They are the most conservative element in society.

They love their old speech, their old dress, their old manners and customs, and have an instinctive worship of ancient memories.
Their old idioms are long preserved.

Their old dialect continues the language of the fireside, of daily toil, of daily needs, and of domestic joys and sorrows.

It hovers in the air about them, and has been sucked in with their mothers' milk.

Yet, when a primitive race such as the Gascons mix much with the people of the adjoining departments, the local dialect gradually dies out, and they learn to speak the language of their neighbours.
The Gascon was disappearing as a speech, and very few of its written elements survived.