Croissant (linguistic zone)

Since Ronjat’s hesitation, some books by Occitan scholars (Pierre Bec, Robert Lafont) have been reluctant to present the Croissant as a completely Langue d'oc zone.

[10] Likewise, the writer Valery Larbaud (1881-1957), who originated from Vichy, in the Croissant zone, expressed his support for the idea of a union of Langue d’oc regions in his work Jaune bleu blanc (Yellow blue white) (1927).

In Bourbonnais, the earliest known documents written in the local vernacular are deeds in French with some Occitan forms inserted from 1245.

[11] The spread of French towards the Croissant has been a long and progressive process, in contrast to the quite rapid désoccitanisation of Poitou, Saintonge and Angoumois, which took place between the 12th and 15th centuries, principally from the ravages of the Hundred Years' War, which caused the area to be consecutively repopulated.

However, since the 20th century, in all cases, the spread of French has resulted in a diglossia, and linguistic substitutions similar to those across all of the Langue d’oc regions.

In any case, from a cultural and possibly dialectological point of view, the west of the Croissant as far as Montluçon belongs to Limousin or La Marche (Marchois is spoken there).