One of the most interesting discoveries I made in Provence years ago was how close their language and culture was to that of my grandparents. Not only is my grandparents’ “patois”– their word– virtually identical to Provencal French- “ing “and “ung”´endings (wine is Ving and bread pung” {this is true to an extent in Medeieval French too- see Villon). The physical resemblances can be startling too, even in things like gestures give you my friend Pierre Stoyanovich, Fabre’s heir (he is entirely Provencal ethnically; the name is from his mother’ renmarriage) and my Dad.
