Provencal and Occitania have strong connections to the Asian Steppe, both in religion and language and have hardly any to Arabic.

maahey-- I took a look at your other entry on Sarmatians, and must admit this is a new one on me. Provence was the first part of modern-day France to be conquered by the Romans, hence its name from provincia. Without research I'm not so sure how much of an impact the Goths (who were basically Germanic speakers) had on the area. They did penetrate into Spain, so it's not far-fetched. Sarmatia is between the Volga and the Vistula in eastern Europe. The Goths may have come from present-day Sweden and swung through Poland on their way to meet the Romans. They did end up in the Crimea and survived there linguistically until the 15th century or so. But Marseille has always been a big port in the Mediterranean with ships coming from and going to the Levant. Also, returning crusaders could have brought back Arabic words aa well as the barbacan itself from the Holy Land. Also, M-L says the word could have come from Spain from the Moors. I'm guessing that the religious connections to Iranians would be in Gascony (to the east of Provence), which was a stronghold of the Cathars (Albigensians).