1.
Italy
–
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
Italy
–
The
Colosseum in Rome, built c. 70 – 80 AD, is considered one of the greatest works of
architecture and
engineering of ancient history.
Italy
–
Flag
Italy
–
The
Iron Crown of Lombardy, for centuries symbol of the
Kings of Italy.
Italy
–
Castel del Monte, built by German Emperor
Frederick II,
UNESCO World Heritage site
2.
Trentino
–
Trentino, officially the Autonomous Province of Trento, is an autonomous province of Italy, in the countrys far north. Trentino is, along with South Tyrol, one of the two provinces making up the region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, which is designated a region under the constitution. The province is divided into 178 comuni and its capital is the city of Trento. The province covers an area of more than 6,000 km2, Trentino is renowned for its mountains, such as the Dolomites, which are part of the Alps. The province is known as Trentino. The name derives from Trento, the city of the province. Originally, the term was used by the population only to refer to the city. In its wider sense, Trentino was first used around 1848 in an article by a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly, since the new 1972 autonomous status, the administrative name of the province is Autonomous Province of Trento. The history of Trentino begins in the mid-Stone Age, the valleys of what is now Trentino were already inhabited by man, the main settlements being in the valley of the Adige River, thanks to its milder climate. In the early Middle Ages, this area was included within the Kingdom of Italy, in 1027, the Bishopric of Trent was established as a State of the Holy Roman Empire by Emperor Conrad II. It was a territory, roughly corresponding to the present-day Trentino. The Council of Trent, held in three sessions from 1545 to 1563, with the first at Trento, was one of the important councils in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. It was an articulation of Roman Catholic doctrine in response to the Protestant Reformation, and specified doctrine on salvation, the sacraments, after the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century, the bishopric was secularized and absorbed into the Austrian County of Tyrol. It was governed by the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, the region was the location of heavy fighting during World War I, as it was directly on the front lines between Austria-Hungary and Italy. Trentino remained a part of Austria-Hungary until after the end of the war in 1919, since this treaty, Trentino enjoys considerable autonomy from the Italian central government in Rome. It has its own elected government and legislative assembly, in 1996, the Euroregion Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino was formed between the Austrian state of Tyrol and the Italian provinces of South Tyrol and Trentino. The boundaries of the association correspond to the old County of Tyrol, the aim is to promote regional peace, understanding and cooperation in many areas. The regions assemblies meet together as one on various occasions and have set up a liaison office to the European Union in Brussels
Trentino
–
Buonconsiglio Castle in Trent was the seat of the prince-bishops from the 13th century to 1803.
Trentino
–
Map highlighting the location of the province of Trentino in Italy
Trentino
–
The
Marmolada in the northeast is the highest mountain of the Dolomites
Trentino
–
A view of Lake Garda from
Riva del Garda in the south. Tourism is one of the main factors of the Trentine econonmy.
3.
Language family
–
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestral language or parental language, called the proto-language of that family. Linguists therefore describe the languages within a language family as being genetically related. Estimates of the number of living languages vary from 5,000 to 8,000, depending on the precision of ones definition of language, the 2013 edition of Ethnologue catalogs just over 7,000 living human languages. A living language is one that is used as the primary form of communication of a group of people. There are also dead and extinct languages, as well as some that are still insufficiently studied to be classified. Membership of languages in a family is established by comparative linguistics. Sister languages are said to have a genetic or genealogical relationship, speakers of a language family belong to a common speech community. The divergence of a proto-language into daughter languages typically occurs through geographical separation, individuals belonging to other speech communities may also adopt languages from a different language family through the language shift process. Genealogically related languages present shared retentions, that is, features of the proto-language that cannot be explained by chance or borrowing, for example, Germanic languages are Germanic in that they share vocabulary and grammatical features that are not believed to have been present in the Proto-Indo-European language. These features are believed to be innovations that took place in Proto-Germanic, language families can be divided into smaller phylogenetic units, conventionally referred to as branches of the family because the history of a language family is often represented as a tree diagram. A family is a unit, all its members derive from a common ancestor. Some taxonomists restrict the term family to a level. Those who affix such labels also subdivide branches into groups, a top-level family is often called a phylum or stock. The closer the branches are to other, the closer the languages will be related. For example, the Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Romance, there is a remarkably similar pattern shown by the linguistic tree and the genetic tree of human ancestry that was verified statistically. Languages interpreted in terms of the phylogenetic tree of human languages are transmitted to a great extent vertically as opposed to horizontally. A speech variety may also be considered either a language or a dialect depending on social or political considerations, thus, different sources give sometimes wildly different accounts of the number of languages within a family. Classifications of the Japonic family, for example, range from one language to nearly twenty, most of the worlds languages are known to be related to others
Language family
–
Principal language families of the world (and in some cases geographic groups of families). For greater detail, see
Distribution of languages in the world.
