Originally Posted by
Comte Arnau
None of the Rhaeto-Padanian varieties is a dialect of Italian, whether it's Friulian, Ladin, Piedmontese, etc.
I'd say that the absence of Friulian, Ladin and Sardinian, as well as of other languages in that map, is simply due to this law:
Law number 482 of 15 December 1999, Italy recognises the following minority languages: Albanian, Catalan, German, Greek, Slovene, Croatian, French, Franco-Provençal, Friulian, Ladin, Occitan, Sardinian (Legge 15 Dicembre 1999, n. 482, Art. 2, comma 1). The law also makes a distinction between those who are considered minority groups (Albanians, Catalans, Germanic peoples indigenous to Italy ("popolazioni germaniche"), Greeks, Slovenes and Croats) and those who are not (all the others).
But political laws and real linguistics hardly ever agree. Most of the so-called "dialetti" should be called languages simply because they linguistically are, regardless of what a law says. We all know, though, that extralinguistical factors are usually decisive, specially for the common people.
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