Sardinian language

Sardinian
Sard
Sardu Limba / Língua sarda
Pronunciation	[ˈsaɾdu]
Native to	Italy
Region	Sardinia
Native speakers	~1,000,000 (1999–2007)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Sardinian
Dialects	Logudorese Sardinian (sardu logudoresu) Campidanese Sardinian (sardu campidanesu)
Official status
Official language in	Italy ( Sardinia)[2][3]
Recognised minority language in	Italy
Regulated by	Limba Sarda Comuna code
Language codes
ISO 639-1	sc
ISO 639-2	srd
ISO 639-3	srd – inclusive code Sardinian Individual codes: sro – Campidanese Sardinian src – Logudorese Sardinian
Glottolog	sard1257[4]
Linguasphere	51-AAA-s +(Corso-Sardinian) 51-AAA-pd & -pe
Linguistic map of Sardinia. Sardinian is yellow (Logudorese) and orange (Campidanese).

Sardinian or Sard (sardu [ˈsaɾdu], limba sarda [ˈlimba ˈzaɾda] or língua sarda [ˈliŋɡu.a ˈzaɾda]) is the primary indigenous Romance language spoken by the Sardinians on most of the island of Sardinia (Italy). It is considered one of the closest genealogical descendants, if not the closest, to Latin by many Romance linguists.^[5][6] However, it also incorporates a Pre-Latin (mostly Paleo-Sardinian and, to a much lesser degree, Punic) substratum,^[7] as well as a Byzantine Greek, Catalan, Spanish and Italian superstratum due to the political membership of the island, first becoming a Byzantine possession followed by a significant period of self-rule, then falling into the Iberian sphere of influence in the late Middle Ages, and in the 18th century towards the Italian one.

The Sardinian language is traditionally thought to consist of two mutually intelligible varieties,^[8][9] Campidanese and Logudorese, spoken respectively in the Southern half and in the North-Central part of Sardinia; the view of there being a dialectal boundary separating the two has been subjected to more recent research, that shows on the contrary a fluid linguistic continuum from the Northern to the Southern ends of the island.^[10] Such perception of the Sardinian dialects, rather than pointing to an actual isogloss, is in fact the result of a psychological adherence to the way Sardinia was administratively subvidided into a Caput Logudori (Cabu de Susu) and a Caput Calaris (Cabu de Jossu) by the Spanish.^[11] Some attempts have been recently made to introduce a standardized writing system for administrative purposes, like the LSU (Limba Sarda Unificada, "Unified Sardinian Language") and then the LSC (Limba Sarda Comuna, "Common Sardinian Language"),^[12] but they have not been generally acknowledged by native speakers.^[13][14][15]

In 1997, Sardinian was recognized by a regional law,^[2] along with other languages spoken on the island; since 1999, Sardinian is also one of the twelve "historical language minorities" of Italy, being granted recognition by the national Law no. 482/1999.^[16] However, the vitality of the Sardinian-speaking community is threatened and UNESCO classifies the language as "definitely endangered",^[17] although an estimated 68.4 percent of the islanders report to have a good oral command of Sardinian.^[18] While the level of language competence is in fact relatively high among the older generation beyond retirement age, it has been estimated to have dropped to around 13 percent among children, with Sardinian being kept as a heritage language.^[19][20]

Overview

Now the question arises as to whether Sardinian is to be considered a dialect or a language in its own right. Politically speaking,^[21] it is clearly one of the many dialects^[21] of Italy, just like the Serbo-Croatian and the Albanian spoken in various villages of Calabria and Sicily. However, from a linguistic point of view, that is a different question. It can be said that Sardinian has no relationship whatsoever with any dialect of mainland Italy; it is an archaic Romance speech with its own distinctive characteristics, showing a very original vocabulary in addition to morphology and syntax rather different from the Italian dialects.^[22]

— Max Leopold Wagner, La lingua sarda, 1951 – Ilisso, pp. 90–91

Sardinian is considered the most conservative Romance language,^[23] and its substratum (Paleo-Sardinian or Nuragic) has also been researched. A 1949 study by Italian-American linguist Mario Pei, analyzing the degree of difference from a language's parent (Latin, in the case of Romance languages) by comparing phonology, inflection, syntax, vocabulary, and intonation, indicated the following percentages (the higher the percentage, the greater the distance from Latin):^[24] Sardinian 8%, Italian 12%, Spanish 20%, Romanian 23.5%, Occitan 25%, Portuguese 31%, and French 44%. For example, Latin "Pone mihi tres panes in bertula" (put three loaves of bread [from home] in the bag for me) would be the very similar "Ponemi tres panes in bertula" in Sardinian.^[25]

