Member of the Romance branch of the Indo-European language family, spoken in and around Provence in southeastern France. It is now regarded as a dialect or patois.
During the Middle Ages Provençal was in competition with French and was the language of the troubadours. It had a strong literary influence on such neighbouring languages as Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. Since the 19th century, attempts have been made to revive it as a literary language.
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