Corsican language
Corsican is a Romance language from the Italo-Dalmatian family that is spoken predominantly on the Mediterranean island of Corsica. Corsican is closely related to Tuscan and therefore to the Florentine-based Italian. Some languages, which originated from Corsican but are also heavily influenced by Sardinian and are nowadays considered to be languages on their own, are also spoken, and to some extent written, on the island of Sardinia.
Under the longstanding sway of Pisa and Genoa over Corsica, Corsican used to play the role of a vernacular in combination with Italian, which was the island's official language; in 1859, Italian was replaced by French, owing to the French acquisition from the Republic of Genoa in 1768. Over the next two centuries, the use of French in the place of Italian grew to the extent that, by the Liberation in 1945, all the islanders had a working knowledge of French. The 20th century saw a language shift, with the islanders changing their language practices to the extent that there were no monolingual Corsican speakers left by the 1960s. By 1995, an estimated 65 percent of islanders had some degree of proficiency in Corsican, and a minority, amounting to around 10 percent, used Corsican as a first language.
Classification by subjective analysis
As for Corsican, a bone of contention is whether it should be considered an Italian dialect or its own language. Usually, it is not possible to ascertain what an author means by these terms. For example, one might read from some scholars that Corsican belongs to the Centro-Southern Italian dialects and is closely related to the Tuscan dialect of Italian. Mutual intelligibility between Italian and the dialects of Corsican is in fact very high, with particular reference to the Northern varieties. Despite the geographical proximity, it has indeed been noted that the closest linguistic neighbour to Corsican is not Sardinian, which constitutes a separate group, but rather Tuscan and the extreme Southern Italian lects like Siculo-Calabrian.The matter is controversial, as the island was historically and culturally bound to the Italian Mainland from the Middle Ages until the 19th century, and installed in a diglossic system where both Corsican and Italian were perceived as two sociolinguistic levels of the same language; Corsican and Italian traditionally existed on a spectrum, whose proximity line was blurred enough that the locals needed little else but a change of register to communicate with the standard Italian-speaking elites and administration. "Tuscanising" their tongue allowed for a practice of code-mixing typical of the Mainland Italian dialects.
One of the characteristics of standard Italian is the retention of the -re infinitive ending, as in Latin mittere "send". Such infinitival ending is lost in Tuscan as well as Corsican, which has mette / metta, "to put". The Latin relative pronouns qui/quae "who", and quod "what", are inflected in Latin; whereas the relative pronoun in Italian for "who" is chi and "what" is che/ cosa, it is an uninflected chì in Corsican. Perhaps the biggest difference between standard Italian and Corsican is that the latter uses the u termination, whereas standard Italian uses the o ending. For example, the Italian demonstrative pronouns questo "this" and quello "that" become in Corsican questu or quistu and quellu or quiddu. This feature was typical of the early Italian texts during the Middle Ages.
Origins
The Corsican language has been influenced by the languages of the major powers taking an interest in Corsican affairs; earlier by those of the medieval Italian powers: Papal States, Republic of Pisa and Republic of Genoa, more recently by France, which, since 1859, has promulgated the official Parisian French. The term "gallicised Corsican" refers to the evolution of Corsican starting from about the year 1950. The term "distanciated Corsican" refers to an idealized variety of Corsican following linguistic purism, by means of removing any French-derived elements.The common relationship between Corsica and central Italy can be traced from as far back as the Etruscans, who asserted their presence on the island in as early as 500 BC. In 40 AD, the natives of Corsica did not reportedly speak Latin. The Roman exile, Seneca the Younger, reports that both coast and interior were occupied by natives whose language, the Paleo-Corsican language, he did not understand. Whatever language was spoken is still visible in the toponymy or in some words, for instance in the Gallurese dialect spoken in Sardinia zerru 'pig'. An analogue situation was valid for Sardinian and Sicilian as well. The occupation of the island by the Vandals around the year 469 marked the end of authoritative influence by Latin speakers. If the natives of that time spoke Latin, they must have acquired it during the late empire. It has been theorised that a Sardinian variety might have been spoken in Corsica, prior to the island's Tuscanisation under Pisan and Genoese rule.
Dialects
Corsica
The two most widely spoken forms of the Corsican language are the groups spoken in the Bastia and Corte area, and the groups spoken around Sartène and Porto-Vecchio. The dialect of Ajaccio has been described as in transition. The dialects spoken at Calvi and Bonifacio are closer to the Genoese dialect, also known as Ligurian.This division along the Girolata-Porto Vecchio line was due to the massive immigration from Tuscany which took place in Corsica during the lower Middle Ages: as a result, the northern Corsican dialects became very close to a central Italian dialect like Tuscan, while the southern Corsican varieties could keep the original characteristics of the language which make it much more similar to Sicilian and, only to some extent, Sardinian.
