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Sardinian language
Sardinian (Sardu, Limba Sarda) is, after Italian, the main language spoken on the island of Sardinia, Italy. It is considered the most conservative of the Romance languages in terms of phonology and is noted for its Paleosardinian substratum. LinguisticsDialectsThe Sardinian language can be divided into the following main subregional language groups clearly identified by isogloss bundles:
The survival of a dialect of Catalan in the town of Alghero is a consequence of the domination of Catalonia over Sardinia as part of the Catalan-Spanish empire. PhonologyAll dialects of Sardinian feature archaic phonetic features when compared to other Romance languages. The degree of archaism varies, with Nuorese considered the most conservative. The examples listed below are from the northwestern Logudorese dialect:
Sardinian also features numerous phonetic innovations, including the following:
While the latter two features were acquired during the Spanish domination, the others reveal deeper relations between ancient Sardinia and the Iberian world. Note that retroflex d, l and r are found not only in southern Italy and Tuscany but also in Asturias. They were probably involved in the palatalization process of the Latin clusters -ll-, pl-, cl- (-ll- > Cast. and Cat. -ll- [ʎ], Gasc. -th [c]; cl- > Old Port. ch- [tʃ], Ital. chi- [kj]). Sardinian has the following phonemes (according to Blasco Ferrer): VowelsThe five vowels /a/ /e/ /i/ /o/ /u/ (without length differentiation). ConsonantsThe following three series of plosives or corresponding approximants:
In Cagliari the soft [d] can be assimilated to a flap [ɾ] (evoking Basque irudi = iduri 'to seem', ideki 'to take out' > ireki 'to open'): digitus > didu = diru 'finger'.
Fricatives
and, as in Italian:
Affricates
and from Italian:
Nasals
Liquids
Some permutations of l and r can be observed: marralzu = marrarzu 'rock'. In palatal context, Latin l changed into [dz], [ts], [ldz], [ll] or [dʒ] rather than [ʎ]: achizare (It. accigliare), *volia > bòlla = bòlza = bòza 'wish' (It. vòglia), folia > fogia = folla = foza 'leaf' (It. foglia), filia > filla = fitza = fiza 'daughter' (It. figlia). MorphologyThe main distinctive features of Sardinian are :
Pre-Latin Sardinian words
Other pre-Latin Sardinian words are presented here:
History and originsThe history of the island of Sardinia, relatively isolated from the European continent up into modern times, led to the development of a distinct Romance language, which even now preserves traces of the indigenous pre-Roman languages of the island. The language is of Latin origin like all Romance languages yet the following substratal influences are likely: Adstratal influences include: OriginsThe early origins of the Sardinian language (sometimes called Paleosardinian) are still obscure, due mostly to the lack of documents, as Sardinian appeared as a written form only in the Middle Ages. There are substantial differences between the many theories about the development of Sardinian, so opposite results are sometimes produced. Many studies have attempted to discover the origin of some obscure roots that today could legitimately be defined as indigenous, pre-Romance roots. First of all, the root of sard, present in many toponyms and distinctive of the ethnic group, is supposed to have come from a mysterious people known as the Shardana, "the people of the sea". Massimo Pittau claimed in 1984 to have found in the Etruscan language the etymology of many other Latin words, after comparison with the Nuragic language. If true, one could conclude that, having evidence of a deep influence of Etruscan culture in Sardinia, the island could have directly received from Etruscan many elements that are instead usually considered to be of Latin origin. Pittau then indicates that both the Etruscan and Nuragic languages are descended from the Lydian language, therefore being both Indo-European languages, as a consequence of the alleged provenance of Etruscans/Tirrenii from that land (as in Herodotus), where effectively the capital town was Sardis. Pittau also suggests, as a historical point, that the Tirrenii landed in Sardinia, whereas the Etruscans landed in modern-day Tuscany. Massimo Pittau's views however are not representative of most Etruscologists. It has been said that Paleosardinian should be expected to have notable similarities with Iberic languages and the Siculian language: the suffix -'ara, for example, in proparoxytones (Bertoldi and Terracini proposed it indicated plural forms). The same would happen (according to Terracini) for suffixes in -/àna/, -/ànna/, -/énna/, -/ònna/ + /r/ + paragogic vowel (as in the surname Bonnànnaro). Rohlfs, Butler and Craddock add the suffix -/ini/ (as in the surname Barùmini) as a peculiar element of Paleosardinian. At the same time, suffixes in /a, e, o, u/ + -rr- seem to find a correspondence in northern Africa (Terracini), in Iberia (Blasco Ferrer), in southern Italy and in Gascony (Rohlfs), with some closer relation to Basque (Wagner, Hubschmid). Suffixes in -/ài/, -/éi/, -/òi/, and -/ùi/ are common to Paleosardinian and northern African languages (Terracini). Pittau underlined that this concerns terms originally ending in an accented vowel, with an attached paragogic vowel; the suffix resisted Latinization in some toponyms, which show a Latin body and a Nuragic desinence. On this point, some toponyms ending in -/ài/ and in -/asài/ were thought to show Anatolic influence (Bertoldi). The suffix -/aiko/, widely used in Iberia, and perhaps of Celtic origins, as well as the ethnical suffix in -/itani/ and -/etani/ (as in the Sardinian Sulcitani) have been noted as other Paleosardinian elements (viz Terracini, Ribezzo, Wagner, Hubschmid, Faust, et al.). RomansThe Roman domination, beginning in 238 BC, obviously brought Latin to Sardinia, but Latin was not able to completely supplant the Pre-Roman Sardinian language. Some obscure roots remained unaltered, and in many cases it was Latin that was made to accept the local roots, such as nur (in Nuraghe, as well as Nuoro and many other toponyms). Roman culture, on the other hand, was undoubtedly dominant; Barbagia derives its name from the Greek word Ό βάρβαρος-ου that means stuttering because its people couldn't speak Latin well. Cicero, who called Sardinians latrones matrucati (thieves with rough sheep-wool cloaks) to emphasise Roman superiority, helped to spread this conception. Other influencesDuring this time period, there was a reciprocal influence between Corsica and a limited area of northern Sardinia. On the southern side, though, the evidence favors contacts with Semitic and (later) Byzantine languages. In the 1st century AC, some relevant groups of Hebrews were deported to Sardinia, bringing various influences; the Christianization of the island would probably have brought Hebrews to convert to a sort of independent cult of Sant'Antioco (perhaps a way to preserve some aspects of their ethnicity under a Christian form), still present in Gavoi. This contact with Hebrews, followed by another deportation of Christians, presumedly lasted for a couple of centuries, and makes it likely that by the 3rd century AC, Vulgar Latin began to dominate the island. This eventual Latin cultural domination thus makes Sardinian a Romance language, or more precisely an archaic neo-Latin language, whose main characteristics are an archaic phonetic and morphosyntactic phenomena. After this domination, Sardinia passed under the control of the Eastern Roman Empire, and more influences are derived from this culture. The Greek language that was the main reference of Byzantines did not, however, enter into the structure of Sardinian (still a Romance language) except for in some ritual or formal formulas that are expressed in Latin using Greek structure. Much evidence for this can be found in the Condaghes, the first written documents in Sardinian. Some toponyms show Greek influence as well, such as Jerzu, commonly presumed to derive from the Greek khérsos (untilled), together with the personal names Mikhaleis, Konstantine, and Basilis. |
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