Editing Sardinian language (section)

==History==
{{very long|section|words=9,600|date=May 2024}}
{{See also|History of Sardinia}}
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 language|Paleo-Sardinian]], which some scholars have linked to [[Basque language|Basque]]<ref>{{cite book|author=Eduardo Blasco Ferrer|year=2010|title=Paleosardo: Le radici linguistiche della Sardegna neolitica|publisher=De Gruyter Mouton}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Juan Martín Elexpuru Agirre|year=2017|title=Euskararen aztarnak Sardinian?|publisher=Pamiela Argitaletxea}}</ref> and [[Etruscan language|Etruscan]];<ref name="pittau.it">{{cite web|url=http://www.pittau.it/libri/LNurEtr.html|title=Massimo Pittau – La lingua dei Sardi Nuragici e degli Etruschi|access-date=28 November 2015}}</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. {{lang|sc|tilicherta}} "lizard", {{lang|sc|tilipirche}} "grasshopper", etc.) but even to other words beyond that semantic field (e.g. {{lang|sc|thàlau}} "bran", {{lang|sc|tugru}} "neck"). {{cite book|author=Max Leopold Wagner|title=La lingua sarda|year=1951|page=251}}</ref> to shed more light on the language(s) spoken in Sardinia prior to its [[Romanization]]. Subsequent [[Adstratum|adstratal]] influences include [[Catalan language|Catalan]], Spanish, and Italian. The situation of the Sardinian language with regard to the politically dominant ones did not change until [[Italian fascism|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." {{cite book|author=Wolftraud De Concini|year=2003|title=Gli altri d'Italia: minoranze linguistiche allo specchio|publisher=Pergine Valsugana : Comune|pages=195–196}}</ref> and, most evidently, the 1950s.<ref name="Rosita">{{Cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_8J7ilk0bAgC&pg=PA271 |title=Bilingualism and Linguistic Conflict in Romance |editor-last=Posner |editor-first=Rebecca |editor-last2=Green |editor-first2=John N. |date=1993 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-011724-0 |last=Rindler-Schjerve |first=Rosita|chapter=Sardinian : Italian |pages=271–294}}</ref><ref name="Ministero">{{Cite web |url=http://www.minoranze-linguistiche-scuola.it/sardo/ |title=Minoranze linguistiche, Sardo. Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione |access-date=16 July 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181016024333/http://www.minoranze-linguistiche-scuola.it/sardo/ |archive-date=16 October 2018 }}</ref>

===Origins of modern Sardinian===
;Prenuragic and Nuragic era
{{see also|Paleo-Sardinian language|Nuragic civilization}}
[[File:Bronzo Nuragico. Cacciatore.JPG|thumb|upright=.7|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 [[Root (linguistics)|roots]]. The root ''s(a)rd'', indicating many place names as well as the [[Sardinians|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 {{lang|grc|Σαρδώ}}, a legendary woman from the [[Anatolia]]n [[Lydia|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 [[Ancient Libya|Libyan]] mythological figure of the [[Sardus|Sardus Pater ''Babai'']] ("Sardinian Father" or "Father of the Sardinians").<ref>[[Sallust]], ''Historiae'', II, fr.4</ref><ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|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>{{Cite web|url=http://www.aristeo.org/sardegnaemiti/personaggi/sardo.html|title=Personaggi – Sardo|website=www.aristeo.org|access-date=17 January 2019|archive-date=11 December 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221211061836/http://www.aristeo.org/sardegnaemiti/personaggi/sardo.html}}</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 language|Lydian]] (and therefore [[Indo-European languages|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 language]]s and [[Siculi]]an; for example, the suffix -''ara'' in [[proparoxytone]]s indicated the plural. Terracini proposed the same for suffixes in -''{{IPA|/àna/}}'', -''{{IPA|/ànna/}}'', -''{{IPA|/énna/}}'', -''{{IPA|/ònna/}}'' + ''{{IPA|/r/}}'' + a [[paragogic]] vowel (such as the toponym ''[[Bonnanaro|Bunnànnaru]]''). Rohlfs, Butler and Craddock add the suffix -''{{IPA|/ini/}}'' (such as the toponym ''[[Barumini|Barùmini]]'') as a unique element of Paleo-Sardinian. Suffixes in /''a'', ''e'', ''o'', ''u''/ + -''rr''- found a correspondence in north Africa (Terracini), in [[Iberian peninsula|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 [[Aquitanian language|Basque precursor]] have been questioned by some Basque linguists.<ref name="Trask">[[Larry Trask|Trask, L.]] ''The History of Basque'' [[Routledge]]: 1997 {{ISBN|0-415-13116-2}}</ref> According to Terracini, suffixes in -''{{IPA|/ài/}}'', -''{{IPA|/éi/}}'', -''{{IPA|/òi/}}'', and -''{{IPA|/ùi/}}'' are common to Paleo-Sardinian and [[Berber languages|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 [[:wikt:desinence|suffix]]. According to Bertoldi, some toponyms ending in -''{{IPA|/ài/}}'' and -''{{IPA|/asài/}}'' indicated an Anatolian influence. The suffix -''{{IPA|/aiko/}}'', widely used in Iberia and possibly of Celtic origin, and the ethnic suffix in -''{{IPA|/itanos/}}'' and -''{{IPA|/etanos/}}'' (for example, the Sardinian {{Lang|sc|Sulcitanos}}) have also been noted as Paleo-Sardinian elements (Terracini, Ribezzo, Wagner, Hubschmid and Faust).

Some linguists, like Max Leopold Wagner (1931), Blasco Ferrer (2009, 2010) and Arregi (2017<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.lanuovasardegna.it/tempo-libero/2017/12/21/news/quel-filo-che-lega-i-sardi-con-i-baschi-1.16269342|title="Quel filo che lega i sardi con i baschi"|date=22 December 2017|website=La Nuova Sardegna}}</ref>) have attempted to revive a theoretical connection with Basque by linking words such as Sardinian {{Lang|sc|idile}} {{Gloss|marshland}} and Basque {{Lang|eu|itil}} {{Gloss|puddle}};<ref>{{cite book|author=Wagner M.L.|year=1931|title=Über die vorrömischen Bestandteile des Sardischen|page=227}}</ref> Sardinian {{Lang|sc|ospile}} {{Gloss|fresh grazing for cattle}} and Basque {{Lang|eu|hozpil}} {{Gloss|cool, fresh}}; Sardinian {{Lang|sc|arrotzeri}} {{Gloss|vagabond}} and Basque {{Lang|eu|arrotz}} {{Gloss|stranger}}; Sardinian {{Lang|sc|golostiu}} and Basque {{Lang|eu|gorosti}} {{Gloss|holly}}; Gallurese (Corso-Sardinian) {{Lang|sdn|zerru}} {{Gloss|pig}} (with ''z'' for {{IPA|[dz]}}) and Basque {{Lang|eu|zerri}} (with ''z'' for {{IPA|[s]}}). [[Sardinian people#Genetics|Genetic data]] have found the [[Basque people|Basques]] to be close to the [[Sardinian people|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>{{Cite web|url=https://www.lanuovasardegna.it/tempo-libero/2017/12/21/news/il-genetista-conferma-le-origini-comuni-1.16269258|title=Il genetista conferma le origini comuni tra i sardi e i baschi|date=22 December 2017|website=La Nuova Sardegna}}</ref><ref name="Naturegen">{{Cite journal|title=Genomic history of the Sardinian population|first1=Charleston W. K.|last1=Chiang|first2=Joseph H.|last2=Marcus|first3=Carlo|last3=Sidore|first4=Arjun|last4=Biddanda|first5=Hussein|last5=Al-Asadi|first6=Magdalena|last6=Zoledziewska|first7=Maristella|last7=Pitzalis|first8=Fabio|last8=Busonero|first9=Andrea|last9=Maschio|first10=Giorgio|last10=Pistis|first11=Maristella|last11=Steri|first12=Andrea|last12=Angius|first13=Kirk E.|last13=Lohmueller|first14=Goncalo R.|last14=Abecasis|first15=David|last15=Schlessinger|first16=Francesco|last16=Cucca|first17=John|last17=Novembre|date=14 October 2018|journal=Nature Genetics|volume=50|issue=10|pages=1426–1434|doi=10.1038/s41588-018-0215-8|pmid=30224645|pmc=6168346}}</ref>
[[File:I_popoli_della_Sardegna_Romana.png|thumb|right|upright|Location of the Sardinian tribes, as described by the Roman sources<ref>{{cite book|author=Attilio Mastino|year=2005|title=Storia della Sardegna antica|publisher=Edizioni Il Maestrale|page=307|isbn=88-86109-98-9}}</ref>]]
[[File:Map Length of Roman Rule Neo Latin Languages.jpg|thumb|Length of the Roman rule and emergence of the Romance languages<ref>{{cite book|last=Bereznay|first=András|year=2011|title=Erdély történetének atlasza|trans-title=Atlas of the History of Transylvania|page=63|publisher=Méry Ratio|language=hu|isbn=978-80-89286-45-4}}</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 (Pliny)|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.

