langue d'ocn.²

Etymology: < French langue d'oc (apparently 13th cent. in Old French: see note) < langue langue n. + de de prep. + oc yes (13th cent.; < Old Occitan oc yes (12th cent.) < classical Latin hoc this: see hoc n.). The language is so named on account of its characteristic use of oc rather than the northern oïl to mean ‘yes’. Compare langue d'oïl n., and also Languedoc n.¹The earliest instances of the term in both French and Occitan denote the territory where the language is spoken, rather than the language itself (Old French Lengue d'Oc (1298), Old Occitan Lenga d'Oc , Lengua d'Oc (both first half of the 14th cent.); Middle French frequently has le pays de la langue d'oc , also les terres de la langue d'oc , both second half of the 14th cent. or earlier). Secure instances of French langue d'oc denoting the language are apparently only found considerably later (and the same seems to apply to the Occitan, Catalan, and Spanish parallels). However, in view of the following synonyms and parallels, it is likely that the term was also used in French from an early date to denote the language: Middle French oc (first half of the 14th cent. in this sense), langaige d'oc (1373), Catalan la lenga que dyen hoch ‘the language which they call oc’ (late 13th cent.), post-classical Latin lingua de hoc , lingua d'oc (both end of the 13th cent. in French sources, sometimes denoting the language, sometimes the territory where it is spoken), and (the closest formal parallel) Italian lingua d'oco (end of the 13th cent. in Dante Vita nuova xxv.: in lingua d'oco e in quella di sì ; compare post-classical Latin lingua oil langue d'oïl n., likewise in Dante).