Guardia Piemontese in the context of "Gardiol language"

Occitan (English: /ˈɒksɪtən, -tæn, -tɑːn/; Occitan pronunciation: [utsiˈta, uksiˈta]), also known by its native speakers as lenga d'òc (Occitan: [ˈleŋɡɒ ˈðɔ(k)] ; French: langue d'oc), sometimes also referred to as Provençal, is a Romance language spoken in southern France, Monaco, Italy's Occitan Valleys, as well as in the Catalonian Val d'Aran; collectively, these regions are sometimes referred to as Occitania. It is also spoken in the southern Italian province of Cosenza (mostly in Guardia Piemontese). There it is referred to as Gardiol, which is considered a separate Occitanic language. Some include Catalan as a dialect of Occitan, as the linguistic distance between this language and some Occitan dialects (such as the Gascon language) is similar to the distance between different Occitan dialects. Catalan was considered a dialect of Occitan until the end of the 19th century and still today remains its closest relative. Occitan has a particularly rich lexicon. Lo Panoccinari, considered the most comprehensive dictionary ever published in this language, records over 250,000 unique words (more than 310,000 including dialectal variations).

Occitan is an official language of Catalonia, Spain, where a subdialect of Gascon known as Aranese is spoken (in the Val d'Aran). Since September 2010, the Parliament of Catalonia has considered Aranese Occitan to be the officially preferred language for use in the Val d'Aran.

The province of Cosenza (Italian: provincia di Cosenza) is a province in the region of Calabria in Italy. Its capital is the city of Cosenza. It has a population of 669,239 across its 150 municipalities.

The province of Cosenza contains a community of Occitan language (also known as Langue d'oc) speakers in Guardia Piemontese: it was formed by Vaudoi or Waldensian movement members, who moved to Cosenza to avoid religious persecution, in the 13th and 14th centuries. Many of the Arbëreshë Albanians of Italy live in the province, since arriving in the 16th century to flee the religious persecution undertaken by the Ottoman Empire.

Vivaro-Alpine (Occitan: vivaroalpenc, vivaroaupenc; French: vivaro-alpin, pronounced [vivaʁo alpɛ̃]) is a variety of Occitan spoken in southeastern France (namely, around the Dauphiné area) and northwestern Italy (the Occitan Valleys of Piedmont and Liguria). There is also a small Vivaro-Alpine enclave in the Guardia Piemontese, Calabria, where the language is known as Gardiol, which Glottolog recognizes as a distinct language within the Occitanic language family. It belongs to the Northern Occitan dialect bloc, along with Auvergnat and Limousin. The name “vivaro-alpine” was coined by Pierre Bec in the 1970s. The Vivaro-Alpine dialects are traditionally called "gavot" from the Maritime Alps to the Hautes-Alpes.