"Dead" Language? A Rhetorical Question.

Some of the panelists. The lady is Mirelha and the bearded guy is her husband

Yesterday afternoon I attended the round table at Grain d'Sel, my local library.  The topic for the day was "Why Learn Occitan Today?"  The panelists included two people from the Ostal Sirventes group that I attend. In addition, there was an artist, a writer, a teaching consultant and representatives of other groups promoting the Occitan language and culture.  Thanks to Mirelha, everyone on the panel knew there was some American woman in the audience.  You can tell when people are talking about you--they turn around and look at you as if studying a specimen.

I didn't get everything that the panelists said, but I got quite a bit. Part of the reason is that they were speaking in Occitan and several of the speakers spoke such rapid-fire French that I had to concentrate to keep up.  That's the way it goes--they are speaking for one another, not for me.  I got some of the jokes, but not all of them.  There was also a lot of extraneous noise--chairs being moved, clopping footsteps and barely concealed whispers.  Last time I checked I had really, really acute hearing, but one woman spoke so softly that my problem was not with understanding her, it was that I couldn't hear her.

The guy wearing glasses is a visual artist and was most animated.

I learned that Occitan was the language of the Resistance.  In order to be fair, I think they presented both sides of the debate over whether or not learning Occitan had any relevance in today's Languedoc.  The argument was made that in many parts of the world, especially in Africa, people accept speaking several languages as a matter of course--there's the language of the village, and then perhaps a regional language as well as the language of the country.  So many of the people on the panel learned the language in the farmhouses of their grandparents. People learn these different tongues as children, and that was the point in favor of keeping the study of Occitan in the schools here. 

As a result of this round-table, I was awake most of the night thinking about language and culture.  For instance, in Occitan, my name is Carlotta. I am a firm believer that our names shape, to a very great degree, the way other people see us, and even the way we see ourselves.  Some names carry more gravitas than others--Bambi versus Elizabeth....So, how is Carlotta different than Charlotte? How am I different if I think of myself as a Carlotta?  It's hard to get my mind around that.

I need to learn more about Occitan "culture." How is it different from the culture in Paris, for instance, or in Brittany or the Dordogne?  What makes up a culture, anyway?  Language?  Music? Food? Values? Tribes? The discussion last night came around to music.  The panelists were displaying some of the "older" generation's dislike of modern music in which the lyrics are not intelligible.  I so desperately wanted to ask these people, "If a music group plays hip-hop and the words are in Occitan, is it Occitan music?"  Does Occitan music mean something centuries old that has long passed out of current fashion?  If culture doesn't evolve, does it die? And if it evolves to the point where it is no longer distinguishable from that of others on the planet, does it die?  What is the point in keeping old traditions, foods, languages alive?  And how do we keep it alive without changing it beyond recognition?  

I have a lot of things to think about.