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What’s with this “Wren” thing?
The oldest extant version of the fable
we
are presenting here appeared in 1913 in the first volume of a two-volume anthology
of Low
Saxon folktales (Plattdeutsche
Volksmärchen “Low German Folktales”)
collected by Wilhelm Wisser (1843–1935). Read
more ...
Sardinian
An
island of rugged beauty, Sardina is home to
unique language
and culture.
Language information:
Sardinian is used on the island of Sardinia, Italy. The written language is
traditionally divided into the two macro-varieties Logudorese (Northern variety)
and Campidanese (Southern variety). The spoken language features a wider range
of sub-groups within the two, language and pronunciation often differing from
one village to the other. Traditional language maps are drawn with a line that
runs above the town Cabras on the West coast to Baunei on the East coast, thus
dividing the Logudorese and the Campidanese. However, all distinguishing dialectal
features do not follow the same clear-cut boundary. Sardinian got official
language status in 1999. There are several attempts to create a standard for
written language. April 2006 the regional government published the proposal
Limba Sarda Comuna, expected to be used in official documents. Other varieties of Sardinian are:
Algherese Catalan, Tabarkino, belonging to the Ligurian varieties, and Gallurese
and Sassarese, both with strong influences
from
Tuscan and Corsican. Varieties in the extreme north of Sardinia are often referred
to as “Corso-Sardinian” and are considered dialects of Corsican rather than
of Sardinian by some linguists.
Sardinian has
been said to be one of the most conservative Modern Romance languages in that
it has preserved numerous Latin words and features that
have been replaced in
related Romance languages. However, more recent investigations have challenged
this old claim, a claim apparently based upon selective, scant dialect material
that supported what seems to have been no more than a hypothesis submitted
by eminent scholars of the time. It should be noted
that
Sardinian is rather innovative in terms of phonological processes,
such
as
converting
/ll/
and
/ld/ to retroflex “d”.
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