{{anchor|Other influences}}

;Classical period
{{see also|Sardinia and Corsica}}
Around the 10th and 9th century BC, [[Phoenicia]]n merchants were known to have made their presence in Sardinia, which acted as a geographical mediator in between the [[Iberian peninsula|Iberian]] and the [[Italian peninsula]]. In the eighth and seventh centuries, the Phoenicians began to develop permanent settlements, politically arranged as [[city-state]]s in similar fashion to the Lebanese coastal areas. It did not take long before they started gravitating around the [[Ancient Carthage|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>{{cite book|author=Max Leopold Wagner|year=1951–1997|title=La lingua sarda|location=Nuoro|publisher=Ilisso|pages=158–161}}</ref> Words like {{Lang|sc|giara}} 'plateau' (cf. [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] {{Lang|he-latn|yaʿar}} 'forest, scrub'), {{Lang|sc|g(r)uspinu}} '[[Tropaeolum|nasturtium]]' (from Punic {{Lang|xpu-latn|cusmin}}), {{Lang|sc|curma}} '[[Ruta chalepensis|fringed rue]]' (cf. Arabic {{Lang|ar-latn|ḥarmal}} '[[Peganum harmala|Syrian rue]]'), {{Lang|sc|mítza}} 'spring' (cf. Hebrew {{Lang|he-latn|mitsa}}, {{Lang|he-latn|metza}} 'source, fountainhead'), {{Lang|sc|síntziri}} '[[Equisetum palustre|marsh horsetail]]' (from Punic {{Lang|xpu-latn|zunzur}} '[[Polygonum aviculare|common knotgrass]]'), {{Lang|sc|tzeúrra}} 'sprout' (from {{Lang|mis|*zerula}}, diminutive of Punic {{Lang|xpu-latn|zeraʿ}} 'seed'), {{Lang|sc|tzichirìa}} '[[dill]]' (from Punic {{Lang|xpu-latn|sikkíria}}; cf. Hebrew {{Lang|he-latn|šēkār}} 'ale') and {{Lang|sc|tzípiri}} '[[rosemary]]' (from Punic {{Lang|xpu-latn|zibbir}}) are commonly used, especially in the modern Sardinian varieties of the [[Campidano|Campidanese plain]], while proceeding northwards the influence is more limited to place names, such as the town of [[Magomadas]], {{Lang|sc|Macumadas}} in [[Nuoro]] or {{Lang|sc|Magumadas}} in [[Gesico]] and [[Nureci]], all of which deriving from the Punic {{Lang|xpu-latn|maqom hadash}} {{Gloss|new city}}.<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 [[History of Sardinia#Roman Empire|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 language|Punic]]. Although the colonists and ''negotiatores'' (businessmen) of strictly [[Italic peoples|Italic]] descent would later play a relevant role in introducing and spreading Latin to Sardinia, [[Romanization (cultural)|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." {{cite book|author=James Noel Adams|title=Bilingualism and the Latin Language|date=9 January 2003|page=209|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-81771-4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AMc1WQAnRTkC&q=bitia}}</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''". {{cite book|author=Attilio Mastino|title=Storia della Sardegna antica|edition=2|year=2009|publisher=Il Maestrale|pages=15–16}}</ref> [[Punic language|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>{{cite book|author=Ferruccio Barreca|title=La civiltà fenicio-punica in Sardegna|publisher=Carlo Delfino Editore|year=1988|location=Sassari}}</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". [[Pope Gregory I|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." {{cite book|author=Attilio Mastino|title=Storia della Sardegna antica|edition=2|year=2009|publisher=Il Maestrale|page=16}}</ref> would call the Sardinian rebels {{Lang|la|latrones mastrucati}} ({{Gloss|thieves with rough wool cloaks}}) or {{Lang|la|Afri}} ({{Gloss|Africans}}) to emphasize Roman superiority over a population mocked as the refuse of Carthage.<ref group=note>"{{lang|la|Fallacissimum genus esse Phoenicum omnia monumenta vetustatis atque omnes historiae nobis prodiderunt. ab his orti Poeni multis Carthaginiensium rebellionibus, multis violatis fractisque foederibus nihil se degenerasse docuerunt. A Poenis admixto Afrorum genere Sardi non deducti in Sardiniam atque ibi constituti, sed amandati et repudiati coloni. [...] Neque ego, cum de vitiis gentis loquor, neminem excipio; sed a me est de universo genere dicendum, in quo fortasse aliqui suis moribus et humanitate stirpis ipsius et gentis vitia vicerunt. magnam quidem esse partem sine fide, sine societate et coniunctione nominis nostri res ipsa declarat. quae est enim praeter Sardiniam provincia quae nullam habeat amicam populo Romano ac liberam civitatem? Africa ipsa parens illa Sardiniae, quae plurima et acerbissima cum maioribus nostris bella gessit.}}" {{cite web|url=http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/cicero/scauro.shtml|title=Cicero: Pro Scauro|access-date=28 November 2015}} ("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, {{cite web|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/|title=Perseus Digital Library}})</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 {{Lang|la|Barbaria}} (a term meaning {{Gloss|Land of the Barbarians}}, similar in origin to the now antiquated word ''[[Barbary]]''), because its people refused cultural and linguistic assimilation for a long time: 50% of toponyms of central Sardinia, particularly in the territory of [[Olzai]], are actually 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>{{cite book|title=Archivio glottologico italiano|year=1968|volume=53–54|page=209}}</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. {{cite book|author=Max Leopold Wagner|title=D.E.S. – Dizionario etimologico sardo|location=Heidelberg|year=1960–1964}}</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. {{ISBN|978-88-7138-084-1}}. 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]]. [[Classification of Romance languages#The standard proposal|Some linguists]] assert that modern Sardinian, being part of the Island Romance group,<ref name="Koryakov">{{cite book|author=Koryakov Y.B.|title=Atlas of Romance languages|year=2001|location=Moscow}}</ref> was the first language to split off from Latin,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Zhang|first=Huiying|year=2015|title=From Latin to the Romance languages: A normal evolution to what extent?|url=http://oec.xmu.edu.cn/qjcs/upload/201502/201502.pdf|journal=Quarterly Journal of Chinese Studies|volume=3|issue=4|pages=105–111|access-date=1 February 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180119120250/http://oec.xmu.edu.cn/qjcs/upload/201502/201502.pdf|archive-date=19 January 2018}}</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." {{cite book |editor=Martin Harris |editor2=Nigel Vincent |title=The Romance languages|page=315|publisher=Routledge|location=London|year=2000}}</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>{{cite book|author=Michele Loporcaro|title=Profilo linguistico dei dialetti italiani|year=2009|publisher=Editori Laterza|page=170}}</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 {{cite book|title=Manuale di linguistica sarda. Manuals of Romance linguistics|year=2017 |author=Eduardo Blasco Ferrer |author2=Peter Koch |author3=Daniela Marzo|publisher=De Gruyter Mouton|pages=89–90}}</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" ({{Lang|sc|Gruta 'e sa Pibera}} in Sardinian, {{Lang|it|Grotta della Vipera}} in Italian, {{Lang|la|Cripta Serpentum}} in Latin), a burial monument built in Caralis ([[Cagliari]]) by Lucius Cassius Philippus (a Roman who had been exiled to Sardinia) in remembrance of his dead spouse Atilia Pomptilla;<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." {{cite book|author=Max Leopold Wagner|year=1951–1997|title=La lingua sarda|location=Nuoro|publisher=Ilisso|page=75}}</ref> we also have some religious works by [[Eusebius of Vercelli|Eusebius]] and [[Lucifer of Cagliari|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. {{lang|la|narrare}} in place of {{lang|la|dicere}}; compare with Sardinian {{lang|sc|nàrrere}} or {{lang|sc|nàrri(ri)}} {{Gloss|to say}}).<ref>{{cite book|author=Max Leopold Wagner|year=1951–1997|title=La lingua sarda|location=Nuoro|publisher=Ilisso|pages=75–76}}</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 {{lang|la|praeses}}, alla seconda un {{lang|la|dux}}; tutti e due erano alle dipendenze del {{lang|la|praefectus praetorii}} e del {{lang|la|magister militum}} africani." {{cite book|author=Max Leopold Wagner|year=1951–1997|title=La lingua sarda|location=Nuoro|publisher=Ilisso|page=64}}</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">{{cite book|author=Luigi Pinelli|title=Gli Arabi e la Sardegna: le invasioni arabe in Sardegna dal 704 al 1016|publisher=Edizioni della Torre|place=Cagliari|page=16|year=1977}}</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>{{cite book |author=Francesco Cesare Casula |title=Breve storia della scrittura in Sardegna. La "documentaria" nell'epoca aragonese |publisher=Editrice Democratica Sarda |year=1978 |pages=46, 48 |author-link=Francesco Cesare Casula}}</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>{{Cite web|url=http://www.filologiasarda.eu/files/documenti/pubblicazioni_pdf/bss3/01Soddu-Crasta-Strinna.pdf|title=Un'inedita carta sardo-greca del XII secolo nell'Archivio Capitolare di Pisa|author1=Alessandro Soddu |author2=Paola Crasta |author3=Giovanni Strinna}}</ref> Evidence for this is found in the ''[[condaghe]]s'', 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 {{Lang|grc-latn|khérsos}}, {{Gloss|untilled}}), together with the personal names ''Mikhaleis'', ''Konstantine'' and ''Basilis'', demonstrate Greek influence.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

==={{anchor|Sardinian medieval kingdoms}}Judicates period===
{{See also|Sardinian medieval kingdoms}}
[[File:Condaghe Silki.png|thumb|The [[condaghe]] of Saint Peter of Silki (1065–1180) (University Public Library of Sassari)]]

As the [[Muslims]] [[Islamic conquest of the Maghreb|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>{{cite book|author=Luigi Pinelli|title=Gli Arabi e la Sardegna: le invasioni arabe in Sardegna dal 704 al 1016|publisher=Edizioni della Torre|place=Cagliari|page=30|year=1977}}</ref>

As the Byzantines were fully focused on reconquering southern Italy and Sicily, which had in the meanwhile also [[History of Islam in southern Italy|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>{{cite book|author=Max Leopold Wagner|year=1951–1997|title=La lingua sarda|location=Nuoro|publisher=Ilisso|page=65}}</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>{{cite book|author=Marc Bloch|title=Feudal Society. The Growth of Ties of Dependence|chapter=V – modes of feeling and thought|volume=1|publisher=Christiebooks|year=2016}}</ref>

