Editing Sardinia (section)

=== Languages ===
{{Main|Sardinian language|Sassarese language|Gallurese|Algherese dialect|Ligurian language}}
[[File:Sardinia Language Map.png|thumb|left|Linguistic map of Sardinia]]
[[File:No-smoking-sardinian.JPG|thumb|A '[[smoke-free laws|no smoking]]' sign in both [[Sardinian language|Sardinian]] and Italian]]

[[Italian language|Italian]], which is the official language throughout Italy, is the most widely spoken language today, followed by the island's indigenous language, [[Sardinian language|Sardinian]] (''sardu'').<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.regione.sardegna.it/documenti/1_4_20070510134456.pdf |title=Le Lingue dei Sardi: Una ricerca sociolinguistica |language=it |publisher=Regione Autonoma della Sardegna |location=Cagliari |date=January 2007 |access-date=26 June 2021 }}</ref>

Sardinian is a distinct branch of the [[Romance language]] family, going either by the same name or by [[Southern Romance]]: it is therefore a separate language rather than an Italian dialect,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ethnologue.com/family/17-1709|title=Ethnologue report for Sardinian |publisher=Ethnologue.com |access-date=28 March 2013}}</ref> and it is also closer to its [[Latin]] roots than Italian itself.<ref>{{cite book |title=Story of Language |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.74047 |last=Pei |first=Mario |author-link=Mario Pei |year=1949 |publisher=Lippincott |isbn=978-03-9700-400-3 }}</ref> Sardinian has been formally recognized as one of Italy's twelve historical [[minority language|ethnolinguistic minorities]] since 1997, by regional and Italian law.<ref>Legge Regionale n. 26, 15 ottobre 1997</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.parlamento.it/parlam/leggi/99482l.htm|title=Legge 482|website=www.parlamento.it}}</ref> The language has been influenced by [[Catalan language|Catalan]], Spanish and recently Italian, while the once spoken [[Paleo-Sardinian language]] contributes many features to it in many ancient remnants.

In 2006 the regional administration has approved the use of a single standardised writing system, the so-called ''[[Limba Sarda Comuna]]'',<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.regione.sardegna.it/documenti/1_72_20060418160308.pdf |publisher=Regione Autonoma della Sardegna |title=Limba Sarda Comuna: Norme linguistiche di riferimento a carattere sperimentale per la lingua scritta dell'Amministrazione regionale |language=it |access-date=26 June 2021 }}</ref> in official acts. As a literary language, Sardinian is gaining importance, despite heated debate about the lack of a commonly acknowledged standard orthography and controversial proposed solutions to this problem.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_8J7ilk0bAgC&q=Sardinian|title=Bilingualism and Linguistic Conflict in Romance|first1=Rebecca|last1=Posner|first2=John N.|last2=Green|pages=271–294|date=15 June 1993|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|via=Google Books|isbn=9783110117240}}</ref> The two main orthographies of the language are in fact [[Campidanese Sardinian|Campidanese]] (''sardu campidanesu''), used in central southern Sardinia, and [[Logudorese Sardinian|Logudorese]] (''sardu logudoresu''), extending northwards almost to the suburbs of [[Sassari]]. The Sardinian language is quite different from the other [[Romance languages]] and is homogeneous in terms of [[Morphology (linguistics)|morphology]], [[syntax]] and [[lexicon]], but it also shows a spectrum of variation in terms of [[phonetics]] between the Northern and the Southern [[dialect]]s.

[[Sassarese language|Sassarese]] (''sassaresu'') and [[Gallurese]] (''gadduresu'') are classified as [[Corsican language#Corsican in Sardinia|Corso-Sardinian languages]], therefore belonging to the [[Italo-Dalmatian languages|Italo-Dalmatian branch]] rather than to the Sardinian one, and are spoken in the north.

In Sardinia there are a few [[language island]]s: the [[Algherese dialect]] (''alguerés'') of [[Catalan language|Catalan]] is spoken in the city of [[Alghero]]; on the islands of [[San Pietro Island|San Pietro]] and [[Sant'Antioco]], located in the extreme south west of Sardinia, the local population speaks a variant of [[Ligurian language|Ligurian]] called Tabarchino (''tabarchin''); fewer and fewer people speak [[Venetian language|Venetian]], [[Friulian language|Friulian]] and [[Istriot language|Istriot]] in [[Arborea]] and [[Fertilia]], since these villages have been populated in the 1920s and 1930s by mainland colonists who came from [[northeast Italy]], and families from [[Istria]] and [[Dalmatia]] immediately after [[World War II]].

Due to the Italian assimilation policies carried out since the late 18th century<ref>{{cite book|title=S'italianu in Sardìnnia candu, cumenti e poita d'ant impostu : 1720-1848; poderi e lìngua in Sardìnnia in edadi spanniola|author=Amos Cardia|publisher=Iskra|year=2006|place=Ghilarza}}</ref> and the ongoing [[cultural assimilation|absorption]] into the Italian culture, over the course of time the once prevalent indigenous language has been increasingly losing ground to Italian and the process of ongoing [[language shift]] has led to its [[Endangered language|endangerment]].<ref>La Nuova Sardegna, 04/11/10, Per salvare i segni dell'identità – di Paolo Coretti</ref> In fact, according to the data published by [[National Institute of Statistics (Italy)|ISTAT]] in 2006,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www3.istat.it/salastampa/comunicati/non_calendario/20070420_00/testointegrale.pdf |title=La lingua italiana, i dialetti e le lingue straniere. Istat, 2006 |access-date=21 March 2016 |archive-date=22 July 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120722142548/http://www3.istat.it/salastampa/comunicati/non_calendario/20070420_00/testointegrale.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> 52.5% of the Sardinian population speaks only Italian in the family environment, while 29.3% alternates Italian and Sardinian and only 16.6% uses Sardinian or other non-Italian languages; outside the circle of family and friends, the last option drops to 5.2%. The resulting [[Italianization]] has led to a steep decline of the Sardinian language as well as produced a new non-standard variety of today's majority idiom, Italian: [[Regional Italian#Sardinia|regional Italian of Sardinia]] ({{lang|it|italiano regionale sardo}}, ''IrS'').

Following the recent growth of the foreign-born population, the presence of other languages, principally [[Romanian language|Romanian]], [[Arabic]], [[Wolof language|Wolof]] and [[Chinese language|Chinese]], is also expanding in some urban areas.