Alas, occitan is a dead language. Of course, a few old people still use their local dialect, but how many parents mainly speak in occitan to their children? How many people learn it out of school? Who grows speaking occitan with friends and enriching it with new expressions, like any living language? Occitan may have 3 millions of speakers in France, the Latin language still has more.
The occitan language that is learned in school is mostly a toy language. When Littré wrote his famous dictionary, from 1850 to 1875, he mentioned multiple dialects of the "langue d'Oc" which were still active in the South of France. Gascon, limousin, languedocien, catalan and provençal were distinct dialects. But there are no teachers fluent in any of these dialect, so during the 20th century they forged the "occitan" language which is a mix of these, but mostly built from provençal.
Overall, this article is very superficial. It wrote about troubadours, but forgot to mention a reference well-known in the UK: Richard Lionheart spoke in French and Provençal, and was probably not fluent in English. Living in France, in Aquitaine, he composed poetry in "langue d'Oc".
It's well known in France that the French Republic though that the local cultures were an obstacle to the unity of the nation. So they forbid every local language. There were panels in some schools with the text: "It is forbidden to spit and to speak Breton".
The occitan language that is learned in school is mostly a toy language. When Littré wrote his famous dictionary, from 1850 to 1875, he mentioned multiple dialects of the "langue d'Oc" which were still active in the South of France. Gascon, limousin, languedocien, catalan and provençal were distinct dialects. But there are no teachers fluent in any of these dialect, so during the 20th century they forged the "occitan" language which is a mix of these, but mostly built from provençal.
Overall, this article is very superficial. It wrote about troubadours, but forgot to mention a reference well-known in the UK: Richard Lionheart spoke in French and Provençal, and was probably not fluent in English. Living in France, in Aquitaine, he composed poetry in "langue d'Oc".
It's well known in France that the French Republic though that the local cultures were an obstacle to the unity of the nation. So they forbid every local language. There were panels in some schools with the text: "It is forbidden to spit and to speak Breton".