Sardinian language

File:WIKITONGUES- Ricardo speaking Sardinian.webm

Non-native speaker of the Nuorese dialect of Siniscola

Sardinian or Sard (Template:Langx Template:IPA, Template:Lang, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, or Template:Lang, Template:IPA) is a Romance language spoken by the Sardinians on the Western Mediterranean island of Sardinia.

The original character of the Sardinian language among the Romance idioms has long been known among linguists.<ref>"Il più caratteristico degli idiomi neolatini, di gran lunga più caratteristico del ladino o del franco-provenzale." ("The most characteristic of the Neo-Latin languages, by far more characteristic than Ladin or Franco-Provençal.") Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="sartreccani">"Da G. I. Ascoli in poi, tutti i linguisti sono concordi nell'assegnare al sardo un posto particolare fra gl'idiomi neolatini per i varî caratteri che lo distinguono non-solo dai dialetti italiani, ma anche dalle altre lingue della famiglia romanza, e che appaiono tanto nella fonetica, quanto nella morfologia e nel lessico." ("From G. I. Ascoli onwards, all linguists agree in giving Sardinian a special place among the neo-Latin languages because of the various characteristics that distinguish it not only from the Italian dialects, but also from the other languages of the Romance family, and that appear as much in its phonetics as in its morphology and lexicon.") Almagia, Roberto; Cortesi, Fabrizio; Salfi, Mario; Sera, Gioacchino; Taramelli, Antonio; Momigliano, Arnaldo; Ciasca, Raffaele; Bottiglioni, Gino; Garzia, Raffa; Gabriel, Gavino; Brunelli, Enrico; Vardabasso, Silvio (1936). Sardegna in Enciclopedia Italiana, Treccani, "Parlari".</ref><ref>"Il Sardo ha una sua speciale fisionomia ed individualità che lo rende, in certo qual modo, il più caratteristico degli idiomi neolatini; e questa speciale individualità del Sardo, come lingua di tipo arcaico e con una fisionomia inconfondibile, traspare già fin dai più antichi testi." Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Lai, Rosangela. 2018. "Language Planning and Language Policy in Sardinia". Language Problems & Language Planning. 42(1): 70–88. ISSN: 0272-2690, E-ISSN: 1569-9889 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/lplp.00012.lai, pp. 70–71</ref> Many Romance linguists consider it, together with Italian, as the language that is the closest to Latin among all of Latin's descendants.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> However, it has also incorporated elements of Pre-Latin (mostly Paleo-Sardinian and, to a much lesser degree, Punic) substratum,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> as well as a Byzantine Greek, Catalan, Spanish, French, and Italian superstratum. These elements originate in the political history of Sardinia, whose indigenous society experienced for centuries competition and at times conflict with a series of colonizing newcomers.

Following the end of the Roman Empire in Western Europe, Sardinia passed through periods of successive control by the Vandals, Byzantines, local Judicates, the Kingdom of Aragon, the Savoyard state, and finally Italy. These regimes varied in their usage of Sardinian as against other languages. For example, under the Judicates, Sardinian was used in administrative documents. Under Aragonese control, Catalan and Castilian became the island's prestige languages, and would remain so well into the 18th century.<ref>Mereu, D. (2020). Cagliari Sardinian. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 50(3), 389–405. doi:10.1017/S0025100318000385</ref> More recently, Italy's linguistic policies have encouraged diglossia, reducing the predominance of both Sardinian and Catalan.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

After a long strife for the acknowledgement of the island's cultural patrimony, in 1997, Sardinian, along with the other languages spoken therein, managed to be recognized by regional law in Sardinia without challenge by the central government.<ref name="Legge Regionale 15 ottobre 1997" /> In 1999, Sardinian and eleven other "historical linguistic minorities", i.e. locally indigenous, and not foreign-grown, minority languages of Italy (Template:Lang, as defined by the legislator) were similarly recognized as such by national law (specifically, Law No. 482/1999).<ref name="parl" /><ref>L'UNESCO e la diversità linguistica. Il caso dell'Italia</ref> Among these, Sardinian is notable as having, in terms of absolute numbers, the largest community of speakers.<ref>"With some 1,6 million speakers, Sardinia is the largest minority language in Italy. Sardinians form an ethnic minority since they show a strong awareness of being an indigenous group with a language and a culture of their own. Although Sardinian appears to be recessive in use, it is still spoken and understood by a majority of the population on the island." Template:Cite book</ref><ref>"Nel 1948 la Sardegna diventa, anche per le sue peculiarità linguistiche, Regione Autonoma a statuto speciale. Tuttavia a livello politico, ufficiale, non cambia molto per la minoranza linguistica sarda, che, con circa 1,2 milioni di parlanti, è la più numerosa tra tutte le comunità alloglotte esistenti sul territorio italiano." Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="lu1">"Sebbene in continua diminuzione, i sardi costituiscono tuttora la più grossa minoranza linguistica dello stato italiano con ca. 1.000.000 di parlanti stimati (erano 1.269.000 secondo le stime basate sul censimento del 2001)". Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="ISTAT2">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Although the Sardinian-speaking community can be said to share "a high level of linguistic awareness",<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> policies eventually fostering language loss and assimilation have considerably affected Sardinian, whose actual speakers have become noticeably reduced in numbers over the last century.<ref name="lu1" /> The Sardinian adult population today primarily uses Italian, and less than 15 percent of the younger generations were reported to have been passed down some residual Sardinian,<ref name="thirteen">La Nuova Sardegna, 04/11/10, Per salvare i segni dell'identità – di Paolo Coretti</ref><ref name="thirteendottwo">Template:Cite book</ref> usually in a deteriorated form described by linguist Roberto Bolognesi as "an ungrammatical slang".<ref name="BolEsp126">Template:Cite web</ref>

The rather fragile and precarious state in which the Sardinian language now finds itself, where its use has been discouraged and consequently reduced even within the family sphere, is illustrated by the Euromosaic report, in which Sardinian "is in 43rd place in the ranking of the 50 languages taken into consideration and of which were analysed (a) use in the family, (b) cultural reproduction, (c) use in the community, (d) prestige, (e) use in institutions, (f) use in education".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

As the Sardinians have almost been completely assimilated into the Italian national mores, including in terms of onomastics, and therefore now only happen to keep but a scant and fragmentary knowledge of their native and once first spoken language, limited in both scope and frequency of use,<ref name="Euromosaic">Template:Cite web To access the data, click on List by languages, Sardinian, then scroll to "Sardinian language use survey".</ref> Sardinian has been classified by UNESCO as "definitely endangered".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In fact, the intergenerational chain of transmission appears to have been broken since at least the 1960s, in such a way that the younger generations, who are predominantly Italian monolinguals, do not identify themselves with the indigenous tongue, which is now reduced to the memory of "little more than the language of their grandparents".<ref>Lai, Rosangela. 2018. "Language Planning and Language Policy in Sardinia". Language Problems & Language Planning. 42(1): 70–88. ISSN: 0272-2690, E-ISSN: 1569-9889 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/lplp.00012.lai, p. 73</ref>

As the long- to even medium-term future of the Sardinian language looks far from secure in the present circumstances,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Martin Harris concluded in 2003<ref>"If present trends continue, it is possible that within a few generations the regional variety of Italian will supplant Sardinian as the popular idiom and that linguists of the future will be obliged to refer to Sardinian only as a substratal influence which has shaped a regional dialect of Italian rather than as a living language descended directly from Latin." Template:Cite book</ref> that, assuming the continuation of present trends to language death, it was possible that there would not be a Sardinian language of which to speak in the future, being referred to by linguists as the mere substratum of the now-prevailing idiom, i.e. Italian articulated in its own Sardinian-influenced variety,<ref>"il sardo continua ad agire anche nelle menti dei sardi che il sardo non lo conoscono né lo parlano, che non l'hanno mai appreso e imparato; il sardo agisce se non altro nelle strutture linguistiche d'ogni livello dell'italiano regionale di Sardegna, che è il codice usato dai più (agisce nella fonetica, nella sintassi e in ampi settori del lessico)..." Virdis, Maurizio (2003). La lingua sarda oggi: bilinguismo, problemi di identità culturale e realtà scolastica, cit. in Convegno dalla lingua materna al plurilinguismo, Gorizia, 6.</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> which may come to wholly supplant the islanders' once living native tongue.

Overview

Template:Blockquote As an insular language par excellence, Sardinian is considered the most conservative Romance language, as well as one of the most highly individual within the family;<ref>"Sardinian is an insular language par excellence: it is at once the most archaic and the most individual among the Romance group." Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> its substratum (Paleo-Sardinian or Nuragic) has also been researched. In the first written testimonies, dating to the eleventh century, Sardinian appears as a language already distinct from the dialects of Italy.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

A 1949 study by the Italian-American linguist Mario Pei, analyzing the degree to which seven Romance languages diverged from Vulgar Latin with respect to their accent vocalization, yielded the following measurements of divergence (with higher percentages indicating greater divergence from the stressed vowels of Vulgar Latin): Sardinian 8%, Italian 12%, Spanish 20%, Romanian 23.5%, Occitan 25%, Portuguese 31%, and French 44%.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The study emphasized, however, that it represented only "a very elementary, incomplete and tentative demonstration" of how statistical methods could measure linguistic change, assigned "frankly arbitrary" point values to various types of change, and did not compare languages in the sample with respect to any characteristics or forms of divergence other than stressed vowels, among other caveats.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

The significant degree to which the Sardinian language has retained its Latin base was also noted by the French geographer Maurice Le Lannou during a research project on the island in 1941.<ref>"Il fondo della lingua sarda di oggi è il latino. La Sardegna è il solo paese del mondo in cui la lingua dei Romani si sia conservata come lingua viva. Questa circostanza ha molto facilitato le mie ricerche nell'isola, perché almeno la metà dei pastori e dei contadini non conoscono l'italiano." Template:Cite book</ref>

File:Romance-lg-classification-en.svg

Chart of Romance languages based on structural and comparative criteria (not on socio-functional ones)

Although its lexical base is mostly of Latin origin, Sardinian nonetheless retains a number of traces of the linguistic substratum predating the Roman conquest of the island: several words and especially toponyms stem from Paleo-Sardinian<ref>"Prima di tutto, la neonata lingua sarda ingloba un consistente numero di termini e di cadenze provenienti da una lingua originaria preromana, che potremmo chiamare "nuragica"." Template:Cite book</ref> and, to a lesser extent, Phoenician-Punic. These etyma might refer to an early Mediterranean substratum, which reveal close relations with Basque.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In addition to the aforementioned substratum, linguists such as Max Leopold Wagner and Benvenuto Aronne Terracini trace much of the distinctive Latin character of Sardinia to the languoids once spoken by the Christian and Jewish Berbers in North Africa, known as African Romance.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Indeed, Sardinian was perceived as rather similar to African Latin when the latter was still in use, giving credit to the theory that vulgar Latin in both Africa and Sardinia displayed a significant wealth of parallelisms.<ref>Paolo Pompilio (1455–91): "Template:Lang" ("where villagers speak an almost intact Latin and, when Latin words are corrupted, then they pass to the sound and habits of the Sardinian language, which, as I myself know, also comes from Latin")". Quoted in Loporcaro, Michele (2015). Vowel Length from Latin to Romance, Oxford University Press, p. 48</ref> J. N. Adams is of the opinion that similarities in many words, such as Template:Lang (Template:Gloss), Template:Lang (Template:Gloss) and Template:Lang ('reddish-brown'), prove that there might have been a fair amount of vocabulary shared between Sardinia and Africa.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> According to Wagner, it is notable that Sardinian is the only Romance language whose name for the Milky Way (Template:Lang, Template:Gloss) also recurs in the Berber languages.<ref>"Wagner prospetta l'ipotesi che la denominazione sarda, identica a quella berbera, sia una reminiscenza atavica di lontane tradizioni comuni e così commenta (p. 277): "Parlando delle sopravvivenze celtiche, dice il Bertoldi: "Come nell'Irlanda odierna, anche nella Gallia antica una maggiore cedevolezza della "materia" linguistica, suoni e forme, rispetto allo "spirito" che resiste più tenace". Questo vale forse anche per la Sardegna; antichissime usanze, superstizioni, leggende si mantengono più saldamente che non i fugaci fenomeni linguistici"." Template:Cite book</ref>

To most Italians Sardinian is unintelligible, reminding them of Spanish, because of the way in which the language is acoustically articulated;<ref>"Sardinian is unintelligible to most Italians and gives an acoustic impression more similar to Spanish than Italian. It is clearly and energetically articulated but has always been regarded as barbarous by the soft-speaking Italians." Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> characterized as it is by a sharply outlined physiognomy which is displayed from the earliest sources available, it is in fact considered a distinct language, if not an altogether different branch, among the Romance idioms;<ref name="sartreccani" /><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>"Sardinian is a highly original conglomerate of dialects with respect to the Neo-Latin varieties and thoroughly distinct from the Italo-Romance typology, and its separateness as a group of its own among the Romance languages is indisputable." Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> George Bossong summarises thus: "be this as it may, from a strictly linguistic point of view there can be no doubt that Sardinian is to be classified as an independent Romance language, or even as an independent branch inside the family, and so it is classed alongside the great national languages like French and Italian in all modern manuals of Romance linguistics".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

History

Template:Very long Template:See also Sardinia's relative isolation from mainland Europe encouraged the development of a Romance language that preserves traces of its indigenous, pre-Roman language(s). The language is posited to have substratal influences from Paleo-Sardinian, which some scholars have linked to Basque<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and Etruscan;<ref name="pittau.it">Template:Cite web</ref> comparisons have also been drawn with the Berber languages from North Africa<ref>This is the case, for example, of the pre-Roman prefixes ta, tha, ti, thi, tu which make their appearance in names relating to small animals (e.g. Template:Lang "lizard", Template:Lang "grasshopper", etc.) but even to other words beyond that semantic field (e.g. Template:Lang "bran", Template:Lang "neck"). Template:Cite book</ref> to shed more light on the language(s) 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 change until fascism<ref>"Dopo pisani e genovesi si erano susseguiti aragonesi di lingua catalana, spagnoli di lingua castigliana, austriaci, piemontesi ed, infine, italiani [...] Nonostante questi impatti linguistici, la "limba sarda" si mantiene relativamente intatta attraverso i secoli. [...] Fino al fascismo: che vietò l'uso del sardo non solo in chiesa, ma anche in tutte le manifestazioni folkloristiche." Template:Cite book</ref> and, most evidently, the 1950s.<ref name="Rosita">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Ministero">Template:Cite web</ref>

Origins of modern Sardinian

Prenuragic and Nuragic era

File:Bronzo Nuragico. Cacciatore.JPG

Hunter, Nuragic bronze statuette

The origins of ancient Sardinian, also known as Paleo-Sardinian, are currently unknown. Research has attempted to discover obscure, indigenous, pre-Romance roots. The root s(a)rd, indicating many place names as well as the island's people, is reportedly either associated with or originating from the Sherden, one of the Sea Peoples.<ref>Ugas, Giovanni (2017). Shardana e Sardegna : i popoli del mare, gli alleati del Nordafrica e la fine dei grandi regni (15.-12. secolo a.C.), Edizioni della Torre, Cagliari, pp. 398–408</ref> Other sources trace instead the root s(a)rd from Template:Lang, a legendary woman from the Anatolian Kingdom of Lydia,<ref>Platonis dialogi, scholia in Timaeum (edit. C. F. Hermann, Lipsia 1877), 25 B, p. 368</ref><ref>M. Pittau, La Lingua dei Sardi Nuragici e degli Etruschi, Sassari 1981, p. 57</ref> or from the Libyan mythological figure of the Sardus Pater Babai ("Sardinian Father" or "Father of the Sardinians").<ref>Sallust, Historiae, II, fr.4</ref><ref>Pausanias, Ελλάδοσ περιήγησισ, X, 17</ref><ref>Silius Italicus, Punica, XII, 360</ref><ref>Gaius Julius Solinus, Collectanea rerum memorabilium, IV, 1</ref><ref>Isidore of Seville, XIV, Etymologiae, Thapsumque iacentem, 39</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Serra, Marcello (1978). Enciclopedia della Sardegna : con un saggio introduttivo intitolato Alla scoperta dell'isola, Pisa, Giardini editori e stampatori, p. 29: "Origine e carattere dei Sardi"</ref>

In 1984, Massimo Pittau claimed to have found the etymology of many Latin words in the Etruscan language, after comparing it with the Nuragic language(s).<ref name="pittau.it"/> Etruscan elements, formerly thought to have originated in Latin, would indicate a connection between the ancient Sardinian culture and the Etruscans. According to Pittau, the Etruscan and Nuragic language(s) are descended from Lydian (and therefore Indo-European) as a consequence of contact with Etruscans and other Tyrrhenians from Sardis as described by Herodotus.<ref name="pittau.it"/> Although Pittau suggests that the Tirrenii landed in Sardinia and the Etruscans landed in modern Tuscany, his views are not shared by most Etruscologists.

According to Bertoldi and Terracini, Paleo-Sardinian has similarities with the Iberic languages and Siculian; for example, the suffix -ara in proparoxytones indicated the plural. Terracini proposed the same for suffixes in -Template:IPA, -Template:IPA, -Template:IPA, -Template:IPA + Template:IPA + a paragogic vowel (such as the toponym Bunnànnaru). Rohlfs, Butler and Craddock add the suffix -Template:IPA (such as the toponym Barùmini) as a unique element of Paleo-Sardinian. Suffixes in /a, e, o, u/ + -rr- found a correspondence in north Africa (Terracini), in Iberia (Blasco Ferrer) and in southern Italy and Gascony (Rohlfs), with a closer relationship to Basque (Wagner and Hubschmid). However, these early links to a Basque precursor have been questioned by some Basque linguists.<ref name="Trask">Trask, L. The History of Basque Routledge: 1997 Template:ISBN</ref> According to Terracini, suffixes in -Template:IPA, -Template:IPA, -Template:IPA, and -Template:IPA are common to Paleo-Sardinian and northern African languages. Pittau emphasized that this concerns terms originally ending in an accented vowel, with an attached paragogic vowel; the suffix resisted Latinization in some place names, which show a Latin body and a Nuragic suffix. According to Bertoldi, some toponyms ending in -Template:IPA and -Template:IPA indicated an Anatolian influence. The suffix -Template:IPA, widely used in Iberia and possibly of Celtic origin, and the ethnic suffix in -Template:IPA and -Template:IPA (for example, the Sardinian Template:Lang) 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<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>) have attempted to revive a theoretical connection with Basque by linking words such as Sardinian Template:Lang Template:Gloss and Basque Template:Lang Template:Gloss;<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Sardinian Template:Lang Template:Gloss and Basque Template:Lang Template:Gloss; Sardinian Template:Lang Template:Gloss and Basque Template:Lang Template:Gloss; Sardinian Template:Lang and Basque Template:Lang Template:Gloss; Gallurese (Corso-Sardinian) Template:Lang Template:Gloss (with z for Template:IPA) and Basque Template:Lang (with z for Template:IPA). Genetic data have found the Basques to be close to the Sardinians.<ref name=Arnaiz-Villena>Arnaiz-Villena A, Rodriguez de Córdoba S, Vela F, Pascual JC, Cerveró J, Bootello A. – HLA antigens in a sample of the Spanish population: common features among Spaniards, Basques, and Sardinians. – Hum Genet. 1981;58(3):344–8.</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Naturegen">Template:Cite journal</ref>

File:I popoli della Sardegna Romana.png

Location of the Sardinian tribes, as described by the Roman sources<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

File:Map Length of Roman Rule Neo Latin Languages.jpg

Length of the Roman rule and emergence of the Romance languages<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Since the Neolithic period, some degree 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,<ref>Giovanni Ugas – L'alba dei Nuraghi (2005) p. 241</ref> these tribes may have in fact played a role in shaping the current regional linguistic differences of the island.