Chart of Romance languages based on structural and comparative criteria (not on socio-functional ones). Koryakov (2001) ascribes Sardinian to the separated Island Romance branch of the Romance languages, along with old Corsican (modern Corsican is in fact part of the broad Italo-Romance family).^[26]

Compared to the mainland Italian dialects, Sardinian is virtually incomprehensible for Italians,^[15] being actually an autonomous linguistic group.^[27][28]

History

Sardinia's relative isolation from mainland Europe encouraged the development of a Romance language preserving traces of its indigenous, pre-Roman language(s). The language is posited to have substratal influences from Paleo-Sardinian language, which some scholars have linked to Basque^[29] and Etruscan.^[30] Adstratal influences include Catalan, Spanish, and Italian. The situation of Sardinian language with regard to the politically dominant ones did not change until the 1950s.^[31][32]

Roman period

See also: Corsica and Sardinia

Although Roman domination, which began in 238 b.c., brought Latin to Sardinia, it was unable to completely supplant the pre-Latin Sardinian languages, including Punic, which continued to be spoken in the a.d. 4th century as attested by votive inscriptions.^[41] Some obscure Nuragic roots remained unchanged, and in many cases the Latin accepted local roots (like nur, which makes its appearance in nuraghe, Nurra, Nurri and many other toponyms). Barbagia, the mountainous central region of the island, derives its name from the Latin Barbaria (a term meaning "Land of the Barbarians", similar in origin to the Barbary word), because its people refused cultural and linguistic assimilation for a long time: 50% of toponyms of central Sardinia, particularly in the territory of Olzai, are actually not related to any known language.^[42] Besides the place names, on the island there are still a few names of plants, animals and geological formations directly traceable to the ancient Nuragic era.^[43] Cicero called the Sardinian rebels latrones mastrucati ("thieves with rough wool cloaks") to emphasize Roman superiority.^[44]

During the long Roman domination Latin gradually become however the speech of the majority of the island's inhabitants.^[45] As a result of this process of romanization the Sardinian language is today classified as Romance or neo-Latin, with some phonetic features resembling Old Latin. Some linguists assert that modern Sardinian, being part of the Island Romance group,^[26] was the first language to split off from Latin, all others evolving from Latin as Continental Romance.

Extract from the Logudorese Privilege (1080)

« In nomine Domini amen. Ego iudice Mariano de Lacon fazo ista carta ad onore de omnes homines de Pisas pro xu toloneu ci mi pecterunt: e ego donolislu pro ca lis so ego amicu caru e itsos a mimi; ci nullu imperatore ci lu aet potestare istu locu de non (n)apat comiatu de leuarelis toloneu in placitu: de non occidere pisanu ingratis: e ccausa ipsoro ci lis aem leuare ingratis, de facerlis iustitia inperatore ci nce aet exere intu locu [...] »

At that time, the only literature being produced in Sardinia was mostly in Latin: the native (Paleo-Sardinian) and non-native (Punic) pre-Roman languages were then already extinct (the last Punic inscription in Bithia, southern Sardinia, is from the second or third century A.D.^[46]). Some engraved poems in ancient Greek and Latin (the two most prestigious languages in the Roman Empire^[47]) are to be seen in Viper Cave, Cagliari, ( Grutta 'e sa Pibera in Sardinian, Grotta della Vipera in Italian, Cripta Serpentum in Latin), a burial monument built by Lucius Cassius Philippus (a Roman who had been exiled to Sardinia) in remembrance of his dead spouse Atilia Pomptilla. We also have some religious works by Saint Lucifer and Eusebius, both from Caralis (Cagliari).

Although Sardinia was culturally influenced and politically ruled by the Byzantine Empire for almost five centuries, Greek did not enter the language except for some ritual or formal expressions in Sardinian using Greek structure and, sometimes, the Greek alphabet.^[48][49] Evidence for this is found in the condaghes, the first written documents in Sardinian. From the long Byzantine era there are only a few entries but they already provide a glimpse of the sociolinguistical situation on the island in which, in addition to the community's everyday Neo-Latin language, Greek was also spoken by the ruling classes.^[50] Some toponyms, such as Jerzu (thought to derive from the Greek khérsos, "untilled"), together with the personal names Mikhaleis, Konstantine and Basilis, demonstrate Greek influence.^[50]

The condaghe of Saint Peter of Silki (1065-1180), written in Sardinian.

As the Muslims conquered southern Italy and Sicily, communications broke down between Constantinople and Sardinia, whose districts became progressively more autonomous from the Byzantine oecumene (Greek: οἰκουμένη). Sardinia was then brought back into the Latin cultural sphere.

