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154-497: The Sardinians , or Sards ( Sardinian : Sardos or Sardus ; Italian and Sassarese : Sardi ; Gallurese : Saldi ), are a Romance language -speaking ethnic group indigenous to Sardinia , from which the western Mediterranean island and autonomous region of Italy derives its name. Not much can be gathered from the classical literature about the origins of the Sardinian people. The ethnonym "S(a)rd" may belong to

308-414: A Basque precursor have been questioned by some Basque linguists. According to Terracini, suffixes in - /ài/ , - /éi/ , - /òi/ , and - /ùi/ are common to Paleo-Sardinian and northern African languages . Pittau emphasized that this concerns terms originally ending in an accented vowel, with an attached paragogic vowel; the suffix resisted Latinization in some place names, which show a Latin body and

462-615: A Moreno Question which gave the following results: (1) just Sardinian, 26%; (2) more Sardinian than Italian, 37%; (3) equally Sardinian and Italian, 31%; (4) more Italian than Sardinian, 5%; (5) only Italian and not Sardinian, 1%. A 2017 poll by the Ixè Institute reported that 51% of the Sardinians questioned identified themselves as Sardinian (as opposed to an Italian average of 15% who identified by their region of origin) rather than Italian (19%), European (11%), and/or citizen of

616-497: A paragogic vowel (such as the toponym Bunnànnaru ). Rohlfs, Butler and Craddock add the suffix - /ini/ (such as the toponym Barùmini ) as a unique element of Paleo-Sardinian. Suffixes in / a , e , o , u / + - rr - found a correspondence in north Africa (Terracini), in Iberia (Blasco Ferrer) and in southern Italy and Gascony (Rohlfs), with a closer relationship to Basque (Wagner and Hubschmid). However, these early links to

770-651: A Nuragic suffix . According to Bertoldi, some toponyms ending in - /ài/ and - /asài/ indicated an Anatolian influence. The suffix - /aiko/ , widely used in Iberia and possibly of Celtic origin, and the ethnic suffix in - /itanos/ and - /etanos/ (for example, the Sardinian Sulcitanos ) have also been noted as Paleo-Sardinian elements (Terracini, Ribezzo, Wagner, Hubschmid and Faust). Some linguists, like Max Leopold Wagner (1931), Blasco Ferrer (2009, 2010) and Arregi (2017 ) have attempted to revive

924-466: A city subject to Aragonese repopulation and where, according to Giovanni Francesco Fara ( Ioannes Franciscus Fara / Juanne Frantziscu Fara ), for a time Catalan took over Sardinian as in Alghero , was emblematic, so much so as to later generate idioms such as no scit su catalanu ( ' he does not know Catalan ' ) to indicate a person who could not express themselves "correctly". Alghero

1078-485: A difficult coexistence with the natives, who were reluctant to assimilate to the language and customs of the colonists; many aspects of the ancient Sardo-Punic culture are documented to have persisted well into Imperial times, and the mostly mountainous innerlands came to earn the name of Barbaria ("Land of the Barbarians", similar in origin to the word Barbary ) as a testament of the fiercely independent spirit of

1232-749: A greater affinity with the Cardial populations of Iberia and Southern France , furthermore mitochondrial haplogroups of the ancient Mesolithic inhabitants would survive in today's Sardinians. In the Late Chalcolithicto the Early Bronze Age , the Bell Beaker culture from Southern France , Northeastern Spain, and then Central Europe entered the island, bringing new metallurgical techniques and ceramic styles and probably Indo-European languages . An early modest gene flow of

1386-725: A high concentration of centenarians are identified in the genetics of the Sardinians, lifestyle such as diet and nutrition, and the social structure. Most Sardinians are native to the island but a sizable number of people have settled outside Sardinia: it had been estimated that, between 1955 and 1971, 308,000 Sardinians emigrated to the Italian mainland. Sizable Sardinian communities are located in Piedmont , Liguria, Lombardy , Tuscany and Latium . Sardinians and their descendants are also numerous in Germany, France, Belgium , Switzerland and

1540-487: A high level of political organization, and would manage to only partly supplant the pre-Latin Sardinian languages, including Punic . Although the colonists and negotiatores (businessmen) of strictly Italic descent would later play a relevant role in introducing and spreading Latin to Sardinia, Romanisation proved slow to take hold among the Sardinian natives, whose proximity to the Carthaginian cultural influence

1694-534: A knowledge of what other peoples say about them"). The Muslim geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi , who lived in Palermo , Sicily at the court of King Roger II , wrote in his work Kitab Nuzhat al-mushtāq fi'khtirāq al-āfāq ( ' The book of pleasant journeys into faraway lands ' or, simply, ' The book of Roger ') that "Sardinians are ethnically Rūm Afāriqah , like the Berbers ; they shun contacts with all

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1848-417: A lesser degree Western Hunter-Gatherers with few Bronze Age individuals showing evidences of Western Steppe Herder ancestry), plus some contribution of the historical colonizers, with the highest Neolithic and Mesolithic ancestry being found in the mountainous region of Ogliastra . Several studies have been carried out on the genetics of the Sardinian population to investigate some pathologies to which

2002-399: A long war between the latter and, to the cry of Helis, Helis , from 1353, the previously allied Judicate of Arborea , in which the Sardinian language was to play the role of an ethnic marker. The war had, among its motives, a never dormant and ancient Arborean political design to establish "a great island nation-state, wholly indigenous" which was assisted by the massive participation of

2156-609: A number of them have undergone Italianization over the most recent centuries (e.g. Pintori , Scano , Zanfarino , Spano , etc.). Some local surnames also derive from terms of the Paleo-Sardinian substrate. The largest percentage of last names originating from outside the island is from Southern Corsica (like Cossu , Cossiga , Alivesi and Achenza , originally from the towns of Olivese and Quenza respectively), followed by Italian (especially Piedmontese but also Campanian , Sicilian and Ligurian , originating from

2310-498: A number of traces of the linguistic substratum predating the Roman conquest of the island: several words and especially toponyms stem from Paleo-Sardinian and, to a lesser extent, Phoenician - Punic . These etyma might refer to an early Mediterranean substratum, which reveal close relations with Basque . In addition to the aforementioned substratum, linguists such as Max Leopold Wagner and Benvenuto Aronne Terracini trace much of

2464-478: A period of almost five centuries, the Greek language only lent Sardinian a few ritual and formal expressions using Greek structure and, sometimes, the Greek alphabet. Evidence for this is found in the condaghes , the first written documents in Sardinian. From the long Byzantine era there are only a few entries but they already provide a glimpse of the sociolinguistical situation on the island in which, in addition to

2618-477: A position of political and thereby social prestige. Because of a movement, described by some authors as a "linguistic and cultural revival" that gained traction in the postwar period, the Sardinians' cultural heritage was recognized in 1997 and 1999, which makes them the largest ethnolinguistic minority group in Italy, with around a million Sardinians still able to speak the language to some degree. However, because of

2772-877: A relatively slow pace. During the Roman rule, there was a considerable immigration flow from the Italian peninsula into the island; ancient sources mention several populations of Italic origin settling down in Sardinia, like the Patulcenses Campani (from Campania ), the Falisci (from southern Etruria ), the Buduntini (from Apulia ) and the Siculenses (from Sicily ); Roman colonies were also established in Porto Torres ( Turris Libisonis ) and Uselis . The Italic immigrants were confronted with

2926-467: A result of the city's originally diverse composition, Carbonia developed a variety of Italian with some Sardinian influences from the neighbouring areas, while the other mainland coloni ("colonists") establishing minor centres kept their dialects of Istriot , Venetian and Friulan , which are still spoken by the elderly. In the same period, a few Italian Tunisian families settled in the sparsely populated area of Castiadas , east of Cagliari. Following