Classical period

Template:See also 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 develop permanent settlements, politically arranged as city-states in similar fashion to the Lebanese coastal areas. It did not take long before 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 establish its political hegemony and military control over South-Western Sardinia. Punic began to be spoken in the area, and many words entered ancient Sardinian as well.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Words like Template:Lang 'plateau' (cf. Hebrew Template:Lang 'forest, scrub'), Template:Lang 'nasturtium' (from Punic Template:Lang), Template:Lang 'fringed rue' (cf. Arabic Template:Lang 'Syrian rue'), Template:Lang 'spring' (cf. Hebrew Template:Lang, Template:Lang 'source, fountainhead'), Template:Lang 'marsh horsetail' (from Punic Template:Lang 'common knotgrass'), Template:Lang 'sprout' (from Template:Lang, diminutive of Punic Template:Lang 'seed'), Template:Lang 'dill' (from Punic Template:Lang; cf. Hebrew Template:Lang 'ale') and Template:Lang 'rosemary' (from Punic Template:Lang) are commonly used, especially in the modern Sardinian varieties of the Campidanese plain, while proceeding northwards the influence is more limited to place names, such as the town of Magomadas, Template:Lang in Nuoro or Template:Lang in Gesico and Nureci, all of which deriving from the Punic Template:Lang Template:Gloss.<ref>Giulio Paulis, "Sopravvivenze della lingua punica in Sardegna", in L'Africa romana, Atti del VII Convegno di Studio (Sassari 1989) (Sassari: Gallizzi, 1990), 599–639.</ref><ref>Giulio Paulis, "L'influsso linguistico fenicio-punico in Sardegna. Nuove acquisizioni e prospettive di ricerca", in Circolazioni culturali nel Mediterraneo antico: Atti della VI giornata camito-semtica e indoeuropea, I Convegno Internazionale di linguistica dell'area mediterranea, Sassari 24–27 aprile 1991, ed. Paolo Filigheddu (Cagliari: Corda, 1994), 213–19.</ref>

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,<ref>Giovanni Lilliu, Sopravvivenze nuragiche in età romana cit., in "L'Africa romana", VII, Gallizzi , Sassari 1990, p. 443</ref> and would manage 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 relevant role in introducing and spreading Latin to Sardinia, Romanisation proved slow to take hold among the Sardinian natives,<ref>"Sardinia was under the control of Carthage from around 500BC. It was conquered by Rome in 238/7 BC, but was isolated and apparently despised by the Romans, and Romanization was not rapid." Template:Cite book</ref> whose proximity to the Carthaginian cultural influence was noted by Roman authors.<ref>"E viceversa gli scrittori romani giudicavano la Sardegna una terra malsana, dove dominava la pestilentia (la malaria), abitata da popoli di origine africana ribelli e resistenti, impegnati in latrocinia ed in azioni di pirateria che si spingevano fino al litorale etrusco; un luogo terribile, scarsamente urbanizzato, destinato a diventare nei secoli la terra d'esilio per i condannati ad metalla". Template:Cite book</ref> Punic continued to be spoken well into the 3rd–4th century AD, as attested by votive inscriptions,<ref>Ignazio Putzu, "La posizione linguistica del sardo nel contesto mediterraneo", in Neues aus der Bremer Linguistikwerkstatt: aktuelle Themen und Projekte, ed. Cornelia Stroh (Bochum: Universitätsverlag Dr. N. Brockmeyer, 2012), 183.</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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.<ref>"The last to use that idiom, the inhabitants of Barbagia, renounced it in the seventh century together with paganism in favor of Latin, still an archaic substratum in the Sardinian language." Proceedings, VII Congress, Boulder-Denver, Colorado, 14 August – 19 September 1965, International Association for Quaternary Research, Indiana University Press, p. 28</ref><ref group="note">Pope Symmachus (498–514 C.E.), a Sardinian by birth, described himself as ex paganitate veniens, "coming from a pagan land". Gregory the Great (590–614 C.E.) reproached the people of Barbagia for still worshipping stone and wooden idols (Wagner 1951: 73).</ref> 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,<ref>"Cicerone in particolare odiava i Sardi per il loro colorito terreo, per la loro lingua incomprensibile, per l'antiestetica mastruca, per le loro origini africane e per l'estesa condizione servile, per l'assenza di città alleate dei Romani, per il rapporto privilegiato dei Sardi con l'antica Cartagine e per la resistenza contro il dominio di Roma." Template:Cite book</ref> would call the Sardinian rebels Template:Lang (Template:Gloss) or Template:Lang (Template:Gloss) to emphasize Roman superiority over a population mocked as the refuse of Carthage.<ref group=note>"Template:Lang" Template:Cite web ("All the monuments of the ancients and all histories have handed down to us the tradition that the nation of the Phoenicians is the most treacherous of all nations. The Poeni, who are descended from them, have proved by many rebellions of the Carthaginians, and very many broken and violated treaties, that they have in no respect degenerated from them. The Sardinians, who are sprung from the Poeni, with an admixture of African blood, were not led into Sardinia as colonists and established there, but are rather a tribe who were draughted off, and put there to get rid of them. Nor indeed, when I speak of the vices of the nation, do I except no one. But I am forced to speak generally of the entire race; in which, perhaps, some individuals by their own civilized habits and natural humanity have got the better of the vices of their family and nation. That the greater part of the nation is destitute of faith, destitute of any community and connection with our name, the facts themselves plainly show. For what province is there besides Sardinia which has not one city in it on friendly terms with the Roman people, not one free city? Africa itself is the parent of Sardinia, which has waged many most bitter wars against our ancestors." Translation by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856, Template:Cite web)</ref>

A number of obscure Nuragic roots remained unchanged, and in many cases Latin accepted the local roots (like nur, presumably cognate of Norax, 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 Template:Lang (a term meaning Template:Gloss, 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 not related to any known language.<ref>Wolf H. J., 1998, Toponomastica barbaricina, p. 20 Papiros publisher, Nuoro</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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.<ref>Cf. Template:Cite book</ref>

By the end of the Roman domination, Latin had gradually become however the speech of most of the island's inhabitants.<ref>Casula, Francesco Cesare (1994). La Storia di Sardegna. Sassari, it: Carlo Delfino Editore. Template:ISBN. p. 110</ref> As a result of this protracted and prolonged process of Romanisation, the modern 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,<ref name="Koryakov">Template:Cite book</ref> was the first language to split off from Latin,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> all others evolving from Latin as Continental Romance. In fact, contact with Rome might have ceased from as early as the first century BC.<ref>"Although it is an established historical fact that Roman dominion over Sardinia lasted until the fifth century, it has been argued, on purely linguistic grounds, that linguistic contact with Rome ceased much earlier than this, possibly as early as the first century BC." Template:Cite book</ref> In terms of vocabulary, Sardinian retains an array of peculiar Latin-based forms that are either unfamiliar to, or have altogether disappeared in, the rest of the Romance-speaking world.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>For a list of widely used words in Sardinian that were already considered quite archaic by the time of Marcus Terentius Varro, see Template:Cite book</ref>

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<ref>Cum utroque sermone nostro sis paratus. Svetonio, De vita Caesarum, Divus Claudius, 42</ref>) are seen in the so-called "Viper's Cave" (Template:Lang in Sardinian, Template:Lang in Italian, Template:Lang 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;<ref>"Le ultime provengono, per lo più, come quelle metriche della "Grotta della Vipera" nel sobborgo cagliaritano di Sant'Avendrace, da tombe di continentali immigrati. Oltre a ciò il numero delle iscrizioni latine in Sardegna non è molto elevato e il loro contenuto è spesso frammentario; e, per di più, quasi due terzi di esse provengono da Cagliari e dal suo distretto." Template:Cite book</ref> we also have some religious works by Eusebius and Saint Lucifer, both from Caralis and in the writing style of whom may be noted the lexicon and perifrastic forms typical of Sardinian (e.g. Template:Lang in place of Template:Lang; compare with Sardinian Template:Lang or Template:Lang Template:Gloss).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

After a period of 80 years under the Vandals, Sardinia would again be part of the Byzantine Empire under the Exarchate of Africa<ref>"Dopo la dominazione vandalica, durata ottanta anni, la Sardegna ritornava di nuovo all'impero, questa volta a quello d'Oriente. Anche sotto i Bizantini la Sardegna rimase alle dipendenze dell'esarcato africano, ma l'amministrazione civile fu separata da quella militare; alla prima fu preposto un Template:Lang, alla seconda un Template:Lang; tutti e due erano alle dipendenze del Template:Lang e del Template:Lang africani." Template:Cite book</ref> 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 allow ethnologists and historians to elaborate the theory of the Paleo-Sardinians' supposed African origin,<ref name="Pinelli16">Template:Cite book</ref> now disproved. Casula is convinced that 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".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

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.<ref>M. Wescher e M. Blancard, Charte sarde de l'abbaye de Saint-Victor de Marseille écrite en caractères grecs, in "Bibliothèque de l' École des chartes", 35 (1874), pp. 255–265</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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.<ref name="ReferenceA">Giulio Paulis, Lingua e cultura nella Sardegna Bizantina, Sassari, 1983</ref> Some toponyms, such as Jerzu (thought to derive from the Greek Template:Lang, Template:Gloss), together with the personal names Mikhaleis, Konstantine and Basilis, demonstrate Greek influence.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

Template:AnchorJudicates period

File:Condaghe Silki.png

The condaghe of Saint Peter of Silki (1065–1180) (University Public Library of Sassari)

As the Muslims made their way into North Africa, what remained of the Byzantine possession of the Exarchate of Africa was only the Balearic Islands and Sardinia. Pinelli believes that this event constituted a fundamental watershed in the historical course of Sardinia, leading to the definitive severance of those previously close cultural 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".<ref name="Pinelli16" /> 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".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

As the Byzantines were fully focused on reconquering southern Italy and Sicily, which had in the meanwhile also fallen to the Muslims, their attention on Sardinia was neglected and communications broke down with Constantinople; this spurred the former Byzantine province of Sardinia to become progressively more autonomous from the Byzantine oecumene, and eventually attain independence.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Pinelli argues that "the Arab conquest of North Africa separated Sardinia from that continent without, however, causing the latter to rejoin Europe" and that this event "determined a capital turning point for Sardinia, giving rise to a de facto independent national government".<ref name="Pinelli16" /> Historian Marc Bloch believed that, owing to Sardinia being a country which found itself in "quasi-isolation" from the rest of the continent, the earliest documentary testimonies, written in Sardinian, were much older than those first issued in Italy.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

File:Pag1 carta delogu.jpg

The first page of a copy of the Arborean Carta de Logu (University Public Library of Cagliari)

Sardinian was the first Romance language of all to gain official status, being used by the four Judicates,<ref>"La lingua sarda acquisì dignità di lingua nazionale già dall'ultimo scorcio del secolo XI quando, grazie a favorevoli circostanze storico-politiche e sociali, sfuggì alla limitazione dell'uso orale per giungere alla forma scritta, trasformandosi in volgare sardo." Cecilia Tasca (a cura di), 2003. Manoscritti e lingua sarda, La memoria storica, p. 15</ref><ref>"Moreover, the Sardinians are the first Romance-speaking people of all who made the language of the common folk the official language of the State, the Government..." Puddu, Mario (2002). Istoria de sa limba sarda, Ed. Domus de Janas, Selargius, p. 14</ref><ref>Gian Giacomo Ortu, La Sardegna dei Giudici p. 264, Il Maestrale 2005</ref><ref>Maurizio Virdis, Le prime manifestazioni della scrittura nel cagliaritano, in Judicalia, Atti del Seminario di Studi Cagliari 14 dicembre 2003, a cura di B. Fois, Cagliari, Cuec, 2004, pp. 45–54.</ref><ref group=note>As Ludovico Antonio Muratori noted, "Template:Lang" ("In reality, I believe that our people [Italians] have been induced to employ the Italian language for writing by following the example of our neighbours, the Provençals, the Corsicans and the Sardinians") and "Template:Lang" ("Moreover, I made reference to the example of the Sardinians and the Corsicans, who used their own vulgar language, as being those who preceded the Italians in such regard"). Antonio, Ludovico Antonio (1739). Antiquitates Italicae Moedii Evi, Mediolani, t. 2, col.1049</ref> former Byzantine districts that became independent political entities after the Arab expansion in the Mediterranean had cut off any ties left between the island and Byzantium. The exceptionality of the Sardinian situation, which in this sense constitutes a unique case throughout the Latin-speaking Europe, consists in the fact that any official text was written solely in Sardinian from the very beginning and completely excluded Latin, unlike what was happening – and would continue to happen – in France, Italy and Iberia at the same time; Latin, although co-official, was in fact used only in documents concerning external relations in which the Sardinian kings (Template:Lang, Template:Gloss) engaged.<ref>"Un caso unico – e a parte – nel dominio romanzo è costituito dalla Sardegna, in cui i documenti giuridici incominciano ad essere redatti interamente in volgare già alla fine dell'XI secolo e si fanno più frequenti nei secoli successivi. (...) L'eccezionalità della situazione sarda nel panorama romanzo consiste – come si diceva – nel fatto che tali testi sono stati scritti sin dall'inizio interamente in volgare. Diversamente da quanto succede a questa altezza cronologica (e anche dopo) in Francia, in Provenza, in Italia e nella Penisola iberica, il documento sardo esclude del tutto la compresenza di volgare e latino. (...) il sardo era usato prevalentemente in documenti a circolazione interna, il latino in documenti che concernevano il rapporto con il continente." Template:Cite book</ref> Awareness of the dignity of Sardinian for official purposes was such that, in the words of Livio Petrucci, a Neo-Latin language had come to be used "at a time when nothing similar can be observed in the Italian peninsula" not only "in the legal field" but also "in any other field of writing".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

A diplomatic analysis of the earliest Sardinian documents shows that the Judicates provided themselves with chanceries, which employed an indigenous diplomatic model for writing public documents;<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> one of them, dating to 1102, displays text in half-uncial, a script that had long fallen out of use on the European continent and F. Casula believes may have been adopted by the Sardinians of Latin culture as their own "national script" from the 8th until the 12th century,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> prior to their receiving outside influence from the arrival of mainly Italian notaries.

Extract from Bonarcado's Condaghe,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 22 (1120–1146)
"Template:Lang"

Old Sardinian had a greater number of archaisms and Latinisms than the present language does, with few Germanic words, mostly coming from Latin itself, and even fewer Arabisms, which had been imported by scribes from Iberia;<ref name="tola11">Template:Cite book</ref> in spite of their best efforts with a score of expeditions to the island, from which they would get considerable booty and a hefty number of Sardinian slaves, the Arab assailants were in fact each time forcefully driven back and would never manage to conquer and settle on the island.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Although the surviving texts come from such disparate areas as the north and the south of the island, Sardinian then presented itself in a rather homogeneous form:<ref name="tola17">Template:Cite book</ref> even though the orthographic differences between Logudorese and Campidanese Sardinian were beginning to appear, Wagner found in this period "the original unity of the Sardinian language".<ref>"Ma, prescindendo dalle divergenze stilistiche e da altri particolari minori, si può dire che la lingua dei documenti antichi è assai omogenea e che, ad ogni modo, l'originaria unità della lingua sarda vi si intravede facilmente." Template:Cite book</ref> In agreement with Wagner is Paolo Merci, who found a "broad uniformity" around this period, as were Antonio Sanna and Ignazio Delogu too, for whom it was the islanders' community life that prevented Sardinian from localism.<ref name="tola17" /> According to Carlo Tagliavini, these earlier documents show the existence of a Sardinian Koine which pointed to a model based on Logudorese.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

According to Eduardo Blasco Ferrer, it was in the wake of the fall of the Judicates of Cagliari and Gallura, in the second half of the 13th century, that Sardinian began to fragment into its modern dialects, undergoing some Tuscanization under the rule of the Republic of Pisa;<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> it did not take long before the Genoese too started carving their own sphere of influence in northern Sardinia, both through the mixed Sardinian-Genoese nobility of Sassari and the members of the Doria family.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> A certain range of dialectal variation is then noted.<ref name="Ministero" /><ref name="Lubello" />

A special position was occupied by the Judicate 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 Template:Gloss (Template:Lang in Sardinian, Template:Lang in Catalan, Template:Lang in Italian) Eleanor, was written in this transitional variety of Sardinian, and would remain in force until 1827.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Arborean judges' effort to unify the Sardinian dialects were due to their desire to be legitimate rulers of the entire island under a single state (Template:Lang Template:Gloss);<ref>Barisone II of Arborea, G. Seche, L'incoronazione di Barisone "Re di Sardegna" in due fonti contemporanee: gli Annales genovesi e gli Annales pisani, Rivista dell'Istituto di storia dell'Europa mediterranea, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, n°4, 2010</ref> such political goal, after all, was already manifest in 1164, when the Arborean Judge Barison ordered his great seal to be made with the writings Template:Lang (Template:Gloss) and Template:Lang (Template:Gloss).<ref>Casula, Francesco Cesare (2017). La scrittura in Sardegna dal nuragico ad oggi, Carlo Delfino Editore, p. 91</ref>

Dante Alighieri wrote in his 1302–05 essay De vulgari eloquentia that Sardinians were strictly speaking not Italians (Template:Lang), even though they appeared superficially similar to them, and they did not speak anything close to a Neo-Latin language of their own (Template:Lang), but resorted to aping straightforward Latin instead.<ref>"Template:Lang". Dantis Alagherii De Vulgari Eloquentia, (Lib. I, XI, 7), The Latin Library</ref><ref>"As for the Sardinians, who are not Italian but may be associated with Italians for our purposes, out they must go, because they alone seem to lack a vernacular of their own, instead imitating gramatica as apes do humans: for they say domus nova [my house] and dominus meus [my master]." Template:Cite web</ref><ref>"Dante, for instance, said that Sardinians were like monkeys imitating men." Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref><ref>"Eliminiamo anche i Sardi (che non sono Italiani, ma sembrano accomunabili agli Italiani) perché essi soli appaiono privi di un volgare loro proprio e imitano la "gramatica" come le scimmie imitano gli uomini: dicono infatti "domus nova" e "dominus meus"". De Vulgari Eloquentia. Paraphrase and notes by Sergio Cecchin. Opere minori di Dante Alighieri, vol. II, UTET, Torino 1986</ref><ref name="Salvi">Salvi, Sergio. Le lingue tagliate: storia delle minoranze linguistiche in Italia, Rizzoli, 1975, p. 195</ref><ref>"In.. perceiving that the 'outlandish' character of Sardinian speech lay in its approximation to Latin the poet-philologist [Dante] had almost divined the truth concerning the origin of the Romance languages." W. D. Elcock, The Romance Languages (London: Faber & Faber, 1960), v. 474</ref><ref name="Dante">Template:Cite web</ref> Dante's view on the Sardinians, however, is proof of how their language had been following its own course in a way which was already unintelligible to non-islanders, and had become, in Wagner's words, an impenetrable "sphinx" to their judgment.<ref name="tola11" /> Frequently mentioned is a previous 12th-century poem by the troubadour Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, Template:Lang ("Lady, so much I have endeared you"); Sardinian epitomizes outlandish speech therein, along with non-Romance languages such as German and Berber, with the troubadour having the lady say "Template:Lang" ("I don't understand you more than a German or Sardinian or Berber");<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Salvi" /><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> the Tuscan poet Fazio degli Uberti refers to the Sardinians in his poem Template:Lang as "Template:Lang" ("a people that no one is able to understand / nor do they come to a knowledge of what other peoples say about them").<ref>Dittamondo III XII 56 ss.</ref><ref name="Dante" /><ref name="Salvi" />

The Muslim geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi, who lived in Palermo, Sicily at the court of King Roger II, wrote in his work Template:Lang (Template:Gloss or, simply, 'The book of Roger') that "Sardinians are ethnically Template:Lang, like the Berbers; they shun contacts with all the other Template:Lang nations and are people of purpose and valiant that never leave the arms".<ref>"Template:Lang". Template:Cite web. Annali della Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature Straniere dell'Università di Sassari, Vol. 3 (2003 pubbl. 2005), pp. 287–297. ISSN 1828-5384</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Translation provided by Michele Amari: "I sardi sono di schiatta Rum Afariqah (latina d'Africa), berberizzanti. Rifuggono (dal consorzio) di ogni altra nazione di Rum: sono gente di proposito e valorosa, che non lascia mai l'arme." Note to the passage by Mohamed Mustafa Bazama: "Questo passo, nel testo arabo, è un poco differente, traduco qui testualmente: "gli abitanti della Sardegna, in origine sono dei Rum Afariqah, berberizzanti, indomabili. Sono una (razza a sé) delle razze dei Rum. [...] Sono pronti al richiamo d'aiuto, combattenti, decisivi e mai si separano dalle loro armi (intende guerrieri nati)." Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Another translation into Italian from the original passage in Arabic: "I sardi, popolo di razza latina africana piuttosto barbaro, che vive appartato dal consorzio delle altre genti latine, sono intrepidi e risoluti; essi non abbandonano mai le armi." Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> According to Wagner, the close relationship in the development of Vulgar Latin between North Africa and Sardinia might not have only derived from ancient ethnic affinities between the two populations, but also from their common political past within the Exarchate of Africa.<ref>"Non vi è dubbio che vi erano rapporti più stretti tra la latinità dell'Africa settentrionale e quella della Sardegna. Senza parlare della affinità della razza e degli elementi libici che possano ancora esistere in sardo, non bisogna dimenticare che la Sardegna rimase, durante vari secoli, alle dipendenze dell'esarcato africano". Wagner, M. (1952). Il Nome Sardo del Mese di Giugno (Lámpadas) e i Rapporti del Latino d'Africa con quello della Sardegna. Italica, 29(3), p.152. doi:10.2307/477388</ref>

Two pages of an illuminated manuscript

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

What literature is left to us from this period primarily consists of legal and administrative documents, besides the aforementioned Template:Lang and Template:Lang. The first document containing Sardinian elements is a 1063 donation to the abbey of Montecassino signed by Barisone I of Torres.<ref>Archivio Cassinense Perg. Caps. XI, n. 11 " e "TOLA P., Codice Diplomatico della Sardegna, I, Sassari, 1984, p. 153</ref> Another such document (the so-called Carta Volgare) comes from the Judicate of Cagliari and was issued by Torchitorio I de Lacon-Gunale in around 1070, written in Sardinian whilst still employing the Greek alphabet.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Other documents are the 1080 "Logudorese Privilege", the 1089 Torchitorius' Donation (in the Marseille archives), the 1190–1206 Marsellaise Chart (in Campidanese Sardinian) and an 1173 communication between the Bishop Bernardo of Civita and Benedetto, who oversaw the Opera del Duomo in Pisa. The Statutes of Sassari (1316) and Castelgenovese (Template:Circa) are written in Logudorese Sardinian.

The first chronicle in Template:Lang,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> called Template:Lang, was published anonymously in the 13th century, relating the events of the Judicate of Torres.

Iberian period – Catalan and Castilian influence

Template:See also The 1297 feoffment of Sardinia by Pope Boniface VIII led to the creation of the Kingdom of Sardinia: that is, of a state which, although lacking in Template:Lang, entered by right as a member in personal union within the broader Mediterranean structure of the Crown of Aragon, a composite state. Thus began a long war between the latter and, to the cry of Template:Lang, from 1353, the previously allied Judicate of Arborea, in which the Sardinian language was to play the role of an ethnic marker.<ref>Francesco Cesare Casula states that "those who did not speak or understand Sardinian, for fear that they were Aragonese, were killed", reporting the case of two Sicilian jugglers who, finding themselves in Bosa at the time, were attacked because they were "believed to be Iberian because of their incomprehensible language". Template:Cite book</ref>

The war had, among its motives, a never dormant and ancient Arborean political design to establish "a great island nation-state, wholly indigenous" which was assisted by the massive participation of the rest of the Sardinians, i.e. those not residing within the jurisdiction of Arborea (Template:Lang),<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> as well as a widespread impatience with the foreign importation of a feudal regime, specifically "Template:Lang" and "Template:Lang", which threatened the survival of deep-rooted indigenous institutions and, far from ensuring the return of the island to a unitary regime, had only introduced there "Template:Lang" (Template:Gloss),<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> whereas instead "Template:Lang" (Template:Gloss).

