Southern Romance languages

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Southern Romance
Native to France, Italy
Region Corsica, Sardinia, Roman Africa (hypothesized)
Official status
Official language in
Italy, France
Recognised minority
language in
France, Italy
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog sout3158
Western and Eastern Romania.PNG
Sardinia as part of the Southern Romance group in Europe

The Southern Romance languages are a primary branch of the Romance languages.

Contents

According to the classification of linguists such as Leonard (1980) and Agard (1984), the Southern Romance family is composed of Sardinian, Corsican, and the southern Lucanian dialects. [1]

This theory is far from universally supported. In fact, the majority of linguists classify Corsican, including Gallurese and Sassarese as its dialects, as part of Italo-Dalmatian and closely related to Tuscan or the centro-southern Italian dialects, [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] because of the island's considerable degree of tuscanization during the Middle Ages, leaving Sardinian as the only remaining representative of the branch once the African Romance dialects had gone extinct, [8] unless the southern Lucanian dialects are also classified as part of this branch, as they show some important traits in common with Sardinian.

Classification

Ethnologue and Glottolog, which support the Southern Romance theory, [9] [1] propose the following classification (with Glottolog considering South Lucanian and Sardo-Corsican to be branches of Southern Romance and Ethnologue considering Sardo-Corsican to be synonymous with Southern Romance), which is not endorsed by other linguists in light of the structural differences between these languages. Corsican, for example, is otherwise classified as an Italo-Dalmatian language, and Gallurese, like Sassarese, as a (southern) Corsican dialect (with influences from Logudorese Sardinian) or a transitional variety between Corsican and Sardinian. However, the southern dialects of Corsican as well as Gallurese and Sassarese display Sardinian-like vocalism (see Romance languages § Dialects of southern Italy, Sardinia and Corsica).

Other classifications include in the family the extinct group of African Romance, which is known to have been used by populations of North Africa pertaining to the Roman sphere of influence during at least the first centuries after the dissolution of official institutions of the Roman Empire, and developed under the rule of the Byzantine Empire in the area.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corsican language</span> Italo-Dalmatian language

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.

Eduardo Blasco Ferrer was a Spanish-Italian linguist and a professor at the University of Cagliari, Sardinia. He is best known as the author of several studies about the Paleo-Sardinian and Sardinian language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gallurese</span> Romance language spoken in northeastern Sardinia

Gallurese is a Romance dialect of the Italo-Dalmatian family spoken in the region of Gallura, northeastern Sardinia. Gallurese is variously described as a distinct southern dialect of Corsican or transitional language of the dialect continuum between Corsican and Sardinian. "Gallurese International Day" takes place each year in Palau (Sardinia) with the participation of orators from other areas, including Corsica.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Logudorese Sardinian</span> Written standard of the Sardinian language

Logudorese Sardinian is one of the two written standards of the Sardinian language, which is often considered one of the most, if not the most conservative of all Romance languages. The orthography is based on the spoken dialects of central northern Sardinia, identified by certain attributes which are not found, or found to a lesser degree, among the Sardinian dialects centered on the other written form, Campidanese. Its ISO 639-3 code is src.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sardinian language</span> Romance language indigenous to the island of Sardinia

Sardinian or Sard is a Romance language spoken by the Sardinians on the Western Mediterranean island of Sardinia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sassarese language</span> Italo-Dalmatian language of Sardinia

Sassarese is an Italo-Dalmatian language and transitional variety between Sardinian and Corsican. It is regarded as a Corso–Sardinian language because of Sassari's historic ties with Tuscany and geographical proximity to Corsica. Despite the robust Sardinian influences, it still keeps its Corsican roots, which closely relate it to Gallurese; the latter is linguistically considered a Corsican dialect despite its geographical location, although this claim is a matter of controversy. It has several similarities to the Italian language, and in particular to the old Italian dialects from Tuscany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Campidanese Sardinian</span> Written standard of the Sardinian language

Campidanese Sardinian is one of the two written standards of the Sardinian language, which is often considered one of the most, if not the most conservative of all the Romance languages. The orthography is based on the spoken dialects of central southern Sardinia, identified by certain attributes which are not found, or found to a lesser degree, among the Sardinian dialects centered on the other written form, Logudorese. Its ISO 639-3 code is sro.

