[Foundation-l] Sassarese and Sardinian

[GerardM]

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