4.
Indo-European languages
–
The Indo-European languages are a language family of several hundred related languages and dialects. There are about 445 living Indo-European languages, according to the estimate by Ethnologue, the most widely spoken Indo-European languages by native speakers are Spanish, English, Hindustani, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, and Punjabi, each with over 100 million speakers. Today, 46% of the population speaks an Indo-European language as a first language. The Indo-European family includes most of the languages of Europe, and parts of Western, Central. It was also predominant in ancient Anatolia, the ancient Tarim Basin and most of Central Asia until the medieval Turkic migrations, all Indo-European languages are descendants of a single prehistoric language, reconstructed as Proto-Indo-European, spoken sometime in the Neolithic era. Several disputed proposals link Indo-European to other language families. In the 16th century, European visitors to the Indian subcontinent began to notice similarities among Indo-Aryan, Iranian, in 1583, English Jesuit missionary Thomas Stephens in Goa wrote a letter to his brother in which he noted similarities between Indian languages and Greek and Latin. Another account to mention the ancient language Sanskrit came from Filippo Sassetti, a merchant born in Florence in 1540, writing in 1585, he noted some word similarities between Sanskrit and Italian. However, neither Stephens nor Sassettis observations led to further scholarly inquiry and he included in his hypothesis Dutch, Albanian, Greek, Latin, Persian, and German, later adding Slavic, Celtic, and Baltic languages. However, Van Boxhorns suggestions did not become known and did not stimulate further research. Ottoman Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi visited Vienna in 1665–1666 as part of a diplomatic mission, gaston Coeurdoux and others made observations of the same type. Coeurdoux made a comparison of Sanskrit, Latin and Greek conjugations in the late 1760s to suggest a relationship among them. Thomas Young first used the term Indo-European in 1813, deriving from the extremes of the language family. A synonym is Indo-Germanic, specifying the familys southeasternmost and northwesternmost branches, a number of other synonymous terms have also been used. Franz Bopps Comparative Grammar appeared between 1833 and 1852 and marks the beginning of Indo-European studies as an academic discipline, the classical phase of Indo-European comparative linguistics leads from this work to August Schleichers 1861 Compendium and up to Karl Brugmanns Grundriss, published in the 1880s. Brugmanns neogrammarian reevaluation of the field and Ferdinand de Saussures development of the theory may be considered the beginning of modern Indo-European studies. This led to the laryngeal theory, a major step forward in Indo-European linguistics. Isolated terms in Luwian/Hittite mentioned in Semitic Old Assyrian texts from the 20th and 19th centuries BC, Hittite texts from about 1650 BC, Armenian, writing known from the beginning of the 5th century AD
Indo-European languages
–
Franz Bopp, pioneer in the field of comparative linguistic studies.
Indo-European languages
5.