[[File:Pag1 carta delogu.jpg|thumb|upright=.7|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 [[sardinian medieval kingdoms|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, "{{lang|la|Potissimum vero ad usurpandum in scriptis Italicum idioma gentem nostram fuisse adductam puto finitimarum exemplo, Provincialium, Corsorum atque Sardorum}}" ("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 "{{lang|la|Sardorum quoque et Corsorum exemplum memoravi Vulgari sua Lingua utentium, utpote qui Italis preivisse in hoc eodem studio videntur}}" ("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 [[Early Muslim conquests|Arab expansion]] in the [[Mediterranean Sea|Mediterranean]] had cut off any ties left between the island and [[Byzantine Empire|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 ({{Lang|sc|judikes}}, {{Gloss|judges}}) 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." {{cite book|author=Lorenzo Renzi, Alvise Andreose|title=Manuale di linguistica e filologia romanza|publisher=Il Mulino|year=2009|pages=256–257}}</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>{{Cite book|author=Livio Petrucci|title=Il problema delle Origini e i più antichi testi italiani, in Storia della lingua italiana|location=Torino|publisher=Einaudi|page=58|volume=3}}</ref>

A [[Diplomatics|diplomatic]] analysis of the earliest Sardinian documents shows that the Judicates provided themselves with [[Chancery (diplomacy)|chanceries]], which employed an indigenous diplomatic model for writing public documents;<ref>{{cite book|author=Francesco Cesare Casula|title=Sulle origini delle cancellerie giudicali sarde, in "Studi di paleografia e diplomatica"|page=44|year=1974|publisher=CEDAM|place=Padova}}</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>{{cite book|author=Francesco Cesare Casula|title=Sulle origini delle cancellerie giudicali sarde, in "Studi di paleografia e diplomatica"|page=88|year=1974|publisher=CEDAM|place=Padova}}</ref> prior to their receiving outside influence from the arrival of mainly Italian notaries.
{| class="wikitable floatright" style="width:20%;"
|-
! Extract from [[Bonarcado]]'s Condaghe,<ref>{{cite book|author=Raimondo Carta-Raspi|title=Condaghe di S. Maria di Bonarcado|publisher=Edizioni della Fondazione Il nuraghe|location=Cagliari|year=1937}}</ref> 22 (1120–1146)
|-
| "{{Lang|sc|Ego Gregorius, priore de Bonarcadu, partivi cun iudice de Gallulu. Coiuvedi Goantine Mameli, serbu de sancta Maria de Bonarcadu, cun Maria de Lee, ancilla de iudice de Gallul. Fegerunt II fiios: Zipari et Justa. Clesia levait a Zipari et iudice levait a Justa. Testes: Nigola de Pane, Comida Pira, Goantine de Porta, armentariu dessu archipiscobu.}}"
|}
Old Sardinian had a greater number of [[archaism]]s and [[Latinism]]s 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">{{Cite book|author=Salvatore Tola|year=2006|title=La Letteratura in Lingua sarda. Testi, autori, vicende|publisher=CUEC|location=Cagliari|page=11}}</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>{{cite book|author=Max Leopold Wagner|year=1951–1997|title=La lingua sarda|location=Nuoro|publisher=Ilisso|page=180}}</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">{{Cite book|author=Salvatore Tola|year=2006|title=La Letteratura in Lingua sarda. Testi, autori, vicende|publisher=CUEC|location=Cagliari|page=17}}</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." {{cite book|author=Max Leopold Wagner|title=La lingua sarda|location=Nuoro|publisher=Ilisso|year=1951–1997|page=84}}</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>{{cite book|author=Carlo Tagliavini|year=1964|title=Le origini delle lingue neolatine|publisher=Patron|location=Bologna|page=450}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Sergio Salvi|title=Le lingue tagliate: storia delle minoranze linguistiche in Italia|publisher=Rizzoli|year=1975|pages=176–177}}</ref>

According to [[Eduardo Blasco Ferrer]], it was in the wake of the fall of the Judicates of [[Judicate of Cagliari|Cagliari]] and [[Judicate of Gallura|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>{{Cite book|author=Eduardo Blasco Ferrer|title=Storia linguistica della Sardegna|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S0Us0DqE79MC|year=1984|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=978-3-11-132911-6|page=133}}</ref> it did not take long before the [[Republic of Genoa|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>{{cite book|author=Francesco Bruni|title=Storia della lingua italiana, Dall'Umbria alle Isole|year=1996|volume=2|publisher=Utet|location=Torino|isbn=88-11-20472-0|page=582}}</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 of Arborea|Marianus IV]] and the Queen, the {{Gloss|Lady Judge}} ({{lang|sc|judikessa}} in Sardinian, {{lang|ca|jutgessa}} in Catalan, {{lang|it|giudicessa}} in Italian) [[Eleanor of Arborea|Eleanor]], was written in this transitional variety of Sardinian, and would remain in force until 1827.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.sandalyon.eu/ita/articoli/archivio/sardegna-giudicale/la-carta-de-logu-sandalyon__342.html|title=La Carta de Logu|website=www.sandalyon.eu}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nuraghe.eu/cartadelogu/|title=Carta de Logu (original text)|access-date=28 November 2015}}</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 ({{lang|sc|republica sardisca}} {{Gloss|Sardinian Republic}});<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 II of Arborea|Barison]] ordered his great seal to be made with the writings {{lang|la|Baresonus Dei Gratia Rei Sardiniee}} ({{Gloss|Barison, by the grace of God, King of Sardinia}}) and {{lang|la|Est vis Sardorum pariter regnum Populorum}} ({{Gloss|The people's rule is equal to the Sardinians' own force}}).<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 ({{lang|la|Latii}}), even though they appeared superficially similar to them, and they did not speak anything close to a Neo-Latin language of their own ({{lang|la|lingua vulgaris}}), but resorted to aping straightforward Latin instead.<ref>"{{lang|la|Sardos etiam, qui non-Latii sunt sed Latiis associandi videntur, eiciamus, quoniam soli sine proprio vulgari esse videntur, gramaticam tanquam simie homines imitantes: nam domus nova et dominus meus locuntur}}". [http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/dante/vulgar.shtml ''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]." {{Cite web|url=http://www.danteonline.it/english/opere2.asp?idcod=000&idope=3&idliv1=1&idliv2=11&idliv3=1&idlang=UK|title=Dante Online – Le Opere|website=www.danteonline.it}}</ref><ref>"Dante, for instance, said that Sardinians were like monkeys imitating men." {{Cite encyclopedia |title=Sardinian language |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Britannica|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sardinian-language}}</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"". [http://www.classicitaliani.it/dante/prosa/vulgari_ita.htm ''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">{{Cite web|url=http://people.unica.it/marinellalorinczi/files/2007/06/11-dantesardo2000.pdf|author=Marinella Lőrinczi|title=La casa del signore. La lingua sarda nel De vulgari eloquentia}}</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]], {{Lang|oc|[[Domna, tant vos ai preiada]]}} ("Lady, so much I have endeared you"); Sardinian epitomizes outlandish speech therein, along with non-Romance languages such as German and [[Berber languages|Berber]], with the troubadour having the lady say "{{lang|oc|No t'entend plui d'un Todesco / Sardesco o Barbarì}}" ("I don't understand you more than a German or [[Sardinians|Sardinian]] or [[Berbers|Berber]]");<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.trobar.org/troubadours/raimbaut_de_vaqueiras/raimbaut_de_vaqueiras_03.php|title=Domna, tant vos ai preiada|website=www.trobar.org/}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.rialto.unina.it/RbVaq/392.7(Saviotti).htm|title=Raimbaut de Vaqueiras (392.7)|website=www.rialto.unina.it}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Max Leopold Wagner|url=http://ir.nmu.org.ua/bitstream/handle/123456789/118720/655bf1c05b3e99f095c9edecc51f53a3.pdf?sequence=1|title=La lingua sarda|publisher=Ilisso|page=78|access-date=9 January 2016|archive-date=26 January 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160126223757/http://ir.nmu.org.ua/bitstream/handle/123456789/118720/655bf1c05b3e99f095c9edecc51f53a3.pdf?sequence=1}}</ref><ref name="Salvi" /><ref>{{cite book|author=Rebecca Posner, John N. Green|year=1982|title=Language and Philology in Romance|publisher=Mouton Publishers|page=178}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Alberto Varvaro|year=2004|title=Identità linguistiche e letterarie nell'Europa romanza|publisher=Salerno Editrice|location=Roma|page=231|isbn=88-8402-446-3}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://taban.canalblog.com/archives/2013/10/27/28302736.html|title=Le sarde, une langue normale |date=27 October 2013 |access-date=28 November 2015}}</ref> the Tuscan poet Fazio degli Uberti refers to the Sardinians in his poem {{lang|it|Dittamondo}} as "{{lang|it|una gente che niuno non-la intende / né essi sanno quel ch'altri pispiglia}}" ("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 [[Geography and cartography in medieval Islam|Muslim geographer]] [[Muhammad al-Idrisi]], who lived in [[Palermo]], Sicily at the court of King [[Roger II of Sicily|Roger II]], wrote in his work {{lang|ar|Kitab Nuzhat al-mushtāq fi'khtirāq al-āfāq}} ({{Gloss|The book of pleasant journeys into faraway lands}} or, simply, '[[The book of Roger]]') that "Sardinians are ethnically {{lang|ar|[[Roman Africans|Rūm Afāriqah]]}}, like the [[Berbers]]; they shun contacts with all the other {{lang|ar|Rūm}} nations and are people of purpose and valiant that never leave the arms".<ref>"{{lang|ar|Wa ahl Ğazīrat Sardāniya fī aṣl Rūm Afāriqa mutabarbirūn mutawaḥḥišūn min ağnās ar-Rūm wa hum ahl nağida wa hazm lā yufariqūn as-silāḥ}}". {{cite web|url=http://eprints.uniss.it/1055/|title=Contu, Giuseppe. ''Sardinia in Arabic sources''|access-date=24 June 2016|archive-date=11 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171011061541/http://eprints.uniss.it/1055/}}. 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>{{cite book|author=Attilio Mastino|year=2005|title=Storia della Sardegna antica|publisher=Edizioni Il Maestrale|page=83}}</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)." {{cite book|title=Arabi e sardi nel Medioevo|author=Mohamed Mustafa Bazama|location=Cagliari|publisher=Editrice democratica sarda|year=1988|pages=17, 162}}</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." {{Cite book|title=Il Libro di Ruggero. Il diletto di chi è appassionato per le peregrinazioni attraverso il mondo|author=Al Idrisi, traduzione e note di Umberto Rizzitano|publisher=Flaccovio Editore|year=2008|location=Palermo}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|author=Luigi Pinelli|title=Gli Arabi e la Sardegna: le invasioni arabe in Sardegna dal 704 al 1016|publisher=Edizioni della Torre|location=Cagliari|pages=30, 42|year=1977}}</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>

