Pierre Bec (French pronunciation:[pjɛʁbɛk];
Occitan: Pèire Bèc; 11 December 1921 – 30 June 2014)[1] was a
FrenchOccitan-language poet and linguist. Born in
Paris, he spent his childhood in
Comminges, where he learnt
Occitan. He was deported to
Germany between 1943 and 1945. After returning, he studied in Paris, where he graduated in 1959. He was one of the founders of the IEO or
Institut d'Estudis Occitans (Institute of Occitan Studies) as well as its president from 1962 to 1980.
Life
Pierre Bec spent his childhood in
Cazères-sur-Garonne where he learned
Gascon. In 1938, he was an interpreter for the Spanish Republican refugees who had crossed the Pyrenees, and he discovered
Catalan. He was deported in March 1943 to
Germany as part of the
compulsory labor service.
Bec was titular professor at
Poitiers university and assistant director of the Centre d'Études Supérieures de Civilisation Médiévale (Centre for high studies in medieval civilisation).[2] He is considered one of the most important specialists in Occitan
dialectology and in mediaeval Occitan literature. His activity is distributed among Occitanist politics, philological research and literary creation. He collaborated with publications like Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale, Revue de Linguistique Romane, Estudis Romànics, Oc.
In 1982 he took part in the Linguistic Normalisation commission for
Aranese, with
Jacme Taupiac and
Miquèu Grosclaude: they established some linguistics norms, officialised in 1983, following
IEO's indications for
Gascon.
Bec died in
Poitiers on 30 June 2014, at the age of 92.[3]
Manuel pratique d'occitan moderne (Picard, 1973; 2e édition 1983)[12]
Manuel pratique de philologie romane (Picard, 1970 (vol. 1), 1971 (vol. 2) - reedit. 2000)[13]
Les Interférences linguistiques entre gascon et languedocien dans les parlers du Comminges et du Couserans (PUF, 1968): Essai d'aréologie systématique.[14]
^Hull, Geoffrey, PhD thesis 1982 (University of Sydney), published as The Linguistic Unity of Northern Italy and Rhaetia: Historical Grammar of the Padanian Language. 2 vols. Sydney: Beta Crucis, 2017.