I am deeply interested in that book now. I think even now the Auvergne and that whole region is overlooked with regards to culture and French tourism, at least for those of us not from France. I managed to visit parts of the Auvergne back in 2003 whilst working in France, but it's a pain to get to, even now. I'm ashamed to say I've only just started learning about the language.
Well, I can't blame you on thinking it like Italian. Catalan itself does bear a lot of resemblance to Italian, anyway. I find it comes across like a Spanish-Italian-French hybrid, though say that to a Catalan speaker and expect lots of stabbiness and exclamations of 'caga'. For example, their word for window is finestra, as in Italian, compared to Occitan's 'fenestra'. It's really interesting.
You've peaked my curiosity on the family line thing, now!
(Also, have you read O'Brien's The Catalans? My flatmate and I were considering reading it after seeing it in a store here...)
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Well, I can't blame you on thinking it like Italian. Catalan itself does bear a lot of resemblance to Italian, anyway. I find it comes across like a Spanish-Italian-French hybrid, though say that to a Catalan speaker and expect lots of stabbiness and exclamations of 'caga'. For example, their word for window is finestra, as in Italian, compared to Occitan's 'fenestra'. It's really interesting.
You've peaked my curiosity on the family line thing, now!
(Also, have you read O'Brien's The Catalans? My flatmate and I were considering reading it after seeing it in a store here...)