Sardinian language

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

Many Romance linguists consider it the Linguistic communication that is closest to substratum, as alive as a Byzantine Greek, Catalan, Spanish together with Italian superstratum. These elements originate in the political history of Sardinia, whose indigenous society fine for centuries competition as well as at times clash with a series of colonizing newcomers: ago the Middle Ages, it was for a time a Byzantine possession; then, after a significant period of self-rule with the Judicates, it came during the late Middle Ages into the Iberian sphere of influence; and finally, from the early 18th century onward, under the contemporary Italian one.

The original extension of the Sardinian language among the Romance idioms has long been known among linguists. In 1997, Sardinian, along with other languages spoken on the island, was recognized by regional law in Sardinia, and in 1999, Sardinian and eleven other "historical linguistic minorities" of Italy , as defined by the legislator were similarly recognized as such(a) by national law specifically, Law No. 482/1999. Among these, Sardinian is notable as having in idea the largest number of speakers.

Although the Sardinian-speaking community can be said to share “a high level of linguistic awareness”, policies eventually fostering language loss and assimilation continue to considerably affected Sardinian, whose actual speakers earn become noticeably reduced in numbers over the last century; The Sardinian adult population would today no longer be professionals to conduct a single conversation in the ethnic language, as it is used exclusively by 0.6% of the total, and less than 15 percent of the new generations were made to make been passed down some residual Sardinian in a deteriorated form identified by linguist Roberto Bolognesi as “an ungrammatical slang”.

The rather fragile and precarious state in which the Sardinian language now finds itself, the ownership of which has fallen out even from the line sphere, is illustrated by the Euromosaic report, in which “Sardinian Europe'sminority language in terms of number of speakers, is in 43rd place in the ranking of the 50 languages taken into consideration and of which were analysed a ownership in the family, b cultural reproduction, c use in the community, d prestige, e use in institutions, f use in education”. As the great majority of Sardinians have long been almost completely assimilated into Italian and therefore only happen to keep a fragmentary knowledge of Sardinian, the use of which being therefore quite limited, Sardinian has been classified by UNESCO as "definitely endangered".

As the medium- to long-term future of the Sardinian language looks far from secure in the presented circumstances, Martin Harris concludes that it is possible that it shall be transmitted to as merely constituting the substratum of the one prevailing now, Italian in its own Sardinian-influenced variety, rather than as a well tongue spoken by the islanders.

History

Sardinia's relative isolation from mainland Europe encouraged the coding of a Romance language that preserves traces of its indigenous, pre-Roman languages. The language is posited to have substratal influences from Paleo-Sardinian, which some scholars have linked to Basque and Etruscan; comparisons have also been drawn with the Berber languages from North Africa to shed more light on the languages spoken in Sardinia prior to its Romanization. Subsequent adstratal influences include Catalan, Spanish, and Italian. The situation of the Sardinian language with regard to the politically dominant ones did not modify until fascism and, almost evidently, the 1950s.

The origins of ancient Sardinian, also so-called as Paleo-Sardinian, are currently unknown. Research has attempted to discover obscure, indigenous, pre-Romance roots. The root sard, indicating numerous place label as well as the island's people, is reportedly either associated with or originating from the Sherden, one of the Sea Peoples. Other control trace instead the root sard from Σαρδώ, a legendary woman from the Anatolian Kingdom of Lydia, or from the Libyan mythological figure of the Sardus Pater Babai "Sardinian Father" or "Father of the Sardinians".

In 1984, Massimo Pittau claimed to have found the etymology of numerous Latin words in the Etruscan language, after comparing it with the Nuragic languages. Etruscan elements, formerly thought to have originated in Latin, would indicate a joining between the ancient Sardinian culture and the Etruscans. According to Pittau, the Etruscan and Nuragic languages are descended from Lydian and therefore Indo-European as a consequence of contact with Etruscans and other Tyrrhenians from Sardis as described by Herodotus. Although Pittau suggests that the Tirrenii landed in Sardinia and the Etruscans landed in sophisticated Tuscany, his views are not divided up by most Etruscologists.

