PROVANCHER, pro-yak-cher, Leon, Ca nadian naturalist: b. Becancour, Quebec, 10 March 1820; d. Cap Rouge, Quebec, 1892. TO devote himself exclusively to the pursuit of botany and kindred studies, he retired from the Catholic priesthood which he had entered in 1844. He established 'Le Naturalist Canadien) in 1868, and published (Traite Elementaire de Botanique' (1858); (Fiore (1862) ; • 'Le Verger Canadien' (1865) - (De Quebec Jerusalem) (1882) ; 'Petite Histoire du Canada' (1887)- 'Une Excursion aux Cli mats Tropicaux' (1890).
PROVENcAL (pr6-van-sal) LANGUAGE. The term is used in two distinct significations, according to one of which it embraces only the speech of Provence; while according to the other, it includes the dialect not only of Prov ence but of all the neighboring districts of southern France where the langue d'oc is spoken, The term is even intended to include, in a literary sense, the sister dialects of Cata lonia and the eastern coast of Spain in general and northern Italy. The term Provencal was applied to the literary language of all the sister dialects of southern France because of the early prominence of Provence in the literature of the early provencal period. Between 8,000, 000 and 10,000,000 people speak Provençal using the term in its broader signification and includ ing the Gascon dialects, which local jealousies have been inclined to look upon as a speech apart from Provençal, on account of its French peculiarities and its inability to identify itself with the dialectic and literary movement of southern France.
Provencal is distinguished from French no ticeably by its tendency to strongly accentuate one syllable of a word at the expense of the others instead of more or less equally distrib uting the accent over all the syllables. This accent almost always rests on the ultimate or penultimate syllable; and in this respect Pro vençal resembles Spanish and Portuguese more than it does French. French has the Latin accented a of free syllables to e, and the Latin unaccented a to mute or slurred e, while the Provencal has retained the Latin form changing, however in modern Provençal the i final unaccented a into o; as far example, Pro vencal amat, French ()ma; Provencal bona, French bonne. Another feature of Provencal which tends to connect it with the dialects of southern and eastern Spain is the tendency to convert the palatalized I into the palatal vocalic y, a tendency noticeable in Cuba and most of the central and South American countries. The lack of nazalization in vowels distinguishes Provencal from French and Portuguese and helps to relate it more to Spanish and Italian. As a result of this nazalization Latin final con sonants have a tendency to disappear in Pro vencal even when they are retained in French and Portuguese or converted into vocal endings in Spanish and Italian; as for example Latin bonum,; French bon; Portuguese, bong; Spanish bueno; Italian buono; bo. But Pro vencal is like French that the s used as the sign of the plural is silent, where as in Spanish it is pronounced; but unlike it and the other Ro mance languages, in its recension of the Latin diphthong au. Examples: Latin aurum, French or; Provencal aur; Latin pauperem; French pauvre; Provencal pi:1146re. In this latter ex ample although the French preserves the Latin au, in the spelling, in effect, it has not since the au pronounced as though it were written o. A general tendency of the Provencal dialects is to change the Latin termination following an, in open syllables into open o. Examples: Latin French Spanish Provençal.
granum grain gran gro tnanum main mano mo panem pain pan PO.
Another peculiar feature of Provencal is the change of the Latin a (following the tonic accent) into o. Example: Latin French Spanish Provencal terra terre tierra terro amata ainie amado. amado It must be constantly kept in mind, in any study of Provencal that not only was the an cient literary language much like the modern, but that in it as in the present speech there were many variations due to dialects and local conditions, hence the tracing of the phonology, morphology and texts of Provencal is largely a matter of noting these many local variations, and undertaking not profitable for the general reader, because so few of these variations are common to all the Provencal dialects and at the same time distinctly different from the other Latin tongues. This constant dialectic variation
in High Limousin, Law Limousin, Marchese, Auverguese, Gascon, Bearnese, Roygerat, Lan guedocian and Provencal proper has made the task of creating a modern Provencal literature very difficult. The leaders of the modern move ment have, to a certain extent, disregarded the tendencies of the natural growth of languages and they have attempted to create a so-called pure Provençal by the exclusion of words of foreign origin and also of those formed from Provencal through French influence. The lite rary men of the modern Provencal school write in a literary tongue that is the speech of none of their readers. The lack of a Provencal school system and the constant and ever increas ing encroachment of French upon the Proven çal and other dialects and the indifference of the greater part of the masses to the literary future of their tongue, all tend to make a losing one of the battel the Felibres have been fighting, since the middle of the 19 century, for the re vival of Provencal as the literary and folk tongue of southern France. The extension and improvement of the French school system and the consequent increase of literacy throughout the land, are slowly but surely creating a na tional sentiment and a feeling of unity such as may be said to have never before existed in the country. The European War has made France realize, as probably no other one factor could have done, that her people are one and indivisi ble and that there is no room for a supreme non-national tongue in the south or in any other part of France. Hence the Provençal tongues seem destined to disappear ultimately, not only from France but also from Spain .Lnd Italy. For the history of the Provençal movement in modern times see FkLIBRES, and consult articles on PROVENCAL LITERATI:Er ; C NI oN1 ' TROUBA Appel, Ka, I, (Chrestomathie' ; and the publication Annol,• du Midi (Toulouse) ; Re vue d,..c tongues manes (Montpellier) ; Ro mania (Paris) Nomanische Forschungen (Er langen) ; Zeischrift fur riimanische Philologie (Halle).
Bibliography.—Adams, F.
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