pronunciation varies from places to places. The most common pronounciation is [o], as 'ò' below.
  
• e or é stands for the [é] sound: French 'été'
  
• è stands for the [è] sound: French 'belle', italian 'bella'. About the same sound as in English 'get'.
  
• i or í stands for the [i] sound: French 'nid', Spanish 'mi, hijo'.About the same sound as in English 'grid'
  
• o or ó is to be read [u] as in French 'tout', Spanish 'tu'. About the same sound as in English 'foot'.
  
• ò stands for the [o] sound, as in Spanish 'todo', French 'gros' A sound between English 'got' and 'all'.
  
• u or ú is to be read [ü] as in French 'tu', German 'Tür'.
  
• á appears only a the end of words, where it is sounded [o]([è] along the mediterranean coast).

Consonants

• p,b,m,f,t,d,n, have about the same pronunciation as in English More precisely, p, m ,f, t, n are sounded as in French, Spanish or Italian i.e.:[p],[m],[f],[t],[n], but notice that final n often vanishes, especially in Lengadocian. b and d are pronounced exactly the same way as in Spanish.
  
• v is pronounced [b] as in Spanish in general Occitan, as well as in dialects of Gasconha, Lengadoc, e Auvernha. The other dialects read it [v]
  
• s is pronounced [s], or [z] between two vowels, as is the case in French and English. In such a position, ss is to be read [s]. A more precise description would place this /s/ phoneme between spanish /s/ and german ich laut[ç].
  
• sh is pronounced [sh]as in English (eg Foish [fwish]=Foix town).
  
• c is sounded [k] before all consonants exept /t/, a,o and u. Before e or i, it is pronounced [s], as in French or English. Before /t/, it assimiliates to this second consonant, thus the ct cluster is uttered [tt]. ç, is also pronounced [s]. Finally, the cc+i or e groups are pronounced [tsi] or [tse]. In Provença, it can simply be pronounced [si] or [se].
  
• ch is pronounced [tsh] as in English(eg charrar [tshar'ra]= to gossip).
  
• g is pronounced [g] before a,o and u. Before e or i, it is pronounced [j](or [dj]), as in French or English. It is sounded [tsh] at the end of non-greek words (eg pueg =[püètsh] = hill).
  
• j is pronounced [dj] (southern dialects soften it as [j], especially between two vowels).
  
• l is pronounced [l], as in French, Spanish. It may be sounded as the 'l' sound in English 'call' at the end of syllables.
• lh is pronounced [ly] (eg: palha =['palyo]=straw). It corresponds to Italian /gli/, Portuguese /lh/, Castillan and Catalan /ll/.
  
• nh is pronounced [ny] as in Portuguese(eg: vinha ['binyo]=vine). It corresponds to Italian and French/gn/, Portuguese /nh/, Castillan /ñ and Catalan /ny/.
  
• qu is pronounced [k]. It is the usual method of representing this consonant before e and i. To note a [kwe] or a [kwi] prononciacion, one uses qü or qüi. In Gascon, as in Catalan, the cluster qua is uttered [kwa] in many words.
• gu is pronounced [g]. It is the usual method of representing this consonant before e and i. To note a [gwe] or [gwi] group, one uses gü or güi. In Gascon, as in Catalan, the cluster gua is uttered [(g)wa].
• r is pronounced [r] trilled as in Spanish or italian. In Provença, it is often sounded [R] as in French. Notice that rr must be pronounced as two 'r':[rr] as in Spanish. Note also that a cacuminal or retroflex realisation of /r/ between two wowels happens very often.
• th is pronounced [ty], but this is restricted to Gasconha. (eg: bèth ['bèty]=beautiful).
  
• z is pronounced [z]. It notes the /z/ phoneme when not resulting from the lenition of a latin /s/.
• tz reads [ts] at the end of words, and [dz] between two vowels.
• As a general fact, any collision between an occlusive consonant and a [s] end up as a [ts] sound. E.g. caps [kats], pècs [pèts] accion [atsyu]
  

Diphtongs

• ai stands for [ay] as in English 'ride'.
• au stands for [aw] as in English 'out'.
• èi stands for [èy] as in Portuguese 'brasileiro'
• èu stands for [èw].
• ei stands for [ei].
• eu stands for [ew].
• iu stands for [iw].
• òi stands for [oy] as in English 'boy'.
• òu stands for [ow] as in American English 'so'(slightly more open).
• oi stands for [uy] as in French 'rouille'.
• uu stands for [üw] (only in Gascon).

As an exercise, try to read this: Lo sermon del curat de Cucunhan, by Aquiles Mir

The feminine in Occitan

As in all romance languages, occitan has two genders: masculine and feminine. Basically, all nouns ending in a -a are feminine, and the others are masculine. There are however many exceptions: words in -ista can be masculine as well as feminine "ecologista" is either a man or a woman; and there are many simple femenine words ending in a consonant: mar "sea", is feminine, for instance.

In Occitan, all adjectives have the same gender and nummer as the word they qualify. It is thus important to know how to form the feminine of a given word. Of course, the basic rule is 'add an a at the end'. But there are some cases where the word undergoes deeper modifications.

The Occitan Article

As in all romance languages, there are two genders (feminine and masculine), and two numbers (singular and plural) for nouns and adjectives, articles, pronouns,etc.

The definite article

For the Standard Occitan, the definite article forms are

These are subject to small dialect variations:

They are in good agreement with the Gascon dialect evolution (see {10} in the linguistics page), and are transition forms to Castillan (el, la).

The undefinite article

The Standard Occitan indefinite article forms are:

The de plural form is the true undefinite form; unes, unas rather mean some, a few. For exemple
Fau de còcas means I am cooking cakes whether
Fau unas còcas means I am cooking a few cakes.

The demonstratives

In Occitan, there are three degrees of demonstratives (vs two in English -here/there). The degree chosen depends on the distance of the object, and are approximately

Occitan Verb Conjugation

As in all romance languages, there are three basic conjugations in Occitan.
The verbs of the first conjugation have -aras infinitive ending
The verbs of the second conjugation have -ir as infinitive ending
The verbs of the third conjugation have -er or -e as infinitive e nding

Simple tenses

The different simple tenses are:
Present, preterit, imperfait, futur, imperatiu, subjonctiu present, subjonctiu p assat, condicional, particip present, particip passat.
Then, a wide number of composite tenses can be formed using those ones.

Compound tenses

There is also a wide variety of compound tenses. The most used is the compound past, built with èstre or aver in the present tense as auxialiary verbs, to which the past participle of the conjugated verb is added. As a general rule, transitive verbs have aver as an auxilliary verb, whereas untransitive and pronominal verbs have èstre. Note that unlike French and Catalan, èstre is its own auxilliary : soi estat vs. French j'ai été and Catalan He estat. This compound past has a slightly different value from preterit. It corresponds roughly to the English present perfect.

There are many other compound tenses :