Language Geography

Anche se ormai la lingua italiana non è più – come già per secoli – patrimonio di una minoranza della popolazione, ancora oggi oltre due terzi degli italiani usano quotidianamente un dialetto, in alternanza con la lingua nazionale. Questa resistenza della dialettofonia fa sì che la conoscenza della realtà linguistica dell’Italia contemporanea non possa dirsi completa se si escludono i dialetti.
La varietà, la ricchezza, la vivacità d’uso, la classificazione, la storia, i caratteri distintivi dei dialetti italiani e la metodologia del loro studio in un manuale sistematico, completo, sintetico, aggiornato.

ISBN 978-88-593-0006-9

Beginning from the members of the Russian Orthodox Mission in the 18th century, Russian sinologists studied that variant of Chinese, which was spoken by the educated Pekingese and by the Qing court. Dialectology became a part of Chinese linguistics only in the Soviet period. It started in the 1920s and 1930s on the wave of a general interest to the description and preservation of dozens of  languages and dialects spoken within the Soviet space.  In 1932, A.A. Dragunov and E.N. Dragunova found speakers from Xiangtan and Xiangxiang in Hunan  among Chinese students in the Soviet Union and thus described a dialect variety, which was later identified as  the Xiang  dialect group. In the 1960s, S.E. Yakhontov wrote several articles based on the materials of the all-China dialect survey brought from Beijing and proposed in particular the first ever  multilevel classification of Chinese dialect groups. From the beginning of the 1970s, several linguists headed by M.V. Sofronov at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Soviet Academy of Sciences started their investigations in the field of Chinese language geography. The maps of O.I. Zavyalova’s doctoral dissertation included more than 1000 points within the guanhua  area and resulted in the discovery of a dialect boundary along the Huai river and the Qinling mountains. E.B. Astrakhan made an attempt of summarizing  of the then comparatively scarce information on Chinese dialect lexicon.  Among other methods of Slavic linguistics, she used the method of semantic microfield mapping the sets of meanings in case of poly-semantic words.

ABSTRACT: This paper describes and horiometrically evaluates a selection of phonic features of the dialect of Fernidiellu (Forniella, León) that show a differential diatopic typology reducible to the categories of ‘western’ and ‘eastern’ strictly according to their geographical distribution pattern. Due to their particular interest, the reflexes of intervocalic -N- in the dialect of Fernidiellu are described in detail.

This book investigates the changes that affected vowel length during the development
of Latin into the Romance languages and dialects. In Latin, vowel length was contrastive (e.g. pĭla ‘ball’ vs. pīla ‘pile’, like English bit vs. beat), but no modern Romance language has retained that same contrast. However, many non-standard Romance dialects (as well as French, up to the early 20th century) have developed novel vowel length contrasts, which are investigated in detail here.
Unlike previous studies of this phenomenon, this book combines detailed historical evidence spanning three millennia (as attested by extant texts) with extensive data from present-day Romance varieties collected from first-hand fieldwork, which are subjected to both phonological and experimental phonetic analysis. M. Loporcaro puts forward a detailed account of the loss of contrastive vowel length in late Latin, showing that this happened through the establishment of a process which lengthened all stressed vowels in open syllables, as in modern Italian casa [ˈkaːsa]. His analysis has implications for many of the most widely-debated issues relating to the origin of novel vowel length contrasts in Romance, which are also shown to have been preserved to different degrees in different areas. The detailed investigation of the rise and fall of vowel length in dozens of lesser-known (non-standard) varieties is crucial in understanding the development of this aspect of Romance historical phonology, and will be of interest not only to researchers and students in comparative Romance linguistics, but also, more generally, to phonologists and those interested in historical linguistics beyond the Latin-Romance language family.

This paper proposes a technique for measuring the aggregate degree of lexical, phonological, morphological, and syntactic differences among Azeri varieties. I shall thus attempt to measure the “total impact” in Weinreich’s sense, albeit with respect to four linguistic levels, lexical, phonological, morphological, and syntactical. If such a measure could be developed, it would be important not only in the study of language contact, but also in the study of second and third-language acquisition. It applies Levenshtein analysis to obtain pronunciation and other levels distances, which are in turn, analyzed using bootstrapped clustering to identify groups, including an estimation of the robustness of the clusters. On the basis of clustering, I obtain a graded map of varieties. It would make the data of such studies amenable to the more powerful statistical analysis reserved for numerical data. The results indicate that techniques developed and proven on Turkic languages are useful when applied to Azeri in spite of its different structure and its nomadic speakers.