[[File:Statuti Sassaresi XIV century 1a.png|thumb|alt=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 {{lang|sc|Cartas}} and {{lang|sc|condaghes}}. 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 of Cagliari|Torchitorio I de Lacon-Gunale]] in around 1070, written in Sardinian whilst still employing the [[Greek alphabet]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Eduardo Blasco Ferrer|year=1984|title=Storia Linguistica Della Sardegna|page=65|publisher=De Gruyter}}</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 [[Olbia|Civita]] and Benedetto, who oversaw the Opera del Duomo in Pisa. The Statutes of Sassari (1316) and [[Castelsardo|Castelgenovese]] ({{circa|1334}}) are written in Logudorese Sardinian.

The first [[chronicle]] in {{Lang|sc|lingua sive ydiomate sardo}},<ref>{{cite book|author=Antonietta Orunesu, Valentino Pusceddu|title=Cronaca medioevale sarda: i sovrani di Torres|year=1993|publisher=Astra|location=Quartu S.Elena|page=11}}</ref> called {{lang|sc|Condagues de Sardina}}, was published anonymously in the 13th century, relating the events of the [[Judicate of Torres]].

===Iberian period – Catalan and Castilian influence===
{{See also|History of Sardinia#Kingdom of Sardinia in the Crown of Aragon and in the Spanish Empire|l1=Kingdom of Sardinia in the Crown of Aragon and in the Spanish Empire}}
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 {{Lang|la|summa potestas}}, 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 {{lang|sc|Helis, Helis}}, 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". {{cite book|author=Francesco Cesare Casula|title=Breve storia della scrittura in Sardegna. La "documentaria" nell'epoca aragonese|publisher=Editrice Democratica Sarda|year=1978|pages=56–57|place=Cagliari}}</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 ({{Lang|la|Sardus de foras}}),<ref>{{cite book|author=Francesco Cesare Casula|chapter=Le rivolte antiaragonesi nella Sardegna regnicola, 5|title=Il Regno di Sardegna|date=24 November 2012 |publisher=Logus|isbn=978-88-98062-10-2}}</ref> as well as a widespread impatience with the foreign importation of a feudal regime, specifically "{{lang|la|more Italie}}" and "{{lang|la|Cathalonie}}", 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 "{{Lang|la|tot reges quot sunt ville}}" ({{Gloss|as many petty rulers as there are villages}}),<ref>{{cite book|author=Francesco Cesare Casula|chapter=Guerre fra l'Arborea e l'Aragona, 2|title=Il Regno di Sardegna|date=24 November 2012 |publisher=Logus|isbn=978-88-98062-10-2}}</ref> whereas instead "{{Lang|sc|Sardi unum regem se habuisse credebant}}" ({{Gloss|the Sardinians believed they had one single king}}).

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" ({{lang|la|capita}}) by [[Peter IV the Ceremonious]] in 1355, ended after sixty-seven years with the Iberian [[Battle of Sanluri|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 [[Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire|end of Aztec Mexico]]", should be considered "neither triumph nor defeat, but the painful birth of today's Sardinia".<ref>{{cite book |author=Casula |first=Francesco Cesare |title=Profilo storico della Sardegna catalano-aragonese |publisher=Edizioni della Torre |year=1982 |location=Cagliari |page=128 |author-link=Francesco Cesare Casula}}</ref>

Any outbreak of anti-Aragonese rebellion, such as the revolt of [[Alghero]] in 1353, that of [[Uras, Sardinia|Uras]] in 1470 and finally that of [[Macomer]] in 1478, celebrated in {{lang|la|De bello et interitu marchionis Oristanei}},<ref>{{Cite book|author=Maria Teresa Laneri|title=Proto Arca Sardo: De bello et interitu marchionis Oristanei|location=Cagliari|publisher=CUEC|year=2003}}</ref> were and would have been systematically neutralised. From that moment, "{{lang|es|quedó de todo punto Sardeña por el rey}}".<ref>{{cite book|author=Max Leopold Wagner|title=La lingua sarda. Storia, spirito e forma|place=Nuoro|publisher=Ilisso|year=1997|pages=68–69}}</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>{{cite book|author=Francesco Cesare Casula|title=Breve storia della scrittura in Sardegna. La "documentaria" nell'epoca aragonese|place=Cagliari|publisher=Editrice Democratica Sarda|year=1978|page=29}}</ref> many of which are in fact still preserved and/or refer to archives outside the island.<ref>{{cite book |author=Casula |first=Francesco Cesare |title=Breve storia della scrittura in Sardegna. La "documentaria" nell'epoca aragonese |publisher=Editrice Democratica Sarda |year=1978 |place=Cagliari |page=28 |author-link=Francesco Cesare Casula}}</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>{{cite book|author=Francesco Cesare Casula|chapter=La Sardegna catalano-aragonese, 6|title=Il Regno di Sardegna|date=24 November 2012 |publisher=Logus|isbn=978-88-98062-10-2}}</ref>

Thereafter, the ruling class in Sardinia proceeded to adopt [[Catalan language|Catalan]] as their primary language. The situation in [[Cagliari]], a city subject to Aragonese repopulation and where, according to [[Giovanni Francesco Fara]] ({{lang|la|Ioannes Franciscus Fara}} / {{lang|sc|Juanne Frantziscu Fara}}), 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." {{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Kw1lAAAAcAAJ|page=51|author=Ioannes Franciscus Fara|date=1835|title=De Chorographia Sardiniæ Libri duo. De Rebus Sardois Libri quatuor|location=Torino|publisher=Typographia regia}}</ref> was emblematic, so much so as to later generate [[idioms]] such as {{lang|sc|no scit su catalanu}} ({{Gloss|he does not know Catalan}}) to indicate a person who could not express themselves "correctly".<ref>{{cite book|author=Max Leopold Wagner|title=La lingua sarda. Storia, spirito e forma|place=Nuoro|publisher=Ilisso|year=1997|page=185}}</ref><ref name=FManconi24>{{cite book|title=La Sardegna al tempo degli Asburgo (secoli XVI-XVII)|author=Francesco Manconi|publisher=Il Maestrale|year=2010|page=24}}</ref> [[Alghero]] is still a [[Algherese dialect|Catalan-speaking enclave]] on Sardinia to this day.<ref name="FManconi24" /><ref>{{cite web| url = http://prosodia.upf.edu/coalgueres/en/algueres.html| title = Why is Catalan spoken in L'Alguer? – Corpus Oral de l'Alguerès}}</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 {{lang|sc|Carta de Logu}} to the feudal areas during the Reign of King [[Alfonso the Magnanimous]].<ref>See {{Cite book|author=J. Dexart|title=Capitula sive acta curiarum Regni Sardiniae|location=Calari|year=1645}} 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 language|Sassarese]] and then [[Gallurese language|Gallurese]], two [[Italo-Dalmatian languages|Italo-Dalmatian]] lects.<ref>Carlo Maxia, Studi Sardo-Corsi, Dialettologia e storia della lingua fra le due isole</ref><ref>{{cite web| url = http://maxia-mail.doomby.com/medias/files/atti-convegno-palau-2014-def.pdf| title = Ciurrata di la linga gadduresa, Atti del II Convegno Internazionale di Studi}}</ref>
{| class="wikitable floatright" style="width:25%;"
|-
!
Extract from ''sa Vitta et sa Morte, et Passione de sanctu Gavinu, Prothu et Januariu'' (A. Cano, ~1400)<ref name="Antoni">{{Cite book|url=http://www.filologiasarda.eu/pubblicazioni/pdf/cfsmanca/03edizione.pdf|author=Antoni Cano |editor=Dino Manca |year=2002|title=Sa Vitta et sa Morte, et Passione de sanctu Gavinu, Prothu et Januariu|publisher=CUEC}}</ref>
|-
|<poem>{{lang|sc|O
Deus eternu, sempre omnipotente,
In s'aiudu meu ti piacat attender,
Et dami gratia de poder acabare
Su sanctu martiriu, in rima vulgare,
5. De sos sanctos martires tantu gloriosos
Et cavaleris de Cristus victoriosos,
Sanctu Gavinu, Prothu e Januariu,
Contra su demoniu, nostru adversariu,
Fortes defensores et bonos advocados,
10. Qui in su Paradisu sunt glorificados
De sa corona de sanctu martiriu.
Cussos sempre siant in nostru adiutoriu.
Amen.}}</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>{{Cite book|author=Max Leopold Wagner|title=La lingua sarda: storia, spirito e forma|location=Bern|publisher=Francke|year=1951|page=186}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Manuale di linguistica sarda. Manuals of Romance linguistics|year=2017 |author=Eduardo Blasco Ferrer |author2=Peter Koch |author3=Daniela Marzo |publisher=De Gruyter Mouton|page=33}}</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 {{Lang|la|lingua sardisca}} from the post-Tridentine period is dated 1695, at the foot of the synodal constitutions of the [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cagliari|archbishopric of Cagliari]].<ref>Paolo Maninchedda, [https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/BollStudiSardi/issue/view/265/PDF_15 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 {{lang|ca|Los Colloquis de la Insigne Ciutat de Tortosa}}, had previously claimed in 1557 that, although Catalan had carved out a place for itself as {{lang|ca|llengua cortesana}}, in many parts of the island the "ancient language of the Kingdom" ("{{Lang|ca|llengua antigua del Regne}}") was still preserved;<ref name="Carbonell">{{Cite book|author=Jordi Carbonell i de Ballester|title=Elements d'història de la llengua catalana|year=2018|publisher=Publicacions de la Universitat de València|chapter=5.2}}</ref> the ambassador and {{lang|es|visitador reial}} Martin Carillo (supposed author of the ironic judgment on the Sardinians' tribal and sectarian divisions: "{{lang|es|pocos, locos, y mal unidos}}" {{Gloss|few, thickheaded, and badly united}}<ref name="auto3">{{cite book |author=Eduardo Blasco Ferrer |author2=Giorgia Ingrassia |title=Storia della lingua sarda: dal paleosardo alla musica rap, evoluzione storico-culturale, letteraria, linguistica. Scelta di brani esemplari commentati e tradotti|year=2009|publisher=Cuec|location=Cagliari|page=92}}</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 {{lang|ca|Llibre dels feyts d'armes de Catalunya}}, reported in the mid-seventeenth century that in Sardinia "{{lang|ca|parlen la llengua catalana molt polidament, axì com fos a Catalunya}}" ({{Gloss|they speak Catalan very well, as though I was in Catalonia}});<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 ({{lang|la|linguam propriam sardiniscam loquentes}});<ref>{{cite book|title=A Companion to Sardinian History, 500–1500|pages=111–112|location=Leiden, Boston|publisher=Brill|author=Michelle Hobart|year=2017}}</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>{{cite book|author=Raimondo Turtas|year=2001|publisher=EDES|title=Studiare, istruire, governare. La formazione dei letrados nella Sardegna spagnola|page=236}}</ref>

