Uses of local languages in Italy - The map

[Black Wolf]

Interesting how it is regions in the extreme south, northeast and northwest that seem to have preserved the use of local dialects/languages the best. Is it because these regions have been the most isolated over the years?

[FeederOfRavens]

Italia je Tuscany

[Ouistreham]

That's true, even in Venice Tuscan was used as diplomatic and administrative language at least since 16th century. The first Italian court to use it as administrative language was the Duchy of Milan under Ludovico il Moro at end of 15th century.

La diffusione di una lingua letteraria di base toscana era cominciata già attorno alla fine del XIII secolo a Bologna; nel secolo successivo i principali poli di irradiazione furono le città del Veneto (Venezia, Treviso, Padova) e la corte dei Visconti a Milano. Nel 1332 il metricologo e poeta padovano Antonio da Tempo dichiara la lingua tusca, cioè il toscano, magis apta [...] ad literam sive literaturam quam aliae linguae «più adatta all’espressione scritta e alla letteratura delle altre lingue». Sempre nel Trecento, il modello fiorentino si diffonde anche in centri dell’Italia centrale e meridionale come Perugia e Napoli. Il processo di unificazione della lingua letteraria, anzitutto poetica, procede – anche se con esitazioni e regressioni – nel Quattrocento, accelerando alla fine del secolo, grazie soprattutto all’affermarsi del petrarchismo.

Più tarda è l’adozione del toscano nella lingua amministrativa. La prima corte che adotta il fiorentino trecentesco come modello, oltre che nella letteratura, anche nella prassi cancelleresca, è quella di Ludovico il Moro, signore di Milano tra il 1480 e il 1499 (Vitale 1988).

(...)Nell’ambito cancelleresco, amministrativo, giuridico, ecc., l’uso dell’italiano-fiorentino restava basato su conoscenze approssimative e condizionato dal volgare locale più a lungo di quanto accada nella lingua letteraria. Così, per es., le relazioni degli ambasciatori veneziani al Senato della Serenissima all’inizio del XVI secolo appaiono scritte in un volgare sostanzialmente toscano, cioè italiano, ma che conserva ancora elementi fonologici, morfologici e lessicali veneziani. Questo genere di lingua è chiamata spesso tosco-veneto. Nei decenni successivi i tratti locali vennero progressivamente abbandonati, e si giunse entro la fine del secolo a una pressoché completa toscanizzazione (Durante 1981: 163-164; Tomasin 2001: 158-164). L’adozione del modello toscano nel secondo Cinquecento e nel Seicento è un fenomeno che riguarda più in generale la lingua degli scriventi colti di tutta Italia. Da questo termine in avanti solo le scritture dei semicolti (➔ italiano popolare) presentano fenomeni di ibridismo tra la norma scritta nazionale, l’italiano, e la lingua parlata locale, il dialetto (Bartoli Langeli 2000).

http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/...27Italiano%29/

Venetian is the only language of Italy that *could* have an opportunity to evolve as a separate culture language.

Why did Dutch (basically a Low-German dialect), Portuguese and Catalan (Iberian dialects that should logically have been absorbed by Castilian) assert themselves as full-fledged literary and political languages?
Because they were based on influential maritime cultures that could therefore evolve independently from the continental areas they were linked too, and were able to project themselves overseas. At some point they ruled the waves.
This was just the case for the Venetian Republic.
But from the moment scholars in Bologna had surrendered to Florentine supremacy, the Venetians couldn't but join the bandwaggon.

[Ulla]

Interesting how it is regions in the extreme south, northeast and northwest that seem to have preserved the use of local dialects/languages the best. Is it because these regions have been the most isolated over the years?

I have not the answer. Surely Calabria and Sicily were much more isolated than Central-North Italy, but Venice and Naples were important cultural centers just like Florence, Bologna, Milan, Genoa, Rome ... After the fall of Ancient Rome, Italy has long been a polycentric country, a city-state country.

[Black Wolf]

I have not the answer. Surely Calabria and Sicily were much more isolated than Central-North Italy, but Venice and Naples were important cultural centers just like Florence, Bologna, Milan, Genoa, Rome ... After the fall of Ancient Rome, Italy has long been a polycentric country, a city-state country.

Yes it is true that Italy for a very long time has been a ''city-state'' type country. That is probably the reason why many Italians identify with their regions before their country.

[Ulla]

Yes it is true that Italy for a very long time has been a ''city-state'' type country. That is probably the reason why many Italians identify with their regions before their country.

Yes, it's surely one of the reasons. All the people in Italy, even the Tuscans that are famous in Italy for their "campanilismo" (parochialism), they identify themselves with their home region before Italy. Probably the people that are starting to identify with Italy are the ones that are of mixed regional ancestry, especially the North-South mix.

[Peyrol]

Impossible.
Cavour was indeed poorly fluent in standard Italian, but he only spoke French to his king.
He never visited Rome, didn't want to see the town as long as it was ruled by the pope, and he died in 1861, years before Rome became Italian.


No.
Never had any Italian dialect the slightest chance to replace literary Tuscan. As soon as printing presses were available, during the 16th century, it became the unchallenged administrative language in all Italian states and provinces, and from then on there couldn't be any way back.

So, Arrigo Petacco (a famous historian) was wrong and wrote a bullshit in a book, since V.E. II died in 1878 and not in 1861 as you wrote.
The man wasn't Cavour btw, that's a mistake of mine, but the general Cialdini.


Standard italians as spoken language is almost artificial, only 2% of the population in 1861 was able to speak it.
Written standardizations are another thing...even Vatican used latin for diplomatic exchanges and for public proclamas up to 1963.
I think you have to search for his mail and tell him this.

[Peyrol]

...

How can a person be happy for the disappearing of local languages? Seriously

[Ulla]

How can a person be happy for the disappearing of local languages? Seriously

Who would be happy for the disappearing of local languages?

[Ulla]

Venetian is the only language of Italy that *could* have an opportunity to evolve as a separate culture language.

Why did Dutch (basically a Low-German dialect), Portuguese and Catalan (Iberian dialects that should logically have been absorbed by Castilian) assert themselves as full-fledged literary and political languages?
Because they were based on influential maritime cultures that could therefore evolve independently from the continental areas they were linked too, and were able to project themselves overseas. At some point they ruled the waves.
This was just the case for the Venetian Republic.

I agree. I think that Veneti weren't able so far to evolve as a separated culture language because the fish has been lacking the head. I mean, Venice, undoubtedly the center of cultural identity of Veneto (and formerly also the economic and political center) has become in the last century a harmless and beautiful city full of tourists, and nothing more. Instead, Barcelona is still the engine of Catalonia.