- Also spoken in
- Italy
- Script
- Latin
Where it's spoken
Italy's national law on historical linguistic minorities states that the official language of the Republic is Italian, and that the Republic protects the language and culture of the populations speaking Sardinian, among others. A regional law of Sardinia laid the legal basis for promoting Sardinian, and gives the same promotion to the Alghero, Sassari, Gallurese and Tabarchino idioms in their respective territories. The Region's reference norms say that Sardinian has in practice one variety per village, and that the differences between them are fundamentally phonetic and only to a very limited degree grammatical and lexical.
The Limba Sarda Comuna was adopted by the Region as an experimental reference norm for its own written output, so that Sardinian could be used alongside Italian in its documents. It is described as a written model, not a spoken one: it is not a new language replacing the spoken varieties, and contact with the Region's offices remains possible orally in every variety. It was built as a point of mediation between the varieties, taking the central-northern solution in some cases, as in limba, chena and iscola, and the southern one in others, as with the final -t of third-person plural verbs. The norm leaves the possibility of writing putu, puthu, pussu or puciu in the local varieties, according to their pronunciation.
Sources
- Regione Autonoma della Sardegna (2006). "Limba Sarda Comuna: Norme linguistiche di riferimento a carattere sperimentale per la lingua scritta dell'Amministrazione regionale" (retrieved via Wayback Machine)
- Regione Autonoma della Sardegna, Assessorato della Pubblica Istruzione, Beni Culturali, Informazione, Spettacolo e Sport (2014). "Monitoraggio sull'utilizzo sperimentale della Limba Sarda Comuna, anni 2007-2013" (retrieved via Wayback Machine)
- Legge 15 dicembre 1999, n. 482, "Norme in materia di tutela delle minoranze linguistiche storiche" (Gazzetta Ufficiale n. 297, 20 December 1999), Parlamento italiano
Script & pronunciation
The Limba Sarda Comuna gives an alphabet table for writing Sardinian. The letter q is never used, and h appears only in the combinations ch and gh, which stand for the hard sounds before e and i, as in chentu and gherra. The sound written tz is voiceless and z is voiced, as in tziu and putzu. The app's card for "Thank you very much" writes Gràtzias meda, and the card for "Please" writes Pro praghere.
A written accent marks the stressed vowel of words stressed on the last syllable or on the third-from-last syllable, as in fèmina and òmine, and it is not used on words stressed on the second-to-last syllable, as in iscola. The app's card for "What is your name?" has Cale est su nùmene bostru?, with the accent on the third-from-last syllable.
The norm asks for a word to be written the same way even when its pronunciation changes in connected speech, so su bentu may be pronounced su entu and sas domos may be pronounced sar domos, and the spelling does not change. An apostrophe is written only on a few short words such as su, sa, mi, ti, si, bi and unu, as in the card Non b'at de ite ("Don't mention it / You're welcome"). The app's Sardinian cards give the text in this spelling only, with no separate romanization.
Sources
Grammar essentials
The definite article is su and sa in the singular and sos and sas in the plural, and a writer may instead use is for both genders in the plural. The app's card for "Where is the toilet/bathroom?" reads Ue est su bagnu?. The plural of a noun or adjective adds -s, except that a word ending in -u changes it to -os, as in mesa and mesas, and bonu and bonos. In the app's card for "Nuraghes are stone buildings." the plural is Sos nuraghes sunt fraigos de pedra.
In the norm's example the possessive comes after the noun, su professore tuo, and the app's card for "What is your name?" likewise has bostru after nùmene in Cale est su nùmene bostru?. Question words come first: the norm gives ite for things and chie for people, and also cale and cantu as question words, as in chie est su professore tuo? and cantu costat custu libru?. The app's card for "How much does this cost?" is Cantu costat custu?.
The norm writes "no" as no before a word that begins with a vowel and as non before a word that begins with a consonant, except that before the pronouns lu, la and l' it writes no. The app's card for "I can't speak Sardinian" reads No isco faeddare in sardu, and the card for "Don't mention it / You're welcome" reads Non b'at de ite.
The present of "to be" runs deo so, tue ses, isse est, nois semus, bois seis, issos sunt, and its past is so istadu, ses istadu, est istadu, while the regular verb cantare forms its past with a form of "to have", as in apo cantadu and as cantadu. The future is formed with a form of "to have" followed by a and the infinitive, as in the norm's deo apo a cantare, and the app's card for "I'll come again" reads Apo a torrare. The word ses means both "you are" (tue ses) and "six" in the norm, and the app's card for "You are very beautiful" is Ses bella meda.
Sources
Politeness & etiquette
The norm's table of personal pronouns gives tue for "you" singular and bois for "you" plural, and lists vostè as a courtesy form in the third-person singular row. The verb forms differ accordingly: the norm gives tue podes and bois podides for "to be able", and tue ses and bois seis for "to be".
The app's cards do not use vostè. The card for "How are you? (formal)" is Comente istades?, and the card for "Can you share your location with me?" is Podides cumpartzire sa positzione bostra cun megus?, which uses the bois form podides rather than tue podes. The card for "Would you like to dance with me?", Cheres ballare cun megus?, is in the flirting category and is marked informal.