LH & NH in Portuguese and Occitan/Provençal

LH and NH
An online friend of mine told me of a page about Occitan. He said to me that the website had to do with a language in the south of France on the Spanish border, very similar to Portuguese. He asked if I was aware of it. I responded positively. I told him that, in actuality, Occitan has much more in common with French and especially with Catalan, though it being a Romance language, it certainly is very similar to Portuguese as well. He remarked of how interesting it was to him that the digraphs LH and NH were found in Occitania, just like all the way accross the peninsula in Portugal, in Portuguese. He was not aware, however, of the common origin of these.
The digraphs LH and NH (Sp. ll, ñ; It. gl, gn) were taken directly from Provençal into Portuguese during the XIII century. Provençal is a dialect of Occitan, both forming part of the langue d'oc group in Southern France. During the middle ages, Provençal enjoyed of great literary status, said to had been the language of the troubadours. Nowadays, it is not even oficially recognized in French territory.

Occitan/Provençal In brief, the langue d'oc is that of Southern France, the region collectively known as Occitania. Back then, the speech of what is now France was divided in two, based on the word used for "yes": that from the north labeled langue d'oïl, and that from the south, langue d'oc. Therefore, in the northern group, «oïl», which became «oui», was used. In the south, there existed «oc», which is still quite used, being pronounced \ó\. In the end, the Parisien dialect of the d'oïl group triumphed, since the royal court was situated there. With this, all other forms of speech were labeled as patois, and relegated barely to home usage, if at all; very much the unfortunate case with Occitan/Provençal.

So yet another Romance language to take into account: Occitan/Provençal. Speaking the languages that I already do, I am easily able to comprehend the rest of them, including the minority ones; Occitan/Provençal is not the exception. Nonetheless, it would be rather interesting to speak it.