Misplaced Pages

#443556

33-465: The 2nd Duke of Westminster, born in 1879, came from one of the richest families of Great Britain. The Duke came to Landes in 1910 on the advice of his friend Rawlinson who hunted wild boar at Mimizan with Mr. Bacon. He was captivated by the beautiful scenery. Shortly after this first visit the Duke purchased a wooded area of over 10 hectares on the banks of Lake Aureilhan to build a hunting lodge . It

66-470: A sociolect of Gascon with special phonetic and lexical features, which linguistics named Judeo-Gascon . It has been superseded by a sociolect of French that retains most of the lexical features of this former variety. Béarnais , the official language when Béarn was an independent state, does not correspond to a unified language: the three forms of Gascon are spoken in Béarn (in the south, Pyrenean Gascon, in

99-579: Is represented by two members : Éric Kerrouche and Monique Lubin. Both have served since the 2017 Senate election . Landes is known for its large pine forest which is the raw material for a timber and resin industries in the region. The forest was planted in the early nineteenth century to prevent erosion of the region's sandy soil by the sea. Landes is famous for its seaside resorts and natural spots, such as: Gascon language Gascon ( English: / ˈ ɡ æ s k ə n / ; Gascon: [ɡasˈku(ŋ)] , French: [ɡaskɔ̃] )

132-704: Is the change from "f" to "h". Where a word originally began with [f] in Latin, such as festa 'party/feast', this sound was weakened to aspirated [h] and then, in some areas, lost altogether; according to the substrate theory, this is due to the Basque dialects' lack of an equivalent /f/ phoneme , causing Gascon hèsta [ˈhɛsto] or [ˈɛsto] . A similar change took place in Spanish . Thus, Latin facere gives Spanish hacer ( [aˈθer] ) (or, in some parts of southwestern Andalusia , [haˈsɛɾ] ). Another phonological effect resulting from

165-516: Is the vernacular Romance variety spoken mainly in the region of Gascony , France . It is often considered a variety of Occitan , although some authors consider it a different language. Gascon is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn ( Béarnese dialect ) in southwestern France (in parts of the following French départements : Pyrénées-Atlantiques , Hautes-Pyrénées , Landes , Gers , Gironde , Lot-et-Garonne , Haute-Garonne , and Ariège ) and in

198-578: The Forest of Landes . The southwestern part of the department is part of the wider conurbation of Biarritz and Bayonne across the Pyrénées-Atlantique border. Landes is one of the original 83 departments that were created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from parts of the provinces of Guyenne and Gascony . During the first part of the 19th century, large parts of

231-657: The Nouvelle-Aquitaine region , Southwestern France , with a long coastline on the Atlantic Ocean to the west. It also borders Gers to the east, Pyrénées-Atlantiques to the south, Lot-et-Garonne to the north-east, and Gironde to the north. Located on the Atlantic coast, it had a population of 413,690 as of 2019. Its prefecture is Mont-de-Marsan . The department is the second-largest department in France and it covers

264-530: The Val d'Aran of Catalonia. Aranese , a southern Gascon variety, is spoken in Catalonia alongside Catalan and Spanish . Most people in the region are trilingual in all three languages, causing some influence from Spanish and Catalan. Both these influences tend to differentiate it more and more from the dialects of Gascon spoken in France. Most linguists now consider Aranese a distinct dialect of Occitan and Gascon. Since

297-568: The chasse à courre ( hunting with hounds ) which is the reason for the chateau. Pigeons , thrushes , ortolans , and woodcocks were also highly sought after by the Duke. During his time the Duke wanted a wild hunting lodge and to limit access to the Lake of Aureilhan. To this end he built a pontoon which was always visible and made the crossing by motorboat. In the Second World War , Nazi German troops occupied Mimizan on 28 June 1940. The chateau

330-498: The 11th century over the coastal fringe of Gipuzkoa extending from Hondarribia to San Sebastian , where Gascon was spoken up to the early 18th century and often used in formal documents until the 16th century, with evidence of its continued occurrence in Pasaia in the 1870s. A minor focus of influence was the Way of St James and the establishment of ethnic boroughs in several towns based on

