What is "vergonha"

La vergonha (, meaning "shame") is what Occitans call the effects of various policies of the government of France on its citizens whose native language was a so-called patois, a language spoken in France other than French, such as Occitan or one of the dialects of the langues d'oïl. Vergonha is being made to reject and feel ashamed of one's (or one's parents') non- French language through official exclusion, humiliation at school and rejection from the media as organized and sanctioned by French political leaders, from Henri Grégoire onward. Vergonha, which is still a taboo topic in France where some still refuse to admit such discrimination ever existed, can be seen as the result of an attempted linguicide. In 1860, before schooling was made compulsory, native Occitan speakers represented more than 39% of the whole French population, as opposed to 52% of francophones proper; their share of the population declined to 26–36% in the 1920s, and then dropped to less than 7% by 1993.