Italic languages
–
The Italic languages are a subfamily of the Indo-European language family, originally spoken by Italic peoples. They include Latin and its descendants as well as a number of languages of the Italian Peninsula, including Umbrian, Oscan, Faliscan. With over 800 million native speakers, the Italic languages constitute the second most widely spoken branch of the Indo-European family, in the past, various definitions of Italic have prevailed. This article uses the classification presented by the Linguist List, Italic includes the Latin subgroup as well as the ancient Italic languages, venetic, as revealed by its inscriptions, shared some similarities with the Italic languages and is sometimes classified as Italic. However, since it shares similarities with other Western Indo-European branches. In the extreme view, Italic did not exist, but the different groups descended directly from Indo-European and this view stems in part from the difficulty in identifying a common Italic homeland in prehistory. Moreover, there are similarities between groups, although how these similarities are to be interpreted is one of the major debatable issues in the historical linguistics of Indo-European. The linguist Calvert Watkins went so far as to suggest, among ten major groups and these he considered dialectical divisions within Proto-Indo-European which go back to a period long before the speakers arrived in their historical areas of attestation. The main debate concerning the origin of the Italic languages is the same as that which preoccupied Greek studies for the last half of the 20th century, the Indo-Europeanists for Greek had hypothesized that Greek originated outside Greece and was brought in by invaders. The issue was settled in favour of the origin of Greek being that of a language which had developed from all of these elements and then also taken its recognisable form all within Greece. A proto-Italic homeland outside Italy is just as elusive as the home of the hypothetical Greek-speaking invaders, no early form of Italic is available to match Mycenaean Greek. The Italic languages are first attested in writing from Umbrian and Faliscan inscriptions dating to the 7th century BC, the alphabets used are based on the Old Italic alphabet, which is itself based on the Greek alphabet. The Italic alphabets themselves show minor influence from the Etruscan and somewhat more from the Ancient Greek alphabet, the intermediate phases between Italic and Indo-European are still in deficit, with no guarantee that they ever will be found. The question of whether Italic originated outside Italy or developed by assimilation of Indo-European and other elements within Italy, approximately on or within its current range there, remains. Silvestri says. Common Italic. is certainly not to be seen as a language that can largely be reconstructed. Bakkum defines Proto-Italic as a stage without an independent development of its own, but extending over late PIE. Meisers dates of 4000 BC to 1800 BC he describes as as good a guess as anyones, the Roman conquests eventually spread it throughout the peninsula and beyond in the Roman Empire. It is unknown whether the language spoken by the Sicels in Sicily was Italic or not, from Vulgar Latin the Romance languages emerged
Italic languages
–
Approximate distribution of languages in Iron Age
Italy during the sixth century BC. (Note: most of these are not Italic languages.)
6.
Romance languages
–
Today, around 800 million people are native speakers worldwide, mainly in Europe, Africa and the Americas, but also elsewhere. Additionally, the major Romance languages have many speakers and are in widespread use as lingua francas. This is especially the case for French, which is in use throughout Central and West Africa, Madagascar, Mauritius. The five most widely spoken Romance languages by number of speakers are Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian. Because of the difficulty of imposing boundaries on a continuum, various counts of the modern Romance languages are given, for example, Dalby lists 23 based on mutual intelligibility. Between 350 BC and 150 AD, the expansion of the Empire, together with its administrative and educational policies, Latin also exerted a strong influence in southeastern Britain, the Roman province of Africa, western Germany and the Balkans north of the Jireček Line. Despite other influences, the phonology, morphology, and lexicon of all Romance languages consist mainly of evolved forms of Vulgar Latin, however, some notable differences occur between todays Romance languages and their Roman ancestor. With only one or two exceptions, Romance languages have lost the system of Latin and, as a result, have SVO sentence structure. From this adverb the noun romance originated, which applied initially to anything written romanice, the word romance with the modern sense of romance novel or love affair has the same origin. In the medieval literature of Western Europe, serious writing was usually in Latin, while popular tales, often focusing on love, were composed in the vernacular, for example, the Portuguese word fresta is descended from Latin fenestra window, but now means skylight and slit. Cognates may exist but have become rare, such as finiestra in Spanish, the Spanish and Portuguese terms defenestrar meaning to throw through a window and fenestrado meaning replete with windows also have the same root, but are later borrowings from Latin. Galician has both fiestra and the frequently used ventá and xanela. As an alternative to lei, Italian has the pronoun ella, a cognate of the words for she. Sardinian balcone comes from Old Italian and is similar to other Romance languages such as French balcon, Portuguese balcão, Romanian balcon, Spanish balcón, Catalan balcó and Corsican balconi. Documentary evidence is limited about Vulgar Latin for the purposes of research. Many of its speakers were soldiers, slaves, displaced peoples, other scholars argue that the distinctions are more rightly viewed as indicative of sociolinguistic and register differences normally found within any language. Both were mutually intelligible as one and the language, which was true until the second half of the 7th century. Central Europe and the Balkans were occupied by the Germanic and Slavic tribes, as well as by the Huns, over the course of the fourth to eighth centuries, Vulgar Latin, by this time highly dialectalized, broke up into discrete languages that were no longer mutually intelligible
Romance languages
7.
