Hoi!
From a practical POV "merging bunches" is current at PMS, LMO, VEC, EML.
Obviously, the closer the script, the better for the result. When you have a wide variation in script it gets difficult to communicvate even for people that would easily understand each other by speaking.
On the other hand, once you get used to script you may find yourself understanding a linguistic entity you'd never be able to use in real life (for me that happens with eastern LMO and LIJ, for example).
Whether you can merge a practical "koine" out of a number of local variations is a political problem (and to an even larger extent a matter of human relations). Sometimes people find it difficult to do what they have done for centuries in street markets, that is, speak to each other and understand each other while using local variations of the same language. Whether this happens or not in a single wiki seems to be quite context-related.
As per getting an ISO code (and hence the right to a wiki) for all dialects of "italian proper" my absolutely personal opinion is that the answer is "close to impossible". The "sort of scientific" definitions used in traditional italian linguistics are still based on the useful definitions given for political reasons after us piedmontese invaded the other indipendent italian states in the late 19th century.
At that stage it was decided that having the capital in Rome would mean killing the last indipendent concurrent political power (the Pope) in the region, so Rome was conquered. Yet you could not say that people from the capital where "speaking dialect", so they invented the "linguistic axis Rome-Florence" (they had this axis mania, you know :).
The result is that the current definitions of italian ARE BASED on romanesco, so it is impossible to classify it as a separate entity, no matter how obviously absurd it can sound. I'm absolutely aware that anyone speaking romanesco is going to be punished in italian schools (just as anyone speaking any local linguistic entity) yet in terms of proclaimed scientific basis it should be the absolute opposite.
Given the usual speed and competence with which the italian society has been able to solve its internal linguistic problems thus far I wouldn't expect any change in the immediate future. Any request in this direction would ost probably get swallowed by the swamps of the italian politics (no matter whether it gets adopted by left-wings or right-wings, so far all proposal have led nowhere no matter the author).
I already privately suggested to PierCostanzo to ask it.wiki a "reserve" for dialects of italian proper. Given the situation it seems to be the only way to reach an immediate practical solution. I have no idea of what it.wiki may think of the subject, though. I simply signal the existence of a solution that is diffused in most italian editions to support and preserve local variants that don't have an independent ISO code, then it's up to it.wiki to choose their own ways.
BTW, looking for data about this I stumbled into this intersting article: =================================================== Whose identity? Italy and the Italians.
by Harry Hearder
Sir James Hudson, British minister in Turin, asked Lord Cowley, British ambassador in Paris in a letter of January 5th, 1860:
Why should it be more difficult for four Italian provinces who have but one written and spoken language to transact their business than it is for High-land, Irish, Welsh and English members to sit and vote together?
The kingdom of Piedmont had just annexed Lombardy from Austria, as a result of the Franco-Piedmontese victory over the Habsburgs in the war of 1859, and the subsequent annexation of Tuscany, Parma, Modena and the papal Romagna was being discussed. Sir James might therefore have written of six, rather than four provinces, but he was at that moment preoccupied with the fate of the former Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and strongly convinced that it should be united with Piedmont.
Most British historians - or British people generally who have some knowledge of Italy - will be surprised at the implication of Hudson's question: that this considerable chunk of Italy had greater linguistic unity than the British Isles had. Their surprise may not be altogether justified, however; Hudson had a stronger point than is at first apparent.
Certainly Hudson's conviction was... ==================================================== I have it from here: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5000258455
It certainly shades a bit of light on HOW the main linguistic definitions in Italy were made by those war-mongers of my ancestors :) We now deal with the consequences of those 100% non-scientific days...
Berto 'd Sera Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html
-----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Marco Chiesa Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 2:22 PM To: wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] New Wikipedia in " Romanesco "
Mark Williamson wrote:
- It seems more reasonable to me to have a project in Italiano
centrale, a more macro-grouping of all the related dialects of central Italy, together they have 5 million speakers instead of the just 2 million of Romanesco
I'm not sure merging a bunch of related Italian dialects is a great idea. It seems that in many projects you end up with n different articles on the same topic, one for each variety, or some hybrid varieties are created, with a language no one speaks.
Marco
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