Judgedoms period

See also: Giudicati

The first page of the Arborean Carta de Logu

Sardinian was the first Romance language of all to gain official status,^[51] being used by the four Giudicati ("Judgedoms" or "Judicatures"),^[52] former quarrelling Byzantine districts that became independent political entities after the Arab expansion in the Mediterranean cut off any ties left between the island and Byzantium. One of the oldest documents left in Sardinian (the so-called Carta Volgare) comes from the Judgedom of Cagliari and was issued by Torchitorio I de Lacon-Gunale in around 1070, employing the Greek alphabet.^[53] Old Sardinian had a greater number of archaisms and Latinisms than the present language does. While the earlier documents show the existence of an early Sardinian Koine,^[54] the language used by the various Judgedoms already displayed a certain range of dialectal variation.^[32] A special position was occupied by the Judgedom of Arborea, the last Sardinian kingdom to fall to foreign powers, in which a transitional dialect was spoken, that of Middle Sardinian. The Carta de Logu of the Kingdom of Arborea, one of the first constitutions in history drawn up in 1355–1376 by Marianus IV and the Queen, the "Lady Judge" (judikessa in Sardinian, jutgessa in Catalan, giudicessa in Italian) Eleanor, was written in this transitional variety of Sardinian, and remained in force until 1827.^[55][56] It is presumed the Arborean judges attempted to unify the Sardinian dialects in order to be legitimate rulers of the entire island under a single state (republica sardisca "Sardinian Republic"). ^[57]

Dante Alighieri wrote in his 1302–05 essay De vulgari eloquentia that Sardinians, not being Italians (Latii) and having no lingua vulgaris of their own, resorted to aping Latin instead.^{[15][58][59][60][61][62]} Dante's view has been dismissed, because Sardinian had evolved enough to be unintelligible to non-islanders. A popular 12th-century verse from the poem Domna, tant vos ai preiada quotes the provençal troubadour Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, saying No t'entend plui d'un Todesco / Sardesco o Barbarì ("I don't understand you any more than I understand a German / or a Sardinian or a Berber");^{[63][64][65][62]} the Tuscan poet Fazio degli Uberti refers to the Sardinians in his poem Dittamondo as una gente che niuno non la intende / né essi sanno quel ch'altri pispiglia ("a people that no one is able to understand / nor do they come to a knowledge of what other peoples say").^[66][61][62] The Muslim geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi, who lived in Palermo, Sicily at the court of King Roger II, wrote in his work Kitab Nuzhat al-mushtāq fi'khtirāq al-āfāq ("The book of pleasant journeys into faraway lands" or, simply, "The book of Roger") that "Sardinia is large, mountainous, poorly provided with water, two hundred and eighty miles long and one hundred and eighty long from west to east. [...] Sardinians are ethnically Rūm Afāriqah (Latins of Africa), like the Berbers; they shun contacts with all the other Rūm nations and are people of purpose and valiant that never leave the arms" (Wa ahl Ğazīrat Sardāniya fī aṣl Rūm Afāriqa mutabarbirūn mutawaḥḥišūn min ağnās ar-Rūm wa hum ahl nağida wa hazm lā yufariqūn as-silāḥ).^[67][68]

Sardinian-language statutes of Sassari from the 13th–14th centuries

The literature of this period primarily consists of legal documents, besides the aforementioned Carta de Logu. The first document containing Sardinian elements is a 1063 donation to the abbey of Montecassino signed by Barisone I of Torres.^[69] Other documents are the Carta Volgare (1070–1080) in Campidanese, the 1080 Logudorese Privilege,^[70] the 1089 Donation of Torchitorio (in the Marseille archives),^[71] the 1190–1206 Marsellaise Chart (in Campidanese)^[72] and an 1173 communication between the Bishop Bernardo of Civita and Benedetto, who oversaw the Opera del Duomo in Pisa.^[73] The Statutes of Sassari (1316) and Castelgenovese (c. 1334) are written in Logudorese.^[74]

Habsburg period – Spanish influence

Through the marriage of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon in 1469 and, later in 1624, the reorganization of the monarchy led by the Count-Duke of Olivares, Sardinia would progressively join a broad Spanish cultural sphere and leave the exclusive Aragonese one. Spanish was perceived as an elitist language, gaining solid ground among the ruling Sardinian class; Spanish had thus a profound influence on Sardinian, especially in those words, styles and cultural models owing to the prestigious international role of the Habsburg Monarchy as well as the Court.^[86][81] Most Sardinian authors would write in both Spanish and Sardinian until the 19th century and were well-versed in the former, like Vicente Bacallar y Sanna that was one of the founders of the Real Academia Española.^[87] A notable exception was Pedro Delitala (1550–1590), who decided to write in Italian instead.^[83][88] Nonetheless, the Sardinian language retained much of its importance, being the only one the people from rural areas kept speaking.^[89][90] In "Legendariu de Santas Virgines, et Martires de Iesu Christu", the Orgolese priest Ioan Matheu Garipa called Sardinian the closest living relative of classical Latin: Las apo voltadas in sardu menjus qui non in atera limba pro amore de su vulgu [...] qui non tenjan bisonju de interprete pro bi-las decrarare, et tambene pro esser sa limba sarda tantu bona, quanta participat de sa latina, qui nexuna de quantas limbas si plàtican est tantu parente assa latina formale quantu sa sarda.

