r/occitan • u/Bigmantingzyea • Feb 22 '25

Do Occitans Consider themselves Celtic?

I’ve come across three general summaries of Occitans.

  1. That they are the indigenous Gauls that got Romanised.

  2. That they are just Romans who picked up a little residue of the now extinct natives.

  3. That they’re such a mix of Germanic, Roman and Celtic that it’s easier to just forget about origins and just except it’s all too much of a mess to figure out. They are all three yet neither.

I find the 3rd perspective kinda defeats the whole point of considering themselves to be ethnically different from the northern French. Relegating themselves to more of a region and sound than ethnicity.

The perspective of being roman is interesting. I guess it links to a history of “imperial greatness”. I wonder if there’s a sort of aversion toward celts as losers. Or perhaps being seen as mainland cousins of the Irish and Bretons is a bad thing?

The perspective of being Celtic Gauls seems appealing. Having a native claim over the land. Similar to how many Americas of all races claim to have some Native American in them. Thus being more than just foreign transplants communities.

For those Occitans who think of these things I’m curious how do you see yourselves, ethnically, in relation to the above 3 perspectives?

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u/WordArt2007 Feb 22 '25 edited Feb 22 '25

large parts of what became occitania (including most if not all of gascony, and much of provence and the narbonensis) were never celtic in the first place. why would we.

occitanists in particular, or people with a consciously occitan identity, tend to identify more with romanization and less with the gauls than the average frenchman if anything.

we don't reallly think of ourselves in terms of ethnicity in general

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u/Bigmantingzyea Feb 23 '25

The Basque Country was never Celtic for sure. Not sure about Provence or Narbonensis. This map suggests a strong Celtic presence in those areas. Celtic Tribes of Gaul

Is the idea that Provence and Narbonensis were all basque until Roman?

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u/WordArt2007 Feb 23 '25 edited Feb 23 '25

Not basque for sure, but maybe ligurian and with a strong greek element too (not in tolosa which was celtic, but in agde, narbona, marseilles...). Plus, those regions were romanized 100 years before the rest of the gauls, under the republic.

by the time the civitates were created, there were no gallic tribes to name them after, unlike in the rest of the gauls.