ABSTRACT: The subject of this contribution is the geolectal distribution of some morphosyntactic phenomena in the Eo-Navia strip, a linguistic boundary between the Galician-Portuguese and Astur-Leonese domains in the westernmost side of Asturias. Those phenomena concern the 3rd person direct object clitic pronouns and their allomorphs, conditioned by the previous phonic environment: -r, -s, -n and diphthong. The data – obtained from the project ETLEN – are presented according to two options of classification and two of geolectal analysis. The two options of classification are: (1) according to the forms of the pronouns; (2) according to «existence» or «nonexistence» of pronominal variation. The two geolectal analyses are: dialectographic or «classic», with attention to the distribution of variation areas in 40 villages; and «horiometric», considering distribution of percentages of geotypological assignment (Galician-Portuguese vs. Astur-Leonese phenomena). The results show that the chosen phenomena of geolectal variation are also part of the well-known «isogloss bundle» marking the boundary between both domains.

In this paper a family-based sample is used in order to test the model of evolution of standard negation markers from negative existentials suggested by Croft (1991) and known as the Negative Existential Cycle (NEC). The comparative data collected here were analyzed and classified following the definitions of type/stages suggested in the original model. The data collected here were also analyzed from a diachronic perspective and whenever possible also supplied with historical information. It is found that the stages with variation are dominant in the families under study. Consequently they are considered to be far more important for this cycle than the stages without variation. Furthermore, the stages with variation are not only synchronically frequent, they are also diachronically stable as they can be demonstrated to last for very long periods of time. The data collected here also suggest that the NEC is rarely completed within a time span for reasonable reconstruction. This is attributed to the importance of the distinction between negation of actions and negation of existence and its contant renewal in human languages.

ABSTRACT (in Spanish): Es conocido que en gran parte del asturleonés más occidental la unión en el decurso de la preposición "en" con la forma masculina singular del artículo toma la forma contracta "no", como en gallegoportugués (Rodríguez-Castellano 1954; Cano 1990). Es sabido asimismo que más al este esa contracción toma las formas "nel" y "en" –que coexisten en algunas zonas–; y que esta segunda forma ha sido interpretada hasta ahora como resultado de la omisión del artículo (Menéndez Pidal 1906; Rodríguez-Castellano 1954; Cano 1990). Los hechos gramaticales revisten, no obstante, mayor complejidad, puesto que en el área asturleonesa de la contracción "no" ha sido descrita la coexistencia de esta con la forma "nel", repartidas en función del entorno fónico: así, en Vabia y en Conqueiros se señala que "no" aparece ante consonante y "nel" ante vocal, aunque con vacilaciones (Álvarez 1949; Fernández 1960).
La investigación de campo reciente (Andrés, Álvarez-Balbuena, Suárez & Rodríguez Monteavaro 2017) muestra que en la zona oeste del asturleonés occidental la realidad es más compleja de lo que se había descrito, y que en ella coexisten, distribuidas complementariamente en función del entorno fonológico, no dos sino tres formas diferentes, que al menos en parte de esa área se reparten así: "no" ante consonante (no suelu, no monte), "nel" ante vocal tónica (nel aire, nel outru) y "n’" ante vocal átona (n’escanu, n’armariu).
A partir de la descripción de estos hechos lingüísticos la presente comunicación pretende examinar los siguientes aspectos:
a) El origen de las tres formas (no / nel / n’) de la contracción en el asturleonés más occidental y su evolución hasta acabar siendo alomorfos en distribución complementaria dependiente del entorno fónico.
b) El origen de la supuesta omisión del artículo masculino singular –que creo poder argumentar que no es tal– en la contracción con la preposición "en" en asturiano oriental, central y centro-occidental (en suelu, en monte).
c) La arealidad que presenta este fenómeno sintáctico en el noroeste de la Península Hispánica, que se manifiesta en un área occidental con una sola forma ("no", en el espacio lingüístico gallegoportugués); otra más al oriente con tres formas distribuidas en función del contexto fónico ("no / nel / n’", en la parte oeste del asturleonés occidental); y otras aún más al oriente –todavía no bien deslindadas– con una sola forma ("en" o "nel") o con la alternancia de ambas (en asturiano centro-occidental, central y oriental).
d) Dado que, dentro del continuum entre gallegoportugués y asturleonés, el máximo de complejidad en las manifestaciones de este fenómeno sintáctico se produce precisamente en la zona de contacto de áreas con soluciones más simples, cabe preguntarse si se trata de la conservación de una fase arcaica más compleja, limitada hoy territorialmente a un área fronteriza, o bien de una deriva divergente, generada en zona de frontera lingüística, que lleva a un estado más complejo que la mera coexistencia de formas geográficamente concurrentes en una zona limítrofe, pero que, al mismo tiempo, no parece que pueda desvincularse de dicha concurrencia.