The 16th century is marked by a new literary revival of Sardinian, starting from the 15th-century {{lang|sc|Sa Vitta et sa Morte, et Passione de sanctu Gavinu, Brothu et Ianuariu}}, written by Antòni Canu (1400–1476) and published in 1557.<ref name="Antoni" /> {{lang|sc|Rimas Spirituales}}, by [[Gerolamo Araolla|Hieronimu Araolla]],<ref name="sardegnaculletorigini">{{Cite web|url=http://www.sardegnacultura.it/j/v/258?s=20328&v=2&c=2695&t=7|title=Sardegna Cultura – Lingua sarda – Letteratura – Dalle origini al '700|website=www.sardegnacultura.it|access-date=24 January 2018|archive-date=25 January 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180125074627/http://www.sardegnacultura.it/j/v/258?s=20328&v=2&c=2695&t=7}}</ref> was aimed at "glorifying and enriching Sardinian, our language" ({{lang|sc|magnificare et arrichire sa limba nostra sarda}}) as the Spanish, French and Italian poets had already done for their own languages ({{lang|fr|la Deffense et illustration de la langue françoyse}} and {{lang|it|Il Dialogo delle lingue}}). 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." {{cite book|title=Bilingualism and Linguistic Conflict in Romance|author=Rebecca Posner, John N. Green|page=286|year=1993|publisher=De Gruyter Mouton}}</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." {{cite book|author=Ignazio Putzu, Gabriella Mazzon|title=Lingue, letterature, nazioni. Centri e periferie tra Europa e Mediterraneo|publisher=Franco Angeli Edizioni|year=2013|page=597}}</ref><ref group=note>[[Incipit]] to "Lettera al Maestro" in {{cite book|title=La Sardegna e la Corsica|author=Ines Loi Corvetto|location=Torino|publisher=UTET|year=1993}} {{cite book|author=Hieronimu Araolla |editor=Max Leopold Wagner|year=1915|title=Die Rimas Spirituales Von Girolamo Araolla. Nach Dem Einzigen Erhaltenen Exemplar Der Universitätsbibliothek in Cagliari|publisher=Princeton University|page=76}}: {{lang|sc|Semper happisi desiggiu, Illustrissimu Segnore, de magnificare, & arrichire sa limba nostra Sarda; dessa matessi manera qui sa naturale insoro tottu sas naciones dessu mundu hant magnificadu & arrichidu; comente est de vider per isos curiosos de cuddas.}}</ref> Antonio Lo Frasso, a poet born in [[Alghero]]<ref name="Arce">[https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/906360.pdf 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..." {{cite book|title=España en Cerdeña|author=Joaquín Arce|year=1960|page=359}}</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'' "{{lang|sc|Non podende sufrire su tormentu / de su fogu ardente innamorosu. / Videndemi foras de sentimentu / et sensa una hora de riposu, / pensende istare liberu e contentu / m'agato pius aflitu e congoixosu, / in essermi de te senora apartadu, / mudende ateru quelu, ateru istadu&nbsp;...}}" {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R989rHaj58IC|author=Antonio de Lo Frasso|pages=141–144|volume=2|title=Los Cinco Ultimos Libros de Fortuna de Amor|location=Londra|publisher=Henrique Chapel|year=1573–1740}}</ref>

Agreeing with Fara's aforementioned {{lang|la|De rebus Sardois}}, the Sardinian attorney Sigismondo Arquer, author of {{lang|la|Sardiniae brevis historia et descriptio}} in [[Sebastian Münster]]'s [[Cosmographia (Sebastian Münster)|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>{{cite book|author=Conrad Gessner|year=1555|url=http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k938671|title=De differentiis linguarum tum veterum tum quae hodie apud diversas nationes in toto orbe terraru in usu sunt, Sardorum lingua|pages=66–67}}</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." {{cite book|title=Sardiniae brevis historia et descriptio |author=Sigismondo Arquer |author2=Maria Teresa Laneri|year=2008|publisher=CUEC|pages=30–31}}</ref>

Especially through the reorganization of the monarchy led by the [[Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares|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 (royal)|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>{{Cite web|url=http://www.vilaweb.cat/noticia/4228285/20150124/vicenc-bacallar-sard-botifler-origens-real-academia-espanola.html|title=Vicenç Bacallar, el sard botifler als orígens de la Real Academia Española|website=VilaWeb.cat}}</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 {{lang|sc|[[gosos]]}} or {{lang|sc|gocius}} (sacred hymns), the {{lang|sc|anninnia}} (lullabies), the {{lang|sc|atitu}} (funeral laments), the {{lang|sc|batorinas}} ([[quatrain]]s), the {{lang|sc|berbos}} and {{lang|sc|paraulas}} (curses), and the improvised poetry of the {{lang|sc|[[Mutu (music)|mutu]]}} and {{lang|sc|mutetu}}.

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 [[Tercio|Spanish ''tercios'']],<ref>{{Citation
| last       =Olaya
| first      =Vicente G.
| year       =2019
| title      =La segunda vida de los tercios
| newspaper  =El País
| url        =https://elpais.com/cultura/2018/12/21/actualidad/1545406261_918691.html
| access-date =4 June 2019
|language=es}}: "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>{{cite book|title=La Sardegna al tempo degli Asburgo (secoli XVI-XVII)|author=Francesco Manconi|publisher=Il Maestrale|year=2010|page=35}}</ref>

Ioan Matheu Garipa, a priest from [[Orgosolo]] who translated the Italian {{lang|it|Leggendario delle Sante Vergini e Martiri di Gesù Cristo}} into Sardinian ({{lang|sc|Legendariu de Santas Virgines, et Martires de Iesu Christu}}) 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: "{{lang|sc|Sendemi vennidu à manos in custa Corte Romana vnu Libru in limba Italiana, nouamente istampadu, […] lu voltao in limba Sarda pro dare noticia de cuddas assos deuotos dessa patria mia disijosos de tales legendas. Las apo voltadas in sardu menjus qui non-in atera limba pro amore de su vulgu […] qui non-tenjan bisonju de interprete pro bi-las decrarare, & tambene pro esser sa limba sarda tantu bona, quanta participat de sa latina, qui nexuna de quantas limbas si plàtican est tantu parente assa latina formale quantu sa sarda. […] Pro su quale si sa limba Italiana si preciat tantu de bona, & tenet su primu logu inter totas sas limbas vulgares pro esser meda imitadore dessa Latina, non-si diat preciare minus sa limba Sarda pusti non-solu est parente dessa Latina, pero ancora sa majore parte est latina vera. […] Et quando cussu non-esseret, est suficiente motiuu pro iscrier in Sardu, vider, qui totas sas nationes iscriven, & istampan libros in sas proprias limbas naturales in soro, preciandosi de tenner istoria, & materias morales iscritas in limba vulgare, pro qui totus si potan de cuddas aprofetare. Et pusti sa limba latina Sarda est clara & intelligibile (iscrita, & pronunciada comente conuenit) tantu & plus qui non-quale si querjat dessas vulgares, pusti sos Italianos, & Ispagnolos, & totu cuddos qui tenen platica de latinu la intenden medianamente.}}" [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_pbBMjcSo_60C 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"). [https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/3400254.pdf 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|thumb|left|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>{{cite web|url=https://www.comune.ploaghe.ss.it/web/pg/cimitero-antico/17|title=Cimitero antico|website=Ploaghe's official website}}</ref>]]

