Sardinian Language

Sardinian language, Sardinian limba Sarda or lingua Sarda, also called Sardu, Italian Sardo, Romance language spoken by the more than 1.5 million inhabitants of the central Mediterranean island of Sardinia. Of all the modern Romance languages (including French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish), Sardinian is the most similar to Vulgar (non-Classical) Latin, which is the ancestor of them all. Vulgar Latin was first introduced to the island in 238 bce, when Rome wrested Sardinia from Carthage after the First Punic War. The closeness of Sardinian to Vulgar Latin is evident in its array of archaic linguistic features.

In earlier times Sardinian probably was spoken in Corsica, where Corsican (Corsu), a Tuscan dialect of Italian, is now used (although French has been Corsica’s official language for two centuries). From the 14th to the 17th century, Catalan (at that time the official language of Aragon, which ruled Sardinia) was used extensively, especially for official purposes; a Catalan dialect is still spoken in Alghero. The first documents in Sardinian are condaghi, legal contracts dating from approximately 1080; in the north of the island, Sardinian was used for such documents until the 17th century. Spanish (Castilian) began to be used in Sardinian official documents in 1600 but did not supplant Catalan in the south of the island until later in the 17th century. Since the early 18th century Sardinia’s destiny has been linked with that of the Italian mainland, and Italian is now the official language. Though she wrote in Italian, the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Grazia Deledda was born in Sardinia, and her novels are suffused with the essence of Sardinia.

As a result of its tumultuous history, by the early 21st century Sardinian had many dialect differences. Bavarian linguist Max Leopold Wagner, who studied the evolution of the Latin language in Sardinia, determined that the distinction between Logudorese and Campidanese varieties can be traced to the introduction of different waves of Latin. The older layer is that of Logudorese in the central mountains, which reflects an isolation (probably from the 1st century bce) produced by the repeated upheavals of the tribes living there. Not surprisingly, Logudorese (Logudorian) is the most conservative dialect. The northern form of Logudorese provides the basis for a sardo illustre (a conventionalized literary language that has been used mainly for folk-based verse). Campidanese (Campidanian), centred on Cagliari in the south, was heavily influenced by Catalan and Italian. The northernmost varieties of Sardinian—Sassarese (Sassarian) in the northwest and Gallurese (Gallurian) in the northeast—exhibit a mixed Sardinian-Italian typology as a consequence of the encroachment of medieval Ligurian and Corsican influences. Gallurese in particular is related to the dialect of Sartène in Corsica, and it may have been imported into the Gallura region in the 17th and 18th centuries by refugees from Corsican vendettas. Superstrata (languages such as Catalan, Spanish, and Italian that were later superimposed on Latin by conquerors) have introduced thousands of loanwords into the Sardinian dialects.

The use of Italian in schools and mass media is jeopardizing the bilingual competence of native speakers of all dialects of Sardinian except Campidanese. In 2005 the local government, Regione Autonoma della Sardegna (RAS), introduced a standard version of Sardinian (Limba Sarda Comuna), but, as it was not based on clear-cut linguistic criteria, it has not been acknowledged by native speakers or local administrations. Scholars and language academies were working on a dual standardized norm that combines Logudorese and Campidanese and takes into account the specific historical, anthropological, and linguistic evolution of the island’s two main subregions.

Sardinian is unintelligible to most Italians and gives an acoustic impression more similar to Spanish than Italian. It is clearly and energetically articulated but has always been regarded as barbarous by the soft-speaking Italians; Dante, for instance, said that Sardinians were like monkeys imitating men. It retains its vitality as a “home language,” but dialects are so diversified that the general acceptance of a “standard” Sardinian is unlikely.