Editing Gascon dialect (section)

==Usage of the language==

[[File:Bayonne sign in French Basque Gascon-Occitan.JPG|thumb|Trilingual sign in [[Bayonne]]: French, Basque, and Gascon Occitan ("Mayretat", "Sindicat d'initiatibe")]]

A poll conducted in Béarn in 1982 indicated that 51% of the population could speak Gascon, 70% understood it, and 85% expressed a favourable opinion regarding the protection of the language.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ethnologue.com/15/show_language.asp|archiveurl=https://archive.today/20120904151329/http://www.ethnologue.com/15/show_language.asp?code=gsc|url-status=dead|title=No Ethnologue report for language code: gsc| archive-date=4 September 2012 }}</ref> However, use of the language has declined dramatically over recent years as a result of the [[Francization#Within France|Francization]] taking place during the last centuries, as Gascon is [[Language shift|rarely transmitted to young generations]] any longer (outside of schools, such as the [[Calandreta]]s).

By April 2011, the Endangered Languages Project estimated that there were only 250,000 native speakers of the language.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/lang/8631 |title=Gascon |access-date=5 July 2021 |quote=}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/apr/15/language-extinct-endangered |title=Endangered languages: the full list |website=[[TheGuardian.com]] |date=15 April 2011 |access-date=5 July 2021 |quote=Definitely endangered}}</ref> 

The usual term for Gascon is "patois", a word designating in France a non-official and usually devaluated dialect (such as [[Gallo language|Gallo]]) or language (such as [[Occitan language|Occitan]]), regardless of the concerned region.{{Citation needed|date=April 2008}}<ref name="Marcus">Marcus, Nicole Elise (2010). ''[https://escholarship.org/content/qt12v9d1gx/qt12v9d1gx_noSplash_5d475992ae6ca4e08f26bb8b9b798c21.pdf?t=mtfcqd The Gascon énonciatif system: Past, present, and future. A study of language contact, change, endangerment, and maintenance].''  [Doctoral dissertation, University of California.] eScholarship Publishing.</ref> It is mainly in [[Béarn]] that the population uses concurrently the term "Béarnais" to designate its Gascon forms. This is because of the political past of Béarn, which was independent and then part of a sovereign state (the shrinking [[Kingdom of Navarre]]) from 1347 to 1620.

In fact, there is no unified Béarnais dialect, as the language differs considerably throughout the province. Many of the differences in pronunciation can be divided into east, west, and south (the mountainous regions). For example, an 'a' at the end of words is pronounced "ah" in the west, "o" in the east, and "œ" in the south. Because of Béarn's specific political past, Béarnais has been distinguished from Gascon since the 16th century, not for linguistic reasons.