The conflict between the two sovereign and warring parties, during which the Aragonese possessions making up the Kingdom of Sardinia were first administratively split into two separate "halves" (Template:Lang) by Peter IV the Ceremonious in 1355, ended after sixty-seven years with the Iberian victory at Sanluri in 1409 and the renunciation of any succession right signed by William II of Narbonne in 1420. This event marked the definitive end of Sardinian independence, whose historical relevance for the island, likened by Francesco C. Casula to "the end of Aztec Mexico", should be considered "neither triumph nor defeat, but the painful birth of today's Sardinia".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Any outbreak of anti-Aragonese rebellion, such as the revolt of Alghero in 1353, that of Uras in 1470 and finally that of Macomer in 1478, celebrated in Template:Lang,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> were and would have been systematically neutralised. From that moment, "Template:Lang".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Casula believes that the Aragonese winners from the brutal conflict would then move on to destroy the pre-existing documentary production of the still living Sardinian Judicate, which was predominantly written in Sardinian language along with other ones the chancery was engaged with, leaving behind their trail only "a few stones" and, overall, a "small group of documents",<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> many of which are in fact still preserved and/or refer to archives outside the island.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Specifically, the Arborean documents and the palace in which they were kept would be completely set on fire on May 21, 1478, as the viceroy triumphantly entered Oristano after having tamed the aforementioned 1478 rebellion, which threatened the revival of an Arborean identity which had been de jure abolished in 1420 but was still very much alive in popular memory.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Thereafter, the ruling class in Sardinia proceeded to adopt Catalan as their primary language. The situation in Cagliari, a city subject to Aragonese repopulation and where, according to Giovanni Francesco Fara (Template:Lang / Template:Lang), for a time Catalan took over Sardinian as in Alghero,<ref name="fara">"[Sardinians] speak a peculiar language, Sardinian, and use it to write both in poetry and prose, especially in Logudoro where it has been kept purer, and more elegant and rich. And, since many Spaniards, both Aragonese and Catalan, and Italians immigrated to Sardinia, and keep doing so to trade, Spanish, Catalan and Italian are also spoken; so, all these languages are spoken to a conversational level by a single people. However, those from Cagliari and Alghero usually speak their masters' language, Catalan, whilst the other people retain the genuine language of the Sardinians." Original text: "[Sardi] Loquuntur lingua propria sardoa, tum ritmice, tum soluta oratione, praesertim in Capite Logudorii, ubi purior copiosior, et splendidior est. Et quia Hispani plures Aragonenses et Cathalani et Itali migrarunt in eam, et commerciorum caussa quotidie adventant, loquuntur etiam lingua hispanica et cathalana et italica; hisque omnibus linguis concionatur in uno eodemque populo. Caralitani tamen et Algharenses utuntur suorum maiorum lingua cathalana; alii vero genuinam retinent Sardorum linguam." Template:Cite book</ref> was emblematic, so much so as to later generate idioms such as Template:Lang (Template:Gloss) to indicate a person who could not express themselves "correctly".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=FManconi24>Template:Cite book</ref> Alghero is still a Catalan-speaking enclave on Sardinia to this day.<ref name="FManconi24" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Nevertheless, the Sardinian language did not disappear from official use: the Catalan juridical tradition in the cities coexisted with that of the Sardinians, marked in 1421 by the Parliamentary extension of the Arborean Template:Lang to the feudal areas during the Reign of King Alfonso the Magnanimous.<ref>See Template:Cite book lib. I, tit. 4, cap. 1</ref> Fara, in the same first modern monograph dedicated to Sardinia, reported the lively multilingualism in "one and the same people", i.e. the Sardinians, because of immigration "by Spaniards and Italians" who came to the island to trade with the natives.<ref name="fara" />

The long-lasting war and the so-called Black Death had a devastating effect on the island, depopulating large parts of it. People from the neighbouring island of Corsica, which had been already Tuscanised, began to settle en masse in the northern Sardinian coast, leading to the birth of Sassarese and then Gallurese, two Italo-Dalmatian lects.<ref>Carlo Maxia, Studi Sardo-Corsi, Dialettologia e storia della lingua fra le due isole</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Extract from sa Vitta et sa Morte, et Passione de sanctu Gavinu, Prothu et Januariu (A. Cano, ~1400)<ref name="Antoni">Template:Cite book</ref>
<poem>Template:Lang</poem>

Despite Catalan being widely spoken and written on the island at this time, leaving a lasting influence in Sardinia, Sardinian continued to be used in documents pertaining to the Kingdom's administrative and ecclesiastical spheres until the late 17th century.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Religious orders also made use of the language. The regulations of the seminary of Alghero, issued by the bishop Andreas Baccallar on July 12, 1586, were in Sardinian;<ref>Antonio Nughes, Alghero. Chiesa e società nel XVI secolo, Edizioni del Sole, 1990, pp. 417-423</ref> since they were directed to the entire diocese of Alghero and Unions, the provisions intended for the direct knowledge of the people were written in Sardinian and Catalan.<ref>Antonio Nughes, Alghero. Chiesa e società nel XVI secolo, Edizioni del Sole, 1990, p. 236</ref> The earliest catechism to date found in Template:Lang from the post-Tridentine period is dated 1695, at the foot of the synodal constitutions of the archbishopric of Cagliari.<ref>Paolo Maninchedda, Il più antico catechismo in sardo. Bollettino di studi sardi, anno XV n. 15/2022</ref>

The sociolinguistic situation was characterised by the active and passive competence of the two Iberian languages in the cities and of Sardinian in the rest of the island, as reported in various contemporary testimonies: in 1561, the Portuguese Jesuit Francisco Antonio estimated Sardinian to be «the ordinary language of Sardinia, as Italian is of Italy; in the cities of Cagliari and Alghero the ordinary language is Catalan, although there are many people who also use Sardinian».<ref>Turtas, Raimondo (1981). La questione linguistica nei collegi gesuitici in Sardegna nella seconda metà del Cinquecento, in "Quaderni sardi di storia" 2, p. 60</ref><ref name="FManconi24" /> Cristòfor Despuig, in Template:Lang, had previously claimed in 1557 that, although Catalan had carved out a place for itself as Template:Lang, in many parts of the island the "ancient language of the Kingdom" ("Template:Lang") was still preserved;<ref name="Carbonell">Template:Cite book</ref> the ambassador and Template:Lang Martin Carillo (supposed author of the ironic judgment on the Sardinians' tribal and sectarian divisions: "Template:Lang" Template:Gloss<ref name="auto3">Template:Cite book</ref>) noted in 1611 that the main cities spoke Catalan and Spanish, but outside these cities no other language was understood than Sardinian, which in turn was understood by everyone in the entire Kingdom;<ref name="Carbonell" /> Joan Gaspar Roig i Jalpí, author of Template:Lang, reported in the mid-seventeenth century that in Sardinia "Template:Lang" (Template:Gloss);<ref name="Carbonell" /> Anselm Adorno, originally from Genoa but living in Bruges, noted in his pilgrimages how, many foreigners notwithstanding, the natives still spoke their own language (Template:Lang);<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>); another testimony is offered by the rector of the Jesuit college of Sassari Baldassarre Pinyes who, in Rome, wrote: "As far as the Sardinian language is concerned, Your Paternity should know that it is not spoken in this city, nor in Alghero, nor in Cagliari: it is only spoken in the towns".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The 16th century is marked by a new literary revival of Sardinian, starting from the 15th-century Template:Lang, written by Antòni Canu (1400–1476) and published in 1557.<ref name="Antoni" /> Template:Lang, by Hieronimu Araolla,<ref name="sardegnaculletorigini">Template:Cite web</ref> was aimed at "glorifying and enriching Sardinian, our language" (Template:Lang) as the Spanish, French and Italian poets had already done for their own languages (Template:Lang and Template:Lang). This way, Araolla is one of the first Sardinian authors to bind the language to a Sardinian nation,<ref name="araolla">"First attempts at national self-assertion through language date back to the 16th century, when G. Araolla, a speaker of Sassarese, wrote a poem intended to enrich and honour the Sardinian language." Template:Cite book</ref> the existence of which is not outright stated but naturally implied.<ref>"Intendendo esservi una "naturalità" della lingua propria delle diverse "nazioni", così come v'è la lingua naturale della "nazione sarda", espressione, quest'ultima, non usata ma ben sottintesa." Template:Cite book</ref><ref group=note>Incipit to "Lettera al Maestro" in Template:Cite book Template:Cite book: Template:Lang</ref> Antonio Lo Frasso, a poet born in Alghero<ref name="Arce">J. Arce, La literatura hispánica de Cerdeña. Revista de la Facultad de Filología, 1956</ref> (a city he remembered fondly)<ref>"... L'Alguer castillo fuerte bien murado / con frutales por tierra muy divinos / y por la mar coral fino eltremado / es ciudad de mas de mil vezinos..." Template:Cite book</ref> who spent his life in Barcelona, wrote lyric poetry in Sardinian.<ref>An example of it are the octaves found in Lo Frasso, Antonio (1573). Los diez libros de fortuna d'Amor "Template:Lang" Template:Cite book</ref>

Agreeing with Fara's aforementioned Template:Lang, the Sardinian attorney Sigismondo Arquer, author of Template:Lang in Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia universalis (whose report would also be quoted in Conrad Gessner's "On the different languages used by the various nations across the globe" with minor variations<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>), stated that Sardinian prevailed in most of the Kingdom, with particular regard for the interior, while Catalan and Spanish were spoken in the cities, where the predominantly Iberian ruling class "occupies most of the official positions";<ref name="FManconi24" /> although the Sardinian language had become fragmented due to foreign domination (i.e. "namely Latins, Pisans, Genoese, Spanish, and Africans"), Arquer pointed to there being many Sardinian words with apparently no traceable origin and reported that Sardinians nevertheless "understand each other perfectly".<ref>"Habuerunt quidem Sardi linguam propriam, sed quum diversi populi immigraverint in eam atque ab exteris principibus eius imperium usurpatum fuerit, nempe Latinis, Pisanis, Genuensibus, Hispanis et Afris, corrupta fuit multum lingua eorum, relictis tamen plurimis vocabulis, quae in nullo inveniuntur idiomate. [...] Hinc est quod Sardi in diversis locis tam diverse loquuntur, iuxta quod tam varium habuerunt imperium, etiamsi ipsi mutuo sese recte intelligant. Sunt autem duae praecipuae in ea insula linguae, una qua utuntur in civitatibus, et altera qua extra civitates. Oppidani loquuntur fere lingua Hispanica, Tarraconensi seu Catalana, quam didicerunt ab Hispanis, qui plerumque magistratum in eisdem gerunt civitatibus: alii vero genuinam retinent Sardorum Linguam." Template:Cite book</ref>

Especially through the reorganization of the monarchy led by the Count-Duke of Olivares, Sardinia would gradually join a broad Spanish cultural sphere. 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.<ref group=note>Jacinto Arnal de Bolea (1636), El Forastero, Antonio Galcerin editor, Cagliari – "....ofreciéndonos a la vista la insigne ciudad de Càller, corte que me dixeron era de aquel reino. ....La hermosura de las damas, el buen gusto de su alino, lo prendido y bien saconado de lo curioso-dandole vida con mil donaires-, la grandeza en los titulos, el lucimientos en los cavalleros, el concurso grande de la nobleza y el agasajo para un forastero no os los podrà zifrar mi conocimiento. Basta para su alavanza el deciros que alcuna vez, con olvido en mi peregrinaciò y con descuido en mis disdichas, discurria por los templos no estrano y por las calles no atajado, me hallava con evidencias grandes que era aquel sitio el alma de Madrid, que con tanta urbanidad y cortesìa se exercitavan en sus nobles correspondencias"</ref><ref name="sardegnaculletorigini" /> 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;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> according to Bruno Anatra's estimates, around 87% of the books printed in Cagliari were in Spanish.<ref name="auto3"/> A notable exception was Pedro Delitala (1550–1590), who decided to write in Italian instead.<ref name="Arce" /><ref>Rime diverse, Cagliari, 1595</ref> Nonetheless, the Sardinian language retained much of its importance, earning respect from the Spaniards in light of it being the ethnic code the people from most of the Kingdom kept using, especially in the rural areas.<ref>«Il brano qui riportato non è soltanto illustrativo di una chiara evoluzione di diglossia con bilinguismo dei ceti medio-alti (il cavaliere sa lo spagnolo e il sardo), ma anche di un rapporto gerarchico, tra lingua dominante (o "egèmone", come direbbe Gramsci) e subordinata, che tuttavia concede spazio al codice etnico, rispettato e persino appreso dai conquistatori.» Eduardo Blasco Ferrer, Giorgia Ingrassia (edited by). Storia della lingua sarda: dal paleosardo alla musica rap, evoluzione storico-culturale, letteraria, linguistica. Scelta di brani esemplari commentati e tradotti, 2009, Cuec, Cagliari, p. 99</ref> Sardinian endured, moreover, in religious drama and the drafting of notarial deeds in the interior.<ref>Giancarlo Sorgia, Storia della Sardegna spagnola, Sassari, Chiarella, 1987, p. 168</ref> New genres of popular poetry were established around this period, like the Template:Lang or Template:Lang (sacred hymns), the Template:Lang (lullabies), the Template:Lang (funeral laments), the Template:Lang (quatrains), the Template:Lang and Template:Lang (curses), and the improvised poetry of the Template:Lang and Template:Lang.

Sardinian was also one of the few official languages, along with Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese, whose knowledge was required to be an officer in the Spanish tercios,<ref>Template:Citation: "Los tercios españoles solo podían ser comandados por soldados que hablasen castellano, catalán, portugués o sardo. Cualquier otro tenía vedado su ascenso, por eso los italianos que chapurreaban español se hacían pasar por valencianos para intentar su promoción."; "The Spanish tercios could only be commanded by soldiers who spoke Castilian, Catalan, Portuguese or Sardinian. Everyone else had his promotion forbidden, that's why the Italians who spoke Spanish badly tried to pass themselves off as Valencians to try to get promoted."</ref> among which the Sardinians were fully considered and counted as spanyols, as requested by the Stamenti in 1553.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Ioan Matheu Garipa, a priest from Orgosolo who translated the Italian Template:Lang into Sardinian (Template:Lang) in 1627, was the first author to claim that Sardinian was the closest living relative of classical Latin<ref group=note>"In this Roman Court, having come into possession of a book in Italian, a new edition […] I have translated it into Sardinian to give news of it to the devotees of my homeland who are eager to know these legends. I have translated them into Sardinian, rather than into another language, out of love for the people […] who did not need an interpreter to enunciate them, and also because the Sardinian language is noble by virtue of its participation in Latinity, since no language spoken is as close to classical Latin as Sardinian. […] Since, if the Italian language is much appreciated, and if among all the vernacular languages is in first place for having much followed in the footsteps of Latin, no less should the Sardinian language be appreciated considering that it is not only a relative of Latin, but is largely straightforward Latin. […] And even if this were not so, it is sufficient reason to write in Sardinian to see that all nations write and print books in their natural language, boasting of having history and moral subjects written in the vernacular, so that all may benefit from them. And since the Sardinian Latin language is as clear and intelligible (when written, and pronounced as it should be), if not even more so, than the vulgar ones, since the Italians, and Spaniards, and all those who practice Latin in general understand it." Original text: "Template:Lang" Garipa, Ioan Matheu. Legendariu de santas virgines, et martires de Iesu Crhistu, 1627, Per Lodouicu Grignanu, Roma</ref> and, like Araolla before him,<ref name="araolla" /> valued Sardinian as the language of a specific ethno-national community.<ref>"Totu sas naziones iscrient e imprentant sos libros in sas propias limbas nadias e duncas peri sa Sardigna – sigomente est una natzione – depet iscriere e imprentare sos libros in limba sarda. Una limba – sighit Garipa – chi de seguru bisongiat de irrichimentos e de afinicamentos, ma non est de contu prus pagu de sas ateras limbas neolatinas." ("All the nations write and print books in their native languages and therefore Sardinia – which is a nation – should do so as well, in Sardinian language. A language – follows Garipa – which certainly needs a little enrichment and refinement, but is no less important than the other Neolatin languages"). Casula, Francesco. Sa chistione de sa limba in Montanaru e oe</ref> In this regard, the philologist Paolo Maninchedda argues that by doing so, these authors did not write "about Sardinia or in Sardinian to fit into an island system, but to inscribe Sardinia and its language – and with them, themselves – in a European system. Elevating Sardinia to a cultural dignity equal to that of other European countries also meant promoting the Sardinians, and in particular their educated countrymen, who felt that they had no roots and no place in the continental cultural system".<ref>"...non-scrivono di Sardegna o in sardo per inserirsi in un sistema isolano, ma per iscrivere la Sardegna e la sua lingua – e con esse, se stessi – in un sistema europeo. Elevare la Sardegna ad una dignità culturale pari a quella di altri paesi europei significava anche promuovere i sardi, e in particolare i sardi colti, che si sentivano privi di radici e di appartenenza nel sistema culturale continentale." Paolo Maninchedda (2000): Nazionalismo, cosmopolitismo e provincialismo nella tradizione letteraria della Sardegna (secc. XV–XVIII), in: Revista de filología Románica, 17, p. 178</ref>

File:Ploaghe, camposanto, lapidi in logudorese, 02.JPG

Three gravestones dating to the second half of the 19th century in the historic cemetery of Ploaghe (Logudoro), wherein a total of 39 gravestones have writings in Sardinian and 3 in Italian<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Savoyard period – Italian influence

Template:See also The War of the Spanish Succession gave Sardinia to Austria, whose sovereignty was confirmed by the 1713–14 treaties of Utrecht and Rastatt. In 1717 a Spanish fleet reoccupied Cagliari, and the following year Sardinia was ceded to Victor Amadeus II of Savoy in exchange for Sicily. The Savoyard representative, the Count of Lucerna di Campiglione, received the definitive deed of cession from the Austrian delegate Don Giuseppe dei Medici, on condition that the "rights, statutes, privileges of the nation" that had been the subject of diplomatic negotiations were preserved.<ref name="sotgiu65">Template:Cite book</ref> The island thus entered the Italian orbit after the Iberian one,<ref>"I territori della casa di Savoia si allargano fino al Ticino; importante è l'annessione della Sardegna (1718), perché la vita amministrativa e culturale dell'isola, che prima si svolgeva in spagnolo, si viene orientando, seppur molto lentamente, verso la lingua italiana". Template:Cite book</ref> although this transfer would not initially entail any social nor cultural and linguistic changes: Sardinia would still retain for a long time its Iberian character, so much so that only in 1767 were the Aragonese and Spanish dynastic symbols replaced by the Savoyard cross.<ref>See Template:Cite book</ref> Until 1848, the Kingdom of Sardinia would be a composite state, and the island of Sardinia would remain a separate country with its own traditions and institutions, albeit without summa potestas and in personal union as an overseas possession of the House of Savoy.<ref name="sotgiu65" />

The Sardinian language, although practiced in a state of diglossia, continued to be spoken by all social classes, its linguistic alterity and independence being universally perceived;<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Spanish, on the other hand, was the prestige code known and used by the Sardinian social strata with at least some education, in so pervasive a manner that Joaquín Arce refers to it in terms of a paradox: Castilian had become the common language of the islanders by the time they officially ceased to be Spanish and, through their annexation by the House of Savoy, became Italian through Piedmont instead.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Given the current situation, the Piedmontese ruling class which held the reins of the island, in this early phase, resolved to maintain its political and social institutions, while at the same time progressively hollowing them out<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> as well as "treating the [Sardinian] followers of one faction and of the other equally, but keeping them divided in such a way as to prevent them from uniting, and for us to put to good use such rivalry when the occasion presents itself".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

According to Amos Cardia, this pragmatic stance was rooted in three political reasons: in the first place, the Savoyards did not want to rouse international suspicion and followed to the letter the rules dictated by the Treaty of London, signed on 2 August 1718, whereby they had committed themselves to respect the fundamental laws of the newly acquired Kingdom; in the second place, they did not want to antagonize the hispanophile locals, especially the elites; and finally, they lingered on hoping they could one day manage to dispose of Sardinia altogether, while still keeping the title of Kings by regaining Sicily.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In fact, since imposing Italian would have violated one of the fundamental laws of the Kingdom, which the new rulers swore to observe upon taking on the mantle of King, Victor Amadeus II emphasised the need for the operation to be carried out through incremental steps, small enough to go relatively unnoticed (Template:Lang), as early as 1721.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Such prudence was again noted, when the King claimed that he was nevertheless not intentioned to ban either Sardinian or Spanish on two separate occasions, in 1726 and 1728.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The fact that the new masters of Sardinia felt at loss as to how they could better deal with a cultural and linguistic environment they perceived as alien to the Mainland,<ref>Cardia, Amos (2006). S'italianu in Sardìnnia candu, cumenti e poita d'ant impostu: 1720–1848; poderi e lìngua in Sardìnnia in edadi spanniola, Iskra, Ghilarza, p. 86</ref> where Italian had long been the prestige and even official language, can be deduced from the study Template:Lang ("Account of the proposed ways to introduce the Italian language to this Kingdom") commissioned in 1726 by the Piedmontese administration, to which the Jesuit Antonio Falletti from Barolo responded suggesting the Template:Lang ("to introduce an unknown language [Italian] through a known one [Spanish]") method as the best course of action for Italianisation.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In the same year, Victor Amadeus II had already said he could no longer tolerate the lack of ability to speak Italian on the part of the islanders, in view of the inconveniences that such inability was putting through for the functionaries sent from the Mainland.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Restrictions to mixed marriages between Sardinian women and the Piedmontese officers dispatched to the island, which had hitherto been prohibited by law,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> were at one point lifted and even encouraged so as to better introduce the language to the local population.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>On further information as to the role played by mixed marriages in general to spread Italian among the islanders, see Template:Cite book ; Template:Cite book</ref>