===Savoyard period – Italian influence===
{{See also|History of Sardinia#Kingdom of Sardinia under the House of Savoy|l1=Kingdom of Sardinia under the House of Savoy|History of Sardinia#Kingdom of Italy|l2=Kingdom of Italy|Italianisation}}
The [[War of the Spanish Succession]] gave Sardinia to Austria, whose sovereignty was confirmed by the 1713–14 treaties of [[Treaty of Utrecht|Utrecht]] and [[Treaty of Rastatt|Rastatt]]. In 1717 a Spanish fleet [[Spanish conquest of Sardinia|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">{{Cite book|author=Manlio Brigaglia|title=La Sardegna|volume=1. La geografia, la storia, l'arte e la letteratura|location=Cagliari|publisher=Edizioni Della Torre|year=1982|page=65}}</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". {{Cite book|author=Bruno Migliorini|title=Breve storia della lingua italiana|publisher=Sansoni|location=Firenze|year=1969|page=214}}</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 {{cite book|author=M. Lepori|title=Dalla Spagna ai Savoia. Ceti e corona della Sardegna del Settecento|location=Roma|year=2003}}</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>{{Cite book|title=Manuale di linguistica sarda|year=2017 |author=Eduardo Blasco Ferrer |author2=Peter Koch |author3=Daniela Marzo |publisher=De Gruyter Mouton|page=169}}</ref> Spanish, on the other hand, was the [[Prestige (sociolinguistics)|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>{{cite book|author=Joaquín Arce|year=1960|title=España en Cerdeña. Aportación cultural y testimonios de su influjo|location=Madrid|publisher=Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Jerónimo Zurita|page=128}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Joaquín Arce|title=La literatura hispánica de Cerdeña. Archivum: Revista de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras|volume=6|page=139|url=https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/906360.pdf}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Manuale di linguistica sarda. Manuals of Romance linguistics|year=2017 |author=Eduardo Blasco Ferrer |author2=Peter Koch |author3=Daniela Marzo |publisher=De Gruyter Mouton|pages=168–169}}</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>{{Cite book|title=Manuale di linguistica sarda|year=2017 |author=Eduardo Blasco Ferrer |author2=Peter Koch |author3=Daniela Marzo |publisher=De Gruyter Mouton|page=201}}</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>{{Cite book|author=Manlio Brigaglia|title=La Sardegna|volume=1. La geografia, la storia, l'arte e la letteratura|location=Cagliari|publisher=Edizioni Della Torre|year=1982|page=64}}</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>{{cite book|author=Amos Cardia|year=2006|title=S'italianu in Sardìnnia candu, cumenti e poita d'ant impostu: 1720–1848; poderi e lìngua in Sardìnnia in edadi spanniola|publisher=Iskra|location=Ghilarza|pages=86–87}}</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 ({{lang|it|insensibilmente}}), as early as 1721.<ref>{{cite book|author=Roberto Palmarocchi|title=Sardegna sabauda. Il regime di Vittorio Amedeo II|location=Cagliari|year=1936|page=95|publisher=Tip. Mercantile G. Doglio}}</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>{{cite book|author=Roberto Palmarocchi|year=1936|title=Sardegna sabauda|volume=I|publisher=Tip. Mercantile G. Doglio|location=Cagliari|page=87}}</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 {{lang|it|Memoria dei mezzi che si propongono per introdurre l'uso della lingua italiana in questo Regno}} ("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, Piedmont|Barolo]] responded suggesting the {{lang|la|ignotam linguam per notam expōnĕre}} ("to introduce an unknown language [Italian] through a known one [Spanish]") method as the best course of action for [[Italianisation]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Eduardo Blasco Ferrer, Giorgia Ingrassia|title=Storia della lingua sarda: dal paleosardo alla musica rap, evoluzione storico-culturale, letteraria, linguistica. Scelta di brani esemplari commentati e tradotti|year=2009|publisher=Cuec|location=Cagliari|page=110}}</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>{{cite book|author=Rossana Poddine Rattu|title=Biografia dei viceré sabaudi del Regno di Sardegna (1720–1848)|location=Cagliari|publisher=Della Torre|page=31}}</ref> Restrictions to [[interethnic marriage|mixed marriages]] between Sardinian women and the Piedmontese officers dispatched to the island, which had hitherto been prohibited by law,<ref>{{cite book|author=Luigi La Rocca|title=La cessione del Regno di Sardegna alla Casa Sabauda. Gli atti diplomatici e di possesso con documenti inediti, in "Miscellanea di Storia Italiana. Terza Serie", v.10|year=1905|location=Torino|publisher=[[Fratelli Bocca]]|pages=180–188}}</ref> were at one point lifted and even encouraged so as to better introduce the language to the local population.<ref>{{cite book|title=Manuale di linguistica sarda. Manuals of Romance linguistics|year=2017 |author=Eduardo Blasco Ferrer |author2=Peter Koch |author3=Daniela Marzo |publisher=De Gruyter Mouton|page=210}}</ref><ref>On further information as to the role played by mixed marriages in general to spread Italian among the islanders, see {{cite book|author=Ines Loi Corvetto|title=L'italiano regionale di Sardegna|location=Bologna|publisher=Zanichelli|pages=21–25}} ; {{cite book|author=Francesco Bruni|title=L'italiano nelle regioni. Lingua nazionale e identità regionali|location=Torino|publisher=UTET|page=913}}</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." {{cite book|title=Manuale di linguistica sarda. Manuals of Romance linguistics|year=2017 |author=Eduardo Blasco Ferrer |author2=Peter Koch |author3=Daniela Marzo |publisher=De Gruyter Mouton|page=209}}</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." {{cite book|title=Manuale di linguistica sarda. Manuals of Romance linguistics|year=2017 |author=Eduardo Blasco Ferrer |author2=Peter Koch |author3=Daniela Marzo |publisher=De Gruyter Mouton|page=210}}</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." {{cite book|title=Manuale di linguistica sarda. Manuals of Romance linguistics|year=2017 |author=Eduardo Blasco Ferrer |author2=Peter Koch |author3=Daniela Marzo |publisher=De Gruyter Mouton|page=209}}</ref> whom they often likened to the Spanish and the ancient peoples of the Orient, an opinion illustrated by the Duke [[Francis IV, Duke of Modena|Francis IV]] and [[Antonio Bresciani (writer)|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." {{cite book|author=[[Francis IV, Duke of Modena|Francesco D'Austria-Este]]|title=Descrizione della Sardegna (1812), ed. Giorgio Bardanzellu|year=1993|orig-date=1812|location=Cagliari|publisher=Della Torre|pages=43, 64}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Dei costumi dell'isola di Sardegna comparati cogli antichissimi popoli orientali|url=http://www.sardegnadigitallibrary.it/mmt/fullsize/2009040715122300055.pdf|author=Antonio Bresciani|year=1861|publisher=Giannini Francesco|location=Napoli|access-date=8 March 2021|archive-date=14 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414040845/http://www.sardegnadigitallibrary.it/mmt/fullsize/2009040715122300055.pdf}}</ref> a popular assertion by the officer Giulio Bechi, who would participate in a military campaign against [[Sardinian banditry]] dubbed as {{lang|it|caccia grossa}} ("great hunt"), was that the islanders spoke "a horrible language, as intricate as Saracen, and sounding like Spanish".<ref>{{cite book|title=Caccia grossa. Scene e figure del banditismo sardo|author=Giulio Bechi|orig-date=1900|date= 1997 |location=Nuoro|publisher=Ilisso|page=43}}</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." {{cite book|author=Francesco Corda|year=1994|title=Grammatica moderna del sardo logudorese: con una proposta ortografica, elementi di metrica e un glossario|publisher=Edizioni della Torre|location=Cagliari|pages=6–7}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=The Phonology of Campidanian Sardinian: A Unitary Account of a Self-Organizing Structure |last=Bolognesi |first=Roberto |date=1998 |publisher=Holland Academic Graphics|page=3}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Amos Cardia|year=2006|title=S'italianu in Sardìnnia candu, cumenti e poita d'ant impostu: 1720–1848; poderi e lìngua in Sardìnnia in edadi spanniola|publisher=Iskra|location=Ghilarza|pages=88, 91}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Alessandro Mongili|title=Topologie postcoloniali. Innovazione e modernizzazione in Sardegna|year=2015|location=Cagliari|page=Premessa, 18; Postcolonial Sardinia, 65; Mondi post, informatica ed esclusione, 21}}</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., [http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/sardegna_%28Enciclopedia-Italiana%29/ ''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." {{cite book|author=Amos Cardia|year=2006|title=S'italianu in Sardìnnia candu, cumenti e poita d'ant impostu: 1720–1848; poderi e lìngua in Sardìnnia in edadi spanniola|publisher=Iskra|location=Ghilarza|page=92}}</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.". {{cite book|author=Luciano Guerci|year=2006|title=L'Europa del Settecento: permanenze e mutamenti|publisher=UTET|page=576}}</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." {{cite book|author=Joan Armangué i Herrero|title=Represa i exercici de la consciència lingüística a l'Alguer (ss.XVIII-XX)|publisher=Arxiu de Tradicions de l'Alguer}} 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">{{Cite book|author=Manlio Brigaglia|title=La Sardegna|volume=1. La geografia, la storia, l'arte e la letteratura|location=Cagliari|publisher=Edizioni Della Torre|year=1982|page=77}}</ref> In 1764, the exclusive imposition of the Italian language was finally extended to all sectors of public life,<ref name="Bolognesi">{{cite book|author=Roberto Bolognesi, Wilbert Heeringa|title=Sardegna fra tante lingue|page=25|year=2005|publisher=Condaghes}}</ref><ref name="Salvi1">{{cite book|author=Sergio Salvi|title=Le lingue tagliate. Storia delle minoranze linguistiche in Italia|location=Milano|publisher=Rizzoli|year=1974|page=181}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Martin Maiden |author2=John Charles Smith |author3=Adam Ledgeway |title=The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages|volume=2|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2013|page=302}}</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". {{Cite book|author=Bruno Migliorini|title=La Rassegna della letteratura italiana|publisher=Le Lettere|location=Firenze|year=1957|volume=61|page=398}}</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." {{cite book|author=Michele Loporcaro|title=Profilo linguistico dei dialetti italiani|year=2009|publisher=Editori Laterza|page=9}}</ref> in parallel with the reorganisation of the [[University of Cagliari|Universities of Cagliari]] and [[University of Sassari|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>{{cite book|author=Amos Cardia|year=2006|title=S'italianu in Sardìnnia candu, cumenti e poita d'ant impostu: 1720–1848; poderi e lìngua in Sardìnnia in edadi spanniola|publisher=Iskra|location=Ghilarza|page=89}}</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 {{lang|it|Lamento del Regno}} ("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>{{Cite book|title=Rivista storica italiana|volume=104|year=1992|page=55|publisher=Edizioni scientifiche italiane}}</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>{{cite book|author=Clemente Caria|year=1981|title=Canto sacro-popolare in Sardegna|location=Oristano|publisher=S'Alvure|page=45}}</ref> The most immediate effect of the order was thus the further [[Minoritized language|marginalization]] of the Sardinians' native idiom, making way for a thorough Italianisation of the island.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.sardegnacultura.it/j/v/258?s=20329&v=2&c=2695&t=7|title=Sardegna Cultura – Lingua sarda – Letteratura – Dalle origini al '700|website=www.sardegnacultura.it|access-date=24 January 2018|archive-date=25 January 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180125134456/http://www.sardegnacultura.it/j/v/258?s=20329&v=2&c=2695&t=7}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/dialetti-sardi_(Enciclopedia-dell%27Italiano)|title=sardi, dialetti in "Enciclopedia dell'Italiano"|website=www.treccani.it}}</ref><ref name="Salvi1" /><ref name="Lubello" /> For the first time, in fact, even the wealthy and most powerful families of rural Sardinia, the {{lang|sc|printzipales}}, 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 {{lang|it|Il Rifiorimento della Sardegna proposto nel miglioramento di sua agricoltura}}, depicts the island's linguistic pluralism in 1776, and referring to [[Francesco Cetti]]'s {{lang|it|I quadrupedi della Sardegna}} for a more meticulous analysis of "the character of the Sardinian language ("{{lang|it|indole della lingua sarda}}") 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 ("{{lang|it|capo di sopra}}"). Algherese is a Catalan dialect, for a Catalan colony is Alghero; and finally Sassarese, which is spoken in [[Sassari]], [[Tempio Pausania|Tempio]] and [[Castelsardo|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." {{cite book |title=Rifiorimento della Sardegna proposto nel miglioramento di sua agricoltura|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R-tLz6JWmDkC|author=Francesco Gemelli |location=Torino|publisher=Giammichele Briolo|volume=2|year=1776}}</ref>

