The Questione Ladina is a controversy over whether the
Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language fam ...
of
Romansh,
Ladin
Ladin may refer to:
* Ladin language, a language in northern Italy, often classified as a Rhaeto-Romance language
*Ladin people, the inhabitants of the Dolomite Alps region of northern Italy
See also
*Laden (disambiguation)
* Ladino (disambigua ...
and
Friulian form a proper
language subfamily or should rather be regarded as a part of a wider
Northern Italian
Northern Italy ( it, Italia settentrionale, it, Nord Italia, label=none, it, Alta Italia, label=none or just it, Nord, label=none) is a geographical and cultural region in the northern part of Italy. It consists of eight administrative regions ...
dialect continuum
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...
. Both the idea of a distinctive language sub-family and the denial of a Ladin unity still have strong proponents, the former especially among Swiss, German and Austrian, the latter among Italian linguists.
The issue has, beyond the linguistic controversy, political implications being the areas involved subjected to territorial disputes, especially during the first half of the 20th century.
Position of the Ascolians
The beginning of the Questione Ladina is marked in 1873 by the publication of the ''Saggi ladini'' by
Graziadio Isaia Ascoli
Graziadio Isaia Ascoli (; 16 July 1829 – 21 January 1907) was an Italian linguist.
Life and work
Ascoli was born in an Italian-speaking Jewish family in the multiethnic town of Gorizia, then part of the Austrian Empire (now in Italy). Alre ...
(1829–1907), who identified the area between the
Oberalp Pass
Oberalp Pass ( rm, Alpsu or ''Cuolm d'Ursera''; german: Oberalppass) (2044 meters above sea level) is a high mountain pass in the Swiss Alps connecting the cantons of Graubünden and Uri between Disentis/Mustér and Andermatt.
Winter closure
...
and the
Gulf of Trieste
The Gulf of Trieste ( it, Golfo di Trieste, sl, Tržaški zaliv, hr, Tršćanski zaljev, german: Golf von Triest) is a very shallow bay of the Adriatic Sea, in the extreme northern part of the Adriatic Sea. It is part of the Gulf of Venice an ...
as a specific language area, with some common characteristics, and called the idioms spoken there ''Ladin dialects'' ().
The theory gained a large circulation with the publications of the Austrian linguist
Theodor Gartner
Theodor Gartner (4 November 1843 — 29 April 1925) was an Austrian linguist, Romance studies, Romance philologist and professor.
Biography
He is also known for his study of the Ukrainian language and as a co-author (with Stepan Smal-Stots ...
, who, however, used ''
Rhaeto-Romance
Rhaeto-Romance, Rheto-Romance, or Rhaetian, is a purported subfamily of the Romance languages that is spoken in south-eastern Switzerland and north-eastern Italy. The name "Rhaeto-Romance" refers to the former Roman province of Raetia. The quest ...
'' instead of ''Ladin'' as an umbrella term.
Both postulated that there are a lot of common features in between
Romansh,
Ladin
Ladin may refer to:
* Ladin language, a language in northern Italy, often classified as a Rhaeto-Romance language
*Ladin people, the inhabitants of the Dolomite Alps region of northern Italy
See also
*Laden (disambiguation)
* Ladino (disambigua ...
– also encompassing the dialects of the
Non Valley
The Non Valley ( it, Val di Non or ; Nones: ''Val de Nòn''; german: Nonstal or ; la, Anaunia) is a valley mainly in the Trentino. Morever, the (), a subregion, consists of three primarily German-speaking municipalities in the province of Sout ...
(german: Nonsbergtal) and
Val di Sole
Val may refer to: Val-a
Film
* ''Val'' (film), an American documentary about Val Kilmer, directed by Leo Scott and Ting Poo
Military equipment
* Aichi D3A, a Japanese World War II dive bomber codenamed "Val" by the Allies
* AS Val, a Sov ...
(german: Sulzbergtal) – and
Friulian. This led them to the conclusion, that a common ancestor of those languages used to be spoken in the area. Due to settlers and linguistic pressure from both German and Italian, the unity of the languages was disrupted, resulting in the development of several distinct languages.
Position of the Battistians
The idea of a Ladin unity was strongly opposed by
Carlo Battisti (1882–1977), who tried to demonstrate, in several studies, that the whole range of dialects in question showed only a few common characteristics and was just as closely related to neighboring
Lombard and
Venetian varieties. The dialectologist
Carlo Salvioni Carlo Salvioni (3 March 1858, Bellinzona – 20 October 1920, Milan) was a Swiss Romance languages, romanist and linguist.
Biography
He was born in Switzerland, in the capital of the Canton of Ticino, where his printer father also ran a bookshop. D ...
held similar views.
They conlcude, that those "common features" are in fact features of a former Northern Italian dialect, which survived only in more isolated areas in the mountains.
Other Positions
A third position has been taken by other linguists (e.g. Heinrich Schmid, Andreas Schorta, Pierre Bec, Geoffrey Hull), who agree with the Italianists that the Rhaeto-Romance languages are archaic variants of the adjacent vernaculars of Lombardy, Trentino and Venetia, but differ from them in considering the entire Rhaeto-Cisalpine or 'Padanian' linguistic unity to be an integral unit of Gallo-Romance and structurally not Italo-Romance, in spite of superficial Italian influences in certain areas (Liguria, the Veneto and Istria primarily, but also in Friuli and parts of Lombardy).
Aspects
A characteristic is the commixture of grammatical and sociolinguistic aspects, as well as of linguistic and political-ideological convictions. Battisti and Salvioni's research was influenced by sympathies for the
Italian irredentism
Italian irredentism ( it, irredentismo italiano) was a nationalist movement during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Italy with irredentist goals which promoted the unification of geographic areas in which indigenous peoples ...
, leading to the demand that speakers of Romansh should accept Italian as a ''
Dachsprache
In sociolinguistics, an abstand language is a language variety or cluster of varieties with significant linguistic distance from all others, while an ausbau language is a standard variety, possibly with related dependent varieties. Heinz Kloss in ...
'' because of their ''Italianity'', and subsequently to linguistically justified political claims that the Romansh-speaking
Graubünden should become part of Italy. On the other hand, Swiss linguists regarded mere grammatical features as subordinated to sociolinguistic and historic considerations, and they strongly supported the idea of a separate "language".
Current discussion
It is currently debated whether or not to include the dialects of the Non Valley and the Valle di Sole into Rhaeto-Romance. They are typically classified as Semi-Ladin or Ladin-Anaunian. The question gained prominence, since in the census of 2001, many speakers of those dialects self-identified as Ladins (there was no separate option for Anaunian).
References
{{Romance languages
Romance languages
Ladin
Ladin may refer to:
* Ladin language, a language in northern Italy, often classified as a Rhaeto-Romance language
*Ladin people, the inhabitants of the Dolomite Alps region of northern Italy
See also
*Laden (disambiguation)
* Ladino (disambigua ...
Romansh language
Ladin language
Friulian language