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Endangered minority and regional languages (‘dialects’) in Italy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

Paolo Coluzzi
Paolo Coluzzi*
Affiliation:
Universiti Brunei Darussalam
*
∗Email: pcoluzzi@lc.ubd.edu.bn; pcoluzzi@yahoo.com.
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Abstract

The Italian linguistic situation is characterised by a remarkable number of language varieties, although the development of Italian in the past 150 years has been the cause of a language shift from local languages to Italian. The degree of endangerment suffered by so-called ‘Italian dialects’ is shown using the Major Evaluative Factors of Language Vitality drawn up by a UNESCO ad hoc expert group in 2003, and the data offered by the 2006 ISTAT survey on language use. The debate in Italy on the vitality of ‘dialects’ and their future has done little to activate mechanisms and strategies to reverse the worrying language shift that both minority languages and ‘dialects’ are undergoing.

Keywords

dialectendangered languagelanguage planningminority languagenationalismregional language
Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , February 2009 , pp. 39 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

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