A 1620 proclamation is in the Bosa archives.^[91]

Some gravestones in the cemetery of Ploaghe. The first gravestone has writings in Sardinian, the other two in Italian.

Present situation

No-smoking sign in Sardinian and Italian

After World War II, awareness around the Sardinian language and the danger of its slipping away did not seem to concern the Sardinian elites and entered the political spaces much later than in other European peripheries marked by the long-standing presence of ethno-linguistic minorities;^[116] on the contrary, the language was rejected by the already Italianized middle class.^[115] At the time of drafting of the statute in 1948, the legislator eventually decided to specify the "Sardinian specialty" as a single criterion for political autonomy just on the grounds of a couple of socio-economic issues devoid of considerations of a distinct cultural, historical and geographical identity,^[117][118] that were on the contrary looked down upon as a potential prelude to more autonomist or separatist claims.^[119] Eventually, the special statute of 1948 did not recognize any special geographical conditions about the region nor made any mention of a distinct cultural and linguistic element, preferring instead to concentrate on state-funded plans (baptised with the Italian name of piani di rinascita) for the heavy industrial development of the island. In the meantime, the emphasis on Italian-only assimilation policies continued, with historical sites and ordinary objects renamed in Italian.^[120] The Ministry of Public Education reportedly requested that the Sardinian teachers be put under surveillance.^[121] The rejection of the indigenous language, along with a rigid model of Italian-language education,^[122] corporal punishment and shaming, led to poor schooling for Sardinians.^[123][124] As of 2015, Sardinia had the highest rate of school and university drop-out in Italy.^[125]

There have been many campaigns, often expressed in the form of political demands from the late '60s onwards,^[126] to give Sardinian equal status with Italian as a means to promote cultural identity.^[127] One of the first demands was formulated in a resolution adopted by the University of Cagliari in 1971, calling upon the national and regional authorities to recognize the Sardinians as an ethno-linguistic minority and Sardinian as the island's co-official language.^[128] Critical acclaim in Sardinian cultural circles followed the patriotic poem No sias isciau ("Don't be a slave") by Raimondo (Remundu) Piras some months before his death in 1977, urging bilingual education to reverse the trend of deSardization.^[112] Following tensions and claims of the Sardinian nationalist movement for concrete cultural and political autonomy, including the recognition of the Sardinians as an ethnic and linguistic minority, three separate bills were presented to the Regional Council in the '80s.^[31] A survey conducted in 1984 (cited in Pinna Catte's work, 1992^[129]) showed that many Sardinians had a relatively positive attitude towards bilingual education (22% wanted Sardinian to be compulsory in Sardinian schools, while 54.7% would prefer to see teaching in Sardinian as optional). Such consensus remains relatively stable to this day; a further survey in 2008 reported that more than half of the interviewees, 57.3%, are in favour of the introduction of Sardinian into schools alongside Italian.^[130]

In the 1990s, there has been a resurgence of Sardinian-language music, ranging from the more traditional genres (cantu a tenore, cantu a chiterra, gosos etc.) to rock (Kenze Neke, Askra, Tzoku, Tazenda etc.) and even hip hop and rap (Dr. Drer e CRC Posse, Quilo, Sa Razza, Malam, Menhir, Stranos Elementos, Malos Cantores, Randagiu Sardu, Futta etc.), and with artists who used the language as a means to promote the island and address its long-standing issues and the new challenges.^{[131][132][133][134]} A few films (like Su Re, Bellas Mariposas, Treulababbu, Sonetaula etc.) have also been dubbed in Sardinian,^[135] and some others (like Metropolis) were provided with subtitles in the language.^[136]

