Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/895

Rh LANGUAGE.] PROVENQAL 871 which it was a mere synonym. But it remained in general use with the sense of a past conditional: ama ra or ame ra, &quot; I should have loved,&quot;/ora, &quot; I should have been.&quot; 3. Existing State of the Provencal. In consequence of political circumstances (see notice of Provencal Literature below), the Provengal ceased to be used for administrative as well as literary purposes about the 15th century, in some places a little sooner, in others later (notably in Bdarn, where it continued to be written as the language of ordinary use till the 17th century). The poems in local dialect composed and printed in the 16th century and on to our own day have no link with the literature of the preceding period. Eeduced to the condition of a patois, or popular dialect simply, the idiom experienced somewhat rapid modifications. Any one who should compare the poems of Goudelin of Toulouse (1579-1649) with those of a Toulousain troubadour of the 13th century would be astonished at the changes which the language has under gone. Yet this impression would probably be exaggerated. In order to make a rigorously accurate comparison of the language at the two epochs, it would have to be written in the two cases with the same orthographic system, which it is not. The first writers of Provencal, about the 10th or llth century, applied to the language the Latin ortho graphy, preserving to each letter, as far as possible, the value given to it in the contemporary pronunciation of Latin. To express certain sounds which did not exist in Latin, or which were not there clearly enough noted, there were introduced little by little, and without regular system, various conventional symbolizations such as Ih and nh to symbolize the sound of I and n mouillee. From this method of proceeding there resulted an orthographic system somewhat wanting in fixity, but which from its very instability lent itself fairly well to the variations which the pronunciation underwent in time and locality. But, the tradition having been interrupted about the 15th century, those who afterwards by way of pastime attempted composition in the patois formed, each for himself apart, an orthography of which many elements were borrowed from French usage. It is evident that differences already considerable must be exaggerated by the use of two very distinct orthographical systems. Nevertheless, even if we get quit of the illusion which makes us at first sight suppose differences of sound where there are merely different ways of spelling the same sound, we find that between the 14th and 16th century the language under went everywhere, Beam (for reasons already given) excepted, great modifications both in vocabulary and grammar. The Provengal literature having gradually died out during the 14th century, the -vocabulary lost immedi ately the greater part of the terms expressing general ideas or .abstract conceptions. To supply the place of these, the authors who have written in the patois of the south during the last few centuries have been obliged to borrow from French, modifying at the same time their form, a multitude of vocables which naturally have remained for the most part unintelligible to people who know only the patois. In this case the adoption of foreign words was excusable ; but it did not stop here. Little by little, as primary instruction (now compulsory) was diffused, and introduced first in the towns and afterwards in the villages a certain knowledge of French, words purely French have been introduced into use in place of the corresponding dialect words. Thus, one hears constantly in Provence pe ro, md ro, fre ro, forms adapted from French, instead of paire, maire, fraire; cacha (catcher = Fr. cocker) instead of escoundre, &c. In the phonology, the modifications are of the natural order, and so have nothing revolutionary. The language has developed locally tendencies which certainly already existed during the flourishing period, although the ancient orthography did not recognize them. Of the vowels, a tonic is generally preserved ; an in an open syllable becomes 6 (open) in part of the departments of Aveyron, Lot, Dordogne, Correze, Cautal, and south of Haute Loire: gro (g r a n u in), ino (m a n u m), po (pane m). This nasalized a must have had a particular sound already in Old Pr. , for it is qualified in the Donatz Proensals (ed. Stengel, p. 49) as a cstrcit ( = close or narrow a}. A feature almost general is the passage of post-tonic into o: tcrro, amavo, amado (terra, amabat, am at a). In Var and the Maritime Alps examples of this change occur as early as the end of the 15th century. But even yet there are a few cantons, notably Montpellier and its neighbourhood, where the ancient post-tonic a is preserved. It is remarkable that the Latin diphthong au, which had become simple u in almost all Romanic lands at the date of the most ancient texts, is to this day preserved with a very distinct diphthongal sound everywhere in the south of France. In the morphology, the leading feature of modern Provengal is the ever greater simplification of grammatical forms. Not only have the two forms (nominative and objective) in each number, in nouns and adjectives, been reduced to one this reduction manifested itself in ordinary use already in the 14th century but in many places there no longer remains any distinction between the singular and the plural. In a great part of the south icu (ego) does duty as an objective, inn or mi having disappeared. In part of Drome it is the other way, mi being substituted in the nomin ative for icu, which it has completely displaced. It is perhaps in conjugation that the greatest changes from the older form of the language are seen. Analogy, basing itself upon one or another much used form, has acted with immense force, tending to make general in the whole conjugation, without any regard to the original classes to which the various verbs belonged, certain terminations, chiefly those which were accented, and thus appeared to the popular instinct to have more significance. The result, if the tendency were carried the full length, would be the reduction of all the three conjugations to one. Perhaps before this point is reached the patois of the south will themselves have disappeared. As the endless modifications which the language undergoes, in vocabulary and grammar alike, develop themselves in different directions, and each over an area differently circumscribed, the general aspect of the language becomes more and more confused, without the possibility of grouping the endless varieties within dialectal divisions, there being no case in which a certain number of phonetic or morphological facts present themselves within the same geographical limits. The custom has been adopted of roughly designating these varieties by the name of the ancient provinces in which they appear. Limousin (divided into High and Low Limousin], Marchcse, Amergncsc, Gascon, Bearnesc, Iloueryat, Languedocian, Provencal, &c. ; but these divisions, though con venient in use, correspond to no actualities. Klines and Mont pellier are in Languedoc, and Aries and Tarascon are in Provence ; nevertheless the dialect of Nimes resembles that of Aries and Tarascon more than that of Montpellier. Texts. For the history of the Provencal in all its varieties there are many more materials than for any other Romanic language, not excepting even Italian or French. The literary texts go back to the 10th or llth century (see below). For phonetic purposes many of these texts are of secondary value, because the MSS. in which they have readied us, and several of which, especially for the poetry of the troubadours, are of Italian origin, have altered the original forms to an extent which it is not easy to determine ; but we possess a countless number of charters, coiitiimes, regulations, accounts, registers of taxation, which are worthy of absolute confidence, first, because these documents are in most cases origin als, and, secondly, because, none of the dialectal varieties having raised itself to the rank of the literary language, as happened in France with the central (Parisian) variety and in Italy with the Florentine, writers never had the tempta tion to abandon their own idiom for another. It is proper to add that Provencal possesses two ancient grammars of the 13th century (the earliest compiled_for any Romanic idiom) the Donatz Proensals and Razos &amp;lt;le trobar (see p. 87C). Although very short, especially the second, which is a collection of detached ob servations, they furnish valuable data. The 14th-century Leys d Amors (see p. 876) presents the language in rather an artificial state the language which ought to be written rather than the language actually existing. Bibliography. 1. Ancient Condition. There does not exist any comprehensive work upon the Provcnpal whence to obtain a precise idea of the history of the language at its different epochs. Diez s Orammatik cier romantichen Sprachen is still the groundwork. It gives, especially in the 3d ed. (1869-72), the last re vised by the author, the results of extensive researches conveniently arranged. But Diez had only a slender knowledge of the language in its present si and in his time phonology had made little progress. The French translation of MM. G. Paris, A. Brachet, and Morel-Fatio (Paris, 1873-76) was to be com pleted by a supplementary volume, -which was announced at vol. ix. p. 636 of the present work, but this expedient has had to be abandoned, it havin recognized that what was wanted was not a supplement but a general recast. used with advantage, but the numerous special vocabularies appended by editors to texts published by them cannot be neglected. These yield a considerable