Rhaeto-Romance languages

The origin of Ladins and Rhaeto Romans also explains the origin of Slovenians
Additional evidence and some critical remarks concerning Mario Alinei's  theory of the origin of Ladins  of  within his Theory of Continuity of the Indo-European peoples

Jože Rant st.,  Duša Krnel Umek

Extended Summary with Selected Tables
Based on the Theory of Palaeolithic Continuity (TPC), M. Alinei provided evidence and persuasive proof of the validity of his thesis that the ancient ancestors of modern Slovenians (Slavs) strongly influenced the formation of the identity of Ladins in the Eastern Alps as early as in the neolithic period. His theory is based on the linguistic evidence of the proto-Slovenian linguistic substrate in the dialects of the Ladins and on the evidence of the mutual cultural and material contacts interlacing the cultures of the Alps and the Balkans. The Slovenian territory, in particular the Ljubljana moor Vučedol culture, served as a bridgepoint to spread the innovations in the agropastoralism, mining and metallurgy from the Danube basin northwest into the Alps and in this way contributed to the demographic growth of the prehistoric alpine population. According to Alinei and the TPC, the Balkan neolithic complex (Sopot, Vinča, Lasinja culture and the Ljubljana Moor culture) can be attributed to the ancestors of Slavs, i.e. the first farmers in Europe. In the first line, the ‘cultural diffusion’ was responsible for the transfer of knowledge into the Alps. Demic migrations were less important. In the present study, we present additional lexical and toponomastic evidence of the Slovenian linguistic substrate in the Dolomite Ladinic dialects. Our study confirms the main point of Alinei’s thesis that cultural contacts between the alpine populations and central Slovenia were contributing to the formation of the identity of the Ladins in the Dolomites and Friuli. 
As a novelty and, surprisingly, a significant Slovenian linguistic substrate, both lexical as well as toponomastic, has been also found in the Swiss Rhaeto-Romanic dialects further to the west of the Eastern Alps. This fact was not known or attested previously. The Slovenian substrate in the lexical thesaurus of Ladinic and Rhaeto-Romanic dialects is diverse and can be related to ordinary life and human relations (e.g. nevišta/slov. nevesta, bride), agropastoralism (cossessa/koseza, košenina, grassland to be harvested once a year), metallurgy (e.g. ogle/oglje, charcoal), geomorphology (urt/vrt, garden). Ladin and Rhaeto-Romanic words for human or animal excrement (e.g. scei/scanje for urine) have their origin in Slovenian and other Slavic languages and it is hard to believe that autochtonous Italids in the Alps abandoned their original words in exchange for the lexicon of newcomers from the east. It is rather unlikely and there was no need for the lexems for bodily excrement to be adopted into the Italidic thesaurus through the ‘cultