The Southern Romance languages are a primary branch of the Romance languages. According to the classification of linguists such as Leonard (1980) and Agard (1984), the Southern Romance family is composed of Sardinian, Corsican, and the southern Lucanian dialects.Subfamily: Southern Romance, Glottolog
/ref> This theory is far from universally supported. In fact, the majority of linguists classify Corsican, including Gallurese and

Sassarese Sassarese (natively ''sassaresu'' or ''turritanu''; sc, tataresu ) is an Italo-Dalmatian language and transitional variety between Sardinian and Corsican. It is regarded as a Corso–Sardinian language because of Sassari's historic ties w ...

, as part of

Italo-Dalmatian The Italo-Dalmatian languages, or Central Romance languages, are a group of Romance languages spoken in Italy, Corsica (France), and formerly in Dalmatia (Croatia). Italo-Dalmatian can be split into:Hammarström, Harald & Forkel, Robert & Haspe ...

and closely related to Tuscan or the centro-southern Italian dialects,Harris, Martin; Vincent, Nigel (1997), Romance Languages. London: Routlegde. because of the island's considerable degree of tuscanization during the Middle Ages, leaving Sardinian as the only remaining representative of the branch once the African Romance dialects had gone extinct, unless the southern Lucanian dialects are also classified as part of this branch, as they show some important traits in common with Sardinian.

Classification

Ethnologue and Glottolog, which support the Southern Romance theory, propose the following classification (with Glottolog considering South Lucanian and Sardo-Corsican to be branches of Southern Romance and Ethnologue considering Sardo-Corsican to be synonymous with Southern Romance), which is not endorsed by other linguists in light of the structural differences between these languages. Corsican, for example, is otherwise classified as an Italo-Dalmatian language, and Gallurese, like Sassarese, as a (southern) Corsican dialect (with influences from Logudorese Sardinian) or a transitional variety between Corsican and Sardinian. However, the southern dialects of Corsican as well as Gallurese and Sassarese display Sardinian-like vocalism (see ). * Sardo-Corsican ** Corsican (''corsu'') in Corsica ** Sardinian (''sardu'') in Sardinia *** Logudorese Sardinian (''sardu logudoresu'') ***

Campidanese Sardinian Campidanese Sardinian ( sc, sardu campidanesu, it, sardo campidanese) is one of the two written standards of the Sardinian language, which is often considered one of the most, if not the most conservative of all the Romance languages. The orth ...

(''sardu campidanesu'') *** Gallurese Sardinian (''gadduresu'') *** Sassarese Sardinian (''sassaresu'') * South Lucanian in Basilicata Other classifications include in the family the extinct group of African Romance, which is known to have been used by populations of North Africa pertaining to the Roman sphere of influence during at least the first centuries after the dissolution of official institutions of the Roman Empire, and developed under the rule of Byzantine Empire in the area.

Gallery

File:Sardinia Language Map.png, Linguistic map of Sardinia File:Maps of Corsican Dialects.svg, Linguistic map of Corsica and northern Sardinia

References

Romance languages {{romance-lang-stub