Provençal is a variety of Occitan spoken by a minority of people in Southern France, mostly in Provence. Historically, the term Provençal has been used to refer to the whole of the Occitan language, but today it is considered more technically appropriate to refer only to the variety of Occitan spoken in Provence.

It has traditionally been called the Occitan dialect based on the Provence region and is also known as the Provence language, based on a more standardized medieval literary language and movements relating to it.

In Occitan language The name Provençal originally referred to the Occitan dialects of the Provence region and is used also to refer to the standardized medieval literary language and still-vigorous literary movement based on the dialect of Provence. Because of that long literary tradition, many in the Provence region still… Read More

Franco-Provençal (the name given to a group of dialects spoken around the Alpine region of France and Italy) is often considered to be different from both French and Occitan, though some linguists hold that it is merely a transitional dialect. In the 21st century, few… Read More In Romance languages: Classification methods and problems

Provencal is one of the six main dialect groups of Occitan. It’s the southeastern variety. It’s the closest one to Northern Italian dialects and to Italian. In Nice, they spoke a variety called Niçard that is a mix of Provençal with Italian, Piedmontese and Ligurian. In Menton, they speak a variety of Ligurian with many Provençal words.