The Istriot language is a Romance language of the Italo-Dalmatian branch spoken by about 400 people in the southwestern part of the Istrian peninsula in Croatia, particularly in Rovinj and Vodnjan. It should not be confused with the Istrian dialect of the Venetian language or the more distantly related Istro-Romanian, a variety of Eastern Romance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Languages of Italy</span> On the various languages spoken in Italy

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gallo-Italic languages</span> Sub-family of Romance languages spoken in Northern Italy

The Gallo-Italic, Gallo-Italian, Gallo-Cisalpine or simply Cisalpine languages constitute the majority of the Romance languages of northern Italy: Piedmontese, Lombard, Emilian, Ligurian, and Romagnol. In central Italy they are spoken in the northern Marches ; in southern Italy in some language islands in Basilicata and Sicily.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Central Italy</span> Macroregion and statistical region of Italy

Central Italy is one of the five official statistical regions of Italy used by the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), a first-level NUTS region, and a European Parliament constituency.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Italo-Western languages</span> Romance language branch

Italo-Western is, in some classifications, the largest branch of the Romance languages. It comprises two of the branches of Romance languages: Italo-Dalmatian and Western Romance. It excludes the Sardinian language and Eastern Romance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corsicans</span> Ethnic group

The Corsicans are a Romance Italic ethnic group. They are native to Corsica, a Mediterranean island and a territorial collectivity of France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sardinian people</span> Romance ethnic group native to Sardinia

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paleo-Sardinian language</span> Extinct language isolate indigenous to the island of Sardinia

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.

Sardo is a hard, grating cow's milk cheese that is similar to Pecorino Romano.

The Italo-Dalmatian languages, or Central Romance languages, are a group of Romance languages spoken in Italy, Corsica (France), and formerly in Dalmatia (Croatia).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sardinian phonology</span> Phonology of the Sardinian language

Sardinian is conventionally divided, mainly on phonological criteria, into three main varieties: Campidanese, Logudorese, and Nuorese. The last of these has a notably conservative phonology, compared not only to the other two varieties, but also to other Romance languages as well.

Sardinian dialects may refer to any of the following linguistic varieties of the Sardinian language, broadly divided into two subgroups:

Limba Sarda Comuna (LSC) is an orthography for the Sardinian language, created with the aim of transcribing the many variants of spoken Sardinian, with their distinctive characteristics, in the same way, and adopted experimentally in 2006 by the Autonomous Region of Sardinia for the official writing of its acts, jointly with Italian.

References

  1. 1 2 Subfamily: Southern Romance, Glottolog
  2. Guarnerio P.E. (1902). Il sardo e il còrso in una nuova classificazione delle lingue romanze. AGI 16. p. 491-516.
  3. Tagliavini C. (1972). Le origini delle lingue neolatine. Bologna: Pàtron. p. 395.
  4. Manlio Cortelazzo (1988). Gliederung der Sprachräume/Ripartizione dialettale, in Lexikon der Romanistischen Linguistik (LRL IV), edited by G. Holtus, M. Metzeltin e C. Schmitt, vol. IV, Tübingen, Niemeyer. p. 452.
  5. Harris, Martin; Vincent, Nigel (1997), Romance Languages. London: Routlegde. ISBN   0-415-16417-6
  6. "Corsica". Britannica. 29 June 2023.
  7. "Distribution of the Romance languages in Europe". Britannica.
  8. «Sardinian is the only surviving Southern Romance language which was also spoken in former times on the island of Corsica and the Roman province of North Africa.» Georgina Ashworth (1977). World Minorities. Vol. 2. Quartermaine House. p. 109.
  9. "Ethnologue report for Southern Romance".
  10. "Sardo-Corsican". Glottolog.
  11. "Corsican". Ethnologue.
  12. "Sardinian". Ethnologue.
  13. "Sardinian, Logudorese". Ethnologue.
  14. "Sardinian, Campidanese". Ethnologue.
  15. "Sardinian, Gallurese". Ethnologue.
  16. "Sardinian, Sassarese". Ethnologue.
  17. "South Lucanian". Glottolog.