I’ve developed a sudden interest in the little Italian island of Sardinia. From what I’ve managed to glean so far, it seems that there a few cultural distinctions between Sardinians and “mainland” Italians, and that they tend to be staunchly independent. What more can you tell me?
I’d really like to learn as much as possible about cultural practices and any distinctly Sardinian traditions. For example, I seem to remember reading in the book “Hannibal” that Sardinians are well-known for pefecting the practise of kidnapping, is this true? Are there any other quirks I should know about? Are there any websites devoted to Sardinian life and culture? Thanks in advance for your help.
You mean the “Spaghetti Westerns”? Cool. Didn’t know that. I also got the impression that Sardinians are seen as quite rustic and provincial. Any truth to that?
The Sardinian language is a relative of Standard Italian, but is absolutely not a dialect of it. It is considered the most conservative of the Romance Languages, and preserves some archaic features that the other Romance Languages have lost. Roman colinization began in 238 BC, and isolation of the island has allowed it to remain conservative (as has isolation of Iceland kept it very conservative).
A good example of differences can be seen in the Pater Noster:
Standard Italian:
Padre nostro che sei nei cieli,
sia santificato il tuo nome; venga il tuo regno,
sia fatta la tua volontà,
come in cielo così in terra.
Dacci oggi il nostro pane quotidiano,
rimetti a noi i nostri debiti,
come noi li rimettiamo ai nostri debitori e non ci indurre in tentazione,
ma liberaci dal male.
Amen.
Campidanian Sardinian:
Babbu nostu ki ses in is Celus,
santificau siat su nòmini tuu,
bengat a nosu su reinu tuu,
siat fatta sa voluntadi tua comenti in su celu aici in sa terra.
Su pani nostu de dogna di donanosidd’ oi,
e perdonanosì is peccaus nostus,
comenti nosaturus perdonaus is depidoris nostus,
no nosi lessis arrui in sa tentatzione,
ma lìberanosì de tottu male.
Amen.
Further, Sardinian is different from most Romance languages in that the definite articles came from ipsum/ipsam (su/sa), rather than illum/illam.
It also has several dialects, Nuorese, Campidanese, Sassarese, Logudorese, and Gallurese.
The ancient Greek saw it some kind of magic place with unbounded opportunities something like Europeans later saw USA. Herodotus though it was the largest island in the world. Athens threatened Sparta to move there lock-and-stock if Sparta wouldn’t agree to battle the Persians.
Doobieous, I was going to mention the language myself and you beat me to it. Do you happen to know if any of the dialects still have any case endings on the verbs, or, for that matter, if there’s a good brief grammar anywhere on the Internet?
I can add to this and say that one of the other dialects is interesting in that it retains more of the consonant structure of Latin in that medial consonant clusters have not been simplified as in modern Italian. I’ll try to find the cite and return later.
How about the food? Any traditional dishes? Any Sardinian holidays, festivals, etc? Any patron Saints? How about traditions? Are there any things that Sardinians do which mainland Italians don’t? Sorry if i’m being a bit vague here, but I’m after current lifestyle rather than history.
Perhaps it would help if I mentioned that I’m currently courting a young lady from the island in question, and that I’m trying to win her good graces by taking an interest in where she’s from. I’m looking for anything that might earn me brownie points here!
Hm. I’ll have to go home and consult my trusty “Let’s Go” guide. However, I can tell you that, if you have a yen to visit, the hotels cost a little more than you might expect, there’s daily ferry service from mainland Italy, it has decent enough train and bus service and you can rent a motor scooter and go camping along miles of amazingly unspoiled coastline. Oh, and it has wild albino donkeys. Unfortunately, they’re protected.
I don’t know whether knowledge of football will gain you brownie points or lose them, but you could mention that Gianfranco Zola has recently returned from a distinguished period at Chelsea to his home team of Cagliari, which is on Sardinia.
Sardinia played a crucial yet peculiar role in World War II. It was used as a red herring in Operation Mincemeat, in which a series of falsified documents were fed to the Germans. The documents, signed in many cases by actual commanders such as Lord Mountbatten, indicated that Sardinia and Greece were to be the next targets for allied invasion after the fall of North Africa, when in fact the real objective was Sicily.
The Germans swallowed the ruse and diverted troops away from the southern beaches of Sicily, where the actual invasion took place. Caught with their pants down by the fall of Sicily and the surrender of Italy, Sardinia itself was considered untenable and evacuated by the Germans, thus allowing it to be handed over to the Allies by surrendering Italian troops with scarcely a shot fired.
Well I went and looked, and now I can’t find a cite to back up the point I was making. I had seen a rendition of the Pater Noster in this dialect, and remembered that the word santificau in the example above was given as sanctificado. The latter version seems very Latin-like to me.
On a happier note, though, I did find this grammar in English.
It was a major Italian air base during most of the early part of the Mediterranean conflict. The most famous battle that Sardinian based planes flew in was Operation “Pedestal” in August 1942.
One thing to remember is, that this is not Classical Latin either Italian or Sardinian descend from. But it’s true, Sardinian dialects are in some ways more conservative phonetically than Italian is, and in some ways much more free.
The only Romance Languages that kept case endings is Romanian, which is losing a case, the ablative. Romanian probably held onto theirs due to the isolation from the rest of the empire, and also due to Slavic influence.
