Language AHC: Wank Ladin

Ladin is a Romance labgusge currently spoken by a minority withing the Italian region of South Tyrol. Although some believe it to be considered a dialect of Italian, other scholars believe it may be part of it's own Language Sub-Family (Rhaeto-Romance) along with Romanisch of Switzerland as well as Friulian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladin_language?wprov=sfla1

You're mission: Wank the language! Although, due to its geographic distribution, it will likely never be one of the most influential or large languages of the Romance Family - make it a well known and respected tongue by 2019 with a strong literary tradition.

Extra Points if it somehow becomes the dominant language in Switzerland or Northern Italy.
 
Ladin is a Romance labgusge currently spoken by a minority withing the Italian region of South Tyrol. Although some believe it to be considered a dialect of Italian, other scholars believe it may be part of it's own Language Sub-Family (Rhaeto-Romance) along with Romanisch of Switzerland as well as Friulian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladin_language?wprov=sfla1

You're mission: Wank the language! Although, due to its geographic distribution, it will likely never be one of the most influential or large languages of the Romance Family - make it a well known and respected tongue by 2019 with a strong literary tradition.

Extra Points if it somehow becomes the dominant language in Switzerland or Northern Italy.


What about having it remain the language of the areas that surround it and even merge with Friulian.
 
Basically nobody considers Ladin a dialect of Italian. The mistake comes from a mistranslation of the Italian word dialetto, which refers to any Romance language native to Italy. Ladin is recognised by linguists and by the Italian state as a separate language.
Curiously, one of the easiest ways to keep Ladin healthy would be to keep the region in which it is spoken (iirc Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtyrol and Friuli-Venezia-Giulia) as part of the Habsburg Empire, as longstanding policy was to educate in native languages and permit, or even encourage, the development of literature and scholarship in the various languages of the empire (see Judson, The Habsburg Empire).
Otherwise, have Italy actually act on article 6 of the 1948 constitution at some point before 1999. That might help keep Ladin healthy.
 
Basically nobody considers Ladin a dialect of Italian. The mistake comes from a mistranslation of the Italian word dialetto, which refers to any Romance language native to Italy. Ladin is recognised by linguists and by the Italian state as a separate language.
Curiously, one of the easiest ways to keep Ladin healthy would be to keep the region in which it is spoken (iirc Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtyrol and Friuli-Venezia-Giulia) as part of the Habsburg Empire, as longstanding policy was to educate in native languages and permit, or even encourage, the development of literature and scholarship in the various languages of the empire (see Judson, The Habsburg Empire).
Otherwise, have Italy actually act on article 6 of the 1948 constitution at some point before 1999. That might help keep Ladin healthy.

I will have to read that source, but from my current understanding the Habsburgs defined "native languages" not as the tongue of the local folk, but as the local language of high culture. Accordingly, the "native language" of the linguistically diverse Austrian Netherlands was considered to be French, and it was used as a language of schooling even in Flanders. The resulting Frenchification of the the upper and middle classes seems to have contributed heavily to the prestige that French enjoyed in Belgium during the first few decades, and then the onset of Walloon industrialization cemented that until the 1960s. (For that matter, the Walloons themselves weren't necessarily "French-speakers"-- Walloon and Picard dialects ended up surrendering much ground to Parisian French). And IIRC the Serbian refugees that settled in the Krajina and Vojvodina were initially not permitted to use Serbian printing presses to made Church-Slavonic books, so they switched to buying Russian books--and the Serbian version of Church-Slavonic gradually died out in favor of the Russian one. So I think that, as OTL, the Habsburgs would turn to Tuscan Italian as a language of administration and education before using Ladin or Friulian.

I'll accept it merging with Friulian and having it become the dominant language of the Alpine region its in. But how should we do this?

Early on its history, Middle-Ages Venice receives a massive influx of Friulians from the mainland, and the city undergoes a language shift. It still goes on to be a trade power, and the new *Venetian language, now a part of the Rhaeto-Romance family, enjoys a massive boost in prestige. Later states ruling Venice decide that *Venetian is prestigious enough to stay as a language of state machinery, and Ladin (now considered a dialect of *Venentian, along with Friulian) receives a kind of support/protection under the *Venetian umbrella.

