On the place of Gascon among the Romance languages

Abstract

The Gascon language is spoken in southwestern France, in the region geographically limited by the Pyrenees, the Atlantic Ocean and the Garonne River (see Map 1). It has a number of peculiar linguistic features that set it apart from the other Occitan languages but are shared by the Iberian languages. Some medieval documents written by Provençal grammarians show that at the time Gascon was already regarded as a language independent from Provençal.