Three generations which have known different sociolinguistic situations live side by side in Luzaide/Valcarlos. We gave exactly the same questionnaire to speakers from the three generations (dealing with lexicon, nominal morphology, verbal morphology and syntax) to measure variation relative to parameters of gender and, above all, age. This study, performed from the perspective of sociolinguistic dialectology, aimed to report on the repercussions of the political border, the loss of the language and the lifestyles of the speakers on language form. Bearing in mind the differences between speakers in the system, we considered parameters used in sociolinguistics, as well as the Cartesian geography used in traditional dialectology to mark the dialectal division, in search of other social factors. By way of an appendix, we have included a set of phonological features in order that they be documented, their being interesting subjects for future studies.

ABSTRACT (in Spanish): CartoDial (Cartografía Dialectal) es una herramienta informática destinada a cartografiar la variación lingüística. Concretamente, su desarrollo se enmarca dentro del proyecto ETLEN (Estudio de la transición lingüística en la zona Eo-Navia, Asturias), investigación iniciada en la Universidad de Oviedo en el año 2000. El objetivo primero de ese proyecto de investigación es abordar el estudio sistemático de la configuración geolectal de los territorios fronterizos entre los geotipos lingüísticos gallego-portugués y asturleonés en la zona norte de su frontera lingüística. CartoDial ha sido especialmente concebido para un proyecto de este tipo, pero puede utilizarse también para otras investigaciones geolingüísticas. En nuestro proyecto hemos desarrollado la noción de dialectometría de frontera u horiometría para abordar la categorización geotipológica de la variación geolectal de esta zona peninsular. El uso de CartoDial sirve para cubrir dos de los objetivos del ETLEN: por un lado, para elaborar un atlas dialectográfico donde se muestren, a la manera de los atlas lingüísticos tradicionales, los resultados de las variables lingüísticas recogidas homogéneamente en cada punto de la red de encuesta; por otro, la elaboración de un atlas horiométrico que permita medir cuantitativamente la frontera entre los geotipos lingüísticos arriba indicados. Para ello, se categorizan las variantes lingüísticas estudiadas según principios glotológicos coherentes y fundamentados, y gracias al uso de CartoDial esta categorización se representa cartográficamente mediante un cómputo matemático-estadístico que permite visualizar en mapas las proporciones de cada categoría geotipológica por punto de la red del atlas. En definitiva, CartoDial permite abordar cuantitativamente el estudio de la frontera geolectal, lo cual ayuda a conocer mejor la configuración de la transición lingüística en los continua geolectales, superarando algunas de las limitaciones de los acercamientos de tipo cualitativo a estas entidades geolingüísticas. En nuestro póster se pretenden mostrar las bases teóricas sobre las que se ha desarrollado CartoDial, así como una muestra práctica en imágenes de sus funciones, resultado todo ello de la aplicación de los fundamentos epistemológicos y metodológicos de la dialectología.
La aplicación CartoDial ha sido desarrollada gracias a la financiación del Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (ref. MICINN-08-FFI2008-01774/FILO) y está asentada con el número 05/2010/414 en el Registro General de la Propiedad Intelectual de España.