Eduardo Blasco Ferrer argues that, in contrast to the cultural dynamics long established in the Mainland between Italian and the various Romance dialects thereof, in Sardinia the relationship between the Italian language – recently introduced by Savoy – and the native one had been perceived from the start by the locals, educated and uneducated alike, as a relationship (albeit unequal in terms of political power and prestige) between two very different languages, and not between a language and one of its dialects.<ref>"La più diffusa, e storicamente precocissima, consapevolezza nell'isola circa lo statuto di lingua a sé del sardo, ragion per cui il rapporto tra il sardo e l'italiano ha teso a porsi fin dall'inizio nei termini di quello tra due lingue diverse (benché con potere e prestigio evidentemente diversi), a differenza di quanto normalmente avvenuto in altre regioni italiane, dove, tranne nel caso di altre minoranze storiche, la percezione dei propri "dialetti" come "lingue" diverse dall'italiano sembrerebbe essere un fatto relativamente più recente e, almeno apparentemente, meno profondamente e drammaticamente avvertito." Template:Cite book</ref> The plurisecular Iberian period had also contributed in making the Sardinians feel relatively detached from the Italian language and its cultural sphere; local sensibilities towards the language were further exacerbated by the fact that the Spanish ruling class had long considered Sardinian a distinct language, with respect to their own ones and Italian as well.<ref>"La consapevolezza di alterità rispetto all'italiano si spiega facilmente non solo per i quasi 400 anni di fila sotto il dominio ispanico, che hanno agevolato nei sardi, rispetto a quanto avvenuto in altre regioni italiane, una prospettiva globalmente più distaccata nei confronti della lingua italiana, ma anche per il fatto tutt'altro che banale che già i catalani e i castigliani consideravano il sardo una lingua a sé stante, non solo rispetto alla propria ma anche rispetto all'italiano." Template:Cite book</ref> The perception of the alterity of Sardinian was also widely shared among the Italians who happened to visit the island and recounted their experiences with the local population,<ref>"Ma la percezione di alterità linguistica era condivisa e avvertita anche da qualsiasi italiano che avesse occasione di risiedere o passare nell'Isola." Template:Cite book</ref> whom they often likened to the Spanish and the ancient peoples of the Orient, an opinion illustrated by the Duke Francis IV and Antonio Bresciani;<ref>"Lingue fuori dell'Italiano e del Sardo nessuno ne impara, e pochi uomini capiscono il francese; piuttosto lo spagnuolo. La lingua spagnuola s'accosta molto anche alla Sarda, e poi con altri paesi poco sono in relazione. [...] La popolazione della Sardegna pare dalli suoi costumi, indole, etc., un misto di popoli di Spagna, e del Levante conservano vari usi, che hanno molta analogia con quelli dei Turchi, e dei popoli del Levante; e poi vi è mescolato molto dello Spagnuolo, e dirò così, che pare una originaria popolazione del Levante civilizzata alla Spagnuola, che poi coll'andare del tempo divenne più originale, e formò la Nazione Sarda, che ora distinguesi non solo dai popoli del Levante, ma anche da quelli della Spagna." Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> a popular assertion by the officer Giulio Bechi, who would participate in a military campaign against Sardinian banditry dubbed as Template:Lang ("great hunt"), was that the islanders spoke "a horrible language, as intricate as Saracen, and sounding like Spanish".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

However, the Savoyard government eventually decided to directly introduce Italian altogether to Sardinia on the conventional date of 25 July 1760,<ref>"Come data ufficiale per la estensione della lingua italiana in Sardegna viene comunemente citato il 1764, anno in cui fu emanata un'apposita carta reale per le Università, ma questa, in effetti, fu preceduta nel 1760 da un piano regio per le scuole inferiori e seguita nel 1770 da un regio editto per la magistratura. Occorse dunque un periodo di dieci anni per rendere ufficiale, nell'isola, l'adozione dell'italiano, la cui diffusione fu da principio assai lenta anche negli ambienti colti, come attesta l'uso frequente della lingua spagnola in atti e documenti pubblici fino ai primi decenni dell'Ottocento." Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> because of the Savoyards' geopolitical need to draw the island away from Spain's gravitational pull and culturally integrate Sardinia into the orbit of the Italian peninsula,<ref>"L'attività riformatrice si allargò anche ad altri campi: scuole in lingua italiana per riallacciare la cultura isolana a quella del continente, lotta contro il banditismo, ripopolamento di terre e ville deserte con Liguri, Piemontesi, Còrsi." Roberto Almagia et al., Sardegna, Enciclopedia Italiana (1936), Treccani, "Storia"</ref> through the thorough assimilation of the island's cultural models, which were deemed by the Savoyard functionaries as "foreign" and "inferior", to Piedmont.<ref>"L'italianizzazione dell'isola fu un obiettivo fondamentale della politica sabauda, strumentale a un più ampio progetto di assimilazione della Sardegna al Piemonte." Template:Cite book</ref><ref>"Ai funzionari sabaudi, inseriti negli ingranaggi dell'assolutismo burocratico ed educati al culto della regolarità e della precisione, l'isola appariva come qualcosa di estraneo e di bizzarro, come un Paese in preda alla barbarie e all'anarchia, popolato di selvaggi tutt'altro che buoni. Era difficile che quei funzionari potessero considerare il diverso altrimenti che come puro negativo. E infatti essi presero ad applicare alla Sardegna le stesse ricette applicate al Piemonte.". Template:Cite book</ref><ref>"En aquest sentit, la italianització definitiva de l'illa representava per a ell l'objectiu més urgent, i va decidir de contribuir-hi tot reformant les Universitats de Càller i de Sàsser, bandejant-ne alhora els jesuïtes de la direcció per tal com mantenien encara una relació massa estreta amb la cultura espanyola. El ministre Bogino havia entès que només dins d'una Universitat reformada podia crear-se una nova generació de joves que contribuïssin a homogeneïtzar de manera absoluta Sardenya amb el Piemont." Template:Cite book Cagliari, I.1</ref><ref group=note>King Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia, Royal Note, 23 July 1760: "Dovendosi per tali insegnamenti (scuole inferiori) adoperare fra le lingue più colte quella che è meno lontana dal materno dialetto ed a un tempo la più corrispondente alle pubbliche convenienze, si è determinato di usare nelle scuole predette l'italiana, siccome quella appunto che non essendo più diversa dalla sarda di quello fosse la castigliana, poiché anzi la maggior parte dei sardi più colti già la possiede; resta altresì la più opportuna per maggiormente agevolare il commercio ed aumentare gli scambievoli comodi; ed i Piemontesi che verranno nel Regno, non avranno a studiare una nuova lingua per meglio abituarsi al servizio pubblico e dei sardi, i quali in tal modo potranno essere impiegati anche nel continente."</ref> In fact, the measure in question prohibited, among other things, "the unreserved use of the Castilian idiom in writing and speaking, which, after forty years of Italian rule, was still so deeply rooted in the hearts of the Sardinian teachers".<ref name="sotgiu1982">Template:Cite book</ref> In 1764, the exclusive imposition of the Italian language was finally extended to all sectors of public life,<ref name="Bolognesi">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Salvi1">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> including education,<ref>"In Sardegna, dopo il passaggio alla casa di Savoia, lo spagnolo perde terreno, ma lentissimamente: solo nel 1764 l'italiano diventa lingua ufficiale nei tribunali e nell'insegnamento". Template:Cite book</ref><ref>"Anche la sostituzione dell'italiano allo spagnolo non avvenne istantaneamente: quest'ultimo restò lingua ufficiale nelle scuole e nei tribunali fino al 1764, anno in cui da Torino fu disposta una riforma delle università di Cagliari e Sassari e si stabilì che l'insegnamento scolastico dovesse essere solamente in italiano." Template:Cite book</ref> in parallel with the reorganisation of the Universities of Cagliari and Sassari, which saw the arrival of personnel from the Italian mainland, and the reorganisation of lower education, where it was decided likewise to send teachers from Piedmont to make up for the lack of Italian-speaking Sardinian teachers.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1763, it had already been planned to "send a number of skilled Italian professors" to Sardinia to "rid the Sardinian teachers of their errors" and "steer them along the right path".<ref name="sotgiu1982" /> The purpose did not elude the attention of the Sardinian ruling class, who deplored the fact that "the Piedmontese bishops have introduced preaching in Italian" and, in an anonymous document attributed to the conservative Sardinian Parliament and eloquently called Template:Lang ("Grievance of the Kingdom"), denounced how "the arms, the privileges, the laws, the language, University, and currency of Aragon have now been taken away, to the disgrace of Spain, and to the detriment of all particulars".<ref name="Carbonell" /><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Spanish was replaced as the official language, even though Italian struggled to take roots for a long time: Milà i Fontanals wrote in 1863 that Catalan had been used in notarial instruments from Sardinia well into the 1780s,<ref name="Carbonell" /> together with Sardinian, while parish registers and official deeds continued to be drawn up in Spanish until 1828.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The most immediate effect of the order was thus the further marginalization of the Sardinians' native idiom, making way for a thorough Italianisation of the island.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Salvi1" /><ref name="Lubello" /> For the first time, in fact, even the wealthy and most powerful families of rural Sardinia, the Template:Lang, started to perceive Sardinian as a handicap.<ref name="Bolognesi" /> Girolamo Sotgiu asserts on the matter that "the Sardinian ruling class, just as it had become Hispanicized, now became Italianised, without ever managing to become Sardinian, that is to say, to draw from the experience and culture of their people, from which it came, those elements of concreteness without which a culture and a ruling class always seem foreign even in their homeland. This was the objective that the Savoyard government had set itself and which, to a good measure, it managed to pursue".<ref name="sotgiu1982" />

Francesco Gemelli, in Template:Lang, depicts the island's linguistic pluralism in 1776, and referring to Francesco Cetti's Template:Lang for a more meticulous analysis of "the character of the Sardinian language ("Template:Lang") and the main differences between Sassarese and Tuscan": "five languages are spoken in Sardinia, that is Spanish, Italian, Sardinian, Algherese, and Sassarese. The former two because of the past and today's domination, and they are understood and spoken through schooling by all the educated people residing in the cities, as well as villages. Sardinian is common to all the Kingdom, and is divided into two main dialects, Campidanese Sardinian and Sardinian from the Upper Half ("Template:Lang"). Algherese is a Catalan dialect, for a Catalan colony is Alghero; and finally Sassarese, which is spoken in Sassari, Tempio and Castel sardo (sic), is a dialect of Tuscan, a relic of their Pisan overlords. Spanish is losing ground to Italian, which has taken over the former in the fields of education and jurisdiction".<ref>"Cinque linguaggi parlansi in Sardegna, lo spagnuolo, l'italiano, il sardo, l'algarese, e 'l sassarese. I primi due per ragione del passato e del presente dominio, e delle passate, e presenti scuole intendonsi e parlansi da tutte le pulite persone nelle città, e ancor ne' villaggi. Il sardo è comune a tutto il Regno, e dividesi in due precipui dialetti, sardo campidanese e sardo del capo di sopra. L'algarese è un dialetto del catalano, perché colonia di catalani è Algheri; e finalmente il sassarese che si parla in Sassari, in Tempio e in Castel sardo, è un dialetto del toscano, reliquia del dominio de' Pisani. Lo spagnuolo va perdendo terreno a misura che prende piede l'italiano, il quale ha dispossessato il primo delle scuole, e de' tribunali." Template:Cite book</ref>

The first systematic study on the Sardinian language was written in 1782 by the philologist Matteo Madau, with the title of Template:Lang.<ref>Madau, Matteo (1782). Saggio d'un opera intitolata Il ripulimento della lingua sarda lavorato sopra la sua analogia colle due matrici lingue, la greca e la latina, Bernardo Titard, Cagliari</ref> The intention that motivated Madau was to trace the ideal path through which Sardinian could be elevated to the island's proper national language;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Un arxipèlag invisible: la relació impossible de Sardenya i Còrsega sota nacionalismes, segles XVIII-XX – Marcel Farinelli, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Institut Universitari d'Història Jaume Vicens i Vives, p. 285</ref> nevertheless, according to Amos Cardia, the Savoyard climate of repression on Sardinian culture would induce Matteo Madau to veil its radical proposals with some literary devices, and the author was eventually unable to ever translate them into reality.<ref name="Cardia, Amos 2006 pp. 111-112">Template:Cite book</ref> The first volume of comparative Sardinian dialectology was produced in 1786 by the Catalan Jesuit Andres Febres, known in Italy and Sardinia by the pseudonym of Template:Lang, who returned from Lima where he had first published a book of Mapuche grammar in 1764.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> After he moved to Cagliari, he became fascinated with the Sardinian language as well and conducted some research on three specific dialects; the aim of his work, entitled Template:Lang,<ref>Febres, Andres (1786). Prima grammatica de' tre dialetti sardi , Cagliari [the volume can be found in Cagliari's University Library, Baille Collection, ms. 11.2.K., n.18]</ref> was to "write down the rules of the Sardinian language" and spur the Sardinians to "cherish the language of their Homeland, as well as Italian". The government in Turin, which had been monitoring Febres' activity, decided that his work would not be allowed to be published: Victor Amadeus III had supposedly not appreciated the fact that the book had a bilingual dedication to him in Italian and Sardinian, a mistake that his successors, while still echoing back to a general concept of "Sardinian ancestral homeland", would from then on avoid, and making exclusive use of Italian to produce their works.<ref name="Cardia, Amos 2006 pp. 111-112"/>

At the end of the 18th century, following the trail of the French Revolution, a group of the Sardinian middle class planned to break away from Savoyard rule and institute an independent Sardinian Republic under French protection; all over the island, a number of political pamphlets printed in Sardinian were illegally distributed, calling for a mass revolt against the "Piedmontese" rule and the barons' abuse. The most famous literary product born out of such political unrest was the poem Template:Lang, noted as a testament of the French-inspired democratic and patriotic values, as well as Sardinia's situation under feudalism.<ref>Eduardo Blasco Ferrer, Giorgia Ingrassia (edited by). Storia della lingua sarda: dal paleosardo alla musica rap, evoluzione storico-culturale, letteraria, linguistica. Scelta di brani esemplari commentati e tradotti, 2009, Cuec, Cagliari, p. 127</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> As for the reactions that the three-year Sardinian revolutionary period aroused in the island's ruling class, who were now in the process of Italianisation, for Sotgiu "its failure was complete: undecided between a breathless municipalism and a dead-end attachment to the Crown, it did not have the courage to lead the revolutionary wave coming from the countryside".<ref name="sotgiu1982" /> In fact, although pamphlets such as "the Achilles of Sardinian Liberation" circulated, denouncing the backwardness of an oppressive feudal system and a Ministry that was said to have "always been the enemy of the Sardinian Nation", and the "social pact between the Sovereign and the Nation" was declared to have been broken, there was no radical change in the form of government: therefore, it is not surprising, according to Sotgiu, that although "the call for the Sardinian nation, its traditions and identity became stronger and stronger, even to the point of requesting the creation of a stable military force of "Sardinian nationals only"", the concrete hypothesis of abolishing the monarchical and feudal regimes did not "make its way into the consciousness of many".<ref name="auto2">Template:Cite book</ref> The only result was therefore "the defeat of the peasant class emerging from the very core of feudal society, urged on by the masses of peasants and led by the most advanced forces of the Sardinian bourgeoisie"<ref name="auto2"/> and, conversely, the victory of the feudal barons and "of large strata of the town bourgeoisie that had developed within the framework of the feudal order and feared that the abolition of feudalism and the proclamation of the Republic might simultaneously destroy the very basis of their own wealth and prestige".<ref name="sotgiu95">Template:Cite book</ref>

In the climate of monarchic restoration that followed Giovanni Maria Angioy's rebellion, whose substantial failure marked therefrom a historic watershed in Sardinia's future,<ref name="sotgiu95" /> other Sardinian intellectuals, all characterized by an attitude of general devotion to their island as well as proven loyalty to the House of Savoy, posed in fact the question of the Sardinian language, while being careful enough to use only Italian as a language to get their point across. During the 19th century in particular, the Sardinian intellectuality and ruling class found itself divided over the adherence to the Sardinian national values and the allegiance to the new Italian nationality,<ref>Template:Cite conference</ref> toward which they eventually leaned in the wake of the abortive Sardinian revolution.<ref>"Nel caso della Sardegna, la scelta della patria italiana è avvenuta da parte delle élite legate al dominio sabaudo sin dal 1799, in modo esplicito, più che altro come strategia di un ceto che andava formandosi attraverso la fusione fra aristocrazia, nobiltà di funzione e borghesia, in reazione al progetto antifeudale, democratico e repubblicano della Sarda rivoluzione." Mongili, Alessandro. Topologie postcoloniali. Innovazione e modernizzazione in Sardegna, Condaghes, chpt. 1.2 "indicibile è il sardo"</ref> The identity crisis of the Sardinian ruling class, and their strive for acceptance into the new citizenship of the Italian identity, would manifest itself with the publication of the so-called Template:Lang<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> by the unionist Pietro Martini in 1863.

A few years after the major anti-Piedmontese revolt, in 1811, the priest Vincenzo Raimondo Porru published a timid essay of Sardinian grammar, which, however, referred expressively to the Southern dialect (hence the title of Template:Lang<ref>Saggio di grammatica sul dialetto sardo meridionale dedicato a sua altezza reale Maria Cristina di Bourbon infanta delle Sicilie duchessa del genevese, Cagliari, Reale stamperia, 1811</ref>) and, out of prudence towards the king, was made with the declared intention of easing the acquisition of Italian among his fellow Sardinians, instead of protecting their language.<ref>"[Il Porru] In generale considera la lingua un patrimonio che deve essere tutelato e migliorato con sollecitudine. In definitiva, per il Porru possiamo ipotizzare una probabilmente sincera volontà di salvaguardia della lingua sarda che però, dato il clima di severa censura e repressione creato dal dominio sabaudo, dovette esprimersi tutta in funzione di un miglior apprendimento dell'italiano. Siamo nel 1811, ancora a breve distanza dalla stagione calda della rivolta antifeudale e repubblicana, dentro il periodo delle congiure e della repressione." Template:Cite book</ref> The more ambitious work of the professor and senator Giovanni Spano, the Ortographia sarda nationale ("Sardinian National Orthography"),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> although it was officially meant for the same purpose as Porru's,<ref group=note>In Spano's dedication to Charles Albert's wife, out of devotion to the new rulers, there are several passages in which the author sings the praises of the Savoyards and their cultural policies pursued in Sardinia, such as "It was destiny that the sweet Italian tongue, although born on the pleasant banks of the Arno, would one day also become rich heritage of the Tirso's inhabitants" (p. 5) and, formulating a vow of loyalty to the new dynasty of regents that followed the Spanish ones, "Sardinia owes so much to the most August HOUSE OF SAVOY, which, once the Hispanic domination had ceased, so wisely promoted the development of science, and also commanded during the middle of the last century, that Tuscan be made the language of the Dicasteries and public education" (p. 6). The Preface, entitled Al giovanetto alunno, states the intention, already common to Porru, to publish a work dedicated to the teaching of Italian, through the differences and similarities provided by another language more familiar to the Sardinian subjects.</ref> attempted in reality to establish a unified Sardinian orthography based on Logudorese, just like Florentine had become the basis for Italian.<ref>"Il presente lavoro però restringesi propriamente al solo Logudorese ossia Centrale, che questo forma la vera lingua nazionale, la più antica ed armoniosa e che soffrì alterazioni meno delle altre". Ispanu, Johanne (1840). Ortographia sarda nationale o siat grammatica de sa limba logudoresa cumparada cum s'italiana, p. 12</ref><ref>"[...] Nonetheless, the two works by Spano are of extraordinary importance, as they put on the table in Sardinia the "question of the Sardinian language", the language that should have been the unified and unifying one, to be enforced on the island over its singular dialects; the language of the Sardinian nation, through which the island was keen to project itself onto the other European nations, that already reached or were about to reach their political and cultural actualization in the 1800s, including the Italian nation. And just along the lines of what had been theorized and put into effect in favour of the Italian nation, that was successfully completing the process of linguistic unification by elevating the Florentine dialect to the role of "national language", so in Sardinia the long-desired "Sardinian national language" was given the name of "illustrious Sardinian"." Original: "[...] Ciononostante le due opere dello Spano sono di straordinaria importanza, in quanto aprirono in Sardegna la discussione sul problema della lingua sarda, quella che sarebbe dovuta essere la lingua unificata ed unificante, che si sarebbe dovuta imporre in tutta l'isola sulle particolarità dei singoli dialetti e suddialetti, la lingua della nazione sarda, con la quale la Sardegna intendeva inserirsi tra le altre nazioni europee, quelle che nell'Ottocento avevano già raggiunto o stavano per raggiungere la loro attuazione politica e culturale, compresa la nazione italiana. E proprio sulla falsariga di quanto era stato teorizzato ed anche attuato a favore della nazione italiana, che nell'Ottocento stava per portare a termine il processo di unificazione linguistica, elevando il dialetto fiorentino e toscano al ruolo di "lingua nazionale", chiamandolo italiano illustre, anche in Sardegna l'auspicata lingua nazionale sarda fu denominata sardo illustre"". Template:Cite book Introduction</ref>