I don't really know enough about Middle Ages Venice to say how this scenario could happen, though.
 
I will have to read that source, but from my current understanding the Habsburgs defined "native languages" not as the tongue of the local folk, but as the local language of high culture.
Given the use of Slovenian (then referred to as Carinthian) as a medium of instruction in Imperially-sponsored schools, a language that previously had rarely if ever been written, and the use of Ukrainian (called Ruthenian) in parts of Galicia, I suspect that may have been a policy restricted to the Low Countries, which were lost by the time the schooling programme really took off in the 19th Century. 19th Century Austria was very accomodating towards minority languages in primary schooling, with the same source reporting Czech language schools in Vienna. (Higher education was usually in German though.)
This policy was created less for ideological reasons, and more for practical ones. There weren't enough educated Germans to go out and be schoolteachers across the Empire, the only cost-effective solution was to coopt the parish priests, who usually only spoke the local language and (often shoddy) Latin. The idea was to teach basic literacy and numeracy, and then work from there and assimilate thembas Germans. Austria just never had the money or political will to do so.
 
There was a fairly major peasant rebellion in the Tirol, with its origins in the Sudtirol, beginning in 1525, part of the broader German Peasant's War. This particular uprising was led by a certain Michael Gaismair, a Protestant in contact with Ulrich Zwingli who held extreme egalitarian, democratic ideals. If one can somehow get the broader Peasant's War to end more successfully for the peasants (or at least for these particular peasants; Gaismair did appeal for Venetian help, maybe they can come to his aid against the Hapsburgs?), we might see a new democratic state in the Sudtirol. From there it's easy to see a path for Ladin holding at very least the level of influence that Romansch does in Switzerland now. Given that this hypothetical state is probably going to be a lot smaller and more concentrated than Switzerland, it might be plausible for Ladin speakers to eventually gain substantial power within, or perhaps even control over, the Sudtirol. If you really wanna wank Gaismair's rebellion, have him take the whole Tirol, not just the Sudtirol (though I don't see how this is plausible barring a total Hapsburg collapse or at least a major calamity; maybe the Ottomans capitalize on Mohacs more quickly and make a push on Vienna?). Ladin speakers coming to play a major role in this larger country might be more difficult, but with some demographic shifts over time it might be doable.
 
Basically nobody considers Ladin a dialect of Italian. The mistake comes from a mistranslation of the Italian word dialetto, which refers to any Romance language native to Italy. Ladin is recognised by linguists and by the Italian state as a separate language.
As an Italian speaker, I have never ever heard that "dialetto" and "dialect" had different meanings, AFAIK they have the exact same meaning.
 
As an Italian speaker, I have never ever heard that "dialetto" and "dialect" had different meanings, AFAIK they have the exact same meaning.
As a linguistics student studying the topic, I have. Dialect has a particular meaning, that of a regional variety derived from the standard, which does not apply to Ladin, or Sicilian, or Venetian, or Friulian, or Piedmontese etc., all of which derived independantly from Latin, rather than from standard Italian.
 
As a linguistics student studying the topic, I have. Dialect has a particular meaning, that of a regional variety derived from the standard, which does not apply to Ladin, or Sicilian, or Venetian, or Friulian, or Piedmontese etc., all of which derived independantly from Latin, rather than from standard Italian.
Well I can't attest that, in common speech and in the dictionary it has the same definition as dialect in English, so honestly I'm not sure how meaningful or popular your specific definition is:

https://dizionari.corriere.it/dizionario_italiano/D/dialetto.shtml

Is the same exact meaning as "dialect", with all the same controversies and lack of clear lines.
 
Well I can't attest that, in common speech and in the dictionary it has the same definition as dialect in English, so honestly I'm not sure how meaningful or popular your specific definition is:

https://dizionari.corriere.it/dizionario_italiano/D/dialetto.shtml

Is the same exact meaning as "dialect", with all the same controversies and lack of clear lines.
I admit, I may be specifically using a linguist's definition of 'dialect'. I no longer recall what a layperson would define the word as. Nonetheless, None of the dialetti are truly dialects in the linguistic sense, but rather separate Romance languages. Either way, we deviate from the actual topic.
 
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