Par les rues et chemins de Signes - Signa - Per carrieras e camins - Gerard Tautil

Par les rues et chemins de Signes - Signa, Per carrieras e camins - Gerard Tautil

The friendly geography of a Provencal village (Toponymy of Signes, treasure of the names of a village in Provence).

Through the streets and lanes of Signes is an extension of Gérard TAUTIL's previous book: Toponymie de Signes. The latter was devoted to the place names of this commune, the largest in the Var. This new book takes a close look at the life of Signes, as we can read it at the bend of a street or in a neighborhood.

In simple language, the author recalls how this micro-country has developed over the course of its contrasting history. The use of archives reveals a plural community with its traditional trades, its inequalities and a culture shaped around Occitan de Provence as the lingua franca. Witness the fountains and springs, the streets that change name according to circumstances, the neighborhoods steeped in local history. Readers can find the main names of these places along a friendly itinerary, and take part in the signposting in langue d'oc. They will also be able to discover the “false friends” that encircle the commune: Bel Air, La Capelière, Darmene, Les Plauques, Siou-Blanc...

The current municipality supports this initiative, which is aimed not only at Signois, but also at visitors, hikers and lovers of the Provencal countryside. Signois or not, this book is for everyone. It is based on the state of contemporary toponymic research and proposes a corpus of onomastics and a method that highlights a micro-society through the originality of its place names.

The toponymy is a real deployment of history, it gives meaning to our places of life. Not only for the premises but also for the Provençaux of yesterday and today. Part of ourselves, it makes us discover the country behind the landscape and makes us country. This rigorous work makes us enter the human sciences through a door too long ignored in anthropology. The knowledge of real Provence, in perspective with the Occitan ensemble, finds a new light.

City of SIGNES - SIGNA, ADLOC (Association for the development of the Oc language).

Editions I.E.O - C.R.E.O. Provence - IEO-CREO Provença.

The author:

Gérard TAUTIL, author of articles and books on Occitan cultural, social and political reality. Today he contributes to a toponymic study, which is one of the manifestations of the culture of Oc and its origins in the context of the training of the Romance languages.