Ladin
Ladin is spoken in some Alpine areas of Trentino-South Tyrol and Veneto, where it is a direct continuation of the local variant of Vulgar Latin.
On historical and cultural grounds, a Tyrolean Ladin and a Venetan Ladin can be distinguished: the former is spoken in the five valleys that were part of the Austrian empire until 1919: the Val Gardena/Gherdëina and Val Badia, in the province of Bolzano/Bozen, the Val di Fassa/Fascia, in the province of Trento, and finally Livinallongo/Fodom with Colle Santa Lucia and Ampezzo/Anpezo, in the province of Belluno. Venetan Ladino, on the other hand, is spoken in the area that belonged to the Republic of Venice (La Serenissima) (see Pellegrini 1977): the areas that have declared themselves Ladin are Comelico, Cadore, Val Pettorina, Agordino and Zoldo. Finally, transitional varieties (with some Ladin features and some features typical of Trentino dialects) are spoken in Val di Non and parts of Val di Sole.
It should be noted that some dialects have further internal subdivisions. In Val Badia, for example, there are at least three different dialects: badiot (in the upper part of the valley), ladin de mesaval (in the middle and lower parts), and mareo (in the adjacent Mareo/Marebbe valley). Fassano is also divided into three dialects: cazét (in the upper part of the valley), brach (in the middle part of the valley) and moenat (typical of Moena). Thanks to the Atlant linguistich dl ladin dolomitich y di dialec vejins (ALD) we have detailed documentation of the individual dialects.
The language vitality of Ladin varies strongly from valley to valley: Val Badia has the highest percentages of Ladin use, with a (quasi-)omnipresence of Ladin in most contexts of daily life. The percentages of those who claim to be and/or speak Ladin decrease progressively when one moves to Val Gardena, Val di Fassa, Fodom, Colle Santa Lucia, and then Cortina d’Ampezzo (where Ladin speakers are a minority). Recently, a sociolinguistic survey was carried out in the Veneto region, the data of which will be published shortly (cf. Melchior 2023).
ISO code: 639-3 lld
References
- ALD = Goebl, Hans (ed.) (1998-2012): Atlant linguistich dl ladin dolomitich y di dialec vejins. Atlante linguistico del ladino dolomitico e dei dialetti limitrofi. Sprachatlas des Dolomitenladinischen und angrenzender Dialekte. 2 parts. 11 vols. Wiesbaden: Reichert.
- Melchior, Luca (2023): Indagine sulle comunità linguistiche del Veneto. Udine/Venice: Società Filologica Friulana/Regione del Veneto.
- Pellegrini, Giovan Battista (1977): Carta dei dialetti d’Italia. Pisa: Pacini.
Further reading
- Casalicchio, Jan (2020): Ladinia dolomitica, Versione 1 (18.05.2020, 18:37). In Roland Bauer & Thomas Krefeld (eds.) (2020): Lo spazio comunicativo dell’Italia e delle varietà italiane, Versione 88. Korpus im Text.
- Dell’Aquila, Vittorio & Gabriele Iannàccaro (2006): Survey Ladins. Usi linguistici nelle valli ladine. Trento: Regione Autonoma Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol.
- Dell’Aquila, Vittorio, Fernando Ramallo & Sabrina Rasom (eds.) (2022). CLAM 2021. Cimbri, ladini, mòcheni. I dati. Monographic issue of Mondo ladino 46.
- Dell’Aquila, Vittorio, Sabrina Rasom & Nadia Chiocchetti (eds.) (2023).CLAM 2021. Cimbri, ladini, mòcheni. Analisi dei dati: restituzione alla popolazione e indicazioni di politica linguistica. Monographic issue of Mondo ladino 47.
- Videsott, Paul, Ruth Videsott & Jan Casalicchio (2020): Manuale di linguistica ladina. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter.
Additional online resources
- Dictionaries (Badiot Ladin – Italian/Italian – Badiot Ladin, Gardenese Ladin – Italian/Italian – Gardenese Ladin, Fassan Ladin-Italian/Italian – Fassan Ladin)
- Corpus of literary Ladin
- Vocabulary of literary Ladin
- CLAM 2021 (Cimbro Ladino Mocheno 2021: investigates language use and attitudes of minority language speakers in the provinces of Trento, Bolzano and Belluno).
- Digital version of the ALD (digitALD).
- Filò Ladin: Museo dolom.it
Websites of Ladin communities
- Istitut Cultural Ladin “Majon di Fascegn”
- Istitut Ladin “Micurà de Rü”
- Istitut Cultural Ladin “Cesa de Jan”
- Istituto Ladin de la Dolomites (closed on 1 December 2020)
- Unions (Union Generela di Ladins dla Dolomites, Union Ladins Gherdëina, Uniun Ladins Val Badia, Union di Ladins de Fascia, Union Ladins de Fodom, Union Ladis de Anpezo, Union dei Ladign da Col, list of the Veneto ladin Unions)