Editing Sardinian language (section)

==Overview==
{{blockquote|Now the question arises as to whether Sardinian is to be considered a dialect or a language. Politically speaking, of course, it is one of the many dialects of Italy, just like the [[Slavomolisano dialect|Serbo-Croatian]] and the [[Arbëresh language|Albanian]] that are spoken in various [[Calabria]]n and [[Sicily|Sicilian]] villages. The question, however, takes on a different nature when considered from a linguistic perspective. Sardinian cannot be said to be closely related to any dialect of mainland Italy; it is an archaic Romance tongue with its own distinctive characteristics, which can be seen in its rather unique vocabulary as well as its morphology and syntax, which differ radically from those of the Italian dialects.|[[Max Leopold Wagner]]<ref>"Sorge ora la questione se il sardo si deve considerare come un dialetto o come una lingua. È evidente che esso è, politicamente, uno dei tanti dialetti dell'Italia, come lo è anche, p. es., il serbo-croato o l'albanese parlato in vari paesi della Calabria e della Sicilia. Ma dal punto di vista linguistico la questione assume un altro aspetto. Non si può dire che il sardo abbia una stretta parentela con alcun dialetto dell'italiano continentale; è un parlare romanzo arcaico e con proprie spiccate caratteristiche, che si rivelano in un vocabolario molto originale e in una morfologia e sintassi assai differenti da quelle dei dialetti italiani" (Wagner 1951:90–91). He was writing in 1951, several decades before Sardinian, or Italy's eleven other [[minority language]]s, would be officially recognized by the Parliament with the passing of Law 482 in 1999.</ref>}}
As an insular language par excellence, Sardinian is considered the most [[conservative (language)|conservative]] [[Romance languages|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." {{cite book|author=Rebecca Posner, John N. Green|year=1982|title=Language and Philology in Romance|publisher=Mouton Publishers|location=The Hague, Paris, New York|page=171}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Sardegna: geografie di un'isola|publisher=Franco Angeli|year=2019|location=Milano|last1=Corsale|first1=Andrea|last2=Sistu|first2=Giovanni|page=187}}</ref> its [[Substrata (linguistics)|substratum]] ([[Paleo-Sardinian language|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>{{cite book|title=The Oxford guide to the Romance languages|publisher=Oxford University Press|place=Oxford|page=270|year=2016}}</ref>

A 1949 study by the [[Italian Americans|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 language|Romanian]] 23.5%, [[Occitan language|Occitan]] 25%, [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] 31%, and French 44%.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Pei |first=Mario |author-link=Mario Pei |date=1949 |title=A New Methodology for Romance Classification |journal=WORD |volume=5 |issue=2 |pages=135–146 |doi=10.1080/00437956.1949.11659494 |doi-access=free }}</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>{{cite journal |last=Pei |first=Mario |author-link=Mario Pei |date=1949 |title=A New Methodology for Romance Classification |journal=WORD |volume=5 |issue=2 |pages=135–146 |doi=10.1080/00437956.1949.11659494 |doi-access=free }}</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." {{cite book|author=Maurice Le Lannou |editor=Manlio Brigaglia|title=Pastori e contadini in Sardegna|year=1941–1979|publisher=Edizioni della Torre|location=Cagliari|page=279}}</ref>
[[File:Romance-lg-classification-en.svg|left|thumb|400x400px|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 language|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"." {{cite book|author=Salvatore Tola|title=La Letteratura in Lingua sarda. Testi, autori, vicende|location=Cagliari|publisher=CUEC|year=2006|page=9}}</ref> and, to a lesser extent, [[Phoenician language|Phoenician]]-[[Punic language|Punic]]. These etyma might refer to an early Mediterranean substratum, which reveal close relations with [[Basque language|Basque]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Atti del VI [i.e. Sesto] Congresso internazionale di studi sardi|year=1962|page=5}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Giovanni Lilliu|title=La civiltà dei Sardi. Dal Paleolitico all'età dei nuraghi|year=1988|page=269|publisher=Nuova ERI}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Yakov Malkiel|year=1947|title=Romance Philology|volume=1|page=199}}</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 [[languoid]]s once spoken by the Christian and [[Maghrebi Jews|Jewish]] [[Berbers]] in North Africa, known as [[African Romance]].<ref>{{cite journal|author=Max Leopold Wagner|date=1952|title=Il Nome Sardo del Mese di Giugno (Lámpadas) e i Rapporti del Latino d'Africa con quello della Sardegna|journal=Italica|volume=29|issue=3|pages=151–157|doi=10.2307/477388|jstor=477388}}</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): "{{lang|la|ubi pagani integra pene latinitate loquuntur et, ubi uoces latinae franguntur, tum in sonum tractusque transeunt sardinensis sermonis, qui, ut ipse noui, etiam ex latino est}}" ("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 {{Lang|sc|acina}} ({{Gloss|grape}}), {{Lang|sc|pala}} ({{Gloss|[[shoulder blade]]}}) and {{Lang|sc|spanu(s)}} ('[[red hair|reddish-brown]]'), prove that there might have been a fair amount of vocabulary shared between Sardinia and Africa.<ref>{{cite book|last=Adams|first=J.N.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yu9zSREo0bkC|title=The Regional Diversification of Latin 200 BC – AD 600|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2007|isbn=978-1-139-46881-7|page=576}}</ref> According to Wagner, it is notable that Sardinian is the only Romance language whose [[List of names for the Milky Way|name]] for the [[Milky Way]] ({{lang|sc|(b)ía de sa báza, (b)ía de sa bálla}}, {{Gloss|the Way of Straw}}) 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"." {{cite book|author=Max Leopold Wagner|year=1951–1997|title=La lingua sarda|location=Nuoro|publisher=Ilisso|page=10}}</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." {{Cite encyclopedia |title=Sardinian language |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sardinian-language}}</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>{{cite book|author=Tullio De Mauro|title=L'Italia delle Italie|year=1979|publisher=Nuova Guaraldi Editrice|location=Firenze|page=89}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/minoranze-linguistiche_(Enciclopedia-dell%27Italiano)|title=minoranze linguistiche in "Enciclopedia dell'Italiano"|website=www.treccani.it}}</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." {{cite web|url=http://www.treccani.it/magazine/lingua_italiana/articoli/scritto_e_parlato/Toso8.html|title=(Toso, Fiorenzo). Lingue sotto il tetto d'Italia. Le minoranze alloglotte da Bolzano a Carloforte – 8. Il sardo}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Martin Maiden |author2=John Charles Smith |author3=Adam Ledgeway |title=The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages|volume=II|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2013|page=301}}</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>{{cite book|title=The Oxford guide to the Romance languages|publisher=Oxford University Press|place=Oxford|page=65|year=2016}}</ref>