[jackjeff]

My experience is that it's possible for people to understand each other. But the farther you go and the more difficult it gets. It's mostly the accent and the word endings that change.

My family is from Aveyron/Tarn (near Albi). We can understand texts from Frederic Mistral, written in Provençal (near Marseille) even though it sounds weird. My uncle says he had some success speaking Occitan in the Italian Piedmomd. However neither my parents nor my uncle understand any of the Catalan spoken in Barcelona. (I do, but I'm fluent in Spanish and not in Occitan...)

I think my parents (born in the 1950s) are the last generation fluent in Occitan. In France, even though it's now being taught as a second language, it's essentially gone. My mom told me she used to be punished for using Occitan at school whether in the classroom or during recess. I remember when I was a child, the farmers used to speak it among themselves (or more likely to their elders). The same people today only really speak French, even among themselves.