Language shiftLanguage shift, also known as language transfer or language replacement or language assimilation, is the process whereby a speech community shifts to a different language, usually over an extended period of time. Often, languages that are perceived to be higher status stabilise or spread at the expense of other languages that are perceived by their own speakers to be lower-status. An example is the shift from Gaulish to Latin during the time of the Roman Empire. For prehistory, Forster et al.
AlgheroAlghero (alˈɡɛːɾo; L'Alguer lalˈɣe; S'Alighèra saliˈɣɛɾa; L'Aliera laˈljɛːɾa) is a city of about 45,000 inhabitants in the Italian insular province of Sassari in northwestern Sardinia, next to the Mediterranean Sea. The city's name comes from Aleguerium, which is a mediaeval Latin word meaning "stagnation of algae" (Posidonia oceanica). The population is noted for having retained the language of the Crown of Aragon rulers from the end of the Middle Ages, when Sardinia was part of the Crown of Aragon; hence, Alguerese (the Catalan dialect spoken there) is officially recognized as a minority language.
Catalan languageCatalan (ˈkætələn,_-æn,_ˌkætəˈlæn; autonym: català, kətəˈla), known in the Valencian Community and Carche as Valencian (autonym: valencià), is a Western Romance language. It is the official language of Andorra, and an official language of two autonomous communities in eastern Spain: Catalonia and the Balearic Islands. It is also an official language in Valencia, where it is called Valencian.
Minority languageA minority language is a language spoken by a minority of the population of a territory. Such people are termed linguistic minorities or language minorities. With a total number of 196 sovereign states recognized internationally (as of 2019) and an estimated number of roughly 5,000 to 7,000 languages spoken worldwide, the vast majority of languages are minority languages in every country in which they are spoken. Some minority languages are simultaneously also official languages, such as Irish in Ireland or the numerous indigenous languages of Bolivia.
Mutual intelligibilityIn linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an important criterion for distinguishing languages from dialects, although sociolinguistic factors are often also used. Intelligibility between languages can be asymmetric, with speakers of one understanding more of the other than speakers of the other understanding the first.
Languages of EuropeMost languages of Europe belong to the Indo-European language family. Out of a total European population of 744 million as of 2018, some 94% are native speakers of an Indo-European language. Within Indo-European, the three largest phyla in Europe are Romance, Germanic, and Slavic; they have more than 200 million speakers each and together account for close to 90% of Europeans.
CagliariCagliari (kælˈjɑːri, also UKˌkæliˈɑːri,_ˈkæljəri, USˈkɑːljəri, ˈkaʎʎari; Casteddu kasˈteɖːu; Caralis) is an Italian municipality and the capital of the island of Sardinia, an autonomous region of Italy. Cagliari's Sardinian name Casteddu means castle. It has about 155,000 inhabitants, while its metropolitan city (including Cagliari and 16 other nearby municipalities) has about 420,000 inhabitants. According to Eurostat, the population of the Functional urban area, the commuting zone of Cagliari, rises to 476,975.
SassariSassari (USˈsɑːsəri,_ˈsɑːsɑːri , ˈsassari; Sàssari ˈsasːari; Tàtari ˈtataɾi) is an Italian city and the second-largest of Sardinia in terms of population with 127,525 inhabitants, and a Functional Urban Area of about 260,000 inhabitants. One of the oldest cities on the island, it contains a considerable collection of art. Since its origins at the turn of the 12th century, Sassari has been ruled by the Giudicato of Torres, the Pisans, as an independent republic in alliance with Genoa, by the Aragonese and the Spanish, all of whom have contributed to Sassari's historical and artistic heritage.
Italic languagesThe Italic languages form a branch of the Indo-European language family, whose earliest known members were spoken on the Italian Peninsula in the first millennium BC. The most important of the ancient languages was Latin, the official language of ancient Rome, which conquered the other Italic peoples before the common era. The other Italic languages became extinct in the first centuries AD as their speakers were assimilated into the Roman Empire and shifted to some form of Latin.
Sardinian medieval kingdomsThe Judicates (judicadus, logus or rennus in Sardinian, judicati in Latin, regni or giudicati sardi in Italian), in English also referred to as Sardinian Kingdoms, Sardinian Judgedoms or Judicatures, were independent states that took power in Sardinia in the Middle Ages, between the ninth and fifteenth centuries. They were sovereign states with summa potestas, each with a ruler called judge (judike in Sardinian), with the powers of a king. After a relatively brief Vandal occupation (456–534), Sardinia was a province of the Byzantine Empire from 535 until the eighth century.
