Ladin is a Romance language of the Rhaeto-Romance subgroup, mainly spoken in the Dolomite Mountains in Northern Italy in the provinces of South Tyrol, Trentino, and Belluno, by the Ladin people. It exhibits similarities to Swiss Romansh and Friulian.
South Tyrol officially the Autonomous Province of Bolzano, is an autonomous province in northern Italy, one of the two that make up the autonomous region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. The province is the northernmost of Italy, the second largest, with an area of 7,400 square kilometres (2,857 sq mi) and has a total population of about 534,000 inhabitants as of 2021. Its capital and largest city is Bolzano.
Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol is an autonomous region of Italy, located in the northern part of the country. The region has a population of 1.1 million, of whom 62% speak Italian as their mother tongue, 30% speak South Tyrolean German and several foreign languages are spoken by immigrant communities. Since the 1970s, most legislative and administrative powers have been transferred to the two self-governing provinces that make up the region: the Province of Trento, commonly known as Trentino, and the Province of Bolzano, commonly known as South Tyrol. In South Tyrol, German remains the sizeable majority language.
Rhaeto-Romance, Rheto-Romance, or Rhaetian, is a purported subfamily of the Romance languages that is spoken in south-eastern Switzerland and north-eastern Italy. The name "Rhaeto-Romance" refers to the former Roman province of Raetia. The question of whether these languages actually form a subfamily is called the Questione Ladina. The Italian linguist Graziadio Ascoli, writing in 1873, found them to share a number of intricacies and believed they formed a linguistic group. What distinguishes the Rhaeto-Romance languages from Italian are their phonemic vowel length, consonant formation, and a central rounded vowel series. If the subfamily is genuine, three languages would belong to it: Romansh in Switzerland, and Ladin and Friulian in Italy. Their combined number of speakers is about 660,000; the large majority of these speak Friulian.
Trentino officially the Autonomous Province of Trento, is an autonomous province of Italy, in the country's far north. The Trentino and South Tyrol constitute the region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, an autonomous region under the constitution. The province is composed of 177 comuni (municipalities). Its capital is the city of Trento (Trent). The province covers an area of more than 6,000 km2 (2,300 sq mi), with a total population of 541,098 in 2019. Trentino is renowned for its mountains, such as the Dolomites, which are part of the Alps.
The languages of Italy include Italian, which serves as the country's national language, in its standard and regional forms, as well as numerous local and regional languages, most of which, like Italian, belong to the broader Romance group. The majority of languages often labeled as regional are distributed in a continuum across the regions' administrative boundaries, with speakers from one locale within a single region being typically aware of the features distinguishing their own variety from one of the other places nearby.
The South Tyrol Option Agreement was an agreement in effect between 1939 and 1943, when the native German and Ladin-speaking people in South Tyrol and several other municipalities of northern Italy were given the option of either emigrating to neighboring Nazi Germany or remaining in Fascist Italy, where the German minority was subjected to repressive Italianization efforts.
Urtijëi is a town of 4,637 inhabitants in South Tyrol in northern Italy. It occupies the Val Gardena within the Dolomites, a mountain chain that is part of the Alps.
Aldein is a comune (municipality) in South Tyrol in northern Italy, located about 15 kilometres (9 mi) south of the city of Bolzano.
Gais is a comune (municipality) in South Tyrol in northern Italy, located about 60 kilometres (37 mi) north-east of the city of Bolzano.
Algund is a comune (municipality) in South Tyrol in northern Italy, located about 25 kilometres (16 mi) northwest of Bolzano.
Rai Südtirol is an Italian free-to-air regional television channel owned and operated by state-owned public broadcaster RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana. It is the company's German and Ladin languages television channel aimed at the German-speaking public of South Tyrol and the Ladin-speaking population of Ladinia. It was launched on 7 February 1966, it broadcast from its studios in Bolzano and unlike all other RAI channels, it carries no commercials.
In 1919, at the time of its annexation, the middle part of the County of Tyrol which is today called South Tyrol was inhabited by almost 90% German speakers. Under the 1939 South Tyrol Option Agreement, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini determined the status of the German and Ladin (Rhaeto-Romanic) ethnic groups living in the region. They could emigrate to Germany, or stay in Italy and accept their complete Italianization. As a consequence of this, the society of South Tyrol was deeply riven. Those who wanted to stay, the so-called Dableiber, were condemned as traitors while those who left (Optanten) were defamed as Nazis. Because of the outbreak of World War II, this agreement was never fully implemented. Illegal Katakombenschulen were set up to teach children the German language.
The Tyrol–South Tyrol–Trentino Euroregion is a Euroregion formed by three different regional authorities in Austria and Italy: the Austrian state of Tyrol and the Italian autonomous provinces of South Tyrol and Trentino.
The South Tyrol Alpine Club, abbreviated AVS, is an association of German and Ladin-speaking mountain climbers in South Tyrol, northern Italy. Founded in 1946, it is sub-divided into 32 sections and 58 local divisions. The AVS is based in Bolzano and has more than 60,000 members.
Tyrol is a historical region in the Alps - in Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary, from its formation in the 12th century until 1919. In 1919, following World War I and the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, it was divided into two modern administrative parts through the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye:
The politics of South Tyrol is conducted through a parliamentary, democratic autonomous province with a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised collectively by the Landesregierung, which is led by the Governor, referred to as "Landeshauptmann" in German. Legislative power is vested in the Landtag primarily, and secondarily on the provincial government. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislative branches. South Tyrol has been an autonomous province within the Italian Republic since 1948, when the Gruber – De Gasperi Agreement was agreed upon between Austria and Italy.
Secondary education in Italy lasts eight years and is divided in two stages: scuola secondaria di primo grado, also known as scuola media, corresponding to the ISCED 2011 Level 2, middle school and scuola secondaria di secondo grado, which corresponds to the ISCED 2011 Level 3, high school. The middle school lasts three years from the age of 11 to age 14, and the upper secondary from 14 to 19.
Hans Karl Peterlini is an author, journalist, university professor and educational researcher originally from South Tyrol, an autonomous, mostly German speaking province in Northern Italy.
The Regional Council of Trentino-Alto Adige is the legislative assembly of the autonomous region of Trentino-Alto Adige.