3080-458: A rigid model of Italian education system that has strongly promoted Italian to the detriment of Sardinian, the language has been in decline over the past century, since the people effectively retaining Sardinian have gradually become a minority in their own island (in fact, most Sardinians are linguistically Italianized nowadays, and it has been estimated that only 10-13 percent of the young native population have some active and passive competence in

3234-426: A scant and fragmentary knowledge of their native and once first spoken language, limited in both scope and frequency of use, Sardinian has been classified by UNESCO as "definitely endangered ". In fact, the intergenerational chain of transmission appears to have been broken since at least the 1960s, in such a way that the younger generations, who are predominantly Italian monolinguals, do not identify themselves with

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3388-479: A score of expeditions to the island, from which they would get considerable booty and a hefty number of Sardinian slaves, the Arab assailants were in fact each time forcefully driven back and would never manage to conquer and settle on the island. Although the surviving texts come from such disparate areas as the north and the south of the island, Sardinian then presented itself in a rather homogeneous form: even though

3542-627: A script that had long fallen out of use on the European continent and F. Casula believes may have been adopted by the Sardinians of Latin culture as their own "national script" from the 8th until the 12th century, prior to their receiving outside influence from the arrival of mainly Italian notaries. Old Sardinian had a greater number of archaisms and Latinisms than the present language does, with few Germanic words, mostly coming from Latin itself, and even fewer Arabisms, which had been imported by scribes from Iberia; in spite of their best efforts with

3696-523: A single community which had had friendly intercourse with the Roman people. Even from the former Sardo-Carthaginian settlements, with which the Sardinian mountaineers had formed an alliance in a common struggle against the Romans, indigenous attempts emerged aimed at resisting cultural and political assimilation: inscriptions in Bithia dating to the period of Marcus Aurelius were found, and they still followed

3850-526: A theoretical connection with Basque by linking words such as Sardinian idile ' marshland ' and Basque itil ' puddle ' ; Sardinian ospile ' fresh grazing for cattle ' and Basque hozpil ' cool, fresh ' ; Sardinian arrotzeri ' vagabond ' and Basque arrotz ' stranger ' ; Sardinian golostiu and Basque gorosti ' holly ' ; Gallurese (Corso-Sardinian) zerru ' pig ' (with z for [dz] ) and Basque zerri (with z for [s] ). Genetic data have found

4004-512: A wide variety of regions like Veneto , Marche , Abruzzo and Sicily , who were encouraged to populate the new mining town of Carbonia , or agrarian villages like Mussolinia di Sardegna ("Sardinia's Mussolinia", now Arborea ) and Fertilia ; after World War II , Italian refugees from the Istrian–Dalmatian exodus were relocated in the Nurra region, along the north-western coastline. As

4158-627: Is a Romance language spoken by the Sardinians on the Western Mediterranean island of Sardinia . Many Romance linguists consider it, together with Italian , as the language that is the closest to Latin among all Latin's descendants. However, it has also incorporated elements of Pre-Latin (mostly Paleo-Sardinian and, to a much lesser degree, Punic ) substratum , as well as a Byzantine Greek , Catalan , Castilian , and Italian superstratum . These elements originate in

4312-505: Is a holiday celebrated each 28 April to commemorate the revolt occurring from 1794 to 1796 against the feudal privileges, and the execution or expulsion of the Savoyard officials (including the then Piedmontese viceroy , Carlo Balbiano) from Sardinia on 28 April 1794. The revolt was spurred by the King's refusal to grant the island the autonomy the locals demanded in exchange for defeating

4466-417: Is equal to the Sardinians' own force ' ). Dante Alighieri wrote in his 1302–05 essay De vulgari eloquentia that Sardinians were strictly speaking not Italians ( Latii ), even though they appeared superficially similar to them, and they did not speak anything close to a Neo-Latin language of their own ( lingua vulgaris ), but resorted to aping straightforward Latin instead. Dante's view on

4620-744: Is still a Catalan-speaking enclave on Sardinia to this day. Nevertheless, the Sardinian language did not disappear from official use: the Catalan juridical tradition in the cities coexisted with that of the Sardinians, marked in 1421 by the Parliamentary extension of the Arborean Carta de Logu to the feudal areas during the Reign of King Alfonso the Magnanimous . Fara, in the same first modern monograph dedicated to Sardinia, reported

4774-695: The Basques to be close to the Sardinians . Since the Neolithic period, some degree of variance across the island's regions is also attested. The Arzachena culture , for instance, suggests a link between the northernmost Sardinian region ( Gallura ) and southern Corsica that finds further confirmation in the Natural History by Pliny the Elder . There are also some stylistic differences across Northern and Southern Nuragic Sardinia, which may indicate

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4928-564: The Berber verb Imɣur "to grow", to the specific Kabyle word Maqqur "He is the greatest", or also associated with the figure of Melqart ) revered as a deity going by Sardus Pater Babai ("Sardinian Father" or "Father of the Sardinians"), who gave the island its name. It has also been claimed that the ancient Nuragic Sards were associated with the Sherden ( šrdn in Egyptian ), one of

5082-516: The First Punic War , the whole island was conquered by the Romans in the 3rd century BC. Sardinia and Corsica were then made into a single province ; however, it took the Romans more than another 150 years to manage to subdue the more belligerent Nuragic tribes of the interior, and after 184 years since the Sardinians fell under Roman sway, Cicero noted how there was still not on the island

5236-612: The Genoese too started carving their own sphere of influence in northern Sardinia, both through the mixed Sardinian-Genoese nobility of Sassari and the members of the Doria family. A certain range of dialectal variation is then noted. A special position was occupied by the Judicate of Arborea , the last Sardinian kingdom to fall to foreign powers, in which a transitional dialect was spoken, that of Middle Sardinian. The Carta de Logu of

5390-694: The Iberian and the Italian peninsula . In the eighth and seventh centuries, the Phoenicians began to develop permanent settlements, politically arranged as city-states in similar fashion to the Lebanese coastal areas. It did not take long before they started gravitating around the Carthaginian sphere of influence, whose level of prosperity spurred Carthage to send a series of expeditionary forces to

5544-532: The Iberian root *ili- , meaning settlement. In the nuragic period their territory extended from the plain of Campidano (called in antiquity Iolean plain ) to the Tirso river in north where began the territory of the Balares . They were probably divided into 40 tribes, each ruled by a king or chieftain. These rulers lived in the complex nuraghi , called "polilobates", such as Su Nuraxi of Barumini . In what

5698-452: The Italian economic miracle , a historic migratory movement from the inland to the coastal and urban areas of Cagliari , Sassari-Alghero- Porto Torres and Olbia , where today most Sardinians live, took place. With a population density of 69/km, slightly more than a third of the national average, Sardinia is the fourth least populated region in Italy. The population distribution was anomalous compared to that of other Italian regions lying on

5852-770: The Italian-American linguist Mario Pei , analyzing the degree to which six Romance languages diverged from Vulgar Latin with respect to their accent vocalization, yielded the following measurements of divergence (with higher percentages indicating greater divergence from the stressed vowels of Vulgar Latin): Sardinian 8%, Italian 12%, Spanish 20%, Romanian 23.5%, Occitan 25%, Portuguese 31%, and French 44%. The study emphasized, however, that it represented only "a very elementary, incomplete and tentative demonstration" of how statistical methods could measure linguistic change, assigned "frankly arbitrary" point values to various types of change, and did not compare languages in

