Provenzale e occitano: vicende glottonimiche

Ever since the Middle Ages, the dialects of southern France have been given a wide
variety of linguistic labels, of which two stand out for their long-standing and widespread use,
provençal and occitan. The present contribution is an attempt to reconstruct the historical
and cultural events that, particularly in France and Italy, have motivated the prevalence of
first one and then the other label. Finally, the present-day role of the terms provençal and
occitan will be discussed according to the three levels of reference (object-language),
ideology and the community.