In 1997, Sardinian was recognized by regional law n. 26 of 15 October 1997 "Promotion and enhancement of the culture and language of Sardinia" as the language of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia after Italian.^[2] Eventually, sustained activism made possible the formal recognition of twelve minority languages (Sardinian, Albanian, Catalan, German, Greek, Slovenian, Croatian, French, Franco-Provençal, Friulian, Ladin and Occitan) in the late 1990s by the framework law no. 482/1999,^[137] following Art. 6 of the Italian Constitution. While the first section of said law states that Italian is the official language of the Republic, a number of provisions are included in order to normalize the use of such languages and let them become part of the national fabric.^[138] Nevertheless, many people in the country continue to regard Sardinian as an "Italian dialect",^[139] likewise many school and university books in Italy did not stop to group the language under Linguistica italiana (Italian linguistics), Dialetti italiani (Italian dialects) or Dialettologia italiana (Italian dialectology).^[140][141] As of 2018, Sardinian is not taught at school, apart from a few experimental cases; furthermore, its use has not ceased to be disincentivized as antiquated or even indicative of a lack of education,^[142][143] leading many locals to associate it with negative feelings of shame, backwardness, and provincialism.^[144]

Bilingual Italian–Sardinian road sign in Siniscola

Besides, a number of other factors like a considerable immigration flow from mainland Italy, the interior rural exodus to urban areas, where Sardinian is spoken by a much lower percentage of the population,^[145] and the use of Italian as a prerequisite for jobs and social advancement actually hinder any policy set up to promote the language.^{[20][146][147]} Therefore, UNESCO classifies Sardinian as "definitely endangered", since "children no longer learn the language as mother tongue in the home".^[148]

As of 2010, language use was far from stable:^[31] reports showed that, while an estimated 68 percent of the islanders had a good oral command of Sardinian, language ability among the children dropped to around 13 percent, if not even less;^{[20][149][150]} some linguists, like Mauro Maxia, cite the low number of Sardinian-speaking children as indicative of language decline, calling Sardinia "a case of linguistic suicide".^[19] According to the data published by ISTAT in 2006,^[151] 52.5% of the population in Sardinia speaks just Italian in the family environment, while 29.3% alternates Italian and Sardinian and only 16.6% uses Sardinian or other non-Italian languages; outside the social circle of family and friends, the numbers define Italian as the prevalent language (77,1%), while the usage of Sardinian and other languages drops to 5,2%. Today, most people who use Sardinian as part of day-to-day life reside mainly in the sparsely populated areas in the countryside, like the mountainous region of Barbagia.^[152][153]

A bill proposed by former prime minister Mario Monti's cabinet would have lowered Sardinian's protection level,^[154] distinguishing between languages protected by international agreements (German, Slovenian, French and Ladin) and indigenous languages. This bill, which was not implemented (Italy, along with France and Malta,^[155] has signed but not ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages),^[156][157] triggered a reaction on the island.^{[158][159][160][161]} Students have expressed an interest in taking all (or part) of their exit examinations in Sardinian.^{[162][163][164][165][166][167][168][169][170][171][172]}

Church of the Pater Noster (Jerusalem, Israel), Lord's Prayer plaque in Sardinian

In response to a 2013 Italian initiative to remove bilingual signs on the island, a group of Sardinians began a virtual campaign on Google Maps to replace Italian place names with the original Sardinian names. After about one month, Google changed the place names back to Italian.^{[173][174][175]} After a signature campaign,^[176] it has been made possible to change the language setting on Facebook from any language to Sardinian.^{[177][178][179][180]} It is also possible to switch to Sardinian even in Telegram^[181][182] and a couple of other apps, like Vivaldi, F-Droid, Diaspora, OsmAnd, Notepad++, Swiftkey, Stellarium,^[183] Skype,^[184] VLC media player for Android, Linux Mint Debina Edition 2 "Betsy", etc. In 2016, the first automatic translation software from Italian to Sardinian was developed.^[185] In 2015, all the political parties in the Sardinian regional council have reached an agreement involving a series of amendments to the old 1997 law in order to introduce the optional teaching of the language in Sardinia's schools.^{[186][187][188]} The Unified Text on the Discipline of the Regional linguistic policy^[3] has been eventually approved in June 27, 2018, with the aim of setting in motion a path towards bilingual administration, contributions to bilingual mass media, publishing, IT schools and websites; it also allows for the foundation of a Sardinian board (Consulta de su Sardu) with thirty experts that will propose a linguistic standard based on the main historical macrovarieties, and shall also have advisory duties towards the Regional body.^[189][190] Although there is still not an option to teach Sardinian on the island itself, let alone in Italy, some language courses are instead sometimes available in Germany (Universities of Stuttgart, Munich, Tübingen, Mannheim^[191] etc.), Spain (University of Girona),^[192] Iceland^[193] and Czech Republic (Brno university).^[194][195] Shigeaki Sugeta also taught Sardinian to his students of Romance languages at the Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan.^{[196][197][198][199]}

The Sardinian-speaking community among the other minority language groups officially recognized by Italy.^[200]

At present, the Sardinian-speaking community is the least protected one in Italy, despite being the largest minority language group officially recognized by the state.^[32][201] In fact the language, which is receding in all domains of use, is still not given access to any field of public life,^[20] such as education (Italian–Sardinian bilingualism is still frowned upon,^{[19][164][202][203]} while the local universities do not play pretty much any role whatsoever in supporting the language^{[204][205][206]}), politics (with the exception of some nationalist groups^[207]), justice, administrative authorities and public services, media,^{[208][209][210]} and cultural,^[211] ecclesiastical,^[212][213] economic and social activities, as well as facilities. According to a 2017 report on the digital language diversity in Europe, Sardinian appears to be particularly vital on social media as part of many people's everyday life for private use, but such vitality does not still translate into a strong and wide availability of Internet media for the language.^[214] In 2017, a 60-hour Sardinian language course has been introduced for the first time in Sardinia and Italy at the University of Cagliari, although such a course was already available in other universities abroad.^[215]

In 2015, the Council of Europe commented on the status of national minorities in Italy, noting the à la carte approach of the Italian state towards them with the exception of the German, French and Slovenian languages, where Italy has applied full bilingualism due to international agreements. Despite the formal recognition from the Italian state, Italy does not in fact collect any information on the ethnic and linguistic composition of the population, apart from South Tyrol.^[216] There is also virtually no print and broadcasting media exposure in politically or numerically weaker minorites like Sardinian. Moreover, the resources allocated to cultural projects like bilingual education, which lacks a consistent approach, are largely insufficient to meet "even the most basic expectations".^{[217][218][219][220]}

With cultural assimilation having already occurred, Sardinian is considered by many people on the island, both natives and from the Mainland, a low means of communication^[20] relegated to little more than highly localised levels of interaction.^[20] With a solution to the Sardinian question being unlikely to be found anytime soon,^[31] the language has become highly endangered:^[204] the late recognition as a minority language, as well as the gradual Italianization promoted by the education system, the administration system and the media, followed by the intergenerational language replacement, made it so that Sardinian's vitality has been heavily compromised.^[221] Most of the younger generation, although they do understand some Sardinian, is now in fact Italian monolingual and monocultural,^[20] speaking a Sardinian-influenced dialect of Italian^{[222][31][223]} that is often nicknamed italiànu porcheddìnu ("pig Italian", meaning more or less "broken Italian") by many native Sardinian speakers.^[224]

Whatever the fate of the declining Sardinian language might be, it shall form the substratum of the one prevailing now, Italian, in a number of linguistic components specific to the island.

Phonology

All dialects of Sardinian have phonetic features that are relatively archaic compared to other Romance languages. The degree of archaism varies, with the dialect spoken in the Province of Nuoro being considered the most conservative. Medieval evidence indicates that the language spoken in Sardinia and Corsica at the time was similar to modern Nuorese Sardinian. The other dialects are thought to have evolved through Catalan, Spanish and later Italian influences.

The examples listed below are from the Logudorese dialect:

• Latin vowels lost length contrast, but have all preserved their original sound; in particular, short /i/ and /u/, which did not change in Sardinian, became instead /e/ and /o/, respectively, in Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, where Latin contrastive length]] resulted in contrastive quality (for example, siccus > sicu "dry"; Italian secco, Spanish and Portuguese seco).
• Preservation of the plosive sounds /k/ and /ɡ/ before front vowels /e/ and /i/ in many words; for example, centum > kentu "hundred"; decem > dèke "ten" and gener > ghèneru "son-in-law" (Italian cento, dieci, genero with /tʃ/ and /dʒ/).
• Absence of diphthongizations found in other Romance languages; for example, potest > podest "(s)he can" (Italian può, Spanish puede, Romanian poate); bonus > bónu "good" (Italian buono, Spanish bueno).

Sardinian contains the following phonetic innovations:

• Change of the Latin -ll- into a retroflex [ɖɖ], shared with Sicilian and Southern Corsican; for example, corallus > coraddu "coral" and villa > bidda "village, town".
• Similar changes in the consonant clusters -ld- and -nd-: solidus > [ˈsoɖɖu] "money", abundantia > [abbuɳˈɖantsi.a] "abundance".
• Evolution of -pl-, -fl- and -cl- into -pr-, -fr-, as in Portuguese and Galician, and -cr-; for example, platea > pratza "public square" (Portuguese praça, Galician praza; but Italian piazza), fluxus > frúsciu "flabby" (Portuguese and Galician frouxo) and ecclesia > cresia "church" (Portuguese igreja, Galician igrexa; but Italian chiesa).
• Metathesis such as abbratzare > abbaltzare "to hug, to embrace".
• Vowel prothesis before an initial r in Campidanese, similar to Basque and Gascon: rēx > (g)urrèi/re "king"; rota > arroda "wheel" (Gascon arròda); rīvus > Sardinian and Gascon arríu "river".
• Vowel prothesis in Logudorese before an initial s followed by consonant, as in the Western Romance languages: scrīptum > iscrítu "written" (Spanish escrito, French écri), stēlla > isteddu "star" (Spanish estrella, French étoile)
• Except for the Nuorese dialect, intervocalic Latin single voiceless plosives /p/, /t/, /k/ became voiced approximant consonants. Single voiced plosives /b/, /d/, /ɡ/ were lost: caritātem (acc.) > caridàde [kaɾiˈðaðe]/[kaɾiˈdade] (Italian carità), locus > lógu [ˈloɣu]/[ˈloɡu] (Italian luogo). This also applies across word boundaries: porcu "pig", but su borcu "the pig"; tempus ['tempuzu] "time", but su tempus [su'ðempuzu] "the time"; domu "house", but sa ’omu "the house". Such sound changes have become grammaticalised, making Sardinian an initial mutating language with similarities in this to the Insular Celtic languages.