File:SardiniePiemont.jpg

The Kingdom of Sardinia in 1856

The jurist Carlo Baudi di Vesme claimed that the suppression of Sardinian and the imposition of Italian was desirable to make the islanders into "civilized Italians".<ref group=note>"Una innovazione in materia di incivilimento della Sardegna e d'istruzione pubblica, che sotto vari aspetti sarebbe importantissima, si è quella di proibire severamente in ogni atto pubblico civile non meno che nelle funzioni ecclesiastiche, tranne le prediche, l'uso dei dialetti sardi, prescrivendo l'esclusivo impiego della lingua italiana. Attualmente in sardo si gettano i così detti pregoni o bandi; in sardo si cantano gl'inni dei Santi (Goccius), alcuni dei quali privi di dignità [...] È necessario inoltre scemare l'uso del dialetto sardo [sic] ed introdurre quello della lingua italiana anche per altri non men forti motivi; ossia per incivilire alquanto quella nazione, sì affinché vi siano più universalmente comprese le istruzioni e gli ordini del Governo,... sì finalmente per togliere una delle maggiori divisioni, che sono fra la Sardegna e i Regi stati di terraferma." Template:Cite book</ref><ref>"In una sua opera del 1848 egli mostra di considerare la situazione isolana come carica di pericoli e di minacce per il Piemonte e propone di procedere colpendo innanzitutto con decisione la lingua sarda, proibendola cioè "severamente in ogni atto pubblico civile non meno che nelle funzioni ecclesiastiche, tranne le prediche". Baudi di Vesme non si fa illusioni: l'antipiemontesismo non è mai venuto meno nonostante le proteste e le riaffermazioni di fratellanza con i popoli di terraferma; si è vissuti anzi fino a quel momento – aggiunge – non in attesa di una completa unificazione della Sardegna al resto dello Stato ma addirittura di un "rinnovamento del novantaquattro", cioè della storica "emozione popolare" che aveva portato alla cacciata dei Piemontesi. Ma, rimossi gli ostacoli che sul piano politico-istituzionale e soprattutto su quello etnico e linguistico differenziano la Sardegna dal Piemonte, nulla potrà più impedire che l'isola diventi un tutt'uno con gli altri Stati del re e si italianizzi davvero". Federico Francioni, Storia dell'idea di "nazione sarda", in Template:Cite book</ref> Since Sardinia was, in the words of Di Vesme, "not Spanish, but neither Italian: it is and has been for centuries just Sardinian",<ref name="baudi">Template:Cite book</ref> it was necessary, at the turn of the circumstances that "inflamed it with ambition, desire and love of all things Italian",<ref name="baudi" /> to promote these tendencies even more in order "to profit from them in the common interest",<ref name="baudi" /> for which it proved "almost necessary"<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> to spread the Italian language in Sardinia "presently so little known in the interior"<ref name="baudi" /> with a view to better enable the Perfect Fusion: "Sardinia will be Piedmont, it will be Italy; it will receive and give us lustre, wealth and power!".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The primary and tertiary education was thus offered exclusively through Italian, and Piedmontese cartographers went on to replace many Sardinian place names with Italian ones.<ref name="Salvi1" /> The Italian education, being imparted in a language the Sardinians were not familiar with,<ref group=note>Andrea Manca dell'Arca, an agronomist from Sassari (a city which, like most of Northern Sardinia, had been historically more exposed via Corsica to the Italian culture than the rest of the island) had so illustrated how Italian was still perceived by the locals: "Italian is as familiar to me as Latin, French or other foreign languages which one only partially learns through grammar study and the books, without fully mastering them" (È tanto nativa per me la lingua italiana, come la latina, francese o altre forestiere che solo s'imparano in parte colla grammatica, uso e frequente lezione de' libri, ma non si possiede appieno). Ricordi di Santu Lussurgiu di Francesco Maria Porcu in Santu Lussurgiu dalle Origini alla "Grande Guerra" – Grafiche editoriali Solinas – Nuoro, 2005</ref> spread Italian for the first time in history to Sardinian villages, marking the troubled transition to the new dominant language; the school environment, which employed Italian as the sole means of communication, grew to become a microcosm around the then-monolingual Sardinian villages.<ref group=note name="Fra">The introduction of Italian as a foreign language to the Sardinian villages is exemplified in a passage from the contemporary Francesco (Frantziscu) Masala's Sa limba est s'istoria de su mundu; Condaghe de Biddafraigada ("The language is the world's history; Biddafraigada's Condaghe"), Condaghes, p. 4: "A sos tempos de sa pitzinnìa, in bidda, totus chistionaiamus in limba sarda. In domos nostras no si faeddaiat atera limba. E deo, in sa limba nadìa, comintzei a connoscher totu sas cosas de su mundu. A sos ses annos, intrei in prima elementare e su mastru de iscola proibeit, a mie e a sos fedales mios, de faeddare in s'unica limba chi connoschiamus: depiamus chistionare in limba italiana, "la lingua della Patria", nos nareit, seriu seriu, su mastru de iscola. Gai, totus sos pitzinnos de 'idda, intraian in iscola abbistos e allirgos e nde bessian tontos e cari-tristos." ("When I was a little kid growing up in the village, we all used to speak in the Sardinian language. We did not speak any other language in our homes. And I began to know all the things of the world in the native language. At the age of six, I went to first grade and the school teacher forbade me as well as my peers to speak in the only language we knew: from that moment on, we only had to speak in Italian, "the language of the Fatherland", he told us seriously. Thus, the children of our village would come to school bright and happy, and walk out of school empty-headed and with a gloomy look on our faces.")</ref> In 1811, the canon Salvatore Carboni published in Bologna the polemic book Template:Lang ("Holy Discourses in Sardinian language"), wherein the author lamented the fact that Sardinia, "Template:Lang" ("Being an Italian province nowadays, [Sardinia] cannot have laws and public acts made in its own language"), and while claiming that "Template:Lang" ("the Sardinian language, however unofficial, will last as long as Sardinia among the Sardinians"), he also asked himself "Template:Lang" ("Why should we show neglect and contempt for Sardinian, which is a language as ancient and noble as Italian, French and Spanish?").<ref>Template:Cite book In Template:Cite book</ref>

In 1827, the historical legal code serving as the consuetud de la nació sardesca in the days of the Iberian rule, the Carta de Logu, was abolished and replaced by the more advanced Savoyard code of Charles Felix "Leggi civili e criminali del Regno di Sardegna", written in Italian.<ref name="Salvi2">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>"Des del seu càrrec de capità general, Carles Fèlix havia lluitat amb mà rígida contra les darreres actituds antipiemonteses que encara dificultaven l'activitat del govern. Ara promulgava el Codi felicià (1827), amb el qual totes les lleis sardes eren recollides i, sovint, modificades. Pel que ara ens interessa, cal assenyalar que el nou codi abolia la Carta de Logu – la "consuetud de la nació sardesca", vigent des de l'any 1421 – i allò que restava de l'antic dret municipalista basat en el privilegi." Joan Armangué i Herrero, Represa i exercici de la consciència lingüística a l'Alguer (ss.XVIII-XX), Arxiu de Tradicions de l'Alguer, Cagliari, I.1</ref> The Perfect Fusion with the Mainland States, enacted under the auspices of a "transplant, without any reserves and obstacles, [of] the culture and civilization of the Italian Mainland to Sardinia",<ref>"Il trapiantamento in Sardegna, senza riserve ed ostacoli, della civiltà e cultura continentale, la formazione d'una sola famiglia civile, composta di Liguri, Piemontesi, Sardi, e Savoiardi, sotto un solo Padre meglio che Re, il Grande Carlo Alberto." Template:Cite book</ref> would result in the loss of the island's residual autonomy<ref name="Toso">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Salvi2" /> and marked the moment when "the language of the "Sardinian nation" lost its value as an instrument with which to ethnically identify a particular people and its culture, to be codified and cherished, and became instead one of the many regional dialects subordinated to the national language".<ref>"...la 'lingua della sarda nazione' perse il valore di strumento di identificazione etnica di un popolo e della sua cultura, da codificare e valorizzare, per diventare uno dei tanti dialetti regionali subordinati alla lingua nazionale." Dettori, Antonietta, 2001. Sardo e italiano: tappe fondamentali di un complesso rapporto, in Argiolas, Mario; Serra, Roberto. Limba lingua language: lingue locali, standardizzazione e identità in Sardegna nell'era della globalizzazione, Cagliari, CUEC, p. 88</ref>

Despite the long-term assimilation policy, the anthem of the Savoyard Kingdom of Sardinia would be S'hymnu sardu nationale ("the Sardinian National Anthem"), also known as Cunservet Deus su Re ("God save the King"), before it was de facto replaced by the Italian Marcia Reale as well, in 1861.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> However, even when the island became part of the Kingdom of Italy under Victor Emmanuel II in 1861, Sardinia's distinct culture from the now unified Mainland made it an overall neglected province within the newly proclaimed unitary nation state.<ref>"In 1861 Victor Emmanuel II was proclaimed king of Italy, and the island became part of the unified Italian state. Sardinia's distinct language and culture as well as its geographic isolation from the Italian mainland, made it something of a forgotten province, however." Template:Cite web</ref> Between 1848 and 1861, the island was plunged into a social and economic crisis that was to last until the post-war period.<ref name=Toso2008>Template:Cite book</ref> Eventually, Sardinian came to be perceived as Template:Lang / Template:Lang, literally translating into English as "the language of hunger" (i.e. the language of the poor), and Sardinian parents strongly supported the teaching of the Italian tongue to their children, since they saw it as the portal to escaping from a poverty-stricken, rural, isolated and underprivileged life.

Late modern period

File:A Sardinian family while reading "L'Unione Sarda".jpg

A Sardinian family reading L'Unione Sarda ("The Sardinian Union"), a daily newspaper in the Italian language founded in 1889

At the dawn of the 20th century, Sardinian had remained an object of research almost only among the island's scholars, struggling to garner international interest and even more suffering from a certain marginalization in the strictly Italian sphere: one observes in fact "the prevalence of foreign scholars over Italian ones and/or the existence of fundamental and still irreplaceable contributions by non-Italian linguists".<ref name="centoquattordici">Template:Cite book</ref> Previously, Sardinian had been mentioned in a book by August Fuchs on irregular verbs in Romance languages (Template:Lang, Berlin, 1840) and, later, in the second edition of Template:Lang (1856–1860) written by Friedrich Christian Diez, credited as one of the founders of Romance philology.<ref name="centoquattordici" /> The pioneering research of German authors spurred a certain interest in the Sardinian language on the part of some Italian scholars, such as Graziadio Isaia Ascoli and, above all, his disciple Pier Enea Guarnerio, who was the first in Italy to classify Sardinian as a separate member of the Romance language family without subordinating it to the group of "Italian dialects", as was previously the custom in Italy.<ref name="centoquindici">Template:Cite book</ref> Wilhelm Meyer-Lübke, an undisputed authority on Romance linguistics, published in 1902 an essay on Logudorese Sardinian from the survey of the condaghe of San Pietro di Silki (Template:Lang, in Template:Lang, Phil. Hist. Kl., 145), the study of which led to the initiation into Sardinian linguistics of the then university student Max Leopold Wagner: it is to the latter's activity that much of the twentieth-century knowledge and research of Sardinian in the phonetic, morphological and, in part, syntactic fields was generated.<ref name="centoquindici" />

During the mobilization for World War I, the Italian Army compelled all people on the island that were "of Sardinian stock" (Template:Lang<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>) to enlist as Italian subjects and established the Sassari Infantry Brigade on 1 March 1915 at Tempio Pausania and Sinnai. Unlike the other infantry brigades of Italy, Sassari's conscripts were only Sardinians (including many officers). It is currently the only unit in Italy with an anthem in a language other than Italian: Dimonios ("Devils"), which would be written in 1994 by Luciano Sechi; its title derives from the German-language Rote Teufel ("red devils"), by which they were popularly known among the troops of the Austro-Hungarian Army. Compulsory military service around this period played a role in language shift and is referred to by historian Manlio Brigaglia as "the first great mass "nationalization"" of the Sardinians.<ref name="brigaglia2017">Template:Cite book</ref> Nevertheless, similarly to Navajo-speaking service members in the United States during World War II, as well as Quechua speakers during the Falklands War,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> native Sardinians were offered the opportunity to be recruited as code talkers to transmit tactical information in Sardinian over radio communications which might have otherwise run the risk of being gained by Austrian troops, since some of them hailed from Italian-speaking areas to which, therefore, the Sardinian language was utterly alien:<ref name="moschetto">Template:Cite web</ref> Alfredo Graziani writes in his war diary that "having learned that many of our phonograms were being intercepted, we adopted the system of communicating on the phone only in Sardinian, certain that in this way they would never be able to understand what one was saying".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> To avoid infiltration attempts by said Italophone troops, positions were guarded by Sardinian recruits from the Sassari Brigade who required anyone who came to them that they identify themselves first by proving they spoke Sardinian: "Template:Lang".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="moschetto" />

The Sardinian-born philosopher Antonio Gramsci commented on the Sardinian linguistic question while writing a letter to his sister Teresina; Gramsci was aware of the long-term ramifications of language shift, and suggested that Teresa let her son acquire Sardinian with no restriction, because doing otherwise would result in "putting his imagination into a straitjacket" as well as him ending up eventually "learning two jargons, and no language at all".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Coinciding with the year of the Irish War of Independence, Sardinian autonomism re-emerged as an expression of the fighters' movement, coagulating into the Sardinian Action Party (PsdAz) which, before long, would become one of the most important players in the island's political life. At the beginning, the party would not have had strictly ethnic claims though, being the Sardinian language and culture widely perceived, in the words of Fiorenzo Toso, as "symbols of the region's underdevelopment".<ref name=Toso2008 />

The policy of forced assimilation culminated in the twenty years of the Fascist regime, which launched a campaign of violent repression of autonomist demands and finally determined the island's definitive entry into the "national cultural system" through the combined work of the educational system and the one-party system.<ref>"Il ventennio fascista segnò per la Sardegna l'ingresso nel sistema nazionale. Il centralismo esasperato del governo fascista riuscì, seppure – come si dirà – con qualche contraddizione, a tacitare le istanze regionalistiche, comprimendole violentemente. La Sardegna fu colonialisticamente integrata nella cultura nazionale: modi di vita, costumi, visioni generali, parole d'ordine politiche furono imposte sia attraverso la scuola (dalla quale partì un'azione repressiva nei confronti della lingua sarda), sia attraverso l'organizzazione del partito (che accompagnò, come in ogni altra regione d'Italia, i sardi dalla prima infanzia alla maturità, oltre tutto coinvolgendo per la prima volta – almeno nelle città – anche le donne). La trasformazione che ne seguì fu vasta e profonda." Guido Melis, La Sardegna contemporanea, in Template:Cite book</ref> Local cultural expressions were thus repressed, including Sardinia's festivals<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and improvised poetry competitions,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book Premessa</ref><ref>Marcel A. Farinelli, The invisible motherland? The Catalan-speaking minority in Sardinia and Catalan nationalism, in: Studies on National Movements, 2 (2014), p. 15</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Remundu">Template:Cite web</ref> and a large number of Sardinian surnames were changed to sound more Italian. An argument broke out between the Sardinian poet Antioco Casula (popularly known as Montanaru) and the fascist journalist Gino Anchisi, who stated that "once the region is moribund or dead", which the regime declared to be,<ref group=note>Casula's reply to Anchisi, arguing in favour of Sardinian as the only means through which the island's "cultural reawakening" could be pursued, was never published in the newspaper L'Unione Sarda, whose editorial staff properly censored it in accordance with the regime's directives. The newspaper then justified itself in the following way, in a personal letter addressed to Casula on 12 September: "Your article could not be published because part of it clearly exalts the region too much. This is absolutely forbidden by the current provisions of the Head of Government's press office, which specifically state: 'In no way and for no reason does the region exist'. We are very sorry. However, we would ask you to redo the article by simply talking about your poetry in dialect [sic] without touching on this dangerous subject!" Template:Cite web</ref> "so will the dialect (sic)", which was interpreted as "the region's revealing spiritual element";<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> in the wake of this debate, Anchisi managed to have Sardinian banned from the printing press, as well.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The significance of the Sardinian language as it was posed by Casula, in fact, lent itself to potentially subversive themes, being tied to the practices of cultural resistance of an indigenous ethnic group,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> whose linguistic repertoire had to be introduced in school to preserve a "Sardinian personality" and regain "a dignity" perceived to have been lost in the process.<ref>"Il diffondere l'uso della lingua sarda in tutte le scuole di ogni ordine e grado non è per gli educatori sardi soltanto una necessità psicologica alla quale nessuno può sottrarsi, ma è il solo modo di essere Sardi, di essere cioè quello che veramente siamo per conservare e difendere la personalità del nostro popolo. E se tutti fossimo in questa disposizione di idee e di propositi ci faremmo rispettare più di quanto non-ci rispettino." Template:Cite book</ref> Another famed poet from the island, Salvatore (Bore) Poddighe, fell into a severe depression and took his own life a few years after his masterwork (Sa Mundana Cummedia<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>) had been seized by Cagliari's police commissioner.<ref>Poddighe, Salvatore. Sa Mundana Cummédia, p. 32, Domus de Janas, 2009, Template:ISBN</ref> When the use of Sardinian in school was banned in 1934 as part of a nation-wide educational plan against the alloglot "dialects", the then Sardinian-speaking children were confronted with another means of communication that was supposed to be their own from then onwards.<ref>Bolognesi, Roberto. The Phonology of Campidanian Sardinian: A Unitary Account of a Self-organizing Structure, 1998, 6</ref>

On a whole, this period saw the most aggressive cultural assimilation effort by the central government,<ref name="gruyter">"La politica di assimilazione culmina nel ventennio fascista, ma si protrae nel secondo dopoguerra, dove l'abbandono del sardo a favore dell'italiano viene favorito anche dalla crescente mobilità e dalla diffusione dei mass-media." Template:Cite book</ref> which led to an even further sociolinguistic degradation of Sardinian.<ref name="degruyter.com">Template:Cite book</ref> While the interior managed to at least partially resist this intrusion at first, everywhere else the regime had succeeded in thoroughly supplanting the local cultural models with new ones hitherto foreign to the community and compress the former into a "pure matter of folklore", marking a severance from the island's heritage that engendered, according to Guido Melis, "an identity crisis with worrying social repercussions", as well as "a rift that could no longer be healed through the generations".<ref>"Il prezzo che si pagò fu altissimo: la compressione della cultura regionale, la frattura sempre più netta tra il passato dei sardi e il loro futuro "italiano", la riduzione di modi di vita e di pensiero molto radicati a puro fatto di folklore. I codici di comportamento tradizionali delle zone interne resistettero, seppure insidiati e spesso posti in crisi dalla invasione di nuovi valori estranei alla tradizione della comunità; in altre zone della Sardegna, invece, i modelli culturali nazionali prevalsero facilmente sull'eredità del passato e ciò, oltre a provocare una crisi d'identità con preoccupanti riflessi sociali, segnò una frattura non più rimarginabile tra le generazioni." Guido Melis, La Sardegna contemporanea, in Template:Cite book</ref> This period is identified by Manlio Brigaglia as the second mass "nationalization" of the Sardinians, which was characterized by "a policy deliberately aiming at "Italianisation"" by means of, in his words, "a declared war" against the usage of the Sardinian language by fascism and the Catholic Church alike.<ref name="brigaglia2017" />

In 1945, following the restoration of political freedoms, the Sardinian Action Party called for autonomy as a federal state within the "new Italy" that had emerged from the Resistance:<ref name=Toso2008 /> it was in the context of the second post-war period that, as consensus for autonomy kept growing, the party began to distinguish itself by policies based on Sardinia's linguistic and cultural specificity.<ref name=Toso2008 />

Present situation

File:Cartello Bilingue Italiano-Sardo.jpg

A bilingual sign in Villasor's town hall

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 later than in other European peripheries marked by the presence of local ethno-linguistic minorities;<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Sardinian was in fact dismissed by the middle class,<ref name="degruyter.com"/> as both the Sardinian language and culture were still being held responsible for the island's underdevelopment.<ref name="Toso" /> The Sardinian ruling class, drawn to the Italian modernisation stance on how to steer the islanders to "social development", believed in fact that the Sardinians had been held back by their own "traditional practices" vis-à-vis the mainlanders, and that, in order to catch up with the latter, social and cultural progress could only be brought about through the rejection of said practices.<ref>Fiorenzo Caterini, La mano destra della storia. La demolizione della memoria e il problema storiografico in Sardegna, Carlo Delfino Editore, p. 99</ref><ref>"Le argomentazioni sono sempre le stesse, e sostanzialmente possono essere riassunte con il legame a loro avviso naturale tra la lingua sarda, intesa come la lingua delle società tradizionali, e la lingua italiana, connessa ai cosiddetti processi di modernizzazione. Essi hanno interiorizzato l'idea, molto rozza e intellettualmente grossolana, che essere italofoni è essere "moderni". La differenza tra modernità e tradizione è ai loro occhi di sostanza, si tratta di due tipi di società opposti per natura, in cui non-esiste continuità di pratiche, di attori, né esistono forme miste." Template:Cite book</ref> As the language bore an increasing amount of stigmatisation and came to be perceived as an undesirable identity marker, the Sardinians were consequently encouraged to part with it by way of linguistic and cultural assimilation.<ref>"La tendenza che caratterizza invece molti gruppi dominati è quella di gettare a mare i segni che indicano la propria appartenenza a un'identità stigmatizzata. È quello che accade in Sardegna con la sua lingua (capp. 8–9, in questo volume)." Template:Cite book</ref>

