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.