Italo-Western Romance languages
–
Italo-Western is, in some classifications, the largest branch of the Romance languages. It comprises two of the branches of Romance languages, Italo-Dalmatian and Western Romance and it excludes the Sardinian language and Eastern Romance. Based on mutual intelligibility, Dalby lists four languages, Corsican, Tuscan, Napolitan–Sicilian, the Dalmatian language was spoken in the Dalmatia region of Croatia. It became extinct in the 19th century, the Istriot, spoken on the Istrian peninsula of Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy. The Tuscan language includes Standard Italian and various forms of Regional Italian, the Corsican language is related to Tuscan and has the dialects of Gallurese and Sassarese. The Central Italian languages, or Latin-Umbrian-Marchegian, include the varieties of Romanesco, neapolitan language is spoken in Central-Southern Italy. The Campanian dialect is spoken in the part of Lazio. The Italian of the Far South, The Sicilian language is spoken in Sicily, central and southern Calabria, in Roccagloriosa and Rofrano, the Venetian language is sometimes added to Italo-Dalmatian when it is excluded from Gallo-Italic, and then usually grouped with Istriot. Judeo-Italian languages are varieties of Italian used by Jewish communities, between the 10th and the 20th centuries, in Italy, Corfu and Zante, Gallo-Romance includes, The Langues doïl, or Oïl languages. These include Standard French, Picard, Walloon, Lorrain and Norman, the Arpitan language, also known as Franco-Provençal. It shares features of both French and the Provençal dialect of Occitan, sometimes included in the Oïl languages. Gallo-Romance can include, The Rhaeto-Romance languages and they include Romansh of Switzerland, Ladin of the Dolomites area, Friulian of Friuli. Rhaeto-Romance languages can be classified as Gallo-Romance, or as an independent branch of the Western Romance languages, the Occitano-Romance languages of Southern France and East Iberia, includes Occitan and Catalan. Occitano-Romance languages can be classified as Gallo-Romance, Iberian-Romance, or as an independent branch of the Western Romance languages, the Occitan language, or langue doc, has dialects such as Provençal dialect, and Gascon-Aranese dialect. The Catalan language has standard forms of Catalan and Valencian, can be classified as East Iberian. They include Piedmontese, Ligurian, Lombard, Emiliano-Romagnolo, Gallo-Italic of Sicily, Gallo-Italic languages can be classified as Gallo-Romance or as Northern Italian dialects. The Venetian language is included in Gallo-Italic, but it has several characteristics that set it apart from it. The Oïl languages, Arpitan and Rhaeto-Romance languages are sometimes called Gallo-Rhaetian, the West Iberian languages, The Castilian languages, includes Spanish and Judaeo-Spanish
Italo-Western Romance languages
–
Italo-Western
8.
