Petit guide insolent des mots occitans, passagers (clandestins) du français - Florian Vernet

Petit guide insolent des mots occitans, passagers (clandestins) du français - Florian Vernet
(a cheeky little guide to Occitan words, French stowaways)

... or "When French borrows from Occitan... without recognizing either its creditor or its debts".

Part scholarly essay, part polemic, this little guide questions French etymology books, which systematically overlook the very possibility that many French words are of Occitan origin... or which shroud this origin in a methodically maintained linguistic cloud.


In the same vein as Que dalle, but with a broader and more in-depth focus, this Petit guide insolent goes on the hunt for words in the French language whose Occitan etymology is often (or systematically?) overlooked.
Pending truly scientific work, this "half-savory, half-polemical compendium" (according to the author) should enable Occitans to "unabashedly reclaim" the words that belong to them, "including what has passed into French".
The immediate advantage? You don't have to invent new words for fear of gallicism (or "francisme"), which are often inappropriate words, even though the word occitan does exist, since it's actually French that borrowed it from occitan.
But for many etymological dictionaries of the French language, Occitan still doesn't exist: the book could also have been called "Quand le français emprunte à l'occitan sans vouloir reconnaître... ni son créancier, ni ses dettes" (F. Vernet).
For the Occitan origin of many words is attributed, in the most total confusion, to any other language of Latin origin, or to a very circumscribed language, or even to "regional" French.
This essay is therefore also an encouragement to researchers: since there is currently no real etymological dictionary devoted to Occitan, here is a work to be started.

The entries in this little guide are French words, listed in alphabetical order. Each entry includes one or more etymological explanations taken from reference dictionaries, and Florian Vernet's comments where he disagrees.

Es tanben una plaidejada per que lo especialistas occitans s'entrevengan dirèctament de las originas de lor lenga, una dins sa diversitat, dels archius inexplotats e de l'immensa riquesa de sa literatura, passada coma presenta.

Edicion IEO Lengadòc.