Although the latter two features were acquired during Spanish rule, the others indicate a deeper relationship between ancient Sardinia and the Iberian world; the retroflex d, l and r are found in southern Italy, Tuscany and Asturias, and were probably involved in the palatalization process of the Latin clusters -ll-, -pl-, -cl- (-ll-- > Spanish and Catalan -ll- /ʎ/, Gascon -th- /c/; -cl- > Galician-Portuguese -ch- /tʃ/, Italian -chi- /kj/), which as seen above had a different development in Sardinian.

Grammar

Some distinctive features typical of Sardinian are:

• The plural marker is -s (from the Latin accusative plural), as in the Western Romance languages French, Occitan, Catalan, Spanish, Portuguese and Galician): sardu, sardus, "Sardinian"; pudda, puddas, "hen"; margiane, margianes, "fox". In Italo-Dalmatian languages (such as Italian) or Eastern Romance languages (such as Romanian), the plural ends with -i, -e or -a--.
• The definite article derived from the Latin ipse: su, sa, plural sos, sas (Logudorese) and is (Campidanese). Such articles are common in Balearic Catalan, and were common in Gascon.
• A periphrastic construction of "have to" (late Latin habere ad) is used for the future: ap'a istàre < apo a istàre "I will stay", Vulgar Latin 'habeo ad stare' (as in the Portuguese hei de estar, but here as periphrasis for estarei). The other Romance languages have realisations of the alternative Vulgar Latin 'stare habeo', Italian "starò", Portuguese "estarei".
• For prohibitions, a negative form of the subjunctive is used: no bengias!, "don't come!" (compare Spanish no vengas and Portuguese não venhas, classified as part of the affirmative imperative mood). Italian uses the infinitive (non venire) instead.
• A common occurrence of a left-dislocated construction: cussa cantone apo cantadu ("That song I have sung": that is, "I've sung that song").
  • In yes/no questions, fronting of a constituent (especially a predicative element) is required, though it is not specifically a question-formation process: Cumprendiu m'as? ("Understood me you have", that is, "Have you understood me?"), Mandicatu at? ("Eaten he/she has", that is "Has he/she eaten?"), Fattu l'at ("Done he/she has", that is "He/She's done it"), etc.
• Interrogative phrases might be constructed like echo questions, with the interrogative marker remaining in underlying position: Sunt lòmpios cando? ("They arrived when?", that is, "when did they arrive?"), Juanne at pigadu olìas cun chie? ("John has picked olives with whom?"), etc.
• The use of non de + noun: non de abba, abbardente est ("not of water brandy it+is": that is, "It is not water, but brandy."); non de frades, parent inimigos ("Not of brothers, they seem enemies": that is, "Far from being brothers, they are like enemies").
• The use of ca (from quia) or ki as subordinate conjunctions: Ja nau ti l'apo ca est issa sa mere ("Already told I have you that is she the boss", that is "I've already told you that it's her the boss").
• Existential uses of àer / ài ("to have") and èsser / èssi ("to be"): B'at prus de chentu persones inoghe! ("There is over a hundred people in here!"), Nci funt is pratus in mesa ("There are the plates on the table").
• Ite ("What") + adjective + chi: Ite bellu chi ses! ("You are so beautiful!").
• Ancu + subjunctive as a way to express a (malevolent) wish on someone: Ancu ti falet unu lampu! ("May you be struck by lightning!").
• Noun phrases without name: Cudda machina est prus manna de sa de Juanne ("That car is bigger than John's").
• Prepositional accusative: Apo bidu a Maria ("I've seen Mary").
• Insertion of the affermative particle ja / giai: Ja m'apo corcau ("I did go to bed").
  • Use of the same particle to express antiphrastic formulas: Jai ses totu istudiatu, tue! ("You're so well educated!", that is, "You are so ignorant and full of yourself!").