Western Romance languages
–
Western Romance languages are one of the two subdivisions of a proposed subdivision of the Romance languages based on the La Spezia–Rimini line. They include the Gallo-Romance and Iberian-Romance branches as well as northern Italian, there is also much higher morphological similarity between Spanish and Italian dialects than between Italian and French. Some classifications include Italo-Dalmatian, the clade is generally called Italo-Western Romance. Other classifications place Italo-Dalmatian with Eastern Romance, sardinian does not fit into either Western or Eastern Romance, and may have split off before either. Today the four most-widely spoken standardized Western Romance languages are Spanish, Portuguese, French, many of these languages have large numbers of non-native speakers, this is especially the case for French, in widespread use throughout West Africa as a lingua franca. Gallo-Romance includes, The Langues doïl, or Oïl languages and these include Standard French, Picard, Walloon, Lorrain and Norman. The Arpitan language, also known as Franco-Provençal and it shares features of both French and the Provençal dialect of Occitan. Sometimes included in the Oïl languages, Gallo-Romance can include, The Rhaeto-Romance languages. They include Romansh of Switzerland, Ladin of the Dolomites area, Rhaeto-Romance languages can be classified as Gallo-Romance, or as an independent branch of the Western Romance languages. The Occitano-Romance languages of Southern France and East Iberia, includes Occitan and Catalan, Occitano-Romance languages can be classified as Gallo-Romance, Iberian-Romance, or as an independent branch of the Western Romance languages. The Occitan language, or langue doc, has such as Provençal dialect. The Catalan language has standard forms of Catalan and Valencian, can be classified as East Iberian. They include Piedmontese, Ligurian, Lombard, Emiliano-Romagnolo, Gallo-Italic of Sicily, Gallo-Italic languages can be classified as Gallo-Romance or as Northern Italian dialects. The Oïl languages, Arpitan and Rhaeto-Romance languages are sometimes called Gallo-Rhaetian, Iberian Romance languages of the Iberian Peninsula include, The West Iberian languages, The Castilian languages, includes Spanish and Judaeo-Spanish. The Galician-Portuguese languages, includes Portuguese, Galician, Fala and Uruguayan Portuñol, the Astur-Leonese languages, they are, from east to west, Cantabrian, central-eastern Asturian and Leonese proper. Going from north to south, they are Leonese proper, Mirandese, Extremaduran, the Pyrenean–Mozarabic languages, includes Aragonese, and the extinct Mozarabic. Can be classified as West Iberian, the East Iberian language, or Catalan language, usually classified as part of Occitano-Romance, see Gallo-Romance above
Western Romance languages
–
Classification of Romance languages
9.
Gallo-Romance languages
–
The Gallo-Romance branch of the Romance languages includes sensu stricto the Oïl languages and the Franco-Provençal language. However, other definitions are far broader, variously encompassing the Rhaeto-Romance, Occitano-Romance, the Gallo-Romance group includes, The Langues doïl, or Oïl languages. These include Standard French, Picard, Walloon, Lorrain and Normand, Poitevin and these are the most phonologically innovative Romance varieties. The Arpitan language, also known as Franco-Provençal, of southeastern France, western Switzerland and it shares features of both French and the Provençal dialect of Occitan. Other language families which are included in the Gallo-Romance, The Rhaeto-Romance languages, including Romansh of Switzerland, Ladin of the Dolomites area. Rhaeto-Romance can be classified as Gallo-Romance, or as a branch of the Western Romance languages, Rhaeto-Romance is a diverse group, with the Italian varieties influenced by Venetan and Italian and Romansh by Franco-Provençal. The Occitano-Romance languages of Southern France and neighbouring areas, includes Occitan and Catalan, Occitano-Romance can be classified as Gallo-Romance, Iberian Romance, or as a branch of the Western Romance languages. The Occitan language, or langue doc, has such as Provençal. The Catalan language has standard forms of Catalan and Valencian, in general however, modern Catalan, especially grammatically, remains closer to modern Occitan than to either Spanish or Portuguese. They include Piedmontese, Ligurian, Western and Eastern Lombard, Emilian, Romagnol, Gallo-Italic of Sicily, Gallo-Italic can be classified as Gallo-Romance, Italo-Dalmatian, or as a branch of the Western Romance languages. Ligurian retains the final -o, being the exception in Gallo-Romance, how far the Gallo-Romance languages spread varies a great deal depending on which languages are included in the group. Today, a single Gallo-Romance language dominates much of this region and has also spread overseas. At its broadest, the area also encompasses southern France, Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic islands in eastern Spain, the Gallo-Romance languages are generally considered the most innovative among the Romance languages. Characteristic Gallo-Romance features generally developed earliest and appear in their most extreme manifestation in the langue doïl, gradually spreading out from there along riverways, Gallo-Romance languages are usually characterised by the loss of all unstressed final vowels other than /-a/. However, when the loss of a final vowel would result in an impossible final cluster, generally, the same changes also occurred in final syllables closed by a consonant. Elsewhere, final vowel loss occurred later or unprotected /t/ was lost earlier, for example, French sain, saint, sein, ceint, seing meaning healthy, holy, breast, girds, signature are all pronounced /sɛ̃/. In other ways, however, the Gallo-Romance languages are conservative, in the opposite of the normal pattern, the languages closest to the oïl epicentre preserve the case system the best, and languages at the periphery lost it early. The Occitan group is known for an innovatory /ɡ/ ending on many subjunctive and preterite verbs and a development of
Gallo-Romance languages
–
Historical area of development for strict Gallo-Romance (
Oïl languages and
Arpitan).