6006-565: The Middle Ages , the "Sardinian Nation" ( Nació Sarda or Sardesca , as reported from the native and Aragonese dispatches) was juridically divided into four kingdoms , known collectively in Sardinian as Judicadu , Giudicau or simply Logu "Place"; in Italian : Giudicato ); all of them, except for the Judicate of Arborea , fell under the influence of the maritime republics of Genoa and Pisa , as well as some noble families from

6160-655: The Nuragic language (s). Etruscan elements, formerly thought to have originated in Latin, would indicate a connection between the ancient Sardinian culture and the Etruscans. According to Pittau, the Etruscan and Nuragic language(s) are descended from Lydian (and therefore Indo-European ) as a consequence of contact with Etruscans and other Tyrrhenians from Sardis as described by Herodotus . Although Pittau suggests that

6314-531: The Pre-Indo-European Paleo-Sardinian , a language supposedly related to Basque with some Berber influence and of which remnants can be still be found in vocabulary and local toponyms . The historical loss of the islanders' political autonomy has kept the language at a stage of dialectal fragmentation, reflecting the coexistence of the various other languages (namely Catalan , Spanish , and finally Italian) imposing themselves in

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6468-724: The Pre-Indo-European (or Indo-European ) linguistic substratum, and whilst they might have derived from the Iberians , the accounts of the old authors differ greatly in this respect. The oldest written attestation of the ethnonym is on the Nora stone , where the word Šrdn ( Shardan ) bears witness to its original existence by the time the Phoenician merchants first arrived on Sardinian shores. According to Timaeus , one of Plato 's dialogues, Sardinia and its people as well,

6622-730: The Sea Peoples . The ethnonym was then romanised , with regard for the singular masculine and feminine form, as sardus and sarda . Sardinia was first settled by modern humans from continental Europe during the Upper Paleolithic and the Mesolithic . During the Neolithic , Early European Farmers settled in Sardinia. According to modern archaeogenetic investigations, the Neolithic Sardinians showed

6776-599: The Serbo-Croatian and the Albanian that are spoken in various Calabrian and Sicilian villages. The question, however, takes on a different nature when considered from a linguistic perspective. Sardinian cannot be said to be closely related to any dialect of mainland Italy; it is an archaic Romance tongue with its own distinctive characteristics, which can be seen in its rather unique vocabulary as well as its morphology and syntax, which differ radically from those of

6930-669: The Sherden , one of the Sea Peoples . Other sources trace instead the root s(a)rd from Σαρδώ , a legendary woman from the Anatolian Kingdom of Lydia , or from the Libyan mythological figure of the Sardus Pater Babai ("Sardinian Father" or "Father of the Sardinians"). In 1984, Massimo Pittau claimed to have found the etymology of many Latin words in the Etruscan language , after comparing it with

7084-667: The Western Steppe Herders has been dated to about this period (~2600 BCE). The Nuragic civilization arose in the Middle Bronze Age, during the Late Bonnanaro culture , which showed connections with the previous Beaker culture and the Polada culture of northern Italy . Although the Sardinians were considered to have acquired a sense of national identity, at that time, the grand tribal identities of

7238-470: The condaghes for administrative purposes; most of them derive either from Sardinian place names (e.g. Fonnesu "from Fonni ", Busincu "from Bosa " etc.), from animal names (e.g. Porcu "pig", Piga " magpie ", Cadeddu "puppy" etc.) or from a person's occupation, nickname (e.g. Pittau "Sebastian"), distinctive trait (e.g. Mannu "big"), and filiation (last names ending in - eddu which could stand for "son of", e.g. Corbeddu "son/daughter of Corbu");

7392-543: The late Middle Ages into the Iberian sphere of influence , during which Catalan and Castilian became the island's prestige languages and would remain so well into the 18th century. Finally, from the early 18th century onward, under the Savoyard and contemporary Italian one, following the country's linguistic policies which, to the detriment of Sardinian and the local Catalan, led to diglossia . The original character of

7546-405: The "Continental fashion" in the various contexts of everyday life, and their primary function has since switched to become a marker of ethnic identity. In the past, the clothes diversified themselves even within the communities, performing a specific function of communication as it made it immediately clear the marital status and the role of each member in the social area. Until the mid-20th century

7700-413: The "Sardonioi" or "Sardianoi" ( Σαρδονιοί or Σαρδιανοί ), might have been named after "Sardò" ( Σαρδώ ), a legendary Lydian woman from Sardis ( Σάρδεις ), in the region of western Anatolia (now Turkey ). Some other authors, like Pausanias and Sallust , reported instead that the Sardinians traced their descent back to a mythical ancestor, a Libyan son of Hercules or Makeris (related either to

7854-851: The 1080 "Logudorese Privilege", the 1089 Torchitorius' Donation (in the Marseille archives), the 1190–1206 Marsellaise Chart (in Campidanese Sardinian) and an 1173 communication between the Bishop Bernardo of Civita and Benedetto, who oversaw the Opera del Duomo in Pisa. The Statutes of Sassari (1316) and Castelgenovese ( c.  1334 ) are written in Logudorese Sardinian. The first chronicle in lingua sive ydiomate sardo , called Condagues de Sardina ,

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8008-599: The Americas settled in Brazil . Between 1876 and 1925 34,190 Sardinians migrated to Africa, in particular towards the then French Algeria and Tunisia . Small communities with Sardinians ancestors, about 5000 people, are also found in Brazil (mostly in the cities of Belo Horizonte , Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo ), the UK, and Australia. The Region of Sardinia keeps a register of overseas Sardinians who have managed to set up, in

8162-439: The Aragonese Kingdom and the Judicate of Arborea (1353–1420), the newborn Kingdom of Sardinia became one of the Associate States of the Crown of Aragon . The Aragonese repopulated the cities of Castel di Castro and Alghero predominantly with Catalans and the Algherese dialect of Catalan is still spoken by a minority in the city of Alghero. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the main Sardinian cities of Cagliari (the capital of

8316-430: The Aragonese winners from the brutal conflict would then move on to destroy the pre-existing documentary production of the still living Sardinian Judicate, which was predominantly written in Sardinian language along with other ones the chancery was engaged with, leaving behind their trail only "a few stones" and, overall, a "small group of documents", many of which are in fact still preserved and/or refer to archives outside

8470-513: The Byzantines were fully focused on reconquering southern Italy and Sicily, which had in the meanwhile also fallen to the Muslims , their attention on Sardinia was neglected and communications broke down with Constantinople ; this spurred the former Byzantine province of Sardinia to become progressively more autonomous from the Byzantine oecumene , and eventually attain independence. Pinelli argues that "the Arab conquest of North Africa separated Sardinia from that continent without, however, causing

8624-414: The Carthaginians were at the height of their sea power, they overcame all in Sardinia except the Ilians (Ilienses) and Corsicans, who were kept from slavery by the strength of the mountains. After the end of the First Punic War in 238 BC the Romans occupied the main strongholds of the Punic Sardinia, but the people of the interior opposed even to the new invaders. In 227 BC, Corsica and Sardinia became

8778-411: The Empire, Sardinians too would be granted Roman citizenship in 212 AD with the Constitutio Antoniniana by Caracalla . After the fall of the Western Roman Empire , Sardinia was ruled in rapid succession by the Vandals , the Byzantines , the Ostrogoths and again by the Byzantines, when the island was, once again in its history, joined to North Africa as part of the Exarchate of Africa . During