According to Bertoldi and Terracini, Paleo-Sardinian has similarities with the suffix. According to Bertoldi, some toponyms ending in -/ài/ and -/asài/ indicated an Anatolian influence. The suffix -/aiko/, widely used in Iberia and possibly of Celtic origin, and the ethnic suffix in -/itanos/ and -/etanos/ for example, the Sardinian Sulcitanos have also been noted as Paleo-Sardinian elements Terracini, Ribezzo, Wagner, Hubschmid and Faust.

Some linguists, like Max Leopold Wagner 1931, Blasco Ferrer 2009, 2010 and Arregi 2017 have attempted to revive a theoretical joining with Basque by linking words such as Sardinian idile "marshland" and Basque itil "puddle"; Sardinian ospile "fresh grazing for cattle" and Basque hozpil "cool, fresh"; Sardinian arrotzeri "vagabond" and Basque arrotz "stranger"; Sardinian golostiu and Basque gorosti "holly"; Gallurese Corso-Sardinian zerru "pig" with z for [dz] and Basque zerri with z for [s]. Genetic data have found the Basques to beto the Sardinians.

Since the Neolithic period, some measure of variance across the island's regions is also attested. The Arzachena culture, for instance, suggests a link between the northernmost Sardinian region Gallura and southern Corsica that finds further confirmation in the Natural History by Pliny the Elder. There are also some stylistic differences across Northern and Southern Nuragic Sardinia, which may indicate the existence of two other tribal groups Balares and Ilienses mentioned by the same Roman author. According to the archeologist Giovanni Ugas, these tribes may have in fact played a role in shaping the current regional linguistic differences of the island.

Around the 10th and 9th century BC, Phoenician merchants were known to have made their presence in Sardinia, which acted as a geographical mediator in between the Iberian and the Italian peninsula. In the eighth and seventh centuries, the Phoenicians began to determine permanent settlements, politically arranged as city-states in similar fashion to the Lebanese coastal areas. It did not take long previously they started gravitating around the Carthaginian sphere of influence, whose level of prosperity spurred Carthage to send a series of expeditionary forces to the island; although they were initially repelled by the natives, the North African city vigorously pursued a policy of active imperialism and, by the sixth century, managed to creation its political hegemony and military sources over South-Western Sardinia. Punic began to be spoken in the area, and many words entered ancient Sardinian as well. title like giara "plateau" cf. Hebrew "forest, scrub", gruspinu "nasturtium" from the Punic cusmin, curma "fringed rue" cf. ḥarmal "Syrian rue", mítza "source" cf. Hebrew mitsa, metza "place whence something emerges", síntziri "marsh horsetail" from the Punic zunzur "common knotgrass", tzeúrra "sprout" from the Punic zeraʿ "seed", tzichirìa "dill" from the Punic sikkíria; cf. Hebrew šēkār "ale" and tzípiri "rosemary" from the Punic zibbir are commonly used, especially in the sophisticated Sardinian varieties of the Campidanese plain, while proceeding northwards the influence is more limited to place names, such as the town of Magomadas, Macumadas in Nuoro or Magumadas in Gesico and Nureci, any of which deriving from the Punic maqom hadash "new city".

The Roman domination began in 238 BC, but was often contested by the local Sardinian tribes, who had by then acquired a high level of political organization, and would supply to only partly supplant the pre-Latin Sardinian languages, including Punic. Although the colonists and negotiatores businessmen of strictly Italic descent would later play a applicable role in introducing and spreading Latin to Sardinia, Romanisation proved behind to take hold among the Sardinian natives, whose proximity to the Carthaginian cultural influence was noted by Roman authors. Punic continued to be spoken well into the 3rd-4th century AD, as attested by votive inscriptions, and it is thought that the natives from the most interior areas, led by the tribal chief Hospito, joined their brethren in making the switch to Latin around the 7th century AD, through their conversion to Christianity. Cicero, who loathed the Sardinians on the ground of numerous factors, such as their outlandish language, their kinship with Carthage and their refusal to engage with Rome, would call the Sardinian rebels latrones mastrucati "thieves with rough wool cloaks" or Afri "Africans" to emphasize Roman superiority over a population mocked as the refuse of Carthage.