10.
Rhaeto-Romance languages
–
Rhaeto-Romance, or Rhaetian, is a traditional subfamily of the Romance languages that is spoken in north and north-eastern Italy and in Switzerland. The name Rhaeto-Romance refers to the former Roman province of Rhaetia, the linguistic basis of the subfamily is discussed in the so-called Questione Ladina. The area where Rhaeto-Romance languages were spoken during the Middle Ages stretched from Switzerland to the Julian Alps, the Rhaeto-Romance languages can be distinguished into the following varieties, Romansh, Switzerland. Romansh has status in Switzerland as a language with three other national languages, however, its usage is rather limited to the canton of Graubünden. Ladin, Dolomitic Ladin in Italy Friulian, Friuli region, Italy A phylogenetic classification using basic lexicon identifies a primary split between Romansh in Switzerland and Ladin in Italy, one secondary split distinguishes Engadinic from the other Romansh varieties in Switzerland. In this study, the divergence of the Rhaeto-Romance languages from their reconstructed lexical ancestor is about 7% on average and this would correspond to a time depth of about 500 years if the glottochronological replacement rate of 14% per millennium for Romance were trustworthy. However, the earliest available Romance text from the Alpine area is somewhat older, Rhaetian language, an unrelated language spoken in ancient times around the area where Rhaeto-Romance is now spoken
Rhaeto-Romance languages
–
Rhaeto-Romance
11.
Ladin language
–
Ladin is a Romance language consisting of a group of dialects mainly spoken in the Dolomite Mountains in Northern Italy in South Tyrol, the Trentino and the province of Belluno by the Ladin people. It exhibits similarities to Swiss Romansh and Friulian, the precise extension of the Ladin language area is the subject of scholarly debates. Ladin should not be confused with Ladino, which, although also Romance, is derived from Old Spanish, Ladin is recognized as a minority language in 54 Italian municipalities belonging to the provinces of South Tyrol, Trentino and Belluno. In the 2011 census,20,548 inhabitants of South Tyrol declared Ladin as their native language, Ladin is an officially recognised language, taught in schools and used in public offices. The following municipalities of South Tyrol have a majority of Ladin speakers and they are spoken in 38 municipalities, but have no official status. Their more precise classification is uncertain, both dialects show a strong resemblance to Trentinian dialect and Eastern Lombard, and scholars debate whether they are Ladin dialects or not. About 23% of the inhabitants from Val di Non and 1. 5% from Val di Sole declared Ladin as their language at the 2011 census. The number of Ladin speakers in those valleys amounts to 8,730, in order to stress the difference between the dialects in Non and Fassa valleys, it has been proposed to distinguish between ladins dolomitiches and ladins nonejes at the next census. As there is no census in the province of Belluno. The provincial administration of Belluno has enacted to identify Ladin as a minority language in additional municipalities, ladinity in the province of Belluno is more ethnic than linguistic. The varieties spoken by Ladin municipalities are Venetian alpine dialects, grammatically no different to those spoken in municipalities that did not declare themselves as Ladin and their language is called Ladino Bellunese. All Ladin dialects spoken in the province of Belluno, including those in the former Tyrolean territories, the name derives from Latin, because Ladin is originally a Vulgar Latin language left over from the Romanized Alps. Ladin is often attributed to be a relic of Vulgar Latin dialects associated with Rhaeto-Romance languages, whether a proto-Romance language ever existed is controversially discussed amongst linguists and historians, a debate known as Questione Ladina. Starting in the 6th century, the Bavarii started moving in from the north, while from the south Gallo-Italic languages started pushing in, only in the more remote mountain valleys did Ladin survive among the isolated populations. Starting in the very early Middle Ages, the area was ruled by the County of Tyrol or the Bishopric of Brixen. The area of Cadore was under the rule of the Republic of Venice, during the period of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and, after 1804, the Austrian Empire, the Ladins underwent a process of Germanization. After the end of World War I in 1918, Italy annexed the part of Tyrol. The programme of Italianization, professed by fascists such as Ettore Tolomei and Benito Mussolini and this included changing Ladin place names into the Italian pronunciation according to Tolomeis Prontuario dei nomi locali dellAlto Adige
Ladin language
–
Ladin
Ladin language
–
Ladin farmers in 1960s
La Val, South Tyrol
Ladin language
–
Ladin school in Santa Cristina
Ladin language
–
Trilingual traffic sign
12.