363-584: The 2006 adoption of the new statute of Catalonia , Aranese is co-official with Catalan and Spanish in all of Catalonia (before, this status was valid for the Aran Valley only). It was also one of the mother tongues of the English kings Richard the Lionheart and his younger brother John Lackland . While many scholars accept that Occitan may constitute a single language, some authors reject this opinion and even

SECTION 10

#1733094229444

396-425: The Basque substrate may have been Gascon's reluctance to pronounce a /r/ at the beginning of words, resolved by means of a prothetical vowel. Although some linguists deny the plausibility of the Basque substrate theory, it is widely assumed that Basque, the "Circumpyrenean" language (as put by Basque linguist Alfonso Irigoyen and defended by Koldo Mitxelena , 1982), is the underlying language spreading around

429-797: The Pyrenees onto the banks of the Garonne River, maybe as far east as the Mediterranean in Roman times ( niska cited by Joan Coromines as the name of each nymph taking care of the Roman spa Arles de Tech in Roussillon , etc.). Basque gradually eroded across Gascony in the High Middle Ages (Basques from the Val d'Aran cited still circa 1000), with vulgar Latin and Basque interacting and mingling, but eventually with

462-400: The absence at the time of any land access, the Duke used a boat to access his property, where he organized hunts and receptions. His coming was an important event for the region: many inhabitants of the town were in his service. An English quarter was built next to the castle: a dozen bungalows, all in white and black lacquered wood. They accommodated the grooms alongside the stables. This area

495-454: The center and in the east, Eastern Gascon; to the north-west, Western Gascon). 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. However, use of the language has declined dramatically over recent years as a result of the Francization taking place during

528-463: The concerned region. 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

561-463: The department were covered with poorly drained heathland ( French : lande ); this is the origin of the department's name. The vegetation covered rich soil and was periodically burned off, leaving excellent pasturage for sheep , which around 1850 are thought to have numbered between 900,000 and 1,000,000 in this area. The sheep were managed by shepherds who moved around on stilts and became proficient at covering long distances thus supported. Most of

594-478: The designer Sem , and Sir Anthony Eden . Winston Churchill , who had been an intimate friend of the Duke since the Boer War, made frequent visits to Woolsack - alone or with his family. He liked to walk on the shores of the lake and sometimes set up his easel to paint. He produced twenty canvases depicting Mimizan and its surroundings. The area is rich in game. Wild boar and deer are present in excellent areas for

627-435: 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. Probably as a consequence of the linguistic continuum of western Romania and

660-574: The former replacing the latter north of the east and middle Pyrenees and developing into Gascon. However, modern Basque has had lexical influence from Gascon in words like beira ("glass"), which is also seen in Galician-Portuguese . One way for the introduction of Gascon influence into Basque came about through language contact in bordering areas of the Northern Basque Country , acting as adstrate. The other one has taken place since

693-564: The last centuries, as Gascon is rarely transmitted to young generations any longer (outside of schools, such as the Calandretas ). By April 2011, the Endangered Languages Project estimated that there were only 250,000 native speakers of the language. The usual term for Gascon is "patois", a word designating in France a non-official and usually devaluated dialect (such as Gallo ) or language (such as Occitan ), regardless of

SECTION 20

#1733094229444

726-455: The name Occitan : instead, they argue that the latter is a cover term for a family of distinct lengas d'òc rather than dialects of a single language. Gascon, in particular, is distinct enough linguistically to have been described as a language in its own right. The language spoken in Gascony before Roman rule was part of the Basque dialectal continuum (see Aquitanian language ); the fact that

759-713: The prefecture. As of 2019, there are 5 communes with more than 10,000 inhabitants: The president of the Departmental Council has been Xavier Fortinon of the Socialist Party since 2017. He succeeded former president of the National Assembly Henri Emmanuelli upon his death. In the 2017 legislative election , Landes elected the following members of the National Assembly : In the Senate , Landes