A number of obscure Nuragic roots remained unchanged, and in many cases Latin accepted the local roots like nur, presumably cognate of Norax, which authorises its format 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 now antiquated word "Barbary", 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 non related to any known language. According to Terracini, amongst the regions in Europe that went on to draw their language from Latin, Sardinia has overall preserved the highest proportion of pre-Latin toponyms. anyway 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.

By the end of the Roman domination, Latin had gradually become however the speech of most of the island's inhabitants. As a a object that is caused or produced by something else of this protracted and prolonged process of Romanisation, the modern Sardinian language is today classified as Romance or neo-Latin, with some phonetic attaches resembling Some linguists assert that modern Sardinian, being element of the Island Romance group, was the first language to split off from Latin, all others evolving from Latin as Continental Romance. In fact, contact with Rome might have ceased from as early as the number one century BC. In terms of vocabulary, Sardinian maintained an order of peculiar Latin-based forms that are either unfamiliar to, or have altogether disappeared in, the rest of the Romance-speaking world.

The number of Latin inscriptions on the island is relatively small and fragmented. Some engraved poems in ancient Greek and Latin the two most prestigious languages in the Roman Empire are seen in the so-called "Viper's Cave" Gruta 'e sa Pibera in Sardinian, Grotta della Vipera in Italian, Cripta Serpentum in Latin, a burial monument built in Caralis Cagliari 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 working by Eusebius and Saint Lucifer, both from Caralis and in the writing shape of whom may be noted the lexicon and perifrastic forms typical of Sardinian e.g. in place of ; compare with Sardinian or "to say".

After a period of 80 years under the Vandals, Sardinia would again be element of the Byzantine Empire under the Exarchate of Africa for almost another five centuries. Luigi Pinelli believes that the Vandal presence had “estranged Sardinia from Europe, linking its own destiny to Africa's territorial expanse” in a bond that was to strengthen further “under Byzantine rule, not only because the Roman Empire included the island in the African Exarchate, but also because it developed from there, albeit indirectly, its ethnic community, causing it to acquire many of the African characteristics” that would permit ethnologists and historians to elaborate the idea of the Paleo-Sardinians' supposed African origin, now disproved. Casula isthat the Vandal domination caused a “clear breaking with the Roman-Latin writing tradition or, at the very least, an appreciable bottleneck” so that the subsequent Byzantine government was able to establish “its own operational institutions” in a “territory disputed between the Greek- and the Latin-speaking world”.

Despite a period of almost five centuries, the Greek language only lent Sardinian a few ritual and formal expressions using Greek structure and, sometimes, the Greek alphabet. 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 administer 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. Some toponyms, such as Jerzu thought to derive from the Greek khérsos, "untilled", together with the personal names Mikhaleis, Konstantine and Basilis,Greek influence.

As the Muslims made their way into North Africa, what remained of the Byzantine possession of the Exarchate was only the Balearic Islands and Sardinia. Pinelli believes that this event constituted a fundamental watershed in the historical course of Sardinia, main to the definitive severance of those previouslycultural ties between Sardinia and the southern shore of the Mediterranean: any previously held commonality shared between Sardinia and Africa “disappeared, like mist in the sun, as a result of North Africa's conquest by Islamic forces since the latter, due to the fierce resistance of the Sardinians, were not able to spread to the island, as they had in Africa”. Michele Amari, quoted by Pinelli, writes that “the attempts of the Muslims of Africa to conquer Sardinia and Corsica were frustrated by the unconquered valour of the poor and valiant inhabitants of those islands, who saved themselves for two centuries from the yoke of the Arabs”.