At the time of drafting of the statute in 1948, the national legislator in Rome eventually decided to specify the "Sardinian specialty" as a criterion for political autonomy uniquely on the grounds of local socio-economic issues; further considerations were discarded which were centred on the ascertainment of a distinct cultural, historical and geographical identity, although they had been hitherto the primary local justifications arguing for home rule,<ref>"Rimangono, invece, inspiegabilmente in ombra i problemi legati agli aspetti etnici e culturali della questione autonomistica, per i quali i consultori non mostrano alcuna sensibilità, a differenza di tutti quei teorici (da Angioy a Tuveri, da Asproni a Bellieni) che invece proprio in questo patrimonio avevano individuato il title primario per un reggimento autonomo." Antonello Mattone, Le radici dell'autonomia. Civiltà locali e istituzioni giuridiche dal Medioevo allo Statuto speciale, in Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Pintore, Gianfranco (1996). La sovrana e la cameriera: La Sardegna tra sovranità e dipendenza. Nuoro: Insula, 13</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Salvi, Sergio (1974). Le lingue tagliate, Rizzoli, p. 193</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> as they were looked down upon as a potential prelude to more autonomist or even more radical separatist claims;<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> this view would be exemplified by a report of the Italian Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into Banditry, which warned against a looming threat posed by "isolationist tendencies injurious to the development of Sardinian society and recently manifesting themselves in the proposal to regard Sardinian as the language of an ethnic minority".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Eventually, the special statute of 1948 settled instead to concentrate on the arrangement of state-funded plans (baptised with the Italian name of Template:Lang) for the heavy industrial development of the island.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Therefore, far from generating a Statute grounded on the acknowledgment of a particular cultural identity like, for example, in the Aosta Valley and South Tyrol, what ended up resulting in Sardinia was, in the words of Mariarosa Cardia, an outcome "solely based on economic considerations, because there was not either the will or the ability to devise a strong and culturally motivated autonomy, a "Sardinian specificity" that was not defined in terms of social backwardness and economic deprivation".<ref>"Un autonomismo nettamente economicistico, perché non si volle o non si poté disegnare un'autonomia forte, culturalmente motivata, una specificità sarda che non si esaurisse nell'arretratezza e nella povertà economica". Cardia, Mariarosa (1998). La conquista dell'autonomia (1943–49), in Luigi Berlinguer, Luigi e Mattone, Antonello. La Sardegna, Torino, Einaudi, p. 749</ref> Emilio Lussu, who admitted that he had only voted in favour of the final draft "to prevent the Statute from being rejected altogether by a single vote, even in such a reduced form", was the only member, at the session of 30 December 1946, to call in vain for the mandatory teaching of the Sardinian language, arguing that it was "a millenary heritage that must be preserved".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In the meantime, the emphasis on Italian continued,<ref name="Lubello" /> with historical sites and ordinary objects being henceforth popularised in Italian for mass consumption (e.g. the various kinds of "traditional" Template:Lang cheese, Template:Lang instead of Template:Lang, Template:Lang instead of Template:Lang, Template:Lang instead of Template:Lang / Template:Lang, etc.).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Ministry of Public Education once requested that the teachers willing to teach Sardinian be put under surveillance.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>"E in tempi a noi più vicini, con una nota riservata del Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione – regnante Malfatti – del 13-2-1976 si sollecitano Presidi e Direttori Didattici a controllare eventuali attività didattiche- culturali riguardanti l'introduzione della lingua sarda nelle scuole. Una precedente nota riservata dello stesso anno del 23–1 della Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri aveva addirittura invitato i capi d'Istituto a schedare gli insegnanti." Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The rejection of the indigenous language and culture, along with a rigid model of Italian-language education<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> which induced a denigration of Sardinian through corporal punishment and shaming,<ref>"The State's purpose to dismiss the ethnic language was particularly evident at school in the teachers' negative attitudes; they formally and informally objected to the students' use of their local idiom at school. The children's negative experience at school, where their language and culture were stigmatized as inferior, alienated them from school, and induced the families to teach Italian to their offspring in order for them to avoid discrimination and even harassment." Template:Cite book</ref><ref>"Come primo atto, il maestro decise di dividere la classe in due: da una parte sistemò i bambini che lui sapeva essere già "bravi", che appartenevano a famiglie di ceto e condizione superiore, che parlavano in italiano, dall'altra aggregò, ben distinti per banco, i bambini "non bravi", qualcuno più irrequieto di altri, qualche altro scalzo e che puzzava di pecora, quelli, cioè, che l'italiano non sapevano neppure cosa fosse, e che portavano addosso, ben impresso, il marchio dei figli della gleba. Quando poi fece l'appello, con mia grande sorpresa, scoprii che per la scuola e per il maestro io non ero più "Giuanneddu" ma "Giovanni"." Template:Cite book</ref> has led to poor schooling for the Sardinians.<ref>"Anche qui, per quanto riguarda le percentuali di posticipatari [ripetenti] presenti nel campione, viene rilevata una loro maggiore presenza nelle regioni settentrionali e una diminuzione costante nel passaggio dal Centro al Sud. In Val d'Aosta sono il 31% e nelle scuole italiane della Provincia di Bolzano il 38%. Scendendo al sud, la tendenza alla diminuzione è la stessa della scuola media, fino ad arrivare al 13% in Calabria. Unica eccezione la Sardegna che arriva al 30%. Le cause ipotizzate sono sempre le stesse. La Sardegna, in controtendenza con le regioni dell'Italia meridionale, a cui quest'autore vorrebbe associarla, mostra percentuali di ripetenze del tutto analoghe a quelle di regioni abitate da altre minoranze linguistiche." Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Mongili, Alessandro (2013). Introduction to Corongiu, Giuseppe, Il sardo: una lingua normale, Condaghes, 2013</ref><ref>"Ancora oggi, nonostante l'eradicazione e la stigmatizzazione della sardofonia nelle generazioni più giovani, il "parlare sbagliato" dei sardi contribuisce con molta probabilità all'espulsione dalla scuola del 23% degli studenti sardi (contro il 13% del Lazio e il 16% della Toscana), e lo giustifica in larga misura anche di fronte alle sue stesse vittime (ISTAT 2010)." Template:Cite book</ref> Roberto Bolognesi stated that in his school years in Sardinia, he had "witnessed both physical and psychological abuse against monolingual Sardinian-speaking children. The psychological violence consisted usually in calling the children "donkeys" and in inviting the whole class to join the mockery".<ref>Template:Cite book)</ref> Early school leaving and high school failure rates in Sardinia prompted a debate in the early Nineties on the efficaciousness of strictly monolingual education, with proposals for a focus on a comparative approach.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Claims for an autonomous solution to the Sardinian economic, social and cultural problems, which the 1948 Statute proved unable to resolve,<ref name="Toso" /><ref name="Salviaut">Template:Cite book</ref> came to the fore once again in the Sixties, with campaigns, often expressed in the form of political demands by Sardinian nationalists,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> to give Sardinian equal status with Italian as a means to promote cultural identity.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Antonio Simon Mossa had drawn from his past experiences across the world, including the newly independent country of Algeria,<ref name="eliseoa">Eliseo Spiga, Il neo-sardismo, in Template:Cite book</ref> that Sardinians were one of the many ethnic and national minorities facing the danger of cultural assimilation,<ref>"Mossa era un intellettuale poliedrico: architetto di grande talento, insegnante, giornalista, viaggiatore instancabile. Fin da giovane manifestò un particolare interesse verso le problematiche delle minoranze etnico-linguistiche, europee e mondiali, a rischio di estinzione e vittime di un "genocidio culturale". Un pericolo che incombeva anche sulla Sardegna, considerata da Mossa "un'unità o comunità etnica ben distinta dalle altre componenti dello Stato italiano"." Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="eliseoa" /> and his fervor reverberated across the Sardinian society, pushing even some non-nationalist groups to take an interest in matters relating to minorities.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Although a law was passed as early as 1955 for the establishment of five professorships of Sardinian linguistics,<ref name="coluzzi">Template:Cite book</ref> one of the first demands for bilingualism was in fact 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 ethnic and linguistic minority and Sardinian as the islanders' co-official language.<ref>"These claims have been put forward both on the political level (accompanied by demands for greater administrative autonomy) and on the academic level (the Council of the Arts Faculty in the University of Cagliari unanimously adopted in 1971 a resolution in defence of the Sardinian ethnolinguistic heritage." Commission of the European Communities, Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana (1986). Linguistic Minorities in Countries Belonging to the European Community, Sardinian, p. 109</ref><ref>"The University of Cagliari passed a resolution demanding from regional and state authorities the recognition of the Sardinians as an ethnic and linguistic minority and of Sardinian as their national language." Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref group=note>Istanza del Prof. A. Sanna sulla pronuncia della Facoltà di Lettere in relazione alla difesa del patrimonio etnico-linguistico sardo. Il prof.Antonio Sanna fa a questo proposito una dichiarazione: "Gli indifferenti problemi della scuola, sempre affrontati in Sardegna in torma empirica, appaiono oggi assai particolari e non risolvibili in un generico quadro nazionale; il tatto stesso che la scuola sia diventata scuola di massa comporta il rifiuto di una didattica inadeguata, in quanto basata sull'apprendimento concettuale attraverso una lingua, per molti aspetti estranea al tessuto culturale sardo. Poiché esiste un popolo sardo con una propria lingua dai caratteri diversi e distinti dall'italiano, ne discende che la lingua ufficiale dello Stato, risulta in effetti una lingua straniera, per di più insegnata con metodi didatticamente errati, che non tengono in alcun conto la lingua materna dei Sardi: e ciò con grave pregiudizio per un'efficace trasmissione della cultura sarda, considerata come sub-cultura. Va dunque respinto il tentativo di considerare come unica soluzione valida per questi problemi una forzata e artificiale forma di acculturazione dall'esterno, la quale ha dimostrato (e continua a dimostrare tutti) suoi gravi limiti, in quanto incapace di risolvere i problemi dell'isola. È perciò necessario promuovere dall'interno i valori autentici della cultura isolana, primo fra tutti quello dell'autonomia, e "provocare un salto di qualità senza un'acculturazione di tipo colonialistico, e il superamento cosciente del dislivello di cultura" (Lilliu). La Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia dell'Università di Cagliari, coerentemente con queste premesse con l'istituzione di una Scuola Superiore di Studi Sardi, è pertanto invitata ad assumere l'iniziativa di proporre alle autorità politiche della Regione Autonoma e dello Stato il riconoscimento della condizione di minoranza etnico-linguistica per la Sardegna e della lingua sarda come lingua <<nazionale>> della minoranza. È di conseguenza opportuno che si predispongano tutti i provvedimenti a livello scolastico per la difesa e conservazione dei valori tradizionali della lingua e della cultura sarda e, in questo contesto, di tutti i dialetti e le tradizioni culturali presenti in Sardegna (ci si intende riferire al Gallurese, al Sassarese, all'Algherese e al Ligure-Carlofortino). In ogni caso tali provvedimenti dovranno comprendere necessariamente, ai livelli minimi dell'istruzione, la partenza dell'insegnamento del sardo e dei vari dialetti parlati in Sardegna, l'insegnamento nella scuola dell'obbligo riservato ai Sardi o coloro che dimostrino un'adeguata conoscenza del sardo, o tutti quegli altri provvedimenti atti a garantire la conservazione dei valori tradizionali della cultura sarda. È bene osservare come, nel quadro della diffusa tendenza a livello internazionale per la difesa delle lingue delle minoranze minacciate, provvedimenti simili a quelli proposti sono presi in Svizzera per la minoranza ladina fin dal 1938 (48000 persone), in Inghilterra per il Galles, in Italia per le minoranze valdostana, slovena e ultimamente ladina (15000 persone), oltre che per quella tedesca; a proposito di queste ultime e specificamente in relazione al nuovo ordinamento scolastico alto-atesino. Il presidente del Consiglio on. Colombo, nel raccomandare ala Camera le modifiche da apportare allo Statuto della Regione Trentino-Alto Adige (il cosiddetto "pacchetto"), <<modifiche che non-escono dal concetto di autonomia indicato dalla Costituzione>>, ha ritenuto di dover sottolineare l'opportunità "che i giovani siano istruiti nella propria lingua materna da insegnanti appartenenti allo stesso gruppo linguistico"; egli inoltre aggiungeva che "solo eliminando ogni motivo di rivendicazione si crea il necessario presupposto per consentire alla scuola di svolgere la sua funzione fondamentale in un clima propizio per la migliore formazione degli allievi". Queste chiare parole del presidente del Consiglio ci consentono di credere che non-si voglia compiere una discriminazione nei confronti della minoranza sarda, ma anche per essa valga il principio enunciato dall'opportunità dell'insegnamento della lingua materna ad opera di insegnanti appartenenti allo stesso gruppo linguistico, onde consentire alla scuola di svolgere anche in Sardegna la sua funzione fondamentale in un clima propizio alla migliore formazione per gli allievi. Si chiarisce che tutto ciò non è sciovinismo né rinuncia a una cultura irrinunciabile, ma una civile e motivata iniziativa per realizzare in Sardegna una vera scuola, una vera rinascita, "in un rapporto di competizione culturale con lo stato (...) che arricchisce la Nazione" (Lilliu)". Il Consiglio unanime approva le istanze proposte dal prof. Sanna e invita le competenti autorità politiche a promuovere tutte le iniziative necessarie, sul piano sia scolastico che politico-economico, a sviluppare coerentemente tali principi, nel contempo acquisendo dati atti a mettere in luce il suesposto stato. Cagliari, 19 Febbraio 1971. Template:Cite book</ref> At a time when the Italian "modernisation plans" in Sardinia were in full swing, the Italian government was apprehensive about this deliberation by the University of Cagliari as providing the timber for further ethnic unrest in the state's peripheries.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Sergio Salvi's description of the Sardinians as a "forbidden nation" in Italy further contributed to the linguistic question gaining more notoriety at the national level.<ref>"S. Salvi described the Sardinians as a "nazione proibita" [forbidden nation] since their status as a linguistic or ethnic minority is nowhere reflected in national or regional legislation. His books (Salvi 1973, 1975) contributed significantly to the increased intensity in the controversy surrounding the language question." Template:Cite book</ref> A first legal draft concerning Sardinian as a language to be legally put on an equal position with Italian was developed by the Sardinian Action Party in 1975.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="auto1">Template:Cite book</ref> Critical acclaim in Sardinian cultural circles followed the patriotic poem No sias isciau<ref group=note>"O sardu, si ses sardu e si ses bonu, / Semper sa limba tua apas presente: / No sias che isciau ubbidiente / Faeddende sa limba 'e su padronu. / Sa nassione chi peldet su donu / De sa limba iscumparit lentamente, / Massimu si che l'essit dae mente / In iscritura che in arrejonu. / Sa limba 'e babbos e de jajos nostros / No l'usades pius nemmancu in domo / Prite pobera e ruza la creides. / Si a iscola no che la jughides / Po la difunder menzus, dae como / Sezis dissardizende a fizos bostros." ("Oh Sardinian! If you are Sardinian and a good Sardinian as well, you should always keep your language etched in your mind: do not be like a submissive slave, speaking your master's language. The nation that loses the gift of its own language is fated to slowly fade out of existence, especially when it does not come to its mind anymore to write and speak. Not even at home is the language of our ancestors used anymore, for you consider it wretched and uncout. If you do not bring it to be taught in school so as to better spread its use, from now on you are going to be stripping the Sardinian identity out of your children.") In Template:Cite web</ref> ("Don't be a slave") by Raimondo (Template:Lang) Piras some months before his death in 1977, urging bilingual education to reverse the ongoing trend of cultural De-Sardization.<ref name="Remundu" />

Indeed, during the late 70s reports were released that Sardinian was on course of being abandoned in favour of Italian in the towns and among the younger generation.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> By then, a significant shift to Italian had been noted in rural Sardinia not only in the Campidanese plain, but even in some inner areas that had been previously considered Sardinian-speaking bastions,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> manifesting a parallel shift of the values upon which the ethnic and cultural identity of the Sardinians was traditionally grounded.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref group=note>Gavino Pau, in an article published on La Nuova Sardegna (18 aprile 1978, Una lingua defunta da studiare a scuola "A defunct language to be studied in school"), claimed that "per tutti l'italiano era un'altra lingua nella quale traducevamo i nostri pensieri che, irrefrenabili, sgorgavano in sardo" and went on to conclude that for the Sardinian language "abbiamo vissuto, per essa abbiamo sofferto, per essa viviamo e vivremo. Il giorno che essa morrà, moriremo anche noi come sardi." (cit. in Template:Cite book)</ref> From then onwards, the use of Sardinian would continue to recede because of the strongly negative view the Sardinian community developed toward it, assuming a self-belittling attitude which has been described as the emergence of a "minority complex" fairly typical of linguistic minorities.<ref>Mura, Giovanni (1999). Fuéddus e chistiònis in sárdu e italiánu, Istituto Superiore Regionale Etnografico, Nuoro, p.3</ref> However, by the Eighties the language had become a point of ethnic pride:<ref>"It also became obvious that the polarization of the language controversy had brought about a change in the attitude towards Sardinian and its use. Sardinian had become a symbol of ethnic identity: one could be proud of it and it served as a marker to distance oneself from the 'continentali' [Italians on the continent]." Template:Cite book</ref> it also became a tool through which long held grievances towards the central government's failure at delivering better economic and social conditions could be channeled.<ref>"It also turned out that this segregation from Italian became proportionately stronger as speakers felt that they had been let down by the 'continentali' in their aspirations towards better socio-economic integration and greater social mobility." Template:Cite book</ref> A contradicting tendency has been noted by observing that, while Sardinian is held in a much more positive light than before, its actual use has notably decreased and keeps doing so.<ref>"The data in Sole 1988 point to the existence of two opposing tendencies: Sardophone speakers hold their language in higher esteem these days than before but they still use it less and less." Template:Cite book</ref>

A law by popular initiative for Sardinian-Italian bilingualism garnered considerable success as it kept gathering thousands of signatures, but was promptly blocked by the Italian Communist Party and thus never implemented.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The same Italian Communist Party would later propose, however, another bill of its own initiative "for the protection of the language and culture of the Sardinian people" in 1980.<ref>"In August 1980 the Italian Communist Party (PCI) presented the regional council with another bill, and in October of that year a further proposal "for the protection of the language and culture of the Sardinian people" was put forward on the initiative of the education advisory council." Template:Cite book</ref> In the end, 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 eventually presented to the Regional Council in the Eighties.<ref name="Rosita"/> In 1981, the Regional Council debated and voted for the introduction of bilingualism in Sardinia for the first time.<ref name="auto1"/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> As pressure by a resolution of the Council of Europe continued to bear on Italian policy-makers for the protection of minorities, a Commission was appointed in 1982 to investigate the issue;<ref name="auto">Template:Cite book</ref> the following year, a bill was presented to the Italian Parliament, but without success. One of the first laws approved by the Sardinian legislator with respect to the protection and promotion of the Sardinian language and culture was soon rejected by the Constitutional Court in 1994, which deemed it "exorbitant in a multitude of ways with regard to the supplementary and implementing powers enjoyed by the Region in matters of education";<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> it was not until 1997 that Sardinian was finally recognized by the regional law (n. 26 of 15 October 1997 "Promotion and enhancement of the culture and language of Sardinia") without there being any recourse from the Italian central government;<ref name="Legge Regionale 15 ottobre 1997" /> this law too, however, would prove to be more focused on the traditions and history of the Sardinian people than their language in itself.<ref name="coluzzi" />

A survey conducted by MAKNO in 1984 showed that three-quarters of the Sardinians had a positive attitude towards bilingual education (22% of the interviewees, especially in the Province of Nuoro and Oristano, wanted Sardinian to be compulsory in Sardinian schools, while 54.7% would prefer to see teaching in Sardinian as optional) and official bilingualism like in the Aosta Valley and South Tyrol (62.7% of the population were in favour, 25.9% said no and 11.4% were unsure).<ref>Pinna, M.T. Catte (1992). Educazione bilingue in Sardegna: problematiche generali ed esperienze di altri paesi, Edizioni di Iniziative culturali, Sassari, pp. 166–174</ref> Such consensus remains relatively stable to this day;<ref>"Se dunque il quadro delle competenze e degli usi linguistici è contraddittorio ed estremamente eterogeneo per le ragioni che abbiamo citato prima, non altrimenti si può dire per l'opinione. Questa è generalmente favorevole a un mutamento dello status pubblico della lingua sarda e delle altre lingue della Sardegna, le vuole tutelare e vuole diffonderne l'uso, anche ufficiale." Template:Cite book</ref> another survey, conducted in 2008, reported that more than half of the interviewees, 57.3%, were in favour of the introduction of Sardinian into schools alongside Italian.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> More research carried out in 2010 confirmed warm reception among the students' parents to introducing Sardinian at school, even though skepticism circulated around having it taught as the vehicular language of education.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Sign with graphic of crossed-out cigarette

Bilingual no-smoking sign in Sardinian and Italian

In the 1990s, there had been a resurgence of Sardinian-language music, ranging from the more traditional genres (Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Lang etc.) to rock (Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Lang etc.) and even hip hop and rap (Dr. Drer e CRC Posse, Quilo, Template:Lang, Malam, Template:Lang, 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.<ref>Scarparo, S., & Stevenson, M. (2020). Transcultural flows and marginality: Reggae and hip hop in Sardinia. Modern Italy, 25(2), 199–212. doi:10.1017/mit.2019.65</ref><ref>Storia della lingua sarda, vol. 3, a cura di Giorgia Ingrassia e Eduardo Blasco Ferrer, CUEC, pp. 227–230</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A few films (like Su Re, Bellas Mariposas, Treulababbu, Sonetaula etc.) have also been dubbed in Sardinian,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and some others were provided with subtitles in the language.<ref>Storia della lingua sarda, vol. 3, a cura di Giorgia Ingrassia e Eduardo Blasco Ferrer, CUEC, p. 226</ref> The first scientific work in Sardinian (Template:Lang), delving into the question of modern energy supplies, was written by Paolo Giuseppe Mura, Physics Professor at the University of Cagliari, in 1995.<ref>Mura, Giuseppe Paulu (1997). Sa chistione mundiali de s'energhia : inue semus andende chin-d una tecnologia et una economia chi non-giughent respettu pro sa natura?, Cagliari, CUEC</ref>

Eventually, sustained activism made possible the ratification by Italy of the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities in 1998,<ref name="auto"/> which would be followed in 1999 by the formal recognition of twelve minority languages (Sardinian, Albanian, Catalan, German, Greek, Slovenian, Croatian, French, Franco-Provençal, Friulian, Ladin and Occitan) through the framework law no. 482,<ref name="parl" /> in keeping with the spirit of Art. 6 of the Italian Constitution ("The Republic safeguards linguistic minorities by means of appropriate measures"<ref>Italian Constitution, Art. 6</ref>). While the first section of said law states that Italian is the official language of the Republic, a number of provisions are included to normalize the use of such languages and let them become part of the national fabric.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> However, Italy (along with France and Malta<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>) has never ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Nevertheless, the law proved to be a positive step towards the legalization of Sardinian as it put at least an end to the ban on the language which had been in effect since the Italian Unification,<ref>"The legalization of the Sard language ends a ban on the language that has been in effect since Italian unification." Template:Cite book</ref> and was deemed as a starting point, albeit timid, to pursue a more decentralized school curriculum for the island.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Still, some national school books (education has never fallen under the region's remits and is managed by the state at the central level) have not stopped to squeeze the language into the Italian acceptation of dialetto ("Italian dialect") in spite of its actual recognition by the state.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Sardinian is yet to be taught at school, with the exception of a few experimental occasions; Mauro Maxia noticed a lack of interest on the part of school managers, some request for Sardinian language classes notwithstanding.<ref name="Maxia">Template:Cite web</ref> Furthermore, its use has not ceased to be disincentivized as antiquated or even indicative of a lack of education,<ref name="Tonzanu">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>La lingua sarda oggi: bilinguismo, problemi di identità culturale e realtà scolastica, Maurizio Virdis (Università di Cagliari) Template:Webarchive</ref> leading many locals to associate it with negative feelings of shame, backwardness, and provincialism.<ref>"...Per la più gran parte dei parlanti, la lingua sarda è sinonimo o comunque connotato di un passato misero e miserabile che si vuole dimenticare e di cui ci si vuole liberare, è il segno della subordinazione sociale e politica; la lingua di classi più che subalterne e per di più legate a modalità di vita ormai ritenuta arcaica e pertanto non-desiderabile, la lingua degli antichi e dei bifolchi, della ristrettezza e della chiusura paesane contro l'apertura, nazionale e internazionale, urbana e civile." Virdis, Maurizio (2003). La lingua sarda oggi: bilinguismo, problemi di identità culturale e realtà scolastica, cit. in Convegno dalla lingua materna al plurilinguismo, Gorizia, 4.</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Similar issues of identity have been observed in regard to the community's attitude toward what they positively perceive to be part of "modernity", generally associated with the Italian cultural sphere, as opposed to the Sardinian one, whose aspects have long been stigmatized as "primitive" and "barbarous" by the political and social institutions that ruled the island.<ref>"Nella coscienza dei sardi, in analogia coi processi che caratterizzano la subalternità ovunque, si è costituita un'identità fondata su alcune regole che distinguono il dicibile (autonomia in politica, italianità linguistica, criteri di gusto musicali convenzionali non-sardi, mode, gastronomie, uso del tempo libero, orientamenti politici) come campo che può comprendere quasi tutto ma non-l'indicibile, cioè ciò che viene stigmatizzato come "arretrato", "barbaro", "primitivo", cioè sardo de souche, "autentico". Questa esclusione del sardo de souche, originario, si è costituita lentamente attraverso una serie di atti repressivi (Butler 2006, 89), dalle punizioni scolastiche alla repressione fascista del sardismo, ma anche grazie alla pratica quotidiana del passing e al diffondersi della cultura di massa in epoca recente (in realtà molto più porosa della cultura promossa dall'istruzione centralizzata)." Template:Cite book</ref><ref>"Centuries of foreign domination have accustomed Sardinians to the authority's negative attitude towards their language and culture, and to the necessity of the use of a foreign language for formal affairs and in formal writing. It also triggered a negative attitude on the part of the Sardinians, if not a pervasive sense of inferiority of the Sardinian ethnic and cultural identity. The effects of the public institutions' rejection of the local culture and idiom had a particularly strong impact on the Sardinian population after the unification of Italy, and especially with the institution of the national school system." Template:Cite book</ref> Roberto Bolognesi believes that the enduring stigmatisation of Sardinian as the language of the "socially and culturally disadvantaged" classes leads to the nurturing of a vicious circle that further promotes the language's regression, reinforcing its negative judgement among those who perceive themselves as "most competitive": "a perverse mechanism that has condemned and still condemns Sardinian speakers to social marginalisation, systematically excluding them from those linguistic and cultural interactions in which the prestigious registers and high style of language are developed, first and foremost in schools".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Bilingual sign pointing to a church

Bilingual Italian–Sardinian road sign in Siniscola

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,<ref group=note>Similar dynamics led the Irish language to be primarily spoken only in certain areas, known as Gaeltacht (Edwards J., Language, society and identity, Oxford, 1985)</ref> and the use of Italian as a prerequisite for jobs and social advancement actually hinder any policy set up to promote the language.<ref name="Euromosaic" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Therefore, following the model proposed by a UNESCO panel of experts in 2003, Sardinian is classified by UNESCO as a "definitely endangered" language ("children no longer learn the language as mother tongue in the home"),<ref>Brenzinger et al. (2003). Language Vitality and Endangerment, Document submitted to the International Expert Meeting on UNESCO Programme Safeguarding of Endangered Languages, Paris, p. 8</ref> on the way to become "severely endangered" ("the language is used mostly by the grandparental generation and up").