Northern Corsican
The Northern Corsican macro variety is the most widespread on the island and standardised as well, and is spoken in North-West Corsica around the districts of Bastia and Corte. The dialects of Bastia and Cap Corse belong to the Western Tuscan dialects; they being, with the exception of Florentine, the closest to standard Italian. All the dialects presenting, in addition to what has already been stated, the conditional formed in -ebbe are generally considered Cismontani dialects, situated north of a line uniting the villages of Piana, Vico, Vizzavona, Ghisoni and Ghisonaccia, and also covering the subgroups from the Cap Corse, Bastia, Balagna, Niolo and Corte.Transitional Area
Across the Northern and Southern borders of the line separating the Northern dialects from the Southern ones, there is a transitional area picking up linguistic phenomena associated with either of the two groups, with some local peculiarities. Along the Northern line are the dialects around Piana and Calcatoggio, from Cinarca with Vizzavona, and Fiumorbo through Ghisonaccia and Ghisoni, which have the retroflex sound for historical ; along the Southern line, the dialects of Ajaccio, the Gravona area, Bastelica.Southern Corsican
The Southern Corsican macro variety is the most archaic and conservative group, spoken in the districts of Sartène and Porto-Vecchio. Unlike the Northern varieties and similarly to Sardinian, the group retains the distinction of the Latin short vowels ĭ and ŭ. It is also strongly marked by the presence of the voiced retroflex stop, like Sicilian, and the conditional tense formed in -ìa. All the Oltramontani dialects are from an area located to the South of Porticcio, Bastelica, Col di Verde and Solenzara. Notable dialects are those from around Taravo, Sartène, the Alta Rocca, and the Southern region located between the hinterlands of Porto-Vecchio and Bonifacio.Sardinia
The Gallurese variety is spoken in the extreme north of Sardinia, including the region of Gallura and the archipelago of La Maddalena, and Sassarese is spoken in Sassari and in its neighbourhood, in the northwest of Sardinia. Whether the two should be included either in Corsican or in Sardinian as dialects or considered independent languages is still subject of debate.On Maddalena archipelago the local dialect was brought by fishermen and shepherds from Bonifacio during immigration in the 17th and 18th centuries. Though influenced by Gallurese, it has maintained the original characteristics of Corsican. There are also numerous words of Genoese and Ponzese origin.
On October 14, 1997, Article 2 Item 4 of Law Number 26 of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia granted "al dialetto sassarese e a quello gallurese"—equal legal status with the other languages on Sardinia. They are thus legally defined as different languages from Sardinian by the Sardinian government.
Number of speakers
The January 2007 estimated population of Corsica was 281,000, whereas the figure for the March 1999 census, when most of the studies—though not the linguistic survey work referenced in this article—were performed, was about 261,000. Only a fraction of the population at either time spoke Corsican with any fluency.The use of Corsican language over French language has been declining. In 1980 about 70 percent of the population of the island "had some command of the Corsican language." In 1990 out of a total population of about 254,000 the percentage had declined to 50 percent, with only 10 percent using it as a first language. The language appeared to be in serious decline when the French government reversed its unsupportive stand and initiated some strong measures to save it.
According to an official survey run on behalf of the Collectivité territoriale de Corse which took place in April 2013, in Corsica the Corsican language has a number of speakers situated between 86,800 and 130,200, out of a total population amounting to 309,693 inhabitants. The percentage of those who have a solid knowledge of the language varies between a minimum of 25 percent in the 25–34 age group and the maximum of 65 percent in the over-65 age group: almost a quarter of the former age group does not understand Corsican, while only a small minority of the older people do not understand it. While 32 percent of the population of northern Corsica speaks Corsican quite well, this percentage drops to 22 percent for South Corsica. Moreover, 10 percent of the population of Corsica speaks only French, while 62 percent speak both French and Corsican. However, only 8 percent of the Corsicans know how to write correctly in Corsican, while about 60 percent of the population does not know how to write in Corsican. While 90 percent of the population is in favor of a Corsican-French bilingualism, 3 percent would like to have Corsican as the only official language in the island, and 7 percent would prefer French in this role.
UNESCO classifies Corsican as a "definitely endangered language." The Corsican language is a key vehicle for Corsican culture, which is notably rich in proverbs and in polyphonic song.
Governmental support
When the French Assembly passed the Deixonne Law in 1951, which made it possible for regional languages to be taught at school, Alsatian, Flemish and Corsican were not included on the ground of being classified as dialectes allogènes of German, Dutch and Italian respectively; only in 1974 were they too politically recognized as regional languages for their teaching on a voluntary basis.The 1991 "Joxe Statute", in setting up the Collectivité Territoriale de Corse, also provided for the Corsican Assembly, and charged it with developing a plan for the optional teaching of Corsican. The University of Corsica Pasquale Paoli at Corte, Haute-Corse took a central role in the planning.
