Les Discours sur le catalan (Roussillon) et l'occitan au XVII siècle: analyse comparée

Resum

In the seventeenth century, both in Roussillon and in occitan speaking areas of France there is a discourse on language. The Catalan historiographers speculate on the origins of Catalan and are aware of the geographical limits of this linguistic domain. Despite the revival of the concept of Lemosine Language (langue limousine), a link is maintained with the literary past of the Middle Ages. In Occitania, on the other hand, there is still a multiplicity of names, they turn their back on their troubadouresque past, and few theories of language are put forward. The Catalans have their own tools in their argumentation (pàtria, llengua pròpia) and they react against the devaluation of symbolism, which their language exploits, in particular through a concern for prescriptivism. In short, the discourse on Catalan appears to have been more highly developed, more complete and more complex than the discourse on Occitan.