I think I heard that it came from the word for 'yes' which in the north was 'oil' and in the southwest was 'oc' so you had langue d'oc and langue d'oil. Perhaps also why the language of the area from SW France through Catalonia was Occitan.
( Catalan is one of the coolest languages I've ever seen. Obviously a romance language and for some reason it looks like one can even understand it. Got a real kick out of the way the Catalans in Barcelona would refuse to speak Spanish to other Barcelonans - like trying to speak English in Quebec if they know you're Canadian )
>>>>
>>Refrain... oh you mean you'll abstain from an impulse to say how many. :)>>>>
>>>>What's a 'frain' and why would you have to 're' do it?
>>>
>>>You telling me Spanish has no words beginning with "re", meaning "to do again"?
>>>
>>
>>Not since the reconquista.
>
>Charles
>
>yesterday you mentioned the Languedoc region of France, I think. A friend (French teacher) informed me that it got its name from the other French people's referring to the gluttoral sound the inhabitants made: "la langue d'oc" or "the language where they go 'oc'" (bit like "the Knights that go Neep", I suppose :-)
>
>On a similar vein, I understand that the word "barbarian" came from the Roman's disdain of their language, saying that they all go "bar - bar - bar".
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
