Abstract Linguistic research on Gascon is still fragmentary today, a fact reflected by the highly insufficient knowledge of the etymological and typological structure of its lexicon. The Dictionnaire étymologique d’ancien gascon (DEAG), which is designed as a historical and philological dictionary with an etymological focus, aims to fill this gap. The methodology of the DEAG follows the epistemological lines of other relevant etymological dictionaries of Romance languages, but it faces particular challenges: (i) extremely limited documentation, often confined to a single source, (ii) pronounced grapho-phonetic polymorphism rather than transparent structures, and (iii) a very partial state of etymological and lexicographical research that offers no pre-existing framework. In addition, (iv) the genetic and typological position of Gascon remains to be clarified with regard to its neighbouring idioms and its situation between the extensive Gallo-Romance and Ibero-Romance areas. The etymological approach to medieval Gascon therefore gives rise to a surprising number of new results that not only allow a better understanding of its lexical trajectories and the identification of the status of Gascon within the Romania , but that also provide better explanations for etymological issues in neighboring Romance languages in many cases.
Glessgen et al. (Mon,) studied this question.