Гаскон тілі: Франция мен Испаниядағы окцитан диалектісі

Occitan dialect spoken in France and Spain

Gascon (/lang/'/ɡ//æ//s//k//ə//n/; , ɡaskɔ̃) is the vernacular Romance variety spoken mainly in the region of Gascony, France. It is often considered a variety of Occitan, although some authors consider it a different language. Gascon is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn (Béarnese dialect) in southwestern France (in parts of the following French départements: Pyrénées Atlantiques, Hautes Pyrénées, Landes, Gers, Gironde, Lot et Garonne, Haute Garonne, and Ariège) and in the Val d'Aran of Catalonia. Aranese, a southern Gascon variety, is spoken in Catalonia alongside Catalan and Spanish. Most people in the region are trilingual in all three languages, causing some influence from Spanish and Catalan. Both these influences tend to differentiate it more and more from the dialects of Gascon spoken in France. Most linguists now consider Aranese a distinct dialect of Occitan and Gascon. Since the 2006 adoption of the new statute of Catalonia, Aranese is co official with Catalan and Spanish in all of Catalonia (before, this status was valid for the Aran Valley only). It was also one of the mother tongues of the English kings Richard the Lionheart and his younger brother John Lackland.

A poll conducted in Béarn in 1982 indicated that 51% of the population could speak Gascon, 70% understood it, and 85% expressed a favourable opinion regarding the protection of the language. However, use of the language has declined dramatically over recent years as a result of the Francization taking place during the last centuries, as Gascon is rarely transmitted to young generations any longer (outside of schools, such as the Calandretas). By April 2011, the Endangered Languages Project estimated that there were only 250,000 native speakers of the language. The usual term for Gascon is "patois", a word designating in France a non official and usually devaluated dialect (such as Gallo) or language (such as Occitan), regardless of the concerned region. It is mainly in Béarn that the population uses concurrently the term "Béarnais" to designate its Gascon forms. This is because of the political past of Béarn, which was independent and then part of a sovereign state (the shrinking Kingdom of Navarre) from 1347 to 1620. In fact, there is no unified Béarnais dialect, as the language differs considerably throughout the province. Many of the differences in pronunciation can be divided into east, west, and south (the mountainous regions). For example, an 'a' at the end of words is pronounced "ah" in the west, "o" in the east, and "œ" in the south. Because of Béarn's specific political past, Béarnais has been distinguished from Gascon since the 16th century, not for linguistic reasons.

Probably as a consequence of the linguistic continuum of western Romania and the French influence over the Hispanic Mark on medieval times, shared similar and singular features are noticeable between Gascon and other Latin languages on the other side of the border: Aragonese and far western Catalan (Catalan of La Franja). Gascon is also (with Spanish, Navarro Aragonese and French) one of the Romance influences on the Basque language.