University of Mississippi eGrove Honors College (Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors Theses Honors College) 2014 The seU of Occitan Dialects in Languedoc- Roussillon, France Virginia Jane Geddie University of Mississippi. Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis Part of the Linguistics Commons Recommended Citation Geddie, Virginia Jane, "The sU e of Occitan Dialects in Languedoc-Roussillon, France" (2014). Honors Theses. 1263. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/1263 This Undergraduate Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Honors College (Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College) at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Geddie 1 THE USE OF OCCITAN DIALECTS IN LANGUEDOC-ROUSSILLON, FRANCE By Virginia Jane Geddie A thesis submitted to the faculty of The University of Mississippi in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College Oxford May 2014 Approved by _______________________________ Advisor: Professor Allison Burkette _______________________________ Reader: Professor Felice Coles _______________________________ Reader: Professor Robert Barnard Geddie 1 Abstract Since the medieval period, the Occitan dialects of southern France have been a significant part of the culture of the Midi region of France. In the past, it was the language of the state and literature. However, Occitan dialects have been in a slow decline, beginning with the Ordinance of Villers-Coterêts in 1539 which banned the use of Occitan in state affairs. While this did little to affect the daily life and usage of Occitan, it established a precedent that is still referred to in modern arguments about the use of regional languages (Costa, 2).