[Foundation-l] Sassarese and Sardinian

[Ilario Valdelli]

Sardinian is a collection of different dialects spoken in Sardinia.

The environment is similar to Romansh (which is a collection of
different languages as Surmiran, Sursilvan etc.) with the difference
that the super-language Romansh is officially recognized and has got a
grammar and a dictionary.

The problem is generated because it's not clear what is language and
what is dialect.

Using dialect in some environment like Europa you could have
differences between two closest town. The nuances are very strong and
the language is not stable (there differences during the years and
influences).

The Lumbard (lmo.wikipedia.org) for example has got hundred different
dialects and not a superlanguage officially recognized, and two
different speakers of two lumbard dialect are not completely
understandable each other.

Ilario

On 9/10/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> There is a Wikipedia in the Sardinian
> language<http://sc.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A0gina_printzipale>.
> It uses the sc ISO-639-1 code. What was known as Sardinian became srd in the
> ISO-639-2. In the ISO-639-3 it was recognised as a
> macrolanguage<http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/scope.asp#M>;
> practically what was called Sardinian was split into four
> languages<http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=srd>
> .
>
> The Italian government has officially recognised the Sardinian language or
> the "Limba Sarda Comune". This is in essence a constructed language as it
> tries to make one language out of the four "dialects". One of the effects
> has been that some people prevent others from writing in one of the four
> languages on the sc.wikpedia.
>
> The language committee of the Wikimedia Foundation has a request to approve
> a new language; one of the Sardinian languages, Sassarese with ISO code sdc.
>
> There are two problems to deal with:
>
>    - The "Limba Sarda Comune" is not recognised as a language
>    - The proponents of the "Limba Sarda Comune" reserve the
> sc.wikipediafor their language
>
> This issue is political. The first thing that I understand when you go to
> the official website <http://www.sardegnacultura.it/linguasarda/> is the
> notion of identity and indeed, to create one Sardinian identity it would be
> instrumental to have a unifying language. However, the map of the Sardinian
> languages <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Lingue_di_Sardegna_mod.gif> is
> clear, the island is divided in four.
>
> Given that the language committee has as one of its rules that political
> arguments are not accepted, there are a few conclusions that we should make.
>
>    1. Sassarese can have a conditional approval
>    2. We urge the proponents of the Limba Sarda Comune to ask for the
>    recognition of this newly constructed language from ISO.
>
> I have had a chat with Debbie
> Garside<http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_board#Debbie_Garside>about
> all this, and I understand that it is necessary to apply for an
> ISO-639-3 code before an IANA language code is likely to be approved. At
> least fifty published works in the Limba Sarda Comune will be required.
> Thanks,
>      GerardM
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