PROVENPAL (prelviiN'sav) LANGUAGE. A family of Romance dialects spoken in Provence (and neighboring districts), or that part of South ern France in which was the Roman province called Provincia. It was with French the first Romance tongue to Will importance in lit erature. Its literary vogue decayed after the period of the Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229), but in modern times it has been rather successful ly applied to literary purposes again by Mistral (q.v.) and other writers. From French, its northern neighbor, Provencal is separated geo graphically by a line which, starting from the mouth of the Gironde, follows the Dordogne for a while, then ascends to the north toward Isle Jourdain, and, bending to the east as far as Montlucon, descends again in a southerly direc tion, crosses the Rhone, passes through the re gions of Lyonnais and Dauphine, and reaches the Alps. This line of demarcation serves also to divide it on the northeast from a linguistic terri tory known as the Franco-Provencal, because it has peculiarities savoring both of French and Provencal. In the southwest of the territory to the south of the dividing line described is found a body of Oascon dialects, which in the Middle Ages were treated as forming a speech foreign to Provencal. The number of persons speaking the modern Provencal dialects (including Gas con) may be estimated at about 8,000.000. Pro vencal has often been called the tanyuc (roc, as contrasted with French, called the longue d'oll ; oc and on were respectively the Provencal and the Old French words for 'yes.' The older speech, as represented in the lit erary works of the twelfth century, had eight simple vowels, viz. open and close varieties of a, of e, and of o, the high front vowel i, and a rounded form of this last vowel, written a as in modern French. Among the more common 'diph thongs were ie, no. ue, and au. The retention of the Latin diphthong an is a characteristic of Provencal as compared with the other Romance tongues. The eonsonantal sounds comprised the velar stops l (written e before a, o, and u, and at the end of a word. as in ear. 'why.' co-t, 'court,' and to, as in yuc, 'that,' and quino, 'fifth') and y (written gu or more usually q before a, o. as in gem ir, guarnir, `to furnish,' y before a, as in agar, 'augury.' and pa before e, i. as in guerra,
`war') ; the velar nasal with a value like that of the English ng in 'ring' (written a before the k and y sounds already described, as in tear, 'he held') ; the dental stops t and d, the former voice less. the latter voiced: the voiceless sibilant s (written s and RR, the latter usually between vowels, as in baissar, 'to lower') ; the voiced sibilant z (written z or s, as in elmuza or chausa); the dental spirant th (th of English `there;' written d, and after the middle of the twelfth century z, when it probably already denoted the z sound, as in espara, 'sword') ; the dental nasal n the palatalized au (written a, iya, etc.. and more commonly in later times nh, as in renhar, 'to reign') ; a well-pro nounced r; an 1; a palatalized I (written lh or ill, as in acolhir, acoillir, 'to welcome') ; the la bial stops it (voiceless) and b (voiced) ; the la No-dental spirants f (voiceless) and r (voiced); the labial nasal in; the semivowels y, n, xi (rep resented by i, by on, and by a, when they stood in hiatus). _More complex sounds are ti (the English ch of 'church,' i.e. a voiceless dental sib ilant, represented by eh in all positions, and by p occasionally in the final position, as in sapeha. 'let him know,' tag or 1001, 'all') ; d5, the voiced equivalent of the preceding sound (the English represented by j and, before e or i, by g. as in gen, 'gentle,' joglar, `minstrel'; the manuscripts often have graphic i for j); a voiceless dental sibilant to (written c, as in marce, and z or especially in the final position. as in far, fat:. 'he does') ; and a voiced dental sibilant d (Written as in dizeta, 'we say') ; as in French, the last two sounds soon lost their dental component. In the literary documents final a is often omitted, and, on the other hand, it is often added to words that should normally end in a vowel; this ease of addition or omission has led to its being called the movable n. Even in the earliest times the Provencal region was divided into a northern and a southern linguistic district, the northern marked by the change of initial Latin ea- to cha- (chaste!, `castle'), the southern by the re-' tention of the I sound of the co-.