| Bearnese | |
|---|---|
| Bearnés | |
| Native to | France |
| Region | Nouvelle-Aquitaine |
Native speakers | ca. 55,000[citation needed] (2001) |
| Official status | |
Recognised minority language in | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | bear1240 |
| IETF | oc-gascon-u-sd-fr64 |
 Bearnese area. | |
Béarnese (endonymbearnés orbiarnés;French:béarnais[beaʁnɛ]ⓘ) is the variety ofGascon spoken inBéarn.
The usage of a specific name for Béarnese lies in the history ofBéarn,a viscounty that became asovereignprincipality underGaston Fébus. From the middle of the 13th century until theFrench Revolution, Béarnese was the institutional language of this territory. The standardisedorthography defined by the administrative and judicial acts was adopted outside the limits of Béarn, not only in a part ofGascony, but also in someBasque territories.
TheFrench language exerted an increasing influence on Béarn from the middle of the16th century, due to its annexation as a French province in 1620. The use of Béarnese as an institutional language ended with the Revolution, its use being limited to popular culture.Cyprien Despourrins,Xavier Navarrot andAlexis Peyret, for example, used Béarnese in their works. From the second half of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century, the Béarnese language was standardized, particularly byVastin Lespy,Simin Palay andJean Bouzet.
Béarnese remained the majority language among the Bearnais people in the 18th century. It was not until the second half of the 19th century that its use declined in favor of French. The French school entered into direct conflict with the use of regional languages in the last third of the nineteenth century and until the first half of the twentieth century, causing a clear decline in the transmission of Béarnais within the families from the 1950s. As a reaction, the firstcalandreta school was created inPau in 1980, allowing for the revival of its teaching. The number of speakers of Béarnais is difficult to estimate; a 2008 survey suggests that 8 to 15% of the population speaks Béarnese, depending on the definition chosen.
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The word Béarnese comes from theendonymbearnés orbiarnés. The term derives directly from the people ofVenarni, orBenearni, who gave their name toBéarn. The city of theVenarni,Beneharnum, was included inNovempopulania at the beginning of the 5th century. The origin of the name of the Béarnese has several hypotheses, one of which evokes a relationship with theBasque wordbehera which means "below". Although used from the middle of the 13th century in the administration of the principality, the use of Béarnese did not benefit from a "mystique" of the language, as in the kingdom of France. The linguistic conscience is not affirmed, the language never being named in the writings. The term "Béarnese" appears for the first time in the French language, but it is not used in the French language. The term Béarnese appears for the first time in the writings in a document ofMarch 1,1533, the States of Béarn refuse to examine texts written in French, and require their translation into Béarnes. In1556,Jeanne d'Albret also gave reason to the States which claimed the exclusive use of bearnes for any pleading and writing of justice.Arnaud de Salette is considered to be the first writer to claim a writing inrima bernesa in his translation of theGenevan Psalter, composed between 1568 and 1571 and published in 1583 inOrthez.[1]
The use of the name "Béarnese" continued in the following centuries, as withJean-Henri Fondeville in his eglogues of the end of the seventeenth century, who expresses: "En frances, en biarnes, chens nat mout de latii." In the late nineteenth century, the use of the word "Béarnese" to designate the language ofBéarn was gradually replaced by the wordpatois, with its pejorative aspect. This movement is common to the whole ofFrance. The use of the term patois declined from the 1980s onwards, with the revival ofregional languages. At the same time, the use of the name "Occitan" increased with the rise ofOccitanism. During the sociolinguistic survey commissioned by theConseil départemental desPyrénées-Atlantiques in 2018, the people of Béarn were asked about the name they gave to their regional language. The term "Béarnese" obtained between 62 per cent and 70 per cent of the votes depending on the intercommunity concerned, compared to 19% to 31% for the term "patois", 8 to 14 per cent for "Occitan" and a maximum of 3 per cent for "Gascon".
The expression "Béarnese language" was used as early asArnaud de Salette in the 16th century, "la lengoa bernesa", and this use is not based on a scientific observation, but on an identity approach, in a context of rising Béarn nationalism. The expressionlangue béarnaise continues to be regularly used thereafter, a use that is now historical, but still not scientific.
In the village ofAas, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, shepherds maintained awhistled language until the 20th century. According toGraham Robb, very few outsiders knew of the language until a 1959 TV program mentioned it. Whistles were up to 100decibels, and were used for communication by shepherds in the mountains and by women working in the fields.[2] During the Nazi occupation ofWorld War II, the language was used to ferry refugees across theFrance–Spain border.
Today the language can be learnt at theUniversity of Pau and the Adour region.
