The Southern Romance languages are a primary branch of 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 ...

. 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 Gallurese () is a Romance language from the Italo-Dalmatian family spoken in the region of Gallura, northeastern Sardinia. It is sometimes considered a dialect of southern Corsican or a transitional language between Corsican and Sardinian. ...

and Sassarese, as part of Italo-Dalmatian 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 In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

, leaving Sardinian as the only remaining representative of the branch once the

African Romance African Romance or African Latin is an extinct Romance language that was spoken in the Roman province of Africa by the Roman Africans during the later Roman and early Byzantine Empires, and several centuries after the annexation of the region by ...

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 Logudorese Sardinian ( sc, sardu logudoresu, it, sardo logudorese) 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 Romance languages. The orthography ...

(''sardu logudoresu'') *** Campidanese Sardinian (''sardu campidanesu'') *** Gallurese Sardinian (''gadduresu'') *** Sassarese Sardinian (''sassaresu'') * South Lucanian in Basilicata Other classifications include in the family the extinct group of

, 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