Gascon is a dialect of Occitan, considered by some linguists to be a separate language. It is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn in southwestern France and in the Aran Valley of Catalonia. Aranese, a southern Gascon variety, is spoken in Catalonia and has been greatly influenced recently by Catalan and Spanish. Both these influences tend to differentiate it more and more from the dialects of Gascon spoken in France. Since the 2006 adoption of the new statute of Catalonia, Aranese is co-official with Catalan and Spanish in Catalonia.
Linguistic classification
The majority of scholars think that Occitan constitutes a single language. Some authors reject this opinion and even the name Occitan, thinking that there is a family of distinct lengas d'òc rather than dialects of a single language. Gascon, in particular, is distinct enough linguistically that it has been described as a language of its own.
The language spoken in Gascony before Roman rule was part of the Basque dialectal continuum ; the fact that the word 'Gascon' comes from the Latin rootvasco/vasconem, which is the same root that gives us 'Basque', implies that the speakers identified themselves at some point as Basque. There is a proven Basque substrate in the development of Gascon. This explains some of the major differences that exist between Gascon and other Occitan dialects. A typically Gascon feature that may arise from this substrate is the change from "f" to "h". Where a word originally began with in Latin, such as festa 'party/feast', this sound was weakened to aspirated and then, in some areas, lost altogether; according to the substrate theory, this is due to the Basque dialects' lack of an equivalent phoneme, causing Gascon hèsta or. A similar change took place in continental Spanish. Thus, Latin facere gives Spanish hacer . Although some linguists deny the plausibility of the Basque substrate theory, it is widely assumed that Basque, the "Circumpyrenean" language, is the underlying language spreading around the Pyrenees onto the banks of the Garonne River, maybe as far east as the Mediterranean in Roman times. Basque gradually eroded across Gascony in the High Middle Ages, with vulgar Latin and Basque interacting and mingling, but eventually with the former replacing the latter north of the east and middle Pyrenees and developing into Gascon. However, modern Basque has had lexical influence from Gascon in words like beira, polit to mention but a few. One way for the introduction of Gascon influence into Basque came about through language contact in bordering areas of the Northern Basque Country, acting as adstrate. The other one takes place since the 11th century over the coastal fringe of Gipuzkoa extending from Hondarribia to San Sebastian, where Gascon was spoken up to the early 18th century and often used in formal documents until the 16th century, with evidence of its continued occurrence in Pasaia in the 1870s. A minor focus of influence was the Way of St James and the establishment of ethnic boroughs in several towns based on the privileges bestowed on the Francs by the Kingdom of Navarre from the 12th to the early 14th centuries, but the variant spoken and used in written records is mainly the Occitan of Toulouse.
A poll conducted in Béarn in 1982 indicated that 51% of the population could speak Gascon, 70% understood it, and 85% expressed a favourable opinion regarding the protection of the language. However, use of the language has declined dramatically over recent years as a result of the Francization taking place during the last centuries, as Gascon is rarely transmitted to young generations any longer. The usual term for Gascon is "patois", a word designating in France a non-official and usually devaluated dialect or language, regardless of the concerned region. It is mainly in Béarn that the population uses concurrently the term "Béarnais" to designate its Gascon forms. This is because of the political past of Béarn, which was independent and then part of a sovereign state from 1347 to 1620. In fact, there is no unified Béarnais dialect, as the language differs considerably throughout the province. Many of the differences in pronunciation can be divided into east, west, and south. For example, an 'a' at the end of words is pronounced "ah" in the west, "o" in the east, and "œ" in the south. Because of Béarn's specific political past, Béarnais has been distinguished from Gascon since the 16th century, not for linguistic reasons.
Influences on other languages
Probably as a consequence of the linguistic continuum of occidental Romania and the French influence over the Hispanic Mark on the medieval times, shared similar and singular features are noticeable between Gascon and other Latin languages on the other side of the frontier: Aragonese and ultraoccidental Catalan Gascon is also one of the Romance influences in Basque language.