Varieties

Corso-Sardinian (orange and yellow) with respect to Sardinian proper (green).

Historically, the Sardinian population has always been quite small and scattered across isolated cantons, sharing similar demographic patterns with the Corsican one. Starting from Francesco Cetti's description in the 18th century,^[230] the Sardinian language has been traditionally subdivided into two macro-varieties, each spoken by roughly half of the entire community: the North-Central or Logudorese dialects (su sardu logudoresu), and the South-Central or Campidanese dialects (su sardu campidanesu). All the Sardinian dialects differ primarily in phonetics, which does not hamper intelligibility.^[8] The Logudorese dialects are generally considered more conservative, with the Nuorese subdialect (su sardu nugoresu) being the most conservative of all. They have all retained the classical Latin pronunciation of the stop velars (kena versus cena, "supper"),^[231] the front middle vowels (compare Campidanese iotacism, probably from Byzantine Greek)^[232] and assimilation of close-mid vowels (cane versus cani, "dog" and gattos versus gattus, "cats"). Labio-velars become plain labials (limba versus lingua, "language" and abba versus acua, "water").^[233] I is prosthesized before consonant clusters beginning in s (iscala versus Campidanese scala, "stairway" and iscola versus scola, "school"). An east-west strip of villages in central Sardinia speaks a transitional group of dialects (su sardu de mesania). Examples include is limbas (the languages) and is abbas (the waters). The Campidanese dialects are spoken in the southern half of Sardinia (including Cagliari, once the metropolis of the Roman province), and was more influenced by Carthage, Rome, Constantinople and Late Latin. Examples include is fruminis (the rivers) and is domus (the houses).

Sardinian is the indigenous and historical language of most Sardinian communities. However, Sardinian is not spoken as the native and primary language in a significant number of other ones, amounting to 20% of the Sardinian population.^[32][8] Two Sardinian–Corsican transitional languages (Gallurese and Sassarese) are spoken in the northernmost part of Sardinia,^[234][235] although some Sardinian is also understood by the majority of people living there (73,6% in Gallura and 67,8% in the Sassarese-speaking subregion). Sassari, the second-largest city on Sardinia and the main center of the northern half of the island (cabu de susu in Sardinian, capo di sopra in Italian), is located there. There are also two language islands, the Catalan Algherese-speaking community from the inner city of Alghero (northwest Sardinia) and the Ligurian-speaking towns of Carloforte, in San Pietro Island, and Calasetta in Sant'Antioco island (south-west Sardinia).^[234]

See also

• Sardinia
• Sardinians
• Help:IPA/Sardinian
• Paleo-Sardinian language
• Southern Romance
• Dialects of Sardinian: Logudorese, Campidanese
• Non-Sardinian dialects spoken on Sardinia: Sassarese, Gallurese, Algherese, Tabarchino

Notes

References

External links

Sardinian edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Media related to Sardinian language at Wikimedia Commons

• Ditzionàriu in línia de sa limba e de sa cultura sarda - Online Sardinian Dictionary (in Sardinian, Italian and English)
• List of Sardinian given names (from it.wiki)
• Antoninu Rubattu's site. In addition to vocabularies of each Sardinian variety of the language and non-Sardinian languages, the site provides the reader also with some basic grammar guides and etymology dictionaries as well.
• The World Atlas of Language Structures Online, Sardinian
• CROS - Curretore regionale ortogràficu sardu in lìnia
• Lessico etimologico sardo
• SardegnaCultura in sardu – Sardinian version of the official cultural site from the Regional Sardinia administration.
• Apertium. Automatic translation software from Italian to Sardinian.
• The Sardinian language: Basic phrases & pronunciation, Nativlang
• An extract in Sardinian from the Little Prince
• Mithridates: de differentiis linguarum (Sardorum lingua), Conrad Gessner, 1555, pg. 66.
• University of Berlin – Contains many links and other information about the language.
• Grammar of Limba Sarda Comuna (standardized form adopted at institutional level)
• Grammar of Nuorese Sardinian – Wikibooks (English-incomplete)
• Grammar of Nuorese Sardinian – Sardinian Wikipedia (Sardinian-incomplete)
• Grammar of Nuorese Sardinian – Wikibooks (Italian-complete)
• Arrègulas : Grammar of Campidanese Sardinian
• A mailing list for Sardinian-speakers
• Acadèmia campidanesa de sa lìngua sarda (in Campidanese Sardinian)
• Memorie in lingua sarda, Sardegna Digital Library
• Sardinian language's office – University of Cagliari
• Blog of Sardinian language's office – University of Cagliari: news about Sardinian language and culture
• Interactive Atlas of Romance Intonation, Sardinian from Ittiri and Sinnai