Sardu Iso Download
Keiko Middlekauff
Sardinian or Sard (sardu [ˈsaɾdu], limba sarda [ˈlimba ˈzaɾda] or lìngua sarda [ˈliŋɡwa ˈzaɾda]) is a Romance language spoken by the Sardinians on the Western Mediterranean island of Sardinia.
At the end of the 18th century, following the trail of the French Revolution, a group of the Sardinian middle class planned to break away from Savoyard rule and institute an independent Sardinian Republic under French protection; all over the island, a number of political pamphlets printed in Sardinian were illegally distributed, calling for a mass revolt against the "Piedmontese" rule and the barons' abuse. The most famous literary product born out of such political unrest was the poem Su patriottu sardu a sos feudatarios, noted as a testament of the French-inspired democratic and patriotic values, as well as Sardinia's situation under feudalism.[252][253] As for the reactions that the three-year Sardinian revolutionary period aroused in the island's ruling class, who were now in the process of Italianisation, for Sotgiu "its failure was complete: undecided between a breathless municipalism and a dead-end attachment to the Crown, it did not have the courage to lead the revolutionary wave coming from the countryside".[233] In fact, although pamphlets such as "the Achilles of Sardinian Liberation" circulated, denouncing the backwardness of an oppressive feudal system and a Ministry that was said to have "always been the enemy of the Sardinian Nation", and the "social pact between the Sovereign and the Nation" was declared to have been broken, there was no radical change in the form of government: therefore, it is not surprising, according to Sotgiu, that although "the call for the Sardinian nation, its traditions and identity became stronger and stronger, even to the point of requesting the creation of a stable military force of "Sardinian nationals only"", the concrete hypothesis of abolishing the monarchical and feudal regimes did not "make its way into the consciousness of many".[254] The only result was therefore "the defeat of the peasant class emerging from the very core of feudal society, urged on by the masses of peasants and led by the most advanced forces of the Sardinian bourgeoisie"[254] and, conversely, the victory of the feudal barons and "of large strata of the town bourgeoisie that had developed within the framework of the feudal order and feared that the abolition of feudalism and the proclamation of the Republic might simultaneously destroy the very basis of their own wealth and prestige".[255]
Despite the long-term assimilation policy, the anthem of the Savoyard Kingdom of Sardinia would be S'hymnu sardu nationale ("the Sardinian National Anthem"), also known as Cunservet Deus su Re ("God save the King"), before it was de facto replaced by the Italian Marcia Reale as well, in 1861.[275] However, even when the island became part of the Kingdom of Italy under Victor Emmanuel II in 1861, Sardinia's distinct culture from the now unified Mainland made it an overall neglected province within the newly proclaimed unitary nation state.[276] Between 1848 and 1861, the island was plunged into a social and economic crisis that was to last until the post-war period.[277] Eventually, Sardinian came to be perceived as sa limba de su famine / sa lingua de su famini, literally translating into English as "the language of hunger" (i.e. the language of the poor), and Sardinian parents strongly supported the teaching of the Italian tongue to their children, since they saw it as the portal to escaping from a poverty-stricken, rural, isolated and underprivileged life.
During the mobilization for World War I, the Italian Army compelled all people on the island that were "of Sardinian stock" (di stirpe sarda[280]) to enlist as Italian subjects and established the Sassari Infantry Brigade on 1 March 1915 at Tempio Pausania and Sinnai. Unlike the other infantry brigades of Italy, Sassari's conscripts were only Sardinians (including many officers). It is currently the only unit in Italy with an anthem in a language other than Italian: Dimonios ("Devils"), which would be written in 1994 by Luciano Sechi; its title derives from the German-language Rote Teufel ("red devils"), by which they were popularly known among the troops of the Austro-Hungarian Army. Compulsory military service around this period played a role in language shift and is referred to by historian Manlio Brigaglia as "the first great mass "nationalization"" of the Sardinians.[281] Nevertheless, similarly to Navajo-speaking service members in the United States during World War II, as well as Quechua speakers during the Falklands War,[282] native Sardinians were offered the opportunity to be recruited as code talkers to transmit tactical information in Sardinian over radio communications which might have otherwise run the risk of being gained by Austrian troops, since some of them hailed from Italian-speaking areas to which, therefore, the Sardinian language was utterly alien:[283] Alfredo Graziani writes in his war diary that "having learned that many of our phonograms were being intercepted, we adopted the system of communicating on the phone only in Sardinian, certain that in this way they would never be able to understand what one was saying".[284] To avoid infiltration attempts by said Italophone troops, positions were guarded by Sardinian recruits from the Sassari Brigade who required anyone who came to them that they identify themselves first by proving they spoke Sardinian: "si ses italianu, faedda in sardu!".[285][286][283]
Historically, the Sardinians have always been a small-numbered population scattered across isolated cantons, sharing demographic patterns similar to the neighbouring Corsica; as a result, Sardinian developed a broad spectrum of dialects over the time. Starting from Francesco Cetti's description in the 18th century,[504][505][506][507] Sardinian has been presented as a pluricentric language, being traditionally subdivided into two standardized varieties spoken by roughly half of the entire community: the dialects spoken in North-Central Sardinia, centered on the orthography known as Logudorese (su sardu logudoresu), and the dialects spoken in South-Central Sardinia, centered on another orthography called Campidanese (su sardu campidanesu).[508]
The dialects centered on the "Logudorese Sardinian model" are generally considered more conservative, with the Nuorese dialect of Sardinian (su sardu nugoresu) being deemed the most conservative of all. They have all retained the classical Latin pronunciation of the stop velars (kena versus cena, "supper"),[518] the front middle vowels (compare Campidanese iotacism, probably from Byzantine Greek)[519] and assimilation of close-mid vowels (cane versus cani, "dog" and gattos versus gattus, "cats"). Labio-velars become plain labials (limba versus lingua, "language" and abba versus acua, "water").[520] I is prosthesized before consonant clusters beginning in s (iscala versus Campidanese Sardinian scala, "stairway" and iscola versus scola, "school"). An east-west strip of villages in central Sardinia, mainly in the central part of the Province of Oristano, and central part of the Province of Nuoro, speaks a transitional group of dialects (su sardu de mesania). Examples include is limbas (the languages) and is abbas (the waters). The dialects centered on the Campidanese model, spreading from Cagliari (once the metropolis of the Roman province), show relatively more influences from Carthage, Rome, Constantinople and Late Latin. Examples include is fruminis (the rivers) and is domus (the houses).
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