792-550: The privileges bestowed on the Francs by the Kingdom of Navarre from the 12th to the early 14th centuries, but the variant spoken and used in written records is mainly the Occitan of Toulouse. The énonciatif (Occitan: enunciatiu ) system of Gascon, a system that is more colloquial than characteristic of normative written Gascon and governs the use of certain preverbal particles (including

825-402: The sale of his property. Restored by Mr. Sargos, the chateau then became the property of Groupe Gascogne in the 1980s who intended it for seminars and receptions. It is now privately owned by individuals. Landes (department) Landes ( French pronunciation: [lɑ̃d] ; Gascon and Occitan : Lanas [ˈlanəs] ; Basque : Landak ) is a department in

858-447: The second largest department of the metropolitan French territory . It is well known for the Côte d'Argent beach. Côte d'Argent is Europe's longest beach, and attracts many surfers to Mimizan and Soorts-Hossegor each year. It is also home to a château called Château de Gaujacq that was built in 1686. Population development since 1801: The most populous commune is Mont-de-Marsan ,

891-559: The sheep departed during the second half of the nineteenth century when systematic development of large pine plantations transformed the landscape and the local economy. One of the most famous citizens of the Landes was the 19th-century French economist Frédéric Bastiat . The Nobel Prize–winning novelist François Mauriac set his novels in the Landes. The Landes is part of the current region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine . With an area stretching over more than 9000 km , Landes is, after Gironde,

924-463: The sometimes emphatic affirmative que , the occasionally mitigating or dubitative e , the exclamatory be , and the even more emphatic ja / ye , and the "polite" se ) has also been attributed to the Basque substrate. Gascon is divided into three varieties or dialect sub-groups: The Jews of Gascony, who resided in Bordeaux , Bayonne and other cities, spoke until the beginning of the 20th century

957-587: The steps to go down to the water". From 1924 to 1930 Coco Chanel was a close friend of the Duke and a privileged visitor to the castle where she came to revitalise herself. She was sometimes in the company of the seamstresses of her workshop to whom she offered a dream holiday in Le Pylon villa, years before the introduction of paid holidays. Other personalities of the interwar period followed such as: Charlie Chaplin , Salvador Dalí , Suzanne Lenglen , Lloyd George , Georges Carpentier , King Alfonso XIII of Spain ,

990-414: The word 'Gascon' comes from the Latin root vasco / vasconem , which is the same root that gives us 'Basque', implies that the speakers identified themselves at some point as Basque. There is a proven Basque substrate in the development of Gascon. This explains some of the major differences that exist between Gascon and other Occitan dialects. A typically Gascon feature that may arise from this substrate

1023-416: Was also occupied by the staff who organised hunting parties, the steward, the head housekeeper, the dog handlers, the mule-drivers, the chauffeur, and the Duke's friends. There were thirty horses occupying the stables and no less than sixty dogs in the kennels. In her memoirs, Loelia Ponsonby , the third wife of the Duke, wrote about Woolsack: "There I cut down trees to reveal the view of the lake, I arranged

Château Woolsack - Misplaced Pages Continue

1056-795: Was offered to him by the British Crown in recognition of the courage he showed during the Second Boer War and for services rendered. Construction work began in 1911. The architects Detmar Blow and Fernand Billerey used plans made by Sir Herbert Baker for the property "Woolsack" in South Africa which was built by Cecil Rhodes for Rudyard Kipling , and which also inspired the name of the property in Mimizan. The Duke of Westminster regularly stayed in his new Tudor style of Cape Town property until 1940 and for some time beyond for official obligations. In

1089-470: Was requisitioned to house officers. Upon the liberation of France , the house was returned to its owner. On 7 February 1947 the Duke married for the fourth time to Nancy Anne Winifred Sullivan. When the couple were about to come for a honeymoon in Woolsack, the house caught fire on the night of 23 February 1947 and a large part was burnt. The Duke returned to Woolsack only once before his death in 1953 to decide

#443556