No subject

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 at lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Marco Chiesa
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 2:22 PM
To: wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] New Wikipedia in " Romanesco "

Mark Williamson wrote:

>1) 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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