The Corsi were an ancient people of Sardinia and Corsica, to which they gave the name, as well as one of the three major groups among which the ancient Sardinians considered themselves divided (along with the Balares and the Ilienses). Noted by Ptolemy (III, 3), [1] they dwelt at the extreme north-east of Sardinia, in the region today known as Gallura, near the Tibulati and immediately north of the Coracenses.
According to historian Ettore Pais and archeologist Giovanni Ugas, the Corsi probably belonged to the Ligurian people. [2] [3] Similar was also the opinion of Seneca, who claimed that the Corsi from Corsica, where he had then been staying in exile, were of mixed origin, resulting from the continuous mingling of various ethnic groups of foreign origin, like the Ligures, the Greeks and the Iberians. [4] In the myth, reported by Sallust, the peopling of Corsica is traced back to Corsa, a Ligurian woman who when grazing her cattle, went to the island, which then took her name. [5] Pausanias in the Description of Greece wrote: [6]
A large part of the population, oppressed by civil strife, left it (Corsica) and came to Sardinia; there they took up their abode, confining themselves to the highlands. The Sardinians, however, call them by the name of Corsicans, which they brought with them from home [...] When the Carthaginians were at the height of their sea power, they overcame all in Sardinia except the Ilians and Corsicans, who were kept from slavery by the strength of the mountains.
— Pausanias, Description of Greece, 10.17
Corsican is a Romance language consisting of the continuum of the Italo-Dalmatian dialects spoken on the Mediterranean island of Corsica (France) and on the northern end of the island of Sardinia (Italy). Corsican is related to the varieties of Tuscan from the Italian peninsula, and therefore also to the Florentine-based standard Italian.
Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, and one of the twenty regions of Italy. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia and immediately south of the French island of Corsica.
The nuraghe, or nurhag, is the main type of ancient megalithic edifice found in Sardinia, Italy, developed during the Nuragic Age between 1900 and 730 BC. Today it has come to be the symbol of Sardinia and its distinctive culture known as the Nuragic civilization. More than 7,000 nuraghes have been found, though archeologists believe that originally there were more than 10,000.
The Sherden are one of the several ethnic groups the Sea Peoples were said to be composed of, appearing in fragmentary historical and iconographic records from the Eastern Mediterranean in the late 2nd millennium BC.
The Ligurian language was spoken in pre-Roman times and into the Roman era by an ancient people of north-western Italy and current south-eastern France known as the Ligures.
The Province of Sardinia and Corsica was an ancient Roman province including the islands of Sardinia and Corsica.
The Corsicans are a Romance Italic ethnic group. They are native to Corsica, a Mediterranean island and a territorial collectivity of France.
Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 18 regions of France. It is the fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean and lies southeast of the French mainland, west of the Italian Peninsula and immediately north of the Italian island of Sardinia, the nearest land mass. A single chain of mountains makes up two-thirds of the island. As of January 2024, it had a population of 355,528.
The prehistory of Corsica is analogous to the prehistories of the other islands in the Mediterranean Sea, such as Sicily, Sardinia, Malta and Cyprus, which could only be accessed by boat and featured cultures that were to some degree insular; that is, modified from the traditional Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic and Chalcolithic of European prehistoric cultures. The islands of the Aegean Sea and Crete early developed Bronze Age civilizations and are accordingly usually treated under those categories. Stone Age Crete however shares some of the features of the prehistoric Mediterranean islands.
The Nuragic civilization, also known as the Nuragic culture, was a civilization or culture on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, Italy, which lasted from the 18th century BC up to the Roman colonization in 238 BC. Others date the culture as lasting at least until the 2nd century AD and in some areas, namely the Barbagia, to the 6th century AD or possibly even to the 11th century AD.
The Torrean civilization was a Bronze Age megalithic civilization that developed in Southern Corsica, mostly concentrated south of Ajaccio, during the second half of the second millennium BC.
The Sardinians, or Sards, are a Romance language-speaking ethnic group native to Sardinia, from which the western Mediterranean island and autonomous region of Italy derives its name.
Paleo-Sardinian, also known as Proto-Sardinian or Nuragic, is an extinct language, or perhaps set of languages, spoken on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia by the ancient Sardinian population during the Nuragic era. Starting from the Roman conquest with the establishment of a specific province, a process of language shift took place, wherein Latin came slowly to be the only language spoken by the islanders. Paleo-Sardinian is thought to have left traces in the island's onomastics as well as toponyms, which appear to preserve grammatical suffixes, and a number of words in the modern Sardinian language.
The Balares were one of the three major groups among which the Nuragic Sardinians considered themselves divided.
The Ilienses or Iolaes or Ilians or Iolai ; later known as Diagesbes (Διαγησβεῖς) or Diagebres (Διαγηβρεῖς) were an ancient Nuragic people who lived during the Bronze and Iron Ages in central-southern Sardinia, as well as one of the three major groups among which the ancient Sardinians considered themselves divided. After the Sicilian Wars began with the Punic invasion in the sixth century BC, part of them retreated to the mountainous interior of the island, from which they opposed the foreign rule for centuries.
The Paleo-Corsican language is an extinct language spoken in Corsica and presumably in the northeastern part of Sardinia by the ancient Corsi populations during the Bronze and Iron Ages. The scanty evidence of the language, which comes mainly from toponymy, would indicate a type of Pre-Indo-European language or, according to others, Indo-European, with Ligurian and Iberian affinity.
Sardinian surnames are surnames with origins from the Sardinian language or a long, identifiable tradition on the Western Mediterranean island of Sardinia.