Pierre Bec

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.

The recorded working language is French, Occitan and German. The field of work recorded is Romance studies and Occitan culture. Places of work recorded in the authority are Paris and Poitiers. Employment is recorded with University of Poitiers. Positions recorded include president. Distinctions recorded are Officer of the French Order of Academic Palms, Knight of the National Order of Merit, prix Paul Froment and Jean-Marie Grangé Price.

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 a titular professor at the University of Poitiers and assistant director of the Centre d'Études Supérieures de Civilisation Médiévale (Centre for high studies in medieval civilisation). 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.

As a linguist, Pierre Bec stated, within his Manuel pratique de Philologie romane (2nd volume, p. 316) that some kind of diachronical unity holds between Rhaeto-Romance languages (i.e. Romansh, Friulian and Ladin) and Northern Italian or Cisalpine ones (Western Lombard, Eastern Lombard, Piedmontese, Venetan, Emiliano-Romagnolo and Ligurian). This issue has been further investigated by the Australian linguist Geoffrey Hull.

• Manuel pratique d'occitan moderne (Picard, 1973; 2e édition 1983) • Manuel pratique de philologie romane (Picard, 1970 (vol. 1), 1971 (vol. 2) - reedit. 2000) • Les Interférences linguistiques entre gascon et languedocien dans les parlers du Comminges et du Couserans (PUF, 1968): Essai d'aréologie systématique.