Language use is far from stable;<ref name="Rosita"/> following the Expanded GIDS (Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale) model, Sardinian would position between 7 ("Shifting: the child-bearing generation knows the language well enough to use it among themselves but none are transmitting it to their children"<ref name="Simon">M. Paul Lewis, Gary F. Simons (2010). Assessing Endangerment: Expanding Fishman's GIDS, p. 8</ref>) and 8a ("Moribund: the only remaining active speakers of the language are members of the grandparent generation"<ref name="Simon" />). While an estimated 68 percent of the islanders had in fact a good oral command of Sardinian, language ability among the children has plummeted to less than 13 percent;<ref name="Euromosaic" /><ref name="thirteen" /><ref name="thirteendottwo" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> some linguists, like Mauro Maxia, cite the low number of Sardinian-speaking children (with the notable case of a number of villages where Sardinian has ceased to be spoken altogether since 1993) as indicative of language decline, calling Sardinia a case of "linguistic suicide".<ref name="Maxia" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The depth of the Sardophone networks' increasing assimilation into Italian is illustrated by the latest ISTAT data published in 2017, which confirm Italian as the language that has largely taken root as the means of socialization within Sardinian families (52.1%), relegating the practice of code-switching to 31.5% and the actual use of languages other than Italian to only 15.6%; outside the social circle of family and friends, the numbers define Italian as by far the most prevalent language (87.2%), as opposed to the usage of Sardinian and other languages which has dropped to 2.8%.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

A bill proposed by the cabinet of the former Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti would have further lowered the protection level of Sardinian,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> distinguishing between the so-called "national minorities", speaking languages protected by international agreements (German, Slovenian, French) and the "linguistic minorities" whose language is not spoken in any state other than Italy (all the other ethno-linguistic groups, including Sardinian). This bill, which was eventually implemented<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> but later deemed unconstitutional by the Court,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> triggered a reaction on the island.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Students expressed an interest in taking all (or part) of their exit examinations in Sardinian.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Elisa Melis">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

File:Padre Nostro sardo.jpg

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

After a signature campaign,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> it has been made possible to change the language setting on Facebook from any language to Sardinian.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It is also possible to switch to Sardinian even in Telegram<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and a number of other programs, like F-Droid, Diaspora, OsmAnd, Notepad++, QGIS, Swiftkey, Stellarium,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Skype,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> VLC media player for Android and iOS, Linux Mint Debian Edition 2 "Betsy", Firefox<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> etc. The DuckDuckGo search engine is available in Sardinian as well. In 2016, the first automatic translation software from Italian to Sardinian was developed.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2015, all the political parties in the Sardinian regional council reached an agreement concerning a series of amendments to the old 1997 law to be able to introduce the optional teaching of the language in Sardinia's schools.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Unified Text on the Discipline of the Regional linguistic policy<ref name="Legge Regionale 3 Luglio 2018" /> was eventually approved on 27 June 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 allowed for the foundation of a Sardinian board (Consulta de su Sardu) with thirty experts that would propose a linguistic standard based on the main historical varieties, and would also have advisory duties towards the Regional body.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> However, said law has yet to be followed up by the respective implementing decrees, the lack of which prevents it from being legally applicable.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Some Sardinian language activists and activist groups have also contested the law itself, considering it a political attack on Sardinian made to try to negate its uniformity and to relegate it to folklore, and also noted how its text contains a few parts that could bring the Italian government to challenge it.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2021 the Prosecutor of Oristano opened a Sardinian linguistic desk, both to support citizens and to provide advice and translations to magistrates and the police. It has been the first time in Italy in which such a service has been offered to a minority language.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

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<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> etc.), Spain (University of Girona),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Iceland<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Czech Republic (Brno university).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Shigeaki Sugeta also taught Sardinian to his students of Romance languages at the Waseda University in Tokyo (Japan),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and would even release a Sardinian–Japanese dictionary out of it.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

File:Minoranze linguistiche it.svg

The Sardinian-speaking community among the other minority language groups officially recognized by Italy<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

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.<ref name="Ministero" /><ref name="ISTAT2" /> In fact the language, which is receding in all domains of use, is still not given access to any field of public life,<ref name="Euromosaic" /><ref>"Lo stato italiano che, nel passato e ancora oggi, controlla la maggioranza dei settori della sfera pubblica, è stato responsabile di aver trascurato e anche denigrato la lingua sarda. Attraverso l'istruzione, i media e l'assenza della lingua sarda nella sfera pubblica, la popolazione locale ha assistito alla svalutazione e al disprezzo della sua lingua e della sua cultura." Template:Cite book</ref> such as education (Italian–Sardinian bilingualism is still frowned upon,<ref name="Maxia" /><ref name="Elisa Melis" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> while the local public universities play little, if any, role whatsoever in supporting the language<ref name="Stuttgart">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>), politics (with the exception of some nationalist groups<ref>Language and nationalism in Europe, edited by Stephen Barbour and Cathie Carmichael, Oxford University Press, p. 178</ref>), justice, administrative authorities and public services, media,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>"L'utilizzo della lingua sarda nelle scuole è pressoché assente e i vari progetti realmente esistenti non sono dislocati su tutto il territorio regionale in maniera omogenea così come nei mass media, ancor più dopo la bocciatura del Senato della possibilità di inserire anche il sardo nella programmazione regionale nelle zone in cui sono presenti minoranze linguistiche." Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and cultural,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> ecclesiastical,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> economic and social activities, as well as facilities.<ref>"Tutte le lingue dei sardi sono prive di uno status ufficiale che non-sia un mero riconoscimento legislativo, non-hanno protezione legale né supporto finanziario, e solo il sardo ha una qualche forma di codifica e di standardizzazione ma che sono sconosciute ai parlanti, nessuna è impiegata se non-episodicamente sui media, a scuola, dalla Chiesa, dall'amministrazione e dalle imprese. [...] Ancora oggi non-esiste una Radio che trasmetta solo in sardo, né giornali, né scuole private sardofone. Esiste pochissimo a livello di società civile." Template:Cite book</ref> In a case presented to the European Commission by the then MEP Renato Soru in 2017, in which he complained of national negligence with regard to the state's own legislation in comparison to other linguistic minorities, the Commission's response pointed out to the Honourable Member that matters of language policy pursued by individual member states do not fall within its competences.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2017, a 60-hour Sardinian language course was introduced for the first time in Sardinia and Italy at the University of Cagliari, although such a course had been already available in other universities abroad.<ref>Template:Cite webTemplate:Dead link</ref>

In 2015, the Council of Europe commented on the status of national minorities in Italy, noting the approach of the Italian government 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.<ref>"Va però rilevato che, contrariamente alle indicazioni del Consiglio d'Europa, che raccomanda il censimento delle minoranze ai fini della tutela, in Italia un censimento ufficiale in questo senso è limitato alla regione Trentino-Alto Adige ed ai gruppi linguistici ivi riconosciuti (tedesco, italiano, ladino, cimbro e mocheno); per le altre regioni non si dispongono che di stime più o meno attendibili." Template:Cite book</ref> There is also virtually no print and broadcasting media exposure in politically or numerically weaker minorities like Sardinian. Moreover, the resources allocated to cultural projects like bilingual education, which lacks a consistent approach and offers no guarantee of continuity throughout the years,<ref>Se i ragazzi non-parlano la lingua degli anziani, Piera Serusi. L'Unione Sarda, 8 dicembre 2017</ref> are largely insufficient to meet "even the most basic expectations".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

File:Pula Hinweisschild 01.jpg

Bilingual road signs in Pula

A solution to the Sardinian question being unlikely to be found anytime soon,<ref name="Rosita"/> the language has become highly endangered:<ref name="Stuttgart" /> even though the endogamy rate among group members seems to be very high,<ref name="Euromosaic" /> less than 15 per cent of the Sardinian children use the language to communicate with each other.<ref>"Language group endogamy among the Sardinian language group is in excess of 80 per cent, but with only 14 per cent of the children using Sardinian to each other." Template:Cite book</ref> it appears that the late recognition of Sardinian as a minority language on the part of the state, as well as the gradual but pervasive Italianisation promoted by the latter's education system, the administration system and the media, followed by the intergenerational language replacement, made it so that the vitality of Sardinian has been heavily compromised.<ref name="auto1"/> The 1995 Euromosaic project, which conducted a research study on the current situation of the ethno-linguistic minorities across Europe under the auspices of the European Commission, concludes their report on Sardinian as follows: Template:Blockquote

As Matteo Valdes explains, "the island's population sees, day after day, the decline of their original languages. They are complicit in this decline, passing on to their children the language of prestige and power, but at the same time they feel that the loss of local languages is also a loss of themselves, of their history, of their own specific identity or distinctiveness".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

With cultural assimilation having already occurred,<ref>As summarized by Giulio Paulis, nowadays it is the Sardinians themselves that "identify with their language to lesser degree than other linguistic minorities in Italy, and instead they seem to identify with Italian to a higher degree than other linguistic minorities in Italy" (si identificano con loro lingua meno di quanto facciano altre minoranze linguistiche esistenti in Italia, e viceversa sembrano identificarsi con l'italiano più di quanto accada per altre minoranze linguistiche d'Italia). Paulis, Giulio (2001). Il sardo unificato e la teoria della panificazione linguistica, in Argiolas, Mario; Serra, Roberto, Limba lingua language: lingue locali, standardizzazione e identità in Sardegna nell'era della globalizzazione, Cagliari, CUEC, p. 16</ref><ref>"Bisogna partire dal constatare che il processo di 'desardizzazione' culturale ha trovato spunto e continua a trovare alimento nella desardizzazione linguistica, e che l'espropriazione culturale è venuta e viene a rimorchio dell'espropriazione linguistica." Virdis, Maurizio (2003). La lingua sarda oggi: bilinguismo, problemi di identità culturale e realtà scolastica, cit. in Convegno dalla lingua materna al plurilinguismo, Gorizia, 6.</ref> most of the younger generation of islanders, although they do understand some basic Sardinian, is now in fact Italian monolingual and monocultural as they are not able to speak Sardinian anymore, but simply regional Italian (known amongst Italian linguists as Template:Lang or IrS)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Rosita"/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> which in its lowest diastratic forms<ref>"The sociolinguistic subordination of Sardinian to Italian has resulted in the gradual degeneration of the Sardinian language into an Italian patois under the label of regional Italian. This new linguistic code that is emerging from the interference between Italian and Sardinian is very common among the less privileged cultural and social classes." Template:Cite web To access the article, click on List by languages, Sardinian, then scroll to "Sardinian in Italy"</ref> is, oftentimes derisively,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> nicknamed italiànu porcheddìnu (literally "swinish Italian") by native Sardinian speakers. Roberto Bolognesi argues that, in the face of the persistent denial and rejection of the Sardinian language, it is as if the latter "had taken revenge" on its original community of speakers "and continues to do so by "polluting" the hegemonic linguistic system", recalling Gramsci's prophetic warning uttered at the dawn of the previous century.<ref name="BolEsp126" /> In fact, compared to a now prevalent regional Italian that, according to Bolognesi, "is in fact a hybrid language that has arisen from the contact between two different linguistic systems",<ref name="BolEsp127">Template:Cite web</ref> "the (little) Sardinian which is used by young people often constitutes an ungrammatical jargon filled with obscenities and constructions belonging to Italian":<ref name="BolEsp126" /> in other words, the population would therefore only master "two crippled languages" (Template:Lang) whose manifestations do not arise from a recognisable norm, nor do they constitute a clear source of linguistic security.<ref name="BolEsp126" /> Bolognesi believes therefore that the Sardinians' utter "rejection of their original linguistic identity has not entailed the hoped-for and automatic homologation to a more socially prestigious identity, but the acquisition of a second-class identity (neither truly Sardinian nor truly Italian), no longer self-centred but rather peripheral with respect to the sources of linguistic and cultural norms, which still remain beyond their reach: on the other side of the Tyrrhenian Sea".<ref name="BolEsp127" />

By contrast, Eduardo Blasco Ferrer has been noted how the Sardinian-speaking community engages only in code-switching and usually takes care in refraining from code-mixing between the two different languages.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Negative attitudes among native speakers have been observed towards second-language learners for speaking "poor Sardinian", an attitude considered to be ethnically grounded on the interaction of in-group and out-group dynamics.<ref>"Benché si tratti anche qui di atteggiamenti e stereotipi in via di rapido cambiamento, va rilevato che anche essi implicano però una profonda consapevolezza dello statuto di lingua, fortemente marcata etnicamente, e non di semplice "dialetto", del sardo stesso: ciò che si può inferire da questo tipo di atteggiamenti (neanche troppo cripticamente normativi) è infatti che, così come si deve evitare di "storpiare" l'italiano, si deve evitare di "storpiare" anche il sardo, a meno che non si sia giustificati in partenza dal fatto di non essere etnicamente sardi, o non si tratti di scelte stilistiche consapevoli per particolari generi testuali/discorsivi diversi dal normale parlato quotidiano." Template:Cite book</ref>

In conclusion, the Sardinian language, while still being described as "viable" in 2003,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> continues to be adversely affected by pervasive and all-encompassing Italianisation through language shift, and is thus nowadays moribund, albeit its replacement continues at a slower pace than before thanks to the commitment of those who, in various contexts, promote its revaluation in a process that has been defined by some scholars as "linguistic re-Sardization".<ref>"La situazione del sardo in questi ultimi decenni risente da un lato degli esiti del processo di italianizzazione linguistica, profondo e pervasivo, e dall'altro di un processo che si può definire come risardizzazione linguistica, intendendo con questo una serie di passaggi che incidono sulla modifica dello status del sardo come lingua, sulla determinazione di una regola scritta, sulla diffusione del suo uso nei media e nella comunicazione pubblica e, infine, sullo sviluppo del suo uso come lingua di comunicazione privata e d'uso in set d'interazione interpersonale dai quali era stato precedentemente bandito o considerato sconveniente". Template:Cite book</ref> Still, arrangements for bilingualism exist only on paper<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and factors such as the intergenerational transmission, which remain essential in the reproduction of the ethnolinguistic group, are severely compromised because of Italianisation;<ref>"Ciò nonostante non si è potuto né frenare l'italianizzazione progredente attraverso la scuola e gli ambiti ufficiali, né restituire vitalità al sardo in famiglia. La trasmissione intergenerazionale, fattore essenziale per la riproduzione etnolinguistica, resta seriamente compromessa." Template:Cite book</ref> many young speakers, who have been raised in Italian rather than Sardinian, have a command of their ethnic language which does not extend beyond a few stereotyped formulas.<ref>"Yet, it cannot be ignored that at present many young speakers, who have frequently been brought up in Italian, have a restricted active or even a merely passive command of their ethnic language." Template:Cite book</ref>

Phonology

File:Sardinian vowels.png

Vowel changes from Latin to early Sardinian

Sardinian Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Retroflex	Post-alv./ Palatal	Velar
Plosive	voiceless	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link†	Template:IPA link
	voiced	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link†	Template:IPA link
Fricative	voiceless	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link‡	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link†
	voiced	Template:IPA link†				Template:IPA link†
Nasal		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link			Template:IPA link†
Vibrant				Template:IPA link
Approximant		Template:IPA link†		Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link

† Not present in Nuorese.

‡ Mainly in Nuorese.

Sardinian Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link
Close-mid	Template:IPA link†		Template:IPA link†
Open-mid	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link
Open		Template:IPA link

† Allophonic except in Campidanese.

Grammar

Some distinctive features typical of Sardinian include:

Nouns

• The plural marker is -s (ie, sigmatic plural (from the Latin accusative plural)), as in Western Romance languages like French, Occitan, Catalan, Spanish, Portuguese and Galician: sardu, sardus "Sardinian"; pudda, puddas "hen"; margiane, margianes "fox". In Italo-Dalmatian languages like Italian, or Eastern Romance languages like Romanian, the plural ends with -i, -e or -a (ie, vocalic non-sigmatic plural). However, Sardinian may also change the final vowel.
• The definite article derives from the Latin ipse: su, sa, plural sos, sas (Logudorese & Nuorese) and is (Campidanese). At present, such articles are only common in Balearic Catalan and were once used in Gascon as well, whilst all the other Romance languages make use of forms derived from ille.

Noun Table

Class	Gender	Singular	Plural
I	feminine	sa rosa	sas rosas
II	masculine	su ortu	sos ortos
		su oro	sos oros
		su tempus	sos tempos
III	masculine	su pane	sos panes
	feminine	sa muzere	sas muzeres
IV	masculine	su barberi	sos barberis

Exceptions:

• The Nuorese dialect only has 2 genderless nouns (sostantivi promiscui): su cane, sa cane and su gatu, sa gatu.
• Of the first class only three nouns are masculine: su boja, su poeta, su pantarma.
• Although belonging to the second class, the following nouns which in Latin were part of the 4th declension are feminine: acu, domo, ficu, manu.
• The masculine plural form of tottu is tottus.

Verbs

Template:Main Sardinian verbs are divided into three main classes, each distinguished by a different infinitive ending (-are, -ere, or -ire). The conjugations of regular verbs in the 3 main dialects (Nuorese, Logudorese, and Campidanese) are as follows:<ref name="Sardegna Cultura" />

Infinitive		cant-	are		ai	tìm-	ere		i	fin-	ire		iri
Gerund		cant-	ande		endi	tim-	ende		endi	fin-	inde		endi
Past Participle		cant-	àu / ada	adu	au	tim-	i(d)u / i(d)a	idu	iu	fin-	ìu / ìa	idu	iu
Indicative	Present	cant- cant- cant- cant- cant- cant-	o as at amus àes an	o as at amus ades ant	u as at aus ais ant	tim- tim- tim- tim- tim- tim-	o es et imus ìes en	o es et imus ides ent	u is it eus eis int	fin- fin- fin- fin- fin- fin-	o is it imus ìes in	o is it imus ides int	u is it eus eis int
	Imperfect	cant- cant- cant- cant- cant- cant-	abo abas abat abamus abazes aban	aìa aìas aìat aiamus astis ànt	amu àst àt amus aìazis aìant	tim- tim- tim- tim- tim- tim-	ìa ìas ìat iabamus iabazes ìan	ia ias iat iamus iazis iant	emu iast iat emus estis iant	fin- fin- fin- fin- fin- fin-	ìa ìas ìat iabamus iabazes ìan	ia ias iat iamus iazis iant	emu iast iat emus estis iant
Subjunctive	Present	cant- cant- cant- cant- cant- cant-	e es et émus edas en	e es et emus edes ent	i is it eus eis int	tim- tim- tim- tim- tim- tim-	a as at amus ades an	a as at amus ades ant	a as at aus ais ant	fin- fin- fin- fin- fin- fin-	a as at amus azes an	a as at amus ades ant	a as at aus ais ant
	Imperfect	cant- cant- cant- cant- cant- cant-	àre(po) ares aret arémus arezes aren	ere eres eret eremus erezis erent	essi essis essit essimus essidis essint	tim- tim- tim- tim- tim- tim-	ère(po) eres eret erémus erezes eren	ere eres eret eremus erezis erent	essi essis essit essimus essidis essint	fin- fin- fin- fin- fin- fin-	ìre(po) ires iret irémus irezes iren	ire ires iret iremus irezis irent	essi essis essit essimus essidis essint
Imperative		cant- cant-	a àe	a ade	a ai	tim- tim-	e ìe	e ide	i ei	fin- fin-	i ìe	i ide	i ei

Syntax

Distinctive syntax features include:

