Symbols
84Click a symbol to copy it and open its page.
Occitan alphabet
Accented letters sit beside their base letter, lined up by mark: grave (à è ò) for open vowels, acute (é í ó ú) for closed ones, diaeresis (ï ü) for a vowel said on its own. K, W and Y appear mainly in foreign words and names.
Occitan punctuation
Currency and where it's spoken
On the map
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The Occitan alphabet: Latin letters, two kinds of accent
Occitan (occitan, also lenga d’òc) is the Romance language of southern France, the Val d’Aran in Spain and a group of Alpine valleys in Italy. Its name comes from its word for yes, òc, which set it apart from the langue d’oïl of northern France, where yes became oui. It is written in the ordinary Latin alphabet; k, w and y turn up mainly in borrowed words and names.
Most Occitan writing today follows the classical norm codified by Loís Alibèrt in the 1930s and promoted by the Institut d’Estudis Occitans. It deliberately looks back to the spelling of the medieval troubadours, so one written form covers all the dialects (Provençal, Languedocien, Gascon, Limousin, Auvergnat and Vivaro-Alpine), each reader pronouncing it their own way.
Accented letters are not separate letters of the alphabet: à sorts with a, è and é with e, and so on. Occitan also relies on digraphs, two letters for one sound, which it shares with Portuguese and the old troubadour texts: lh as in filha (daughter) and Marselha, and nh as in senhor.
Occitan accents and letters: à è ò, é í ó ú, ï ü and ç
Occitan accents can mark stress when it falls outside the default pattern. The grave accent marks open vowels: à as in Occitània, è as in cèl (sky) or Montpelhièr, ò as in òc and òme (man). The acute marks unexpected stress on e, i, o and u: é as in francés (French), í as in aquí (here), ú, and ó. On e and o, the grave and acute distinguish open from closed vowels: è/é and ò/ó.
The difference between ò and ó matters because a plain o in classical spelling is said like English oo: Tolosa (Toulouse) sounds roughly “too-LOO-zo”. Ò is the open o of òc, while ó is a stressed oo sound. Capitals keep their accents: OCCITÀNIA.
The diaeresis on ï and ü after another vowel marks hiatus; on ü in gu or qu, it shows that the u is pronounced. Ç gives a soft s sound before a, o and u: Provença, çò (that). CLDR also lists á, which standard classical Occitan uses too, as in librariá; in Languedocien and Vivaro-Alpine, final á is pronounced [ɔ].
Occitan punctuation: the apostrophe, « » and the middle dot
The apostrophe ’ is everywhere, because the articles and short words drop their vowel before another vowel: l’aiga (the water), l’òme (the man), d’Occitània (of Occitania). For quotations Occitan uses the angle quotes « » like French, with “ ” for quotes inside quotes.
Gascon writing, including Aranese in Spain, also uses the middle dot · between s and h or n and h when the two letters are said separately, so that they are not read as one sound. Catalan, the closest neighbour, uses the same dot in its l·l; see our Catalan collection.
How to type Occitan letters on a keyboard and phone
Windows: hold Alt and type on the number pad à 0224, è 0232, ò 0242, é 0233, í 0237, ó 0243, ú 0250, ï 0239, ü 0252, ç 0231, and for capitals À 0192, È 0200, Ò 0210, É 0201, Í 0205, Ó 0211, Ú 0218, Ï 0207, Ü 0220, Ç 0199; « is 0171 and » 0187. On the United States-International layout type then a vowel for the grave (ò), ' then a vowel for the acute (é), " then i or u for ï and ü, and ' then c for ç.
Mac: hold a letter down and pick from the pop-up, or press Option then a vowel for à è ò, Option E then a vowel for é í ó ú, Option U then i or u for ï ü, and Option C for ç. Phones: long-press a, e, o, i, u or c on the keyboard. The French AZERTY keyboard has keys for é è à ç but not ò, so Occitan writers on it use a dead key or copy ò from a page like this one.
In HTML write ò for ò, è for è, à for à, é for é, ç for ç and ï for ï.
Where Occitan is spoken today
Occitan is spoken across the southern third of France , from Bordeaux and the Pyrenees to Limoges, Clermont-Ferrand and Nice, as well as in the Occitan Valleys of Piedmont in Italy and in the Val d’Aran in Spain . CLDR estimates around 2 million speakers, almost all in France, with a few thousand in Spain; other estimates are far lower, because many people understand the language without speaking it every day.
Its legal status differs by country. In Catalonia, Occitan, called Aranese in the Val d’Aran, is an official language. Italy protects it as a historic minority language. In France it has no official status, though bilingual Calandreta schools teach in it and many towns, Toulouse among them, put Occitan names on their street signs. All three countries use the euro: 20 .
Occitan’s closest relative is Catalan; it also shares much with French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. For their letters see our Catalan, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese collections, and the France, Spain and Italy pages for each country’s flag and emoji.
How to use them
5 situationsClick to copyOccitan Alphabet & Letters combos
12Worth knowing
- The language is named after a single word: Latin hoc (this) became òc, yes, in the south, while the north's hoc ille became oïl and then oui.
- Occitan was the language of the troubadours of the 11th to 13th centuries, the first great body of lyric poetry in a modern European language; the digraphs lh and nh go back to their spelling, and Portuguese borrowed them from it.
- Frédéric Mistral, who wrote in Provençal, shared the 1904 Nobel Prize in Literature. His own spelling, the Mistralian norm, is still used in Provence: Prouvènço where the classical norm writes Provença.
- The Occitan cross, the twelve-pommelled cross of the counts of Toulouse, has no Unicode character and no emoji, and neither does the red and gold Occitan flag built on it.
Questions people ask
8What letters are in the Occitan alphabet?
The 23 core Occitan letters, with K, W and Y used only in foreign loanwords; its accented forms include À È Ò, É Í Ó Ú, Ï Ü, Ç and Á. Accented letters sort with their base letter.
What do the accents mean in Occitan?
Both can mark stress when the rules do not predict it. The grave (à, è, ò) marks open vowels; the acute (á, é, í, ó, ú) marks unexpected stress on e, i, o and u. On e and o, the grave and acute distinguish open from closed vowels; in some dialects, final á has a different pronunciation. The diaeresis (ï, ü) marks hiatus, or shows that u is pronounced in gu and qu.
How do you type ò?
On Windows hold Alt and type 0242 (Ò is 0210); on a Mac press Option then o; on the US-International layout type then o; on a phone long-press o; in HTML write ò. Or copy it from this page.
Is Occitan the same as French?
No. Occitan is a separate Romance language, closer to Catalan than to French, with its own spelling and grammar: òc for yes, lh and nh for the sounds French writes ill and gn, and o pronounced like oo.
Is Occitan still spoken?
Yes, mostly by older people in rural southern France, but also by learners, Calandreta schools, singers and writers. CLDR estimates around 2 million speakers; other counts are much lower.
Where is Occitan spoken?
In the southern third of France, in the Occitan Valleys of Piedmont in Italy and in the Val d’Aran in Spain, where it is official under the name Aranese.
Is there an Occitan flag emoji or Occitan cross symbol?
No. Unicode has neither the Occitan flag nor the cross of Toulouse, so people use with the word Occitània, or a picture of the cross.
What is the difference between Occitan and Catalan?
They are close relatives that share much vocabulary, but Occitan writes lh and nh where Catalan writes ll and ny, and Catalan uses the middle dot in l·l. See our Catalan collection for its letters.