A series of dialect maps comprising phonological data on more than 1000 points enabled to discover the existence of a bundle of long phonological isoglosses which run along the Huái 淮 River in the East and the Qínlǐng 秦嶺 mountain belt in the West, dividing the whole Guānhuà 官話 (Mandarin) area into the Northern and the Southern zones.

La notion de Sprachbund en tant qu’aire de convergence structurale entre familles de langues différentes est bien connue. Ces « Unions de Langues » entrelacent les réseaux typologiques et les réseaux phylogénétiques, comme dans l’espace balkanique ou l’espace nord-ouest américain. On sait également que l’aire balte orientale constitue un Sprachbund, faisant converger des traits typologiques forts des langues fenniques (ouralien), germaniques (allemand, langues scandinaves), slaves et baltes (lituanien, letton, vieux prussien). Nous montrerons qu’au-delà du Sprachbund, peuvent exister des Mundartbünde, au sein des domaines impliqués dans les dynamiques de convergence. Nous proposerons une modélisation et une synthèse de divers travaux interprétables en ce sens, que ce soit dans les emprunts lexicaux baltofenniques ou dans les phénomènes de contact interdialectaux au sein du fennique ou entre variétés fenniques et variétés baltes, slaves ou germaniques, à échelle macroscopique. A échelle mésoscopique, nous nous intéresserons à l’arc littoral Viru-Ingrie, particulièrement interactif sur ce plan. Enfin, du point de vue microdialectologique, nous verrons les effets des contacts et de la métatypie sur les évolutions du diasystème, tout en les distinguant des dynamiques évolutives endogènes. Dans la mesure où l’aire observée est décrite avec la plus grande précision par plusieurs traditions linguistiques nationales (finlandaise, estonienne, russe) et abondamment documentée sur le plan historique, on peut attendre de ce survol de l’aire balto-fennique saisie dans le grain fin de sa diversité dialectale, des clés pour développer la notion encore sous-exploitée de Mundartbund, à notre avis grandement heuristique pour comprendre les mécanismes de toute dynamique de convergence structurale aréale entre langues et variétés dialectales.

This article uses South African census data for 1996, 2001 and 2011 to explore the relationship between
language and demographic change in the metropolitan region of Cape Town. We begin with a conceptual and
methodological discussion of the use of ‘language’ as a demographic variable, before commencing with a GISbased
analysis of the changing relationship between ‘household language’ and selected census variables
associated with post-apartheid demographic change. We focus particular attention on variables selected to
shed light on urban inequality, such as education level, income, race and in-migration. Data on adults at ward
level in Cape Town is used to develop a comparative spatial context for this analysis. Our main finding is a
significant level of continuity between 1996 and 2011 with respect to the geo-social patterning of the three
main languages in the metro: Afrikaans, English and isiXhosa. We argue that English and Afrikaans have
retained status through proximity to key development corridors. We explain this trend in terms of different
streams of migrants, settling at different times and in different regions of the city.

This book explores grammatical gender in the Romance languages and dialects and its evolution from Latin. Michele Loporcaro investigates the significant diversity found in the Romance varieties in this regard; he draws on data from the Middle Ages to the present from all the Romance languages and dialects, discussing examples from Romanian to Portuguese and crucially also focusing on less widely-studied varieties such as Sursilvan, Neapolitan, and Asturian. The investigation first reveals that several varieties display more complex systems than the binary masculine/feminine contrast familiar from modern French or Italian. Moreover, it emerges that traditional accounts, whereby neuter gender was lost in the spoken Latin of the late Empire, cannot be correct: instead, the neuter gender underwent a range of different transformations from Late Latin onwards, which are responsible for the different systems that can be observed today across the Romance languages. The volume provides a detailed description of many of these systems, which in turns reveals a wealth of fascinating data, such as varieties where 'husbands' are feminine and others where 'wives' are masculine; dialects in which nouns overtly mark gender, but only in certain syntactic contexts; and one Romance variety (Asturian) in which it appears that grammatical gender has split into two concurrent systems. The volume will appeal to linguists from a range of backgrounds, including Romance linguistics, historical linguistics, typology, and morphosyntax, and is also of relevance to those working in sociology, gender studies, and psychology.