At the primary school level Corsican is taught up to a fixed number of hours per week and is a voluntary subject at the secondary school level, but is required at the University of Corsica. It is available through adult education. It can be spoken in court or in the conduct of other government business if the officials concerned speak it. The Cultural Council of the Corsican Assembly advocates for its use, for example, on public signs.
Literature
According to the anthropologist Dumenica Verdoni, writing new literature in modern Corsican, known as the Riacquistu, is an integral part of affirming Corsican identity. Some individuals have returned from careers in continental France to write in Corsican, including Dumenicu Togniotti, director of the Teatru Paisanu, which produced polyphonic musicals, 1973–1982, followed in 1980 by Michel Raffaelli's Teatru di a Testa Mora, and Saveriu Valentini's Teatru Cupabbia in 1984. Modern prose writers include Alanu di Meglio, Ghjacumu Fusina, Lucia Santucci, and Marcu Biancarelli.There were writers working in Corsican in the 1700s and 1800s.
Ferdinand Gregorovius, a 19th-century traveller and enthusiast of Corsican culture, reported that the preferred form of the literary tradition of his time was the vocero, a type of polyphonic ballad originating from funeral obsequies. These laments were similar in form to the chorales of Greek drama except that the leader could improvise. Some performers were noted at this, such as the 1700s Mariola della Piazzole and Clorinda Franseschi. However, the trail of written popular literature of known date in Corsican currently goes no further back than the 17th century. An undated corpus of proverbs from communes may well precede it. Corsican has also left a trail of legal documents ending in the late 12th century. At that time the monasteries held considerable land on Corsica and many of the churchmen were notaries.
Between 1200 and 1425 the monastery of Gorgona, which belonged to the Order of Saint Benedict for much of that time and was in the territory of Pisa, acquired about 40 legal papers of various sorts related to Corsica. As the church was replacing Pisan prelates with Corsican ones there, the legal language shows a transition from entirely Latin through partially Latin and partially Corsican to entirely Corsican. The first known surviving document containing some Corsican is a bill of sale from Patrimonio dated to 1220. These documents were moved to Pisa before the monastery closed its doors and were published there. Research into earlier evidence of Corsican is ongoing.
Alphabet and spelling
Corsican is written in the standard Latin script, using 21 of the letters for native words. The letters j, k, w, x, and y are found only in foreign names and French vocabulary. The digraphs and trigraphs chj, ghj, sc and sg are also defined as "letters" of the alphabet in its modern scholarly form and appear respectively after c, g and s.The primary diacritic used is the grave accent, indicating word stress when it is not penultimate. In scholarly contexts, disyllables may be distinguished from diphthongs by use of the diaeresis on the former vowel. In older writing, the acute accent is sometimes found on stressed, the circumflex on stressed, indicating respectively and phonemes.
Corsican has been regarded as a dialect of Italian historically, similar to the Romance lects developed on the Italian peninsula, and in writing, it also resembles Italian. On the other hand, the phonemes of the modern Corsican dialects have undergone complex and sometimes irregular phenomena depending on phonological context, so the pronunciation of the language for foreigners familiar with other Romance languages is not straightforward.
Phonology
Vowels
As in Italian, the grapheme appears in some digraphs and trigraphs in which it does not represent the phonemic vowel. All vowels are pronounced except in a few well-defined instances. is not pronounced between and : sciarpa ; or initially in some words: istu.Vowels may be nasalized before and the palatal nasal consonant represented by. The nasal vowels are represented by the vowel plus, or. The combination is a digraph or trigraph indicating the nasalized vowel. The consonant is pronounced in weakened form. The same combination of letters might not be the digraph or trigraph but might be just the non-nasal vowel followed by the consonant at full weight. The speaker must know the difference. Example of nasal: is pronounced and not.
The Northern and central dialects in the vicinity of the Taravo river adopt the Italian seven-vowel system, whereas all the Southern ones around the so-called "archaic zone" with its centre being the town of Sartène resort to a five-vowel system without length differentiation, like Sardinian.
The vowel inventory, or collection of phonemic vowels, transcribed in IPA symbols, is:
| Description | Grapheme | Phoneme | Phone or Allophones | Usage | Example |
| Open front unrounded Near open | a | Occasional northern | casa house carta card | ||
| Close-mid front unrounded Open-mid Near-open Open | e | Inherited as open or close Occasional northern Occasional southern | u celu the sky ci hè there is mercuri wednesday terra land | ||
| Close front unrounded | i | 1st sound, diphthong | dì say fiume river | ||
| Close-mid back rounded Open-mid | o | Inherited as open or close | locu place notte night | ||
| Close back rounded | u | 1st sound, diphthong | malu bad quassù up there què that |