Language island

Alguerese

Alguerese is a variety of Catalan spoken in Alghero, Sardinia, Italy, with around 45,000 speakers. It is mutually intelligible with Catalan, and although both Standard Catalan and Alguerese have been influenced by Italian and Spanish, Alguerese has experienced a much closer relationship between the two.^[5]

Initially, Alguerese held sway as the dominant language in the region until Spanish took over. However, in the mid-eighteenth century, Italian supplanted Spanish, becoming the new official language. Notwithstanding, and with the Alguerese influence persevered, and today the language enjoys a form of semi-official status alongside Italian.

Arbëresh

Arbëresh is the language of the Arbëreshë people, an originally Albanian ethnolinguistic group of Italy, mainly concentrated in Sardinia with around 100,000 speakers. Many Arbëreshë people also speak Italian, and thus Arbëresh has been affected greatly by it.

The first Arbëreshë who settled in Italy did so mainly because of their severe mistreatment in what was then the Ottoman Balkans, but even so they had been subjugated further in Italy; Pier Paolo Pasolini called their continued and prospering existence there an "anthropological miracle." It took very long for them to be granted equal rights, and longer yet for the general public to accept them as one of their own.^[6]

Betawi

Betawi is the native language of the Betawi people, with an uncertain population, with certain estimates saying 600,000—5,000,000.^[7]

Due to social stratification, Betawi is often imitated by celebrities and youth, making it a core part of popular culture in the area and across indonesia.^[8]

Khalaj

Khalaj is the language of the Khalaj people in Iran. Despite having disputed Turkic origins, it also has much in common with Persian and sometimes Arabic.

It has been described as an extremely endangered language, and is not often passed down to younger generations. Its current population is ambiguous, but it is widely understood that it is rapidly decreasing, due to the greater practicality of using Persian.^[9]

Italiot Greek

Italiot Greek is a variety of Modern Greek spoken in southern Italy. It is split into two dialects, Calabrian Greek Griko, with a total of around 2000 speakers.^[10] Almost all of its speakers are bilingual in both Italian and Griko.

Sorbian

Sorbian is a dialect continuum spoken in two provinces of Germany, namely Saxony (Upper Lusatia) and Brandenburg (Lower Lusatia).^[11]

The Sorbs of Germany have had a similar history to the Jews of Germany, in that they were both oppressed by the federal and state governments (particularly by federal), they were both dismissed minorities in favor of the German population, and were unfairly categorized and separated by region, age, generation. A notable difference between the two however, was that Jews had often fought to be represented with little prevail at the time, whereas although several programmes had been implemented to preserve the Sorbian languages and cultures, Sorbs often and still do reject West Slavic culture to blend in with the German surrounding. Granata, C. A. (n.d.). Celebration and suspicion:^[12]

The Sorbian languages are a language family of West Slavic languages spoken in Saxony and Brandenburg, Germany, by the Sorbs.^[13]

Patagonian Welsh

Patagonian Welsh is the dialect of the Welsh language spoken by Welsh Argentinians in Patagonia, a region of southern Argentina. Despite it maintaining most mutually intelligible with European Welsh, it has been heavily influenced by Spanish, the national language of Argentina. Many Welsh Argentinians are bilingual or sometimes trilingual in Spanish, Welsh, and English.^{[citation needed]}

In 1780, reports by English officials fabricated racist propaganda to raise suspicions against the Welsh people; this led to laws prohibiting the Welsh language and parts of its culture.^[14]

Later, after Argentina had firmly established itself in the area, the Argentinian government was pressured into organizing higher promotion of the Welsh language. Today, although it has been suppressed in the past, Patagonian Welsh is regularly used in public media and taught in various educational institutions.^[15]

Talian

Talian is a dialect of Venetian spoken in several provinces of Brazil. It is the result of an influx of nineteenth century Italian settlers arriving along the southern Brazilian coast.^[16]

Talian is still mutually intelligible with Venetian, and somewhat so with Italian. It has been influenced heavily by Portuguese, but it has also been influenced by German, another language island in the Brazilian coast. Most Talian speakers are at least bilingual in Talian and Portuguese, and tend to cluster around the south.^[17]

Talian has an estimated population of 500,000 speakers.^{[citation needed]}

Examples of language islands:

Tianjinnese, a Central Mandarin variety surrounded by Northern varieties^[18]
Ganzhounese, a Southwestern Mandarin variety surrounded by Hakka in southern Jiangxi, being one of the many Junhua
Cantonese spoken in Sichuan Province
Hangzhounese, a Mandarinic variety surrounded by Northern Wu lects, caused by the change of capital during the Southern Song dynasty^[19]
Zhongshan Min, a group of Eastern Min and Southern Min varieties surrounded by Yue varieties, caused by migrants seeking shelter during the Song and Yuan dynasties.

Examples of language islands

Alguerese

Arbëresh

Betawi

Khalaj

Italiot Greek

Sorbian

Patagonian Welsh

Talian

Gallery

See also

References

Wikiwand - on