German language
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German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
German language
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Old Frisian (Alt-Friesisch)
German language
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The widespread popularity of the
Bible translated into German by
Martin Luther helped establish modern German
German language
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Examples of German language in
Namibian everyday life
German language
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German-language newspapers in the U.S. in 1922
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Gallo-Italic languages
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The Gallo-Italian or Gallo-Italic languages constitute the majority of the languages of northern Italy. They are Piedmontese, Lombard, Emilian-Romagnol and Ligurian, although there is doubt about the position of the latter due to a number of special characteristics. The Venetian language is considered one of the Italo-Dalmatian languages, however. The Gallo-Italian languages have both of the Gallo-Romance languages to the northwest and the Italo-Dalmatian languages to the south. Examples of the former are the loss of all vowels other than -a, the occurrence of lenition, the development of original /kt/ to /jt/. As a result, there is debate over the proper grouping of the Gallo-Italian languages. They are sometimes grouped with Gallo-Romance, but other linguists group them in Italo-Dalmatian, traditionally spoken in Northern Italy, southern Switzerland, San Marino and Monaco, most Gallo-Italian languages have given way in everyday use to Standard Italian. The vast majority of current speakers are bilingual with Italian and these languages are still spoken by the Italian diaspora in countries with Italian immigrant communities. Ligurian is formalised in Monaco as the Monégasque dialect. g, Lombard òm man, füm smoke, nef snow, fil wire, röda wheel. They remain, however, in Ligurian, with passage of -o to -u, except after n, e. g. ramu, rami, lüme, lümi branch, branches, light, lights, but can, chen /kaŋ, keŋ/ dog, dogs. U /u/ tends to change to ü /y/, as in French and Occitan, as in Lombard füm and Ligurian lüme, in some parts, e. g. southern Piedmont, this has further developed into /i/, e. g. fis, lim. In some mountainous parts of Piedmont, however, this change is blocked before final /a/, leading to masculine crü, so-called metaphony is very common, affecting original open stressed è /ɛ/ and ò /ɔ/ when followed by /i/ or sometimes /o/. This leads at first to diphthongs ie and uo, but in many dialects these progress further, unlike standard Italian diphthongization, this typically operates both in open and closed syllables, hence in Lombardy quest vs. quist. Stressed closed é /e/ and sometimes ó /o/, when occurring in an open syllable often diphthongize to /ei/ and /ou/, as in Old French, e. g. Piedmont beive, teila, meis. In Piedmont, /ei/ develops further into either /ɛ/ or /i/, e. g. tèla /tɛla/ < *teila, sira, stressed /a/ in an open syllable often fronts to ä /æ/ or è /ɛ/. Lenition affects single consonants between vowels, voiced /d/ and /g/ drop, voiced /b/ becomes /v/ or drops, unvoiced /t/ and /k/ become voiced /d/ and /g/, or drop, unvoiced /p/ becomes /b/, /v/, or drops. /s/ between vowels voices to /z/, /l/ between vowels sometimes becomes /r/, and this /r/ sometimes drops. Double consonants are reduced to single consonants, but not otherwise lenited and these changes occur before a final vowel drops
Gallo-Italic languages
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Gallo-Italic in various shades of green