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The origin of the notion of the Béarnese language is based solely on political considerations. In the middle of the 16th century,Béarn vigorously defended itssovereignty, in an undeniablenationalism. The language became an additional element of this Béarnese particularism. Thus, the linguistic area of Béarnese and the political borders of Béarn are combined. The "historical Bearn" is progressively formed in the11th century and12th century with the addition of various territories to the "primitive Bearn". Béarn kept its borders intact until theFrench Revolution. The communes ofEsquiule andLichos form two particular cases, Esquiule being a commune ofBasque culture located in Béarn and Lichos a commune ofBéarn culture inSoule. The Souletine communes ofMontory andOsserain-Rivareyte are also considered to be Béarnese-speaking. At the time of the Revolution, about twentyGascon communes were integrated into the newly created department of theBasses-Pyrénées. All of these communes are now linked to Béarn cantons and inter-municipalities, and are therefore integrated into the borders of "modern Béarn", so the use of the term Béarnais can be applied to these new areas. The practice of Béarnese in an institutional framework allows the formation of a Béarneseorthography, which is used outside of Béarn from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, inGascon territories (Bigorre and sometimesComminges) andBasque territories (Soule,Lower-Navarre andGipuzcoa).
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Béarnese is currently the most prominent variety ofGascon. It is widely used in the normativization attempts to reach a standard Gascon and is the most likely dialect to succeed, due to the stronger cultural identity and output of this area.[citation needed] A 1982 survey of the inhabitants of Béarn indicated that 51% of the population can speak Béarnese, 70% understood it, and 85% were in favor of preserving the language.[3] However, use of the language has declined over recent years as Béarnese is rarely transmitted to younger generations within the family. There is a revival of focus on the language which has improved the situation, though, leading children to be taught the language in school (comparable to the wayIrish students are taught a standardized form ofIrish).Currently, the majority of the cultural associations consider Gascon (including Béarnese) anOccitan dialect. However, other authorities consider them to be distinct languages, including Jean Lafitte, publisher of Ligam-DiGam, a linguistic and lexicography review of Gascon.[4]
A detailed sociolinguistic study presenting the current status of the language (practice and different locutors' perceptions) has been made in 2004 by B. Moreux (see Sources): the majority of native speakers have learned it orally, and tend to be older. On the other hand, the proponents for its maintenance and revival are classified into three groups: Béarnists, Gasconists and Occitanists, terms which summarize the regional focus they give respectively to their language(s) of interest:Béarn,Gascony orOccitania.[5]
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Used from the middle of the13th century to replaceLatin in this formerBasque-speaking region, Béarnese remained the institutional language of the sovereign principality ofBearn from1347 to1620. The language was used in the administrative and judicial acts of the country. In the middle of the16th century, French also began to be used in certain acts of the Béarnaise administration. With theannexation of Béarn by theKingdom of France in1620, Béarnese continued to be used in the administration of the new French province, concurrently withFrench. Since theFrench Revolution, Béarnese has no official recognition. As stated in Article 2 of theConstitution of theFifth French Republic: "The language of the Republic is French", with no other place for regional or minority languages. Since the modification of the Constitution in 2008, Béarnese, as well as other regional languages, is recognized as belonging to the heritage of France. Article 75-1 states that "regional languages belong to the heritage of France". At the international level, Bearnais does not have an ISO 639 code, it is included in the "oc" code. The Linguistic Observatory assigns the code 51-AAA-fb to Bearnais in its Linguasphere register.[6]
The departmental council of thePyrénées-Atlantiques has set up actions to support what it calls "Béarnese/Gascon/Occitan", through teaching and the creation of educational and cultural content.Iniciativa is the name of the departmental plan that sets the guidelines of thelanguage policy in favor of "Bearnese/Gascon/Occitan". The department's website is partly accessible inlangue d'oc, as well as inEnglish,Spanish andBasque. Several Béarn communes have installed bilingual signs at the entrance to their commune, such asBordes,Etsaut,Artix,Lacq orBillère.
Concerning literature and poems, the first important book was a Béarnese translation of thePsalms ofDavid byArnaud de Salette, at the end of the 16th century, contemporary with the Gascon (Armagnac dialect) translation of these Psalms byPey de Garros. Both translations were ordered byJeanne d'Albret, queen ofNavarre and mother ofHenry IV of France, to be used atProtestant churches. Henri IV was first Enric III de Navarra, the king of this independent Calvinist and Occitan-speaking state. The Béarnese dialect was his native language that he also used in letters to his subjects.
During the 17th century, the Béarnese writerJean-Henri Fondeville (among others) composed plays such asLa Pastourale deu Paysaa and also his anti-CalvinistEglògas. The 18th-century Béarnese poetCyprien Despourrins wrote poems that became folk songs.[7][8] From the 19th century we can mention poetXavier Navarrot and alsoAlexis Peyret, who emigrated toArgentina for political reasons where he edited his Béarnese poetry.[9]
After the creation of theFelibrige, theEscole Gastoû Fèbus (which would becomeEscòla Gaston Fèbus) was created as the Béarnese part ofFrédéric Mistral's andJoseph Roumanille's academy.Simin Palay, one of its most prominent members, published a dictionary.
Noticeable representatives of modern béarnese literature include poets Roger Lapassade, and novelists Eric Gonzalès, Serge Javaloyès, and Albert Peyroutet.
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