The first systematic study on the Sardinian language was written in 1782 by the philologist Matteo Madau, with the title of {{lang|it|Il ripulimento della lingua sarda lavorato sopra la sua antologia colle due matrici lingue, la greca e la latina}}.<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>{{Cite web|url=https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/matteo-madao_(Dizionario-Biografico)|title=MADAO, Matteo in "Dizionario Biografico"|website=www.treccani.it}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.poesias.it/poeti/madau_matteo/madau.htm|title=Ichnussa – la biblioteca digitale della poesia sarda|website=www.poesias.it}}</ref><ref>[http://www.tdx.cat/bitstream/handle/10803/129737/tmf2.pdf?sequence=3 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">{{cite book|author=Amos Cardia|year=2006|title=S'italianu in Sardìnnia candu, cumenti e poita d'ant impostu: 1720–1848; poderi e lìngua in Sardìnnia in edadi spanniola|publisher=Iskra|location=Ghilarza|pages=111–112}}</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 {{lang|it|Bonifacio d'Olmi}}, who returned from [[Lima]] where he had first published a book of [[Mapuche language|Mapuche]] grammar in 1764.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.sardiniapost.it/culture/cultura/febres-la-prima-grammatica-sul-sardo-a-lezione-di-limba-dal-gesuita-catalano/|title=Febrés, la prima grammatica sul sardo. A lezione di limba dal gesuita catalano|date=8 June 2019|publisher=Sardiniapost.it}}</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 {{lang|it|Prima grammatica de' tre dialetti sardi}},<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 of Savoy|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 [[Sa die de sa Sardigna|such political unrest]] was the poem {{lang|sc|[[Su patriottu sardu a sos feudatarios]]}}, 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>{{cite book|author=Sergio Salvi|title=Le lingue tagliate. Storia delle minoranze linguistiche in Italia|location=Milano|publisher=Rizzoli|year=1974|pages=182–183}}</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">{{Cite book|author=Manlio Brigaglia|title=La Sardegna|volume=1. La geografia, la storia, l'arte e la letteratura|location=Cagliari|publisher=Edizioni Della Torre|year=1982|page=90}}</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">{{Cite book|author=Manlio Brigaglia|title=La Sardegna|volume=1. La geografia, la storia, l'arte e la letteratura|location=Cagliari|publisher=Edizioni Della Torre|year=1982|page=95}}</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>{{cite conference |url=https://www.academia.edu/38298144 |title=Geostorica sarda. Produzione letteraria nella e nelle lingue di Sardegna |book-title=Literature 8.2 |publisher=Rhesis UniCa |author=Maurizio Virdis|page=21}}</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 {{lang|it|Falsi d'Arborea}}<ref>{{cite book|author=Maurizio Virdis|title=Prospettive identitarie in Sardegna, in Contarini, Silvia. Marras, Margherita. Pias, Giuliana. L'identità sarda del XXI secolo tra globale, locale e postcoloniale|year=2012|pages=32–33|publisher=Il Maestrale|location=Nuoro}}</ref> by the [[Perfect Fusion|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 {{lang|it|Saggio di grammatica del dialetto sardo meridionale}}<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." {{cite book|author=Amos Cardia|year=2006|title=S'italianu in Sardìnnia candu, cumenti e poita d'ant impostu: 1720–1848; poderi e lìngua in Sardìnnia in edadi spanniola|publisher=Iskra|location=Ghilarza|pages=112–113}}</ref> The more ambitious work of the professor and senator [[Giovanni Spano]], the ''Ortographia sarda nationale'' ("Sardinian National Orthography"),<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sardegnadigitallibrary.it/mmt/fullsize/2009042212524300097.pdf|title=Ortographia Sarda Nationale o siat Grammatica de sa limba logudoresa cumparada cum s'italiana|author=Johanne Ispanu|year=1840|publisher=Reale Stamperia|location=Kalaris|access-date=27 June 2019|archive-date=26 June 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190626202241/http://www.sardegnadigitallibrary.it/mmt/fullsize/2009042212524300097.pdf}}</ref> although it was officially meant for the same purpose as Porru's,<ref group=note>In Spano's dedication to [[Maria Theresa of Austria (1801–1855)|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 (river)|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 dialect|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''"". {{cite book|author=Massimo Pittau|title=Grammatica del sardo illustre: con la messa cristiana in lingua sarda|location=Sassari|publisher=C. Delfino|year=2005|pages=11–12}} [http://www.pittau.it/Sardo/sardoillustre.html Introduction]</ref>
[[File:SardiniePiemont.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.4|The [[Kingdom of Sardinia]] in 1856|alt=]]