• A common occurrence of a left-dislocated construction: Template:Lang ("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: Template:Lang ("Understood me you have", that is, "Have you understood me?"), Template:Lang ("Eaten he/she has", that is "Has he/she eaten?"), Template:Lang ("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: Template:Lang ("They arrived when?", that is, "when did they arrive?"), Template:Lang ("John has picked olives with whom?"), etc.
• Impersonal sentence constructions are commonly used to replace the passive voice, which is limited to the formal register: Template:Lang rather than Template:Lang.
• The use of Template:Lang + noun: Template:Lang ("not of water brandy it+is": that is, "It is not water, but brandy."); Template:Lang ("Not of brothers, they seem enemies": that is, "Far from being brothers, they are like enemies").
• The use of Template:Lang (from Template:Lang) or Template:Lang as subordinate conjunctions: Template:Lang ("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 Template:Lang / Template:Lang ("to have") and Template:Lang / Template:Lang ("to be"): Template:Lang ("There is over a hundred people in here!"), Template:Lang ("There are the plates on the table").
• Template:Lang ("What") + adjective + Template:Lang: Template:Lang ("What beautiful that (you) are!", that is "How beautiful you are!").
• Nominal syntagmas without having a head: Template:Lang ("That Greek dictionary is bigger than Efisio's"), Template:Lang ("That car is bigger than John's").
• Extraposition of the lexical head: Template:Lang ("Please lend me your dictionary").
• Template:Lang + subjunctive as a way to express a (malevolent) wish on someone: Template:Lang ("May you be struck by lightning!").
• Prepositional accusative: Template:Lang ("I've seen Mary").
• Insertion of the affirmative particle Template:Lang / Template:Lang: Template:Lang ("I did go to bed").
  • Use of the same particle to express antiphrastic formulas: Template:Lang ("You're so well educated!", that is, "You are so ignorant and full of yourself!").
• Reflexive use of intransitive verbs: Template:Lang<ref group=note>As opposed to the transitive use of morrer / morri a..., which means "to kill" instead. E.g.: Pascale at mortu a tziu Bachis ("Pascal has killed uncle Bachisio").</ref> Template:Lang ("Uncle Pascal passed away yesterday"), Template:Lang ("I've slept for a couple of hours").
• Use of Template:Lang in reflexive sentences: Template:Lang ("He/She injured himself/herself while working").
• Combination of the perfective and progressive verb aspect: Template:Lang ("He/She has been working all day").
• Continuous and progressive aspect of the verb, which is meant to indicate an effective situation rather than typical or habitual: Template:Lang ("I don't understand you").
• Relative lack of adverbs: with the exception of some localized words like the Nuorese Template:Lang ("especially"), as well as some recent loanwords from Italian, all the Sardinian dialects have a number of ways with which to express the meaning conferred to the adverbs by the other Romance languages (e.g. Template:Lang, "Lucy runs faster than Mary").
• The expression of the deontic modality through a periphrastic form, characterized by the verb "to want" in auxiliary position, a feature also common to Southern Corsican, Sicilian, Moroccan Arabic and Moroccan Berber, in addition to some non-standard varieties of English.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> (e.g. Template:Lang "money has to be paid back").
• The Template:Lang seem to demonstrate that unlike other Romance languages, Old Sardinian may have had verb-initial word order, with optional topicalization into the beginning of the sentence.<ref name="Wolfe_in_Haug">Template:Cite book</ref> While verb-initial word order is also attested in other old Romance languages, such as Old Venetian, Old French, Old Neapolitan, Old Spanish, Old Sicilian and others, it has been argued that Old Sardinian was alone in licensing verb-initial word order (V1) as the generalized word order, while the others had V1 only as a marked alternative.<ref>Wolfe, Sam. "Verb-initial orders in Old Romance: A comparative Account." Revue roumaine de linguistique 60.2–3 (2015): 147–172.</ref>

Vocabulary comparison with other Romance languages

English	Late Latin	Sardinian	Corsican	Sicilian	Italian	Spanish	Catalan	French	Portuguese	Romanian
key	clāvem	crae/-i	chjave/chjavi	chiavi	chiave	llave	clau	clé	chave	cheie
night	noctem	note/-i	notte/notti	notti	notte	noche	nit	nuit	noite	noapte
sing	cantāre	cantare/-ai	cantà	cantari	cantare	cantar	cantar	chanter	cantar	cânta
goat	capram	cabra/craba	capra	crapa	capra	cabra	cabra	chèvre	cabra	capră
language	linguam	limba/lìngua	lingua/linga	liṅgua	lingua	lengua	llengua	langue	língua	limbă
plaza	plateam	pratza	piazza	chiazza	piazza	plaza	plaça	place	praça	piață
bridge	pontem	ponte/-i	ponte/ponti	punti	ponte	puente	pont	pont	ponte	pod, punte
church	ecclēsiam	crèsia/ecresia	ghjesgia	cresia/chiesa	chiesa	iglesia	església	église	igreja	biserică
hospital	hospitālem	ispidale/spidali	spedale/uspidali	spitali	ospedale	hospital	hospital	hôpital	hospital	spital
cheese	cāseum (fōrmāticum)	casu	casgiu	tumazzu	formaggio, cacio	queso	formatge	fromage	queijo	brânză, caș

Varieties

File:Sardignwès rifondaedje mot påye2.jpg

The word for "peace" in all the varieties of Sardinian

Historically, the Sardinians have always been a small-numbered population scattered across isolated cantons, sharing demographic patterns similar to the neighbouring Corsica; as a result, Sardinian developed a broad spectrum of dialects over the time. Starting from Francesco Cetti's description in the 18th century,<ref>"Due dialetti principali si distinguono nella medesima lingua sarda; ciò sono il campidanese, e 'l dialetto del capo di sopra." Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":2">Template:Cite book</ref> Sardinian has been presented as a pluricentric language, being traditionally subdivided into two standardized varieties spoken by roughly half of the entire community: the dialects spoken in North-Central Sardinia, centered on the orthography known as Logudorese (su sardu logudoresu), and the dialects spoken in South-Central Sardinia, centered on another orthography called Campidanese (su sardu campidanesu).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

All the Sardinian dialects differ primarily in phonetics, which does not considerably hamper intelligibility;<ref name=":3">"The phonetic differences between the dialects occasionally lead to communicative difficulties, particularly in those cases where a dialect is believed to be 'strange' and 'unintelligible' owing to the presence of phonetic peculiarities such as laryngeal or pharyngeal consonants or nazalized vowels in Campidanese and in the dialects of central Sardinia. In his comprehensive experimental-phonetic study, however, Contini (1987) concludes that interdialectal intelligibility exists and, on the whole, works satisfactorily." Template:Cite book</ref><ref>"Queste pretese barriere sono costituite da una manciata di fenomeni lessicali e fonetico-morfologici che, comunque, non-impediscono la mutua comprensibilità tra parlanti di diverse varietà del sardo. Detto questo, bisogna ripetere che le varie operazioni di divisione del sardo in due varietà sono tutte basate quasi esclusivamente sull'esistenza di pronunce diverse di lessemi (parole e morfemi) per il resto uguali. [...] Come si è visto, non-solo la sintassi di tutte le varietà del sardo è praticamente identica, ma la quasi totalità delle differenze morfologiche è costituita da differenze, in effetti, lessicali e la percentuale di parole realmente differenti si aggira intorno al 10% del totale." Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Sardinianvarieties">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> the view of there being a dialectal boundary rigidly separating the two varieties of High Sardinian has been in fact subjected to more recent research, which shows a fluid dialect continuum from the northern to the southern ends of the island.<ref name=":4">Contini, Michel (1987). Ètude de géographie phonétique et de phonétique instrumentale du sarde, Edizioni dell'Orso, Cagliari</ref><ref name=":5">Bolognesi R. & Heeringa W., 2005, Sardegna fra tante lingue. Il contatto linguistico in Sardegna dal Medioevo a oggi, Condaghes, Cagliari</ref><ref name=":6">"L'esistenza di una striscia di "terra di nessuno" (fatta eccezione, comunque, per i dialetti di Laconi e Seneghe) tra dialetti meridionali e settentrionali, come anche della tradizionale suddivisione della Sardegna in due "capi" politico-amministrativi oltre che, ma fino a un certo punto, sociali e antropologici (Cabu de Susu e Cabu de Jossu), ma soprattutto della popolarizzazione, condotta dai mass media negli ultimi trent'anni, di teorie pseudo-scientifiche sulla suddivisione del sardo in due varietà nettamente distinte tra di loro, hanno contribuito a creare presso una parte del pubblico l'idea che il sardo sia diviso tra le due varietà del "campidanese" e del "logudorese". In effetti, si deve più correttamente parlare di due tradizioni ortografiche, che rispondono a queste denominazioni, mettendo bene in chiaro però che esse non-corrispondono a nessuna varietà reale parlata in Sardegna." Bolognesi, Roberto (2013). Le identità linguistiche dei sardi, Condaghes, p. 93</ref><ref name=":7">Template:Cite web</ref> The dualist 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The dialects centered on the "Logudorese Sardinian model" are generally considered more conservative, with the Nuorese dialect of Sardinian (su sardu nugoresu) being deemed the most conservative of all. They have all retained the classical Latin pronunciation of the stop velars (chena versus cena, "supper"),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> the front middle vowels (compare Campidanese iotacism, probably from Byzantine Greek)<ref>et ipso quoque sermo Sardorum adhuc retinetnon pauca verba sermonis graeci atque ipse loquentium sonum graecisanum quendam prae se fert – Roderigo Hunno Baeza, Caralis Panegyricus, about 1516, manuscript preserved in the University Library of Cagliari</ref> and assimilation of close-mid vowels (cane versus cani, "dog" and gatos versus gatus, "cats"). Labio-velars become plain labials (limba versus lìngua, "language" and abba versus acua, "water").<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> I is prosthesized before consonant clusters beginning in s (iscala versus Campidanese Sardinian scala, "stairway" and iscola versus scola, "school"). An east-west strip of villages in central Sardinia, mainly in the central part of the Province of Oristano, and central part of the Province of Nuoro, speaks a transitional group of dialects (su sardu de mesania). Examples include is limbas (the languages) and is abbas (the waters). The dialects centered on the Campidanese model, spreading from Cagliari (once the metropolis of the Roman province), show relatively more influences from Carthage, Rome, Constantinople and Late Latin. Examples include is frùminis (the rivers) and is domus (the houses).

Some dialects of Sardinian from the extreme ends of the aforementioned continuum have been estimated in another research to have 88% of matches in 110-item wordlist, similarly to the 85–88% number of matches between Provençal Occitan and some Catalan dialects<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> which by some standards is usually (even though arbitrarily) considered characteristic for two different, albeit very closely related, languages.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> ISO 639 counts four Sardinian languages (Campidanese, Gallurese, Logudorese and Sassarese), each with its own language code.

Non-Sardinian language varieties spoken in Sardinia

File:Gallurese.png

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

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, roughly amounting to 20% of the Sardinian population;<ref name="Ministero" /><ref name="Sardinianvarieties" /> Sassari, the second-largest city on Sardinia and the main center of the northern half of the island, is amongst the latter. The aforementioned Gallurese and Sassarese, despite being often colloquially considered part of Sardinian, are two Corso-Sardinian transitional languages; they are spoken in the northernmost part of Sardinia,<ref name="minoranze">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Maxia, Mauro. Studi sardo-corsi – Dialettologia e storia della lingua tra le due isole Template:Webarchive, Taphros, 2010, Olbia</ref> although some Sardinian is also understood by the majority of people living therein (73.6% in Gallura and 67.8% in the Sassarese-speaking subregion).

Francesco Cetti, responsible for the dialectal partition of the Sardinian language in his early dissertation, went on to deem these Corso-Sardinian varieties spoken in the island "foreign" (i.e. not indigenous to Sardinia) and therefore "not national" (i.e. non-Sardinian) in that he averred they would be "an Italian dialect, much more Tuscan in fact than the vast majority of Italy's dialects themselves".<ref>"Le lingue che si parlano in Sardegna si possono dividere in istraniere, e nazionali. Straniera totalmente è la lingua d'Algher, la quale è la catalana, a motivo che Algher medesimo è una colonia di Catalani. Straniera pure si deve avere la lingua che si parla in Sassari, Castelsardo e Tempio; è un dialetto italiano, assai più toscano, che non la maggior parte de' medesimi dialetti d'Italia." Template:Cite book</ref>

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).<ref name="minoranze" /><ref>De Concini, Wolftraud (2003). Gli altri d'Italia : minoranze linguistiche allo specchio, Pergine Valsugana : Comune, p. 196.</ref>

Sample of text

English	Logudorese Sardinian	Campidanese Sardinian	LSC (Sardinian Written Standard)	Latin	Italian
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.	Babbu nostru chi ses in chelu, Santificadu siat su nomine tou. Benzat a nois su rennu tou, Siat fata sa boluntade tua, comente in chelu gai in terra. Dona nos oe su pane nostru de donzi die, Et perdona nos sos pecados nostros, Comente nois perdonamus a sos depidores nostros. Et no nos lesses ruer in tentatzione, Et libera nos dae male.	Babbu nostu chi ses in celu, Santificau siat su nomini tuu. Bengiat a nosus su regnu tuu, Siat fata sa boluntadi tua, comenti in celu aici in terra. Donasi oi su pani nostu de dogna dii, Et perdonasi is pecaus nostus, Comenti nosus perdonaus a is depidoris nostus. Et no si lessis arrui in tentatzioni, Et liberasi de mali.	Babbu nostru chi ses in chelu, Santificadu siat su nòmine tuo. Bèngiat a nois su rennu tuo, Siat fata sa voluntade tua, comente in chelu gasi in terra. Dona་nos oe su pane nostru de ònnia die, E perdona་nos is pecados nostros, Comente nois perdonamus a is depidores nostros. E no nos lasses arrùere in tentatzione, E lìbera་nos de male.	Pater noster qui es in cælis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. adveniat regnum tuum, fiat voluntas tua, sicut in cælo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. et ne nos inducas in tentationem sed libera nos a malo.	Padre Nostro, che sei nei cieli, Sia santificato il tuo nome. Venga il tuo regno, Sia fatta la tua volontà, Come in cielo, così in terra. Dacci oggi il nostro pane quotidiano, E rimetti a noi i nostri debiti Come noi li rimettiamo ai nostri debitori. E non abbandonarci alla tentazione, Ma liberaci dal male.

Standardization

Template:See also Until 2001, there was not a unifying orthographic standard available for all the dialects of Sardinian, neither in the literary nor in the oral domain (one designed for the latter does not exist to this day).

After the Middle Ages, where a certain orthographic uniformity can be observed, the only steps to provide the language with a single standard, called "illustrious Sardinian", were undertaken by such writers as Hieronimu Araolla, Ioan Mattheu Garipa and Matteo Madau, who had based their works on the model of medieval Sardinian.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> However, attempts to formalise and spread this orthography would be hindered by the Iberian and later Savoyard authorities.<ref>"Nel periodo giudicale si osserva una certa unitarietà del modo di scrivere il sardo, ma non-si ha notizia di alcuna regolazione: la sua ufficialità era implicita e data per scontata. Nel XVI e, poi, nel XVIII secolo, nei circoli umanisti e in quelli gesuitici, rispettivamente, si è osservato un tentativo di fornire una regolazione, ma tali tentativi furono non solo ostacolati ma anche repressi dalle autorità coloniali ispaniche e soprattutto sabaude." Template:Cite book</ref>

The dialectally fragmented nature of the language is such that it is popularly contended that Sardinian is divided into two or more groups, which have provided themselves with a series of traditional orthographies already, albeit with many changes over the time. While this belief is not grounded on linguistic considerations, it is however motivated by political and social reasons.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4" /><ref name=":5" /><ref name=":6" /><ref name=":7" /><ref name=":2" />

In addition to the orthographies commonly referred to as "Logudorese" and "Campidanese", the Nuorese orthography, the Arborense one and even those restricted to individual towns were also developed, sometimes finding common ground with some general rules, such as those required by the Ozieri Award.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It is often the case, however, that speakers who are not commonly taught the Sardinian language and are thus literate only in Italian, for lack of a bilingual education, transcribe their local spelling following rules pertaining to the latter rather than the former.<ref name=":22">Template:Cite book</ref>

However, some attempts have been made to introduce a single orthographic form for administrative purposes over the recent decades; said form does not aim to refer to morphology and syntax, which is already fairly homogeneous,<ref>Bolognesi, Roberto (2013). Le identità linguistiche dei Sardi, Condaghes, p. 41 (Le strutture linguistiche comuni del sardo. Sintassi, pp. 42–51; Morfologia, pp. 51–55)</ref> but concerns itself primarily with spelling.

To allow for an effective implementation of the provisions on the language, as per the regional law no. 26/1997 and the national law no. 482/1999, the Sardinian Autonomous Region arranged for a commission of experts to elaborate a standard capable of overcoming the hurdle posed by the dialectal differences and thereby providing a unified writing system. A first proposal (the LSU: Limba Sarda Unificada, published on 28 February 2001) was tabled, which identified a model language of reference (based on the analysis of local varieties of Sardinian and on the selection of the most representative and compatible models) so as to guarantee the necessary characteristics of certainty, coherence, univocity, and supra-local diffusion. The people appointed for the task were Eduardo Blasco Ferrer, Roberto Bolognesi, Diego Salvatore Corraine, Ignazio Delogu, Antonietta Dettori, Giulio Paulis, Massimo Pittau, Tonino Rubattu, Leonardo Sole, Heinz Jürgen Wolf, and Matteo Porru acting as the Committee's secretary. This study, although scientifically valid, has never been adopted at an institutional level: critics argued that it was an "artificial" system "imposed" on Sardinian speakers.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Nevertheless, the LSU would act as a springboard for a subsequent drafting proposal, this time drawn by a new Committee composed of Giulio Angioni, Roberto Bolognesi, Manlio Brigaglia, Michel Contini, Diego Corraine, Giovanni Lupinu, Anna Oppo, Giulio Paulis, Maria Teresa Pinna Catte and Mario Puddu. The new project continued to be worked on, going by the name of LSC (Limba Sarda Comuna). The new experimental standard proposal, published in 2006, was characterised by taking the mesania (transitional) varieties as reference,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and welcoming elements of the spoken language so as to be perceived as a more "natural" mediation; it also ensured that the common orthography would be provided with the characteristics of over-dialectality and supra-municipality, while being open to integrating the phonetic peculiarities of the local variants.<ref>Template:Citation</ref> Despite this, there was some criticism for this norm as well, both by those who proposed amendments to improve it,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and by those who preferred to insist with the idea of dividing Sardinian into two macro-variants with their own separate orthographies.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The Sardinian Regional Government, with the resolution of the Regional Council n. 16/14 of 18 April 2006 "Limba Sarda Comuna. Adoption of the reference standards of an experimental nature for the written language output of the Regional Administration", has experimentally adopted the LSC as the official orthography for the acts and documents issued by the Region of Sardinia (even if, as per Article 8 of the national Law no. 482/99, only the text written in Italian has legal value), giving citizens the right to write to the Public Administration in their own variety and establishing the regional language desk Ufitziu de sa Limba Sarda. The resolution does not aim to impose the guide and further notes that it is "open to integrations" and that "all solutions are of equal linguistic value".

In the following years, the Region has abided by the LSC standard in the translation of many documents and resolutions and in many other areas. In addition, the LSC standard has been adopted on a voluntary basis by many other institutions, schools and media, often in a complementary manner with orthographic norms closer to the local spelling. Regarding these uses, a percentage estimate was made, considering only the projects financed or co-financed by the Region for the diffusion of the Sardinian language in the municipal and supra-municipal language offices, for the teaching in schools and the media from 2007 to 2013.<ref name=":8">Template:Cite web</ref>

The monitoring, by the Sardinian Language and Culture Service of the Department of Public Education, was published on the website of the Sardinian Autonomous Region in April 2014. Regarding the school projects financed in 2013, for example, it appears that there was a clear preference, in schools, for the use of the LSC orthographic standard together with a local spelling (51%), compared to the exclusive use of the LSC (11%) or the exclusive use of a local spelling (33%).<ref name=":8" />

On the other hand, regarding the editorial projects in Sardinian language in the regional media, financed by the Region in 2012, we find a greater presence of the LSC (which could derive from a reward of 2 points in the formation of the rankings to take funding, a reward that was not present in the notice for schools). According to those data, it appears that 35% of textual production in media projects was in LSC, 35% in LSC and in local spellings and 25% in local spellings only.<ref name=":8" />

The local language offices, co-financed by the Regional Government, in 2012 used LSC in 50% of their writing, LSC together with local spelling for 9% and local spellings for 41%.<ref name=":8" />

A recent research on the use of the LSC orthography in schools, carried out in the municipality of Orosei, showed that the students of the local middle school had no problem using that standard despite the fact that the Sardinian they spoke was partly different. No pupil rejected it or considered it "artificial", a thing that proved its validity as a didactic tool. The results were first presented in 2016 and published in an article in 2021.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Surnames, given names, and toponyms

Template:Main article From the Sardinian language stem both the historical Sardinian given names, which the natives used to confer on each other until contemporary times,<ref>Quali erano anticamente i nomi più diffusi in Sardegna?</ref> as well as most of the traditional surnames still common on the island. Sardinian place names have a very ancient history<ref>I toponimi sardi, un tesoro da riscoprire come i luoghi che raccontano</ref> and, in some cases, have originated a significant debate about their origins.<ref name="Sardinian Toponymy">For the historical toponymy of Sardinia, cf. Ong, Brenda Man Qing, and Francesco Perono Cacciafoco. (2022). Unveiling the Enigmatic Origins of Sardinian Toponyms. Languages, 7, 2, 131: 1–19, Paper, DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7020131.</ref>

See also

• Help:IPA/Sardinian
• Paleo-Sardinian language
• Southern Romance
• Traditional writing forms of Sardinian: Logudorese, Campidanese
• Non-Sardinian languages spoken on Sardinia: Sassarese, Gallurese, Algherese, Tabarchino
• Sardinian surnames

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External links

• Ditzionàriu in línia de sa limba e de sa cultura sarda – Online Sardinian Dictionary (in Sardinian, Italian and English)
• CROS – Curretore regionale ortogràficu sardu in lìnia Template:Webarchive (Sardinian spell checker)
• Apertium. Automatic translation software from Italian and Catalan to Sardinian.
• Grammar of Limba Sarda Comuna (standardized form adopted at institutional level)
• The Sardinian language: Basic phrases & pronunciation, Nativlang
• An extract in Sardinian from The Little Prince (archived 15 March 2018)
• List of Sardinian forenames (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
• Lessico etimologico sardo
• SardegnaCultura in sardu Template:Webarchive – Sardinian version of the official cultural site from the Regional Sardinia administration.
• Apertium. Automatic translation software from Italian to Sardinian.
• University of Berlin Template:Webarchive – Contains many links and other information about the language.
• 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 Template:Webarchive
• Acadèmia campidanesa de sa lìngua sarda Template:Webarchive (in Campidanese Sardinian)
• Memorie in lingua sarda, Sardegna Digital Library Template:Webarchive
• Interactive Atlas of Romance Intonation, Sardinian from Ittiri and Sinnai