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Rating: 
Summary: Confusing
Review: I have studied many language textbooks, but this is just about the most confusing I have ever seen. Examples are given to translate without the grammatical concepts having been taught. He attempts to explain just about all verb forms in one chapter.Very limited glossary.
Rating: 
Summary: Scholarly Treatment of Occitan
Review: There has been a slow but sure increase in interest in the Medieval period over the last 20 years or so. There are various reasons for it. One of them is the dismantling of the Eurocentric vision of history, which considered the Middle Ages to be an age of stagnancy (hence the name); we feel comfortable revising our views now. Another reason is the anthropological view of history put forward in the last 50 years largely by French structuralist historians, which encourages viewing a period in history on its own merits; naturally, they applied their analyses to the history of their own country first, and particularly to the Medieval period.Another reason is the increase of interest in alternative spiritual traditions since the 1960's, which aside from promoting interest in areas like Buddhism and Sufism has also encouraged interest in Medieval Christian topics like Celtic Christianity and writers like Meister Eckhart, Walter Hilton and the author of "The Cloud of Unknowing". In the same vein, the Feminist movement has brought mystics like Hildegard of Bingen and Julian of Norwich into prominence, as well as interest in neo-pagan movements, which often have to turn to Medieval sources. It is not at all surprising that an increase in interest in the history of the Languedoc also occurred. The troubadors and the related tradition of "Amour Courtois", arguably the first system of thought in Western history that accorded something resembling equality to women, was bound to attract interest. The murky and interesting stories of the Templars and the Cathars attract interest in various circles, and the genocide of the Albigensian Crusade is also a lesson in history worth retelling. It is small wonder that the subject of the language of the troubadors would attract attention sooner or later, which leads us to this book. In fact, this is an excellent treatment of the subject, if accepted in the milieu in which it was originally written. The fact is, this is a scholarly work, written primarily for advanced students in Medieval studies or Romance linguistics. Although he gives a half-hearted disclaimer in the introduction, it is pretty clear that Professor Paden expects anyone who picks up his book to be familiar with Latin grammar and probably a couple of modern Romance languages as well, and would no doubt be mildly surprised to find that anybody else was interested. As a result, there are various features that would be troublesome to some beginners; there are no vocabulary lists for the lessons, just the glossary at the back of the book. Notes are only given to the readings when it is assumed you would get stuck; in general, it is assumed that the student will be able to recognize a lot of items and press on. The explanations of the verb forms are for the edification of the student of Romance Linguistics, and belabor a lot of points that more casual readers can actually ignore without any real loss. To concentrate on them too much would make the subject look much harder than it really is. The really sad part about this is that Old Occitan is really not a very difficult language - much easier than Old Irish, Old Norse, Old Church Slavonic and even Old English. This book starts you off reading original texts from the very first lesson, which I found to be exciting, and so far anyway (I haven't finished the book but I'm about halfway through) I find the explanations quite adequate. If you have some familiarity with French or Spanish (or preferably both) you will not find this book too terribly difficult. If by some quirk you are familiar with Catalan you're halfway home already, since Occitan resembles Catalan to a remarkable degree. I debated over whether the book deserved three stars or four; in the end I opted for four stars because Professor Paden can't be blamed if his book appeals to a larger audience than he thought it would. So be advised. If you don't have the background for the book it can be a chore, but from the scholarly point of view it is an admirable piece of work.
Rating: 
Summary: It is a fairly difficult book to get through
Review: This book seems to be written for people who have extensive knowledge in other languages. Some parts are hard to digest, but the CD makes learning the pronounciations more palleteable.
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