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." {{cite book|author=Carlo Baudi di Vesme|title=Considerazioni politiche ed economiche sulla Sardegna|year=1848|publisher=Dalla Stamperia Reale|pages=49–51|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ko83AAAAcAAJ}}</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 {{cite book|author=Manlio Brigaglia|title=La Sardegna. La cultura popolare, l'economia, l'autonomia|volume=2|location=Cagliari|publisher=Edizioni Della Torre|year=1982|pages=173–174}}</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">{{Cite book|author=Carlo Baudi di Vesme|title=Considerazioni politiche ed economiche sulla Sardegna|year=1848|publisher=Dalla Stamperia Reale|page=306|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ko83AAAAcAAJ}}</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>{{Cite book|author=Carlo Baudi di Vesme|title=Considerazioni politiche ed economiche sulla Sardegna|date=1848 |publisher=Dalla Stamperia Reale|page=305|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ko83AAAAcAAJ}}</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>{{Cite book|author=Carlo Baudi di Vesme|title=Considerazioni politiche ed economiche sulla Sardegna|year=1848|publisher=Dalla Stamperia Reale|page=313|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ko83AAAAcAAJ}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Sebastiano Ghisu|title=Filosofia de logu|chapter=3, 8|location=Milano|publisher=Meltemi|year=2021}}</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 (''[[Francis (given name)|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 {{lang|sc|Sos discursos sacros in limba sarda}} ("Holy Discourses in Sardinian language"), wherein the author lamented the fact that Sardinia, "{{lang|sc|hoe provinzia italiana non podet tenner sas lezzes e sos attos pubblicos in sa propia limba}}" ("Being an Italian province nowadays, [Sardinia] cannot have laws and public acts made in its own language"), and while claiming that "{{lang|sc|sa limba sarda, totu chi non uffiziale, durat in su Populu Sardu cantu durat sa Sardigna}}" ("the Sardinian language, however unofficial, will last as long as Sardinia among the Sardinians"), he also asked himself "{{lang|sc|Proite mai nos hamus a dispreziare cun d'unu totale abbandonu sa limba sarda, antiga et nobile cantu s'italiana, sa franzesa et s'ispagnola?}}" ("Why should we show neglect and contempt for Sardinian, which is a language as ancient and noble as Italian, French and Spanish?").<ref>{{cite book|author=Salvatore Carboni|year=1881|title=Sos discursos sacros in limba sarda|location=Bologna|publisher=Imprenta Pontificia Mareggiani}} In {{cite book|author=Sergio Salvi|title=Le lingue tagliate. Storia delle minoranze linguistiche in Italia|location=Milano|publisher=Rizzoli|year=1974|pages=186–187}}</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 of Sardinia|Charles Felix]] "''Leggi civili e criminali del Regno di Sardegna''", written in Italian.<ref name="Salvi2">{{cite book|author=Sergio Salvi|title=Le lingue tagliate. Storia delle minoranze linguistiche in Italia|location=Milano|publisher=Rizzoli|year=1974|page=184}}</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." {{cite book|author=Pietro Martini|year=1847|title=Sull'unione civile della Sardegna colla Liguria, col Piemonte e colla Savoia|location=Cagliari|publisher=Timon|page=4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5eLSu0NrcHQC}}</ref> would result in the loss of the island's residual autonomy<ref name="Toso">{{Cite web|url=https://www.treccani.it/magazine/lingua_italiana/articoli/scritto_e_parlato/Toso8.html|title=Lingue sotto il tetto d'Italia. Le minoranze alloglotte da Bolzano a Carloforte – 8. Il sardo &#124; Treccani, il portale del sapere|website=www.treccani.it}}</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 Piedmont-Sardinia|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>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ilisso.com/inno/innonazionalesardo.pdf|title=Spanu, Gian Nicola. ''Il primo inno d'Italia è sardo''|access-date=5 July 2016|archive-date=11 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171011061344/http://www.ilisso.com/inno/innonazionalesardo.pdf}}</ref> However, even when the island became part of the [[Kingdom of Italy]] under [[Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy|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." {{cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Sardinia-island-Italy/Aragonese-domination#ref333582|title=Sardinia, History, People and Points of Interest. Sardinia in a united Italy|publisher=Britannica}}</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>{{Cite book|author=Fiorenzo Toso|title=Le minoranze linguistiche in Italia|publisher=Società editrice Il Mulino|location=Bologna|year=2008|isbn=978-88-15-36114-1|chapter=2}}</ref> Eventually, Sardinian came to be perceived as {{lang|sc|sa limba de su famine}} / {{lang|sc|sa lingua de su famini}}, 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|thumb|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">{{Cite book|author=Manlio Brigaglia|title=La Sardegna. La cultura popolare, l'economia, l'autonomia|volume=2|location=Cagliari|publisher=Edizioni Della Torre|year=1982|page=114}}</ref> Previously, Sardinian had been mentioned in a book by August Fuchs on [[irregular verbs]] in Romance languages ({{lang|de|Über die sogennannten unregelmässigen Zeitwörter in den romanischen Sprachen}}, Berlin, 1840) and, later, in the second edition of {{lang|de|Grammatik der romanischen Sprachen}} (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">{{Cite book|author=Manlio Brigaglia|title=La Sardegna. La cultura popolare, l'economia, l'autonomia|volume=2|location=Cagliari|publisher=Edizioni Della Torre|year=1982|page=115}}</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 ({{lang|de|Zur Kenntnis des Altlogudoresischen}}, in {{lang|de|Sitzungsberichte der kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaft Wien}}, 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" ({{lang|it|di stirpe sarda}}<ref>{{cite book|author=Manlio Brigaglia|title=La Sardegna|volume=2. La cultura popolare, l'economia, l'autonomia|location=Cagliari|publisher=Edizioni Della Torre|year=1982|page=175}}</ref>) to enlist as Italian subjects and established the [[Brigata Sassari|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">{{cite book|author=Manlio Brigaglia |display-authors=etal |chapter=Un'idea della Sardegna|title=Storia della Sardegna|location=Cagliari|publisher=Edizioni della Torre|year=2017}}</ref> Nevertheless, similarly to [[Navajo language|Navajo]]-speaking service members in the United States during [[World War II]], as well as [[Quechua language|Quechua]] speakers during the [[Falklands War]],<ref>{{cite book |editor=Marita Kaiser |editor2=Federico Masini |editor3=Agnieszka Stryjecka |title=Competenza comunicativa: insegnare e valutare|place=Rome|publisher=Sapienza Università Editrice|page=49|year=2021}}</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">{{cite web|url=https://www.treccani.it/magazine/lingua_italiana/speciali/grande_guerra/Toso.html|title=Moschetto e dialetto|author=Fiorenzo Toso|year=2014}}</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>{{cite book|author=Alfredo Graziani|title=Fanterie sarde all'ombra del Tricolore|year=2003|place=Sassari|publisher=La Nuova Sardegna|page=257}}</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: "{{lang|sc|si ses italianu, faedda in sardu!}}".<ref>{{cite book|title=Storia della Brigata Sassari|year=1981|page=10|place=Sassari|publisher=Gallizzi}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=L'amarezza leggiadra della lingua. Atti del Convegno "Tonino Ledda e il movimento felibristico del Premio di letteratura 'Città di Ozieri'. Percorsi e prospettive della lingua materna nella poesia contemporanea di Sardegna": giornate di studio, Ozieri, 4–5–6 maggio 1995, Centro di documentazione e studio della letteratura regionale|year=1997|page=346}}</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>{{Cite web|url=https://leletteredalcarcere.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/lettera-n%c2%b0-23-26-marzo-1927-a-teresina/|title=lettera n° 23: 26 marzo 1927: a Teresina|work=Antonio Gramsci : le lettere dal carcere |date=13 November 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Alessandro Carlucci|title=Gramsci and Languages. Unification, Diversity, Hegemony|location=Leiden, Boston|publisher=Brill|year=2013|page=27}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.labarbagia.net/notizie/territorio/3686/gramsci-la-sardegna-la-lingua-sarda-le-tradizioni-popolari|title=Gramsci, la Sardegna, la lingua sarda, le tradizioni popolari|author=Francesco Casula|date=4 June 2013 |publisher=LaBarbagia.net}}</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 [[Italian fascism|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 {{cite book|author=Manlio Brigaglia|title=La Sardegna. La geografia, la storia, l'arte e la letteratura|volume=1|location=Cagliari|publisher=Edizioni Della Torre|year=1982|page=132}}</ref> Local cultural expressions were thus repressed, including Sardinia's festivals<ref>{{cite book|author=Giancarlo Deidda|year=1990|title=Folk festivals in Sardinia|publisher=Janus|location=Cagliari|page=7}}</ref> and improvised poetry competitions,<ref>{{cite book|author=Sergio Salvi|title=Le lingue tagliate. Storia delle minoranze linguistiche in Italia|location=Milano|publisher=Rizzoli|year=1974|page=191}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Massimo Pittau|title=Grammatica del sardo illustre: con la messa cristiana in lingua sarda|location=Sassari|publisher=C. Delfino|year=2005}} [http://www.pittau.it/Sardo/sardoillustre.html 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>{{cite web|url=http://www.manifestosardo.org/quando-a-scuola-si-insegnava-la-lingua-sarda/|title=Quando a scuola si insegnava la lingua sarda|work=Il Manifesto Sardo|date=2 January 2016 }}</ref><ref name="Remundu">{{cite web| url = http://www.sardegnacultura.it/j/v/253?s=23661&v=2&c=2767&c1=2797&t=1| title = ''Remundu Piras'', Sardegna Cultura| access-date = 17 February 2018| archive-date = 30 October 2020| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20201030105038/http://www.sardegnacultura.it/j/v/253?s=23661&v=2&c=2767&c1=2797&t=1}}</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!" {{cite web|url=https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/3400254.pdf|author=Francesco Casula|title=Sa chistione de sa limba in Montanaru e oe|page=66}}</ref> "so will the dialect ''(sic)''", which was interpreted as "the region's revealing spiritual element";<ref>{{cite book|author=Francesco Atzeni|title=Mediterranea (1927–1935): politica e cultura in una rivista fascista|location=Cagliari|publisher=AM & D|year=2005|page=106}}</ref> in the wake of this debate, Anchisi managed to have Sardinian banned from the printing press, as well.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/3400254.pdf|title=Casula, Francesco. ''Sa chistione de sa limba in Montanaru e oe''}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.regione.sardegna.it/messaggero/1982_dicembre_21.pdf|title=Masala, Francesco. ''Est torradu Montanaru'', Messaggero, 1982|access-date=19 June 2019|archive-date=14 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414040935/http://www.regione.sardegna.it/messaggero/1982_dicembre_21.pdf}}</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>{{cite web|url=https://www.manifestosardo.org/montanaru-e-la-lingua-sarda/|title=Montanaru e la lingua sarda|year=2019|website=Il Manifesto Sardo}}</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." {{cite book|author=Antioco Casula|title=Poesie scelte|publisher=Edizioni 3T|location=Cagliari|year=1982|page=35}}</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>{{Cite web|url=http://www.lophius.net/Cummun_en.pdf|title=Poddighe, Salvatore. ''Sa Mundana Cummedia'', bilingual version in Sardinian and English}}</ref>) had been seized by Cagliari's police commissioner.<ref>Poddighe, Salvatore. ''Sa Mundana Cummédia'', p. 32, Domus de Janas, 2009, {{ISBN|88-88569-89-8}}</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." {{cite book|author=Sergio Lubello|year=2016|title=Manuale Di Linguistica Italiana, Manuals of Romance linguistics|publisher=De Gruyter|page=499}}</ref> which led to an even further sociolinguistic degradation of Sardinian.<ref name="degruyter.com">{{Cite book|title=Manuale di linguistica sarda|year=2017 |author=Eduardo Blasco Ferrer |author2=Peter Koch |author3=Daniela Marzo |publisher=De Gruyter Mouton|page=36}}</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 {{cite book|author=Manlio Brigaglia|title=La Sardegna. La geografia, la storia, l'arte e la letteratura|volume=1|location=Cagliari|publisher=Edizioni Della Torre|year=1982|page=132}}</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 [[Italian resistance movement|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 />

{{anchor|Current situation}}