8932-405: The Four Moors is the historical and official flag of Sardinia. The flag is composed of the St George's Cross and four Moor 's heads wearing a white bandana in each quarter. Its origins are basically shrouded in mystery, but it is presumed it originated in Aragon to symbolize the defeat of the Moorish invaders in the battle of Alcoraz . Sa die de sa Sardigna ("Sardinia's Day" in English)

9086-537: The French . The holiday has been formally recognised by the Sardinian Council since 14 September 1993. Some public events are annually held to commemorate the episode, while the schools are closed. The vast majority of the Sardinians are baptized as Roman Catholic , however church attendance is one of the lowest in Italy (21.9%). Our Lady of Bonaria is the Patroness Saint of Sardinia. In popular traditions, beliefs and rites of pre-Christian origin, which have evolved symbiotically with Christianity , have survived until

9240-414: The Iolaes), hence the name of Ilienses. Pomponius Mela considered the Ilienses as the oldest people of the island. A fourth component part of the population was the army of Iolaus, consisting of Thespians and men from Attica, which put in at Sardinia and founded Olbia [...] Be this as it may, there are still today places in Sardinia called Iolaia, and Iolaus is worshipped by the inhabitants.[...] When Troy

9394-431: The Italian dialects. As an insular language par excellence, Sardinian is considered the most conservative Romance language , as well as one of the most highly individual within the family; its substratum ( Paleo-Sardinian or Nuragic) has also been researched. In the first written testimonies, dating to the eleventh century, Sardinian appears as a language already distinct from the dialects of Italy. A 1949 study by

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9548-453: The Italian mainland and the rest of the world, a number of cultural associations: these are meant to provide the people of Sardinian descent, or those with an interest on Sardinian culture, an opportunity to enjoy a wide range of activities. As of 2012, there are 145 clubs registered on it. Unlike the rest of Italian emigration, where migrants were mainly males, between 1953 and 1974 an equal number of females and males emigrated from Sardinia to

9702-408: The Italian mainland. Fewer than a hundred Sardinian surnames are needed to group together as much as a third of the whole Sardinian population. The most common Sardinian surnames, like Sanna (fang), Piras (pears), Pinna (feather, pen) and Melis (honey), derive from the Sardinian language and developed among the Judicates in the Middle Ages as a result of being registered in documents like

9856-444: The Kingdom of Arborea, one of the first constitutions in history drawn up in 1355–1376 by Marianus IV and the Queen, the ' Lady Judge ' ( judikessa in Sardinian, jutgessa in Catalan, giudicessa in Italian) Eleanor , was written in this transitional variety of Sardinian, and would remain in force until 1827. The Arborean judges' effort to unify the Sardinian dialects were due to their desire to be legitimate rulers of

10010-399: The Kingdom), Alghero and Sassari appear well placed in the trade routes of the time. The cosmopolitan composition of its people provides evidence of it: the population was not only indigenous, but also hailing from Spain, Liguria, France and the island of Corsica in particular. Especially in Sassari and across the strip of territory that goes from Anglona to Gallura , the Corsicans became

10164-404: The Nuragic Sardinians were said to be three (roughly from the South to the North): the Iolei/ Ilienses , inhabiting the area from the southernmost plains to the mountainous zone of eastern Sardinia (later part of what would be called by the Romans Barbaria ); the Balares , living in the North-West corner; and finally the Corsi stationed in today's Gallura and the island to which they gave

10318-518: The Parati, Sossinati, Balari, and the Aconites. These people dwell in caverns. Although they have some arable land, they neglect its cultivation, preferring rather to plunder what they find cultivated by others, whether on the island or on the continent, where they make descents, especially upon the Pisatæ. The prefects sent [into Sardinia] sometimes resist them, but at other times leave them alone, since it would cost too dear to maintain an army always on foot in an unhealthy place. Like any other subjects of

10472-458: The Romance idioms; George Bossong summarises thus: "be this as it may, from a strictly linguistic point of view there can be no doubt that Sardinian is to be classified as an independent Romance language, or even as an independent branch inside the family, and so it is classed alongside the great national languages like French and Italian in all modern manuals of Romance linguistics". Sardinia's relative isolation from mainland Europe encouraged

10626-537: The Sardinian language among the Romance idioms has long been known among linguists. After a long strife for the acknowledgement of the island's cultural patrimony, in 1997, Sardinian, along with the other languages spoken therein, managed to be recognized by regional law in Sardinia without challenge by the central government. In 1999, Sardinian and eleven other "historical linguistic minorities", i.e. locally indigenous, and not foreign-grown, minority languages of Italy ( minoranze linguistiche storiche , as defined by

10780-438: The Sardinian language with regard to the politically dominant ones did not change until fascism and, most evidently, the 1950s. The origins of ancient Sardinian, also known as Paleo-Sardinian, are currently unknown. Research has attempted to discover obscure, indigenous, pre-Romance roots . The root s(a)rd , indicating many place names as well as the island's people , is reportedly either associated with or originating from

10934-508: The Sardinian mining areas of Sulcis - Iglesiente ; these Mainland miners came mostly from Lombardy , Piedmont, Tuscany and Romagna . According to an 1882 census realised by the French engineer Leon Goüine, 10,000 miners worked in the south-western Sardinian mines, one third of whom being from the Italian mainland; most of them settled in Iglesias and frazioni . At the end of the 19th century, communities of fishermen from Sicily , Torre del Greco (Campania) and Ponza (Lazio) migrated on

11088-455: The Sardinian rebels latrones mastrucati ( ' thieves with rough wool cloaks ' ) or Afri ( ' Africans ' ) to emphasize Roman superiority over a population mocked as the refuse of Carthage. A number of obscure Nuragic roots remained unchanged, and in many cases Latin accepted the local roots (like nur , presumably cognate of Norax , which makes its appearance in nuraghe , Nurra , Nurri and many other toponyms). Barbagia ,

11242-658: The Sardinians believed they had one single king ' ). The conflict between the two sovereign and warring parties, during which the Aragonese possessions making up the Kingdom of Sardinia were first administratively split into two separate "halves" ( capita ) by Peter IV the Ceremonious in 1355, ended after sixty-seven years with the Iberian victory at Sanluri in 1409 and the renunciation of any succession right signed by William II of Narbonne in 1420. This event marked

11396-442: The Sardinians seem to be predisposed in a unique way, likely linked due to founder effects and genetic drift of this island population, like diabetes mellitus type 1 , beta thalassemia and favism , multiple sclerosis and coeliac disease . Some other genetic peculiarities have been noted, like the high frequency of rare uniparental haplotypes, extensive linkage disequilibrium of autosomal markers, high levels of homozygosity ,

11550-568: The Sardinians, however, is proof of how their language had been following its own course in a way which was already unintelligible to non-islanders, and had become, in Wagner's words, an impenetrable "sphinx" to their judgment. Frequently mentioned is a previous 12th-century poem by the troubadour Raimbaut de Vaqueiras , Domna, tant vos ai preiada ("Lady, so much I have endeared you"); Sardinian epitomizes outlandish speech therein, along with non-Romance languages such as German and Berber , with

11704-707: The Sardinians. Sardinians, while being part of the European gene pool , are well-known outliers in the European genetic landscape (together with the Basques , the Chuvash , the Sami , the Finns and the Icelanders ). Studies analyzing the DNA of both ancient and modern individuals from the island confirm that the current population is mainly (50% or more) derived from the prehistoric settlers (mostly Early Neolithic Farmers and to

11858-529: The Tirrenii landed in Sardinia and the Etruscans landed in modern Tuscany , his views are not shared by most Etruscologists. According to Bertoldi and Terracini, Paleo-Sardinian has similarities with the Iberic languages and Siculian ; for example, the suffix - ara in proparoxytones indicated the plural. Terracini proposed the same for suffixes in - /àna/ , - /ànna/ , - /énna/ , - /ònna/ + /r/ +

12012-743: The USA (part of the Italian-American community). Almost all the Sardinians migrating to the Americas settled down in the Southern part of the continent, especially in Argentina (between 1900 and 1913 about 12,000 Sardinians lived in Buenos Aires and neighbourhoods) and Uruguay (in Montevideo in the 1870s lived 12,500 Sardinians). Between 1876 and 1903, 92% of the Sardinians that moved towards

12166-694: The Vandal presence had "estranged Sardinia from Europe, linking its own destiny to Africa's territorial expanse" in a bond that was to strengthen further "under Byzantine rule, not only because the Roman Empire included the island in the African Exarchate, but also because it developed from there, albeit indirectly, its ethnic community, causing it to acquire many of the African characteristics" that would allow ethnologists and historians to elaborate

12320-460: The Way of Straw ' ) also recurs in the Berber languages . To most Italians Sardinian is unintelligible, reminding them of Spanish, because of the way in which the language is acoustically articulated; characterized as it is by a sharply outlined physiognomy which is displayed from the earliest sources available, it is in fact considered a distinct language, if not an altogether different branch, among

12474-478: The aforementioned Cartas and condaghes . The first document containing Sardinian elements is a 1063 donation to the abbey of Montecassino signed by Barisone I of Torres. Another such document (the so-called Carta Volgare ) comes from the Judicate of Cagliari and was issued by Torchitorio I de Lacon-Gunale in around 1070, written in Sardinian whilst still employing the Greek alphabet . Other documents are

12628-595: The arrival of certain communities from outside the island, namely Corsicans , Catalans and Italians from Genoa and Pisa , settling in specific regions of Sardinia over the recent centuries; because of these dynamics, Sardinia's society has been characterized by situational plurilingualism since the late Middle Ages. These languages include Sassarese ( sassaresu ) and Gallurese ( gadduresu ), which are of remote Corso-Tuscan origin but often socially associated with Sardinian, Algherese Catalan ( alguerés ), and Ligurian Tabarchino ( tabarchin ). The so-called flag of

12782-548: The battle of Decimomannu by Titus Manlius Torquatus and so Carthage lost the island definitively. In Roman times the Ilienses and the Balares of the interior continued to resist, but in 177 BC they were heavily defeated by the consul Tiberius Gracchus who killed or enslaved about 80,000 Sardinians. However still in imperial time they were not completely subjugated by Rome and continued to live relatively independently in

12936-459: The coastal plains that were reclaimed only in the 20th century. Similarly to the Celtic clans, the Sardinians have in fact tended to retreat into the less accessible interior to keep their own independence and way of life. The situation has been recently reversed with the expansion of the industrialization and seaside tourism; today all Sardinia's major urban centres are located near the coast, while

13090-587: The community's everyday Neo-Latin language, Greek was also spoken by the ruling classes. Some toponyms, such as Jerzu (thought to derive from the Greek khérsos , ' untilled ' ), together with the personal names Mikhaleis , Konstantine and Basilis , demonstrate Greek influence. As the Muslims made their way into North Africa , what remained of the Byzantine possession of the Exarchate of Africa

13244-468: The contemporary era, for example the day of Su mortu mortu or "the dead dead" (2 November, All Souls' Day ), the Sardinian equivalent to Halloween , when children go from house to house asking for small donations to feed the deceased (traditionally seasonal fruits, dried fruit, sweets, bread). Colourful and of various and original forms, the Sardinian traditional clothes are an ancient symbol of belonging to specific collective identities, as well as one of

13398-539: The days of the Savoyard rule and the assimilation policy: some of them have been "Sardinianized", like Accardu , Calzinu , Gambinu , Raggiu , etc.) and Spanish (especially Catalan ) surnames. The Sardinian personal names (like Baínzu or Gavine "Gavin", Bachis "Bachisius", Bobore "Salvator", Iroxi "George", Chìrigu "Cyricus", Gonare "Gonarius", Elianora "Eleanor", Boele "Raphael", Sidore "Isidore", Billía "William", Tiadora "Theodora", Itria , etc.) are historically attested and were common among

13552-643: The definitive end of Sardinian independence, whose historical relevance for the island, likened by Francesco C. Casula to "the end of Aztec Mexico ", should be considered "neither triumph nor defeat, but the painful birth of today's Sardinia". Any outbreak of anti-Aragonese rebellion, such as the revolt of Alghero in 1353, that of Uras in 1470 and finally that of Macomer in 1478, celebrated in De bello et interitu marchionis Oristanei , were and would have been systematically neutralised. From that moment, " quedó de todo punto Sardeña por el rey ". Casula believes that

13706-431: The desert». The materials used for their packaging are among the most varied, ranging from the typical Sardinian woollen fabric ( orbace ) to silk and from linen to leather. The various components of the feminine apparel are: the headgear ( mucadore ), the shirt ( camisa ), the bodice ( palas , cossu ), the jacket ( coritu , gipone ), the skirt ( unnedda , sauciu ), the apron ( farda , antalena , defentale ). Those of

13860-500: The development of a Romance language that preserves traces of its indigenous, pre-Roman language(s). The language is posited to have substratal influences from Paleo-Sardinian , which some scholars have linked to Basque and Etruscan ; comparisons have also been drawn with the Berber languages from North Africa to shed more light on the language(s) spoken in Sardinia prior to its Romanization . Subsequent adstratal influences include Catalan , Spanish, and Italian. The situation of

14014-602: The dignity of Sardinian for official purposes was such that, in the words of Livio Petrucci, a Neo-Latin language had come to be used "at a time when nothing similar can be observed in the Italian peninsula" not only "in the legal field" but also "in any other field of writing". A diplomatic analysis of the earliest Sardinian documents shows that the Judicates provided themselves with chanceries , which employed an indigenous diplomatic model for writing public documents; one of them, dating to 1102, displays text in half-uncial ,

14168-522: The distinctive Latin character of Sardinia to the languoids once spoken by the Christian and Jewish Berbers in North Africa, known as African Romance . Indeed, Sardinian was perceived as rather similar to African Latin when the latter was still in use, giving credit to the theory that vulgar Latin in both Africa and Sardinia displayed a significant wealth of parallelisms. J. N. Adams is of

14322-532: The east coasts of the island, in the towns of Arbatax / Tortolì , Siniscola and La Maddalena . In 1931, only 3.2% of the island's population was estimated to be native of the Mainland. A central government policy would change this situation in the following years, which saw an immigration flow from the Italian peninsula: the Fascist regime resettled to Sardinia a considerable number of miners and peasants from

14476-487: The entire island under a single state ( republica sardisca ' Sardinian Republic ' ); such political goal, after all, was already manifest in 1164, when the Arborean Judge Barison ordered his great seal to be made with the writings Baresonus Dei Gratia Rei Sardiniee ( ' Barison, by the grace of God, King of Sardinia ' ) and Est vis Sardorum pariter regnum Populorum ( ' The people's rule

14630-454: The existence of a Sardinian Koine which pointed to a model based on Logudorese. According to Eduardo Blasco Ferrer , it was in the wake of the fall of the Judicates of Cagliari and Gallura , in the second half of the 13th century, that Sardinian began to fragment into its modern dialects, undergoing some Tuscanization under the rule of the Republic of Pisa ; it did not take long before

14784-429: The existence of two other tribal groups ( Balares and Ilienses ) mentioned by the same Roman author. According to the archeologist Giovanni Ugas, these tribes may have in fact played a role in shaping the current regional linguistic differences of the island. Around the 10th and 9th century BC, Phoenician merchants were known to have made their presence in Sardinia, which acted as a geographical mediator in between

