Draft:Couseranais Dialect

Couseranais (Occitan: Coseranés) is a dialect of Gascon. It is spoken in the historical county of Couserans, in the western part of the modern French department of Ariège. It can also be called Couseranese in English, but Couseranais is the proper name used in Linguistics. People who speak Couseranais might refer to their language as Ariègeois (meaning the speech of Ariège), but this term has ambiguity and can refer to any dialect spoken in the department of Ariège.

Classification
According to French historian and philologist, Achille Luchaire, Couseranais is a dialect of Commingeois. However, others such as Alice Traisnel refer to it as a seperate Gascon dialect. She explained that this confusion is caused by the similarity of these two dialects (in response to why Volvetrais might be seen as a Commingeois dialect instead of as a transitional).

Phonology
The following sounds have been recorded to appear in Couseranais. Because there is no standard form of Couseranais, it is uncertain whether these sounds reflect the dialect of Sentein, which is spoken by Abbé Castet, the scientist who did this study, or if it shows sounds that are common across all Couseranais dialects.

Dialects
Couseranais has two main dialects: Haut-Couseranais, spoken in the mountains, and Bas-Couseranais, spoken in the plains. Both these dialects have their own subdialects.

1. Haut-Couseranais:
 * Gironnais, spoken in Saint-Girons.
 * Castillonais, spoken in Castillon-la-Bataille.
 * Sentein, a transitional dialect in between Couseranais and Catalan, spoken near the upper part of the Lez river. This area is also referred to as the Biros valley, which has been defined as the communes of Antras, Bordes-Uchentein, Bonac-Irazein, Sentein and Balacet.
 * Massatois, spoken in Massat. Although labelled as a Haut-Couseranais dialect, it has no apparent Gascon or Languedocian features.

2. Bas-Couseranais:
 * Séronais, a transitional dialect in between Couseranais and Fuxéen.
 * Volvetrais, a transitional dialect in between Couseranais and Bas-Commingeois.