Writing systems for Italian regional languages^*

* This paper is the result of joint work by the three authors. Paolo Coluzzi is mostly responsible for Sections 1, 2 and 3, Lissander Brasca for Section 5 and Emanuele Miola for Section 6, whereas Sections 4 and 7 are rather the result of collaborative efforts.

ABSTRACT

Devising a writing system, or graphisation, is a fundamental aspect of corpus planning that no language can take too lightly. This paper begins with a general introduction to graphisation and to Italian regional languages, followed by an analysis of the different orthographies in use so far or proposed for the main regional languages in Italy, with reference also to the three Romance languages already accorded official recognition as minority languages: Sardinian, Friulian and Ladin. The practical aspect and the symbolic aspect of graphisation are discussed and the problems and difficulties that are being encountered in this process are highlighted, especially with regard to two Northern varieties that are presented as case studies: Lombard and Piedmontese. The paper closes with some general considerations and recommendations, particularly on the adoption of a polynomic approach to graphisation if at all possible, and of a digraphic regime as a transitional strategy for cases where a common orthography cannot be decided upon, or to help the spread of the language among new speakers.

KEYWORDS:

• Digraphia
• graphisation
• Lombard
• orthography
• Piedmontese
• polynomy

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Notes

* This paper is the result of joint work by the three authors. Paolo Coluzzi is mostly responsible for Sections 1, 2 and 3, Lissander Brasca for Section 5 and Emanuele Miola for Section 6, whereas Sections 4 and 7 are rather the result of collaborative efforts.

1. We are not considering Occitan and Francoprovençal in this paper as they are minority languages spoken mostly outside the Italian territory.

2. Polynomy in linguistics refers to languages defined both by their internal variation (multiple centres of “authenticity” and “authority”) and by speakers’ recognition of linguistic unity in diversity (Jaffe 2003, 515). The term was first introduced by Marcellesi (1984) with reference to the Corsican language.

3. It is important to point out here that most Italian regional languages, including Lombard and Piedmontese, feature vast literatures in some cases dating back to the Middle Ages (see for example Haller 2002). Therefore the idea of a written form for Italian regional languages is old and widely accepted. In addition, in our modern society, a non-written language has scarce opportunities to spread among new speakers in a situation of ongoing language shift where native speakers are dwindling, as in the Italian case.

4. In this paper the expression ‘polynomic orthography’ will be used with its broad meaning of ‘logographic’ (or ‘morphographic’) writing (generally an etymological one) that does not intend to represent the word as the precise sequence of the phonemes pronounced in a particular local variety, allowing instead (and perhaps facilitating) different local pronunciations of it. For other more specific uses of that expression, see Iannàccaro and Dell’Aquila (2008) and Regis (2012a).

5. We are referring here to the most recent tradition, as SL, the local-polynomic orthography we are referring to further on in this article, does feature a strong link with the oldest medieval literary tradition.

6. ‘A shallow orthography is one where the relationship between sounds and characters is close to one-to-one, so that the written word closely corresponds to the pronunciation of the word in the context where it occurs. Fully phonemic orthographies are therefore shallow. A deep orthography is one where the relationship between sounds and letters is more complex. In deep orthographies words may sound the same but be spelt differently (soul and sole) or sound different but have the same spelling (row, lead). English and Hebrew are often cited as examples of languages with deep orthographies, and Spanish, Italian and Finnish as examples of languages with shallow ones’ (Sebba 2007, 19).

7. <e> for /ə/, used mainly with function words, was only recently proposed in the Dizionario Elettronico Piemontese, which is available on-line on the website of the Enrico Eandi Foundation at: http://piemunteis.it/dep/dizionario.dep.