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In most dialects of Occitan, the letter <u> is pronounced [y] generally. However, in Provençal it appears to be pronounced [œ] by some speakers some of the time.

This wikipedia article states (without a source) that it is a feature of the Rhodanien subdialect in particular.

It doesn't appear to be all words where [y] becomes [œ]. Listening closely to this Provençal example, the <u> in words like 'degun' and 'luna' sound like [œ] to my ear, but in 'un' it is clearly [y].

Is it in fact a feature primarily of Rhodanien, as the wikipedia article states, and what rules govern when it is [y] and when it is [œ]?

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    I do not have any answer, but the files you link are a linguistic treat! Thanks a lot!
    – user27758
    Commented May 19, 2020 at 20:52
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    I wish I knew. The conditioning seems completely inexplicable from that text sample – the only explanation I can think of is that it’s phonemic (however the split may have arisen).
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented May 29, 2020 at 12:59
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    @S.T.Veje That was my initial thought as well, but the feminine indefinite article was (if I recall correctly) pronounced [yn] in the clip, which is also in contact with /n/.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented May 29, 2020 at 15:11
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    @S.T.Veje I thought I remembered luna and una being [lœnə] and [ynə], respectively, so both what we might call sesquisyllabic, but also (apart from the initial l-) also completely identical in phonetic context. I suppose it might be that word-initially it remains [y], but that seems an odd conditioning…
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented May 29, 2020 at 15:30
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    @JanusBahsJacquet Good point. Both 'punit' and 'dubriguèt' are pronounced with [œ] in the sample, so it isn't word-initially either, and the latter doesn't have an <n> so ... I'm back to having no idea.
    – S.T. Veje
    Commented May 29, 2020 at 16:03

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