14938-453: The fact that any official text was written solely in Sardinian from the very beginning and completely excluded Latin, unlike what was happening – and would continue to happen – in France, Italy and Iberia at the same time; Latin, although co-official, was in fact used only in documents concerning external relations in which the Sardinian kings ( judikes , ' judges ' ) engaged. Awareness of

15092-553: The family sphere, is illustrated by the Euromosaic report, in which Sardinian "is in 43rd place in the ranking of the 50 languages taken into consideration and of which were analysed (a) use in the family, (b) cultural reproduction, (c) use in the community, (d) prestige, (e) use in institutions, (f) use in education". As the Sardinians have almost been completely assimilated into the Italian national mores, including in terms of onomastics , and therefore now only happen to keep but

15246-542: The first century BC. In terms of vocabulary, Sardinian retains an array of peculiar Latin-based forms that are either unfamiliar to, or have altogether disappeared in, the rest of the Romance-speaking world. The number of Latin inscriptions on the island is relatively small and fragmented. Some engraved poems in ancient Greek and Latin (the two most prestigious languages in the Roman Empire ) are seen in

15400-419: The future, being referred to by linguists as the mere substratum of the now-prevailing idiom, i.e. Italian articulated in its own Sardinian-influenced variety , which may come to wholly supplant the islanders' once living native tongue. Now the question arises as to whether Sardinian is to be considered a dialect or a language. Politically speaking, of course, it is one of the many dialects of Italy, just like

15554-476: The indigenous tongue, which is now reduced to the memory of "little more than the language of their grandparents". As the long- to even medium-term future of the Sardinian language looks far from secure in the present circumstances, Martin Harris concluded in 2003 that, assuming the continuation of present trends to language death , it was possible that there would not be a Sardinian language of which to speak in

15708-510: The inland areas, firmly closed to confrontation with the Romans, only superficial and not irreversible.. Nevertheless, Sardinia would eventually undergo cultural Romanization, the modern Sardinian language being one of the most evident cultural developments thereof. Strabo gave a brief summary about the Mountaineer tribes, living in what would be called civitates Barbariae , Geographica V ch.2: There are four nations of mountaineers,

15862-541: The island's inhabitants. As a result of this protracted and prolonged process of Romanisation, the modern Sardinian language is today classified as Romance or neo-Latin, with some phonetic features resembling Old Latin . Some linguists assert that modern Sardinian, being part of the Island Romance group, was the first language to split off from Latin, all others evolving from Latin as Continental Romance. In fact, contact with Rome might have ceased from as early as

16016-550: The island's interior is very sparsely populated. It is the region of Italy with the lowest total fertility rate (1.087 births per woman), and the region with the second-lowest birth rate . However, the population in Sardinia has increased in recent years because of immigration, mainly proceeding from continental Italy and Sicily, but also from Eastern Europe (esp. Romania ), Africa and Asia . As of 2013, there were 42,159 foreign (that is, any people who have not applied for Italian citizenship) national residents, forming 2.5% of

16170-621: The island. Specifically, the Arborean documents and the palace in which they were kept would be completely set on fire on May 21, 1478, as the viceroy triumphantly entered Oristano after having tamed the aforementioned 1478 rebellion, which threatened the revival of an Arborean identity which had been de jure abolished in 1420 but was still very much alive in popular memory. Thereafter, the ruling class in Sardinia proceeded to adopt Catalan as their primary language. The situation in Cagliari ,

16324-1027: The island; although they were initially repelled by the natives, the North African city vigorously pursued a policy of active imperialism and, by the sixth century, managed to establish its political hegemony and military control over South-Western Sardinia. Punic began to be spoken in the area, and many words entered ancient Sardinian as well. Words like giara 'plateau' (cf. Hebrew yaʿar 'forest, scrub'), g(r)uspinu ' nasturtium ' (from Punic cusmin ), curma ' fringed rue ' (cf. Arabic ḥarmal ' Syrian rue '), mítza 'spring' (cf. Hebrew mitsa , metza 'source, fountainhead'), síntziri ' marsh horsetail ' (from Punic zunzur ' common knotgrass '), tzeúrra 'sprout' (from * zerula , diminutive of Punic zeraʿ 'seed'), tzichirìa ' dill ' (from Punic sikkíria ; cf. Hebrew šēkār 'ale') and tzípiri ' rosemary ' (from Punic zibbir ) are commonly used, especially in

16478-463: The islanders up until the contemporary era, when they switched in full measure to the Italian names. Population surveys have been carried out, on repeated occasions, to provide information about the Sardinians' identity, as well as their conciliation with the institutional layers of political governance. The most detailed survey, conducted by the University of Cagliari and Edinburgh , made use of

16632-481: The language). Therefore, Sardinian is facing challenges analogous to other definitely endangered minority languages across Europe, and its two main Logudorese and Campidanese varieties, as defined by their standard orthographies, have been designated as such by UNESCO . The other languages spoken in Sardinia, all also endangered but with much fewer speakers than Sardinian in absolute numbers, developed after

16786-462: The last century. The Sardinian adult population today primarily uses Italian, and less than 15 percent of the younger generations were reported to have been passed down some residual Sardinian, usually in a deteriorated form described by linguist Roberto Bolognesi as "an ungrammatical slang". The rather fragile and precarious state in which the Sardinian language now finds itself, where its use has been discouraged and consequently reduced even within

16940-481: The latter to rejoin Europe" and that this event "determined a capital turning point for Sardinia, giving rise to a de facto independent national government". Historian Marc Bloch believed that, owing to Sardinia being a country which found itself in "quasi-isolation" from the rest of the continent, the earliest documentary testimonies, written in Sardinian, were much older than those first issued in Italy. Sardinian

17094-572: The latter, due to the fierce resistance of the Sardinians, were not able to spread to the island, as they had in Africa". Michele Amari , quoted by Pinelli, writes that "the attempts of the Muslims of Africa to conquer Sardinia and Corsica were frustrated by the unconquered valour of the poor and valiant inhabitants of those islands, who saved themselves for two centuries from the yoke of the Arabs". As

17248-575: The legend recorded by Greek historians, the etymology of their name (Iolaes) is to be traced back to Iolaus , the hero who led the Thespiades , sons of Heracles and the daughters of Thespius (king of the Boeotian city-state of Thespiae ) in Sardinia, where he founded a colony. Another myth tell that the old inhabitants of Ilium, better known as Troy , after the fall of the city established themselves in this part of Sardinia (where they mixed with

17402-562: The legislator) were similarly recognized as such by national law (specifically, Law No. 482/1999). Among these, Sardinian is notable as having, in terms of absolute numbers, the largest community of speakers. Although the Sardinian-speaking community can be said to share "a high level of linguistic awareness", policies eventually fostering language loss and assimilation have considerably affected Sardinian, whose actual speakers have become noticeably reduced in numbers over

17556-419: The lively multilingualism in "one and the same people", i.e. the Sardinians, because of immigration "by Spaniards and Italians" who came to the island to trade with the natives. The long-lasting war and the so-called Black Death had a devastating effect on the island, depopulating large parts of it. People from the neighbouring island of Corsica, which had been already Tuscanised, began to settle en masse in

17710-664: The lowest frequency of RH-negative genes in the Mediterranean, the highest frequency in the world of the MNS*M gene, the highest frequency of HLAB*18 together with some typical North African alleles, and the highest frequency of the thalassemia variant β . Sardinian language Sardinian or Sard ( endonym : sardu [ˈsaɾdu] , limba sarda , Logudorese : [ˈlimba ˈzaɾda] Sardinian : [ˈlimba ˈzaɾða] (Nuorese), or lìngua sarda , Campidanese : [ˈliŋɡwa ˈzaɾda] )

17864-592: The majority of the population at least since the 15th century. This migration from the neighboring island, which is likely to have led to the birth of the Tuscan -sounding Sassarese and Gallurese dialects , went on continuously until the 19th century. The Spanish era ended in 1713, when Sardinia was ceded to the Austrian House of Habsburg , followed with another cession in 1718 to the Dukes of Savoy , who assumed

18018-502: The male are: the headdress ( berrita ), the shirt ( bentone or camisa ), the jacket ( gipone ), the trousers ( cartzones or bragas ), the skirt ( ragas or bragotis ), the overcoat ( gabbanu and colletu ), and finally the piece of clothing most associated with the Sardinians, the mastruca , a sheep or goatskin leather jacket without sleeves: " Sardi pelliti " and " mastrucati latrones " "[Sardinian] thieves with rough wool cloaks" were names by which Cicero and other authors mentioned

18172-466: The mining town of Villa di Chiesa (today Iglesias ), which became an Italian medieval commune along with Sassari and Castel di Castro. These new cities attracted migrants from the Italian peninsula, Corsica and several regions of Sardinia. Following the Aragonese conquest of the Sardinian territories under Pisan rule , which took place between 1323 and 1326, and then the long conflict between

18326-646: The modern Sardinian varieties of the Campidanese plain , while proceeding northwards the influence is more limited to place names, such as the town of Magomadas , Macumadas in Nuoro or Magumadas in Gesico and Nureci , all of which deriving from the Punic maqom hadash ' new city ' . The Roman domination began in 238 BC, but was often contested by the local Sardinian tribes, who had by then acquired

18480-461: The most genuine ethnic expressions of the Mediterranean folklore. Although the basic model is homogeneous and common throughout the island, each town or village has its own traditional clothing which differentiates it from the others. The Sardinians' traditional garments, as well as their jewellery, have been defined as an object of study in ethnography since the late 19th century, at a time in which they first started to be slowly displaced in favour of

18634-503: The mountainous central region of the island, derives its name from the Latin Barbaria (a term meaning ' Land of the Barbarians ' , similar in origin to the now antiquated word Barbary ), because its people refused cultural and linguistic assimilation for a long time: 50% of toponyms of central Sardinia, particularly in the territory of Olzai , are actually not related to any known language. According to Terracini, amongst

18788-500: The myth, they were most likely a tribal group indigenous to the island. According to the archaeologist Giovanni Ugas, the Ilienses were the most important population of Nuragic Sardinia and were connected with the Sherden , one of the Sea Peoples widely cited in Ancient Egyptian sources. This hypothesis has been, however, opposed by other archaeologists and historians. Eduardo Blasco Ferrer correlates their name with

18942-466: The name, Corsica . Nuragic Sardinians have been connected by some scholars to the Sherden , a tribe of the so-called Sea Peoples , whose presence is registered several times in ancient Egyptian records. The language or languages spoken in Sardinia during the Bronze Age is unknown since there are no written records of such period. According to Eduardo Blasco Ferrer , the Paleo-Sardinian language

19096-740: The northern Sardinian coast, leading to the birth of Sassarese and then Gallurese , two Italo-Dalmatian lects. Extract from sa Vitta et sa Morte, et Passione de sanctu Gavinu, Prothu et Januariu (A. Cano, ~1400) O Deus eternu, sempre omnipotente, In s'aiudu meu ti piacat attender, Et dami gratia de poder acabare Su sanctu martiriu, in rima vulgare, 5. De sos sanctos martires tantu gloriosos Et cavaleris de Cristus victoriosos, Sanctu Gavinu, Prothu e Januariu, Contra su demoniu, nostru adversariu, Fortes defensores et bonos advocados, 10. Qui in su Paradisu sunt glorificados De sa corona de sanctu martiriu. Cussos sempre siant in nostru adiutoriu. Amen. Ilienses According to

19250-505: The old Punic script at a time when even in North Africa the script was neo-Punic; Punic-style magistrates called sufetes wielded local control in Nora and Tharros through the end of the first century B.C., although two sufetes existed in Bithia as late as the mid-second century CE. Overall, Sardinia was quite disliked by the Romans and, as isolated as it was kept, Romanization proceeded at

19404-468: The opinion that similarities in many words, such as acina ( ' grape ' ), pala ( ' shoulder blade ' ) and spanu(s) (' reddish-brown '), prove that there might have been a fair amount of vocabulary shared between Sardinia and Africa. According to Wagner, it is notable that Sardinian is the only Romance language whose name for the Milky Way ( (b)ía de sa báza, (b)ía de sa bálla , '

19558-461: The orthographic differences between Logudorese and Campidanese Sardinian were beginning to appear, Wagner found in this period "the original unity of the Sardinian language". In agreement with Wagner is Paolo Merci, who found a "broad uniformity" around this period, as were Antonio Sanna and Ignazio Delogu too, for whom it was the islanders' community life that prevented Sardinian from localism. According to Carlo Tagliavini, these earlier documents show

19712-490: The other Rūm nations and are people of purpose and valiant that never leave the arms". According to Wagner, the close relationship in the development of Vulgar Latin between North Africa and Sardinia might not have only derived from ancient ethnic affinities between the two populations, but also from their common political past within the Exarchate of Africa . What literature is left to us from this period primarily consists of legal and administrative documents, besides

19866-460: The political history of Sardinia , whose indigenous society experienced for centuries competition and at times conflict with a series of colonizing newcomers: before the Middle Ages , the island was for a time a Byzantine possession ; then, after a significant period of self-rule with the Judicates , when Sardinian was officially employed in accordance with documentary testimonies, it came during

20020-402: The regions in Europe that went on to draw their language from Latin, Sardinia has overall preserved the highest proportion of pre-Latin toponyms. Besides the place names, on the island there are still a few names of plants, animals and geological formations directly traceable to the ancient Nuragic era. By the end of the Roman domination, Latin had gradually become however the speech of most of

20174-568: The rest of the Sardinians, i.e. those not residing within the jurisdiction of Arborea ( Sardus de foras ), as well as a widespread impatience with the foreign importation of a feudal regime, specifically " more Italie " and " Cathalonie ", which threatened the survival of deep-rooted indigenous institutions and, far from ensuring the return of the island to a unitary regime, had only introduced there " tot reges quot sunt ville " ( ' as many petty rulers as there are villages ' ), whereas instead " Sardi unum regem se habuisse credebant " ( '

20328-534: The same areas, where the relations between the indigenous Sardinians and the descendants of Phoenician settlers, the Punic people , had been so far peaceful, the Carthaginians proceeded to annex the southern and western part of Sardinia in the late 6th century BC. Well into the 1st century BCE , native Sardinians were said to have preserved many cultural affinities with the Punic people of North Africa . After

20482-452: The sample with respect to any characteristics or forms of divergence other than stressed vowels, among other caveats. The significant degree to which the Sardinian language has retained its Latin base was also noted by the French geographer Maurice Le Lannou during a research project on the island in 1941. Although its lexical base is mostly of Latin origin, Sardinian nonetheless retains

20636-463: The sea. In fact, contrary to the general trend, from the late Middle Ages until the 20th century urban settlement has not taken place primarily along the coast but towards the centre of the island. Historical reasons for this include the repeated Moorish raids which made the coast unsafe, the abandonment of hundrends of settlements following the Sardinian–Aragonese war and the swampy nature of

20790-747: The second Roman province (the first was Sicily). The outbreak of the Second Punic War and the victories of Hannibal in the Italian Peninsula provoked new stirrings of rebellion in Sardinia where, after the Roman defeat at the Battle of Cannae , the Sardinian-Punic landowner and military Hampsicora , helped by the Carthaginians and by Ilienses, organized a new uprising. In 215 BC the rebels were defeated and massacred in

20944-509: The so-called "Viper's Cave" ( Gruta 'e sa Pibera in Sardinian, Grotta della Vipera in Italian, Cripta Serpentum in Latin), a burial monument built in Caralis ( Cagliari ) by Lucius Cassius Philippus (a Roman who had been exiled to Sardinia) in remembrance of his dead spouse Atilia Pomptilla; we also have some religious works by Eusebius and Saint Lucifer , both from Caralis and in

21098-607: The south-west area of Sardinia, bringing with them a Ligurian dialect called "Tabarchino", still widely spoken there. Then, the Piedmontese Kingdom of Sardinia annexed the whole Italian peninsula and Sicily in 1861 after the Risorgimento , becoming the Kingdom of Italy . Since 1850, with the reorganization of the Sardinian mines, there had been a considerable migration flow from the Italian peninsula towards

21252-667: The theory of the Paleo-Sardinians' supposed African origin, now disproved. Casula is convinced that the Vandal domination caused a "clear breaking with the Roman-Latin writing tradition or, at the very least, an appreciable bottleneck" so that the subsequent Byzantine government was able to establish "its own operational institutions" in a "territory disputed between the Greek- and the Latin-speaking world". Despite

21406-503: The title of "Kings of Sardinia" and ruled the island from Turin , in Piedmont . During this period, Italianization policies were implemented, so as to assimilate the islanders to the then Savoyard mainland ( stati di terraferma ). In 1738, the Ligurian colonists escaped from Tabarka ( Tunisia ) were invited by Charles Emmanuel III to settle on the little islands of San Pietro and Sant'Antioco (at Carloforte and Calasetta ), in

21560-477: The total population. Average life expectancy is slightly over 82 years (85 for women and 79.7 for men). Sardinia is the first discovered Blue Zone , a demographic and/or geographic area of the world where people live measurably longer lives. Sardinians share with the Ryukyuans from Okinawa (Japan) the highest rate of centenarians in the world (22 centenarians/100,000 inhabitants). The key factors of such

21714-411: The traditional costume represented the everyday clothing in most of Sardinia, but even today in various parts of the island it is possible to meet elderly people dressed in costume. Herbert Kubly, writing for The Atlantic in 1955, said that «for Sardinians, traditional costumes are daily dress and not a holiday or touristic get-up. In the arid brown autumn landscape the population blossoms like flowers on

21868-464: The tribes who dwelled therein (in fact, they would continue to practice their indigenous prehistoric religion up until the age of Pope Gregory I ). Therefore, at the beginning of the imperial age, the Sardinian population appears remarkably composite: the coexistence between the natives and the Italic immigrants was not easy; the integration turned out to be slow, different from region to region and, in

22022-466: The troubadour having the lady say " No t'entend plui d'un Todesco / Sardesco o Barbarì " ("I don't understand you more than a German or Sardinian or Berber "); the Tuscan poet Fazio degli Uberti refers to the Sardinians in his poem Dittamondo as " una gente che niuno non-la intende / né essi sanno quel ch'altri pispiglia " ("a people that no one is able to understand / nor do they come to

22176-633: The two cities, like the Doria family , the Della Gherardesca family , and the Malaspina family . The Dorias founded the cities of Alghero and Castelgenovese (today Castelsardo ), while the Pisans founded Castel di Castro (today Cagliari ) and Terranova (today Olbia ); the famous count Ugolino della Gherardesca , quoted by Dante Alighieri in his Divine Comedy , favored the birth of

22330-525: The world (19%). Italian ( italiano ) was first introduced to Sardinia by the House of Savoy in July 1760 and is the most commonly spoken language nowadays, albeit in a regional variety , as a result of policies fostering language shift and assimilation that facilitated Italianization . On the other hand, Sardinian ( sardu ) has been the native language of the indigenous Sards ever since Latin supplanted

22484-410: The writing style of whom may be noted the lexicon and perifrastic forms typical of Sardinian (e.g. narrare in place of dicere ; compare with Sardinian nàrrere or nàrri(ri) ' to say ' ). After a period of 80 years under the Vandals , Sardinia would again be part of the Byzantine Empire under the Exarchate of Africa for almost another five centuries. Luigi Pinelli believes that

22638-442: Was akin to Proto-Basque and the ancient Iberian . In contrast, others believe it was related to Etruscan . Other scholars theorize that there were various linguistic areas (two or more) in Nuraghic Sardinia, possibly Pre-Indo-European and Indo-European. In the 8th century BCE , Phoenicia founded colonies and ports along the southern and western coast, such as Karalis , Bithia , Sulki and Tharros ; starting from

22792-540: Was noted by Roman authors. Punic continued to be spoken well into the 3rd–4th century AD, as attested by votive inscriptions, and it is thought that the natives from the most interior areas, led by the tribal chief Hospito , joined their brethren in making the switch to Latin around the 7th century AD, through their conversion to Christianity. Cicero , who loathed the Sardinians on the ground of numerous factors, such as their outlandish language, their kinship with Carthage and their refusal to engage with Rome, would call

22946-424: Was once their territory, very important are the findings of Mycenaean artifacts, confirming the wealth of exchanges between these two ancient populations. Of particular interest are also the Oxhide ingot , which perhaps came from Cyprus and was discovered in various locations, including the Cagliari area, in the province of Ogliastra and other central areas. Between 1300 and 1200 BC in central-southern Sardinia

23100-459: Was only the Balearic Islands and Sardinia . Pinelli believes that this event constituted a fundamental watershed in the historical course of Sardinia, leading to the definitive severance of those previously close cultural ties between Sardinia and the southern shore of the Mediterranean: any previously held commonality shared between Sardinia and Africa "disappeared, like mist in the sun, as a result of North Africa's conquest by Islamic forces, since

23254-409: Was produced a kind of gray pottery also called "gray Sardinian"; remains of this type of pottery have been found in Kommos, Crete , and at Cannatello near Agrigento , Sicily . As witnessed by the ancient sources ( Diodorus Siculus , Bibliotheca historica and Pausanias , Description of Greece ) since the sixth century BC this population opposed fiercely to the domination of Carthage . When

23408-422: Was published anonymously in the 13th century, relating the events of the Judicate of Torres . The 1297 feoffment of Sardinia by Pope Boniface VIII led to the creation of the Kingdom of Sardinia : that is, of a state which, although lacking in summa potestas , entered by right as a member in personal union within the broader Mediterranean structure of the Crown of Aragon , a composite state . Thus began

23562-502: Was taken, among those Trojans who fled were those who escaped with Aeneas. A part of them, carried from their course by winds, reached Sardinia and intermarried with the Greeks already settled there (Iolaes). But the non-Greek element (Balares ?) were prevented from coming to blows with the Greeks and Trojans, for the two enemies were evenly matched in all warlike equipment, while the river Thorsus (Tirso), flowing between their territories, made both equally afraid to cross it. . Despite

23716-428: Was the first Romance language of all to gain official status, being used by the four Judicates , former Byzantine districts that became independent political entities after the Arab expansion in the Mediterranean had cut off any ties left between the island and Byzantium . The exceptionality of the Sardinian situation, which in this sense constitutes a unique case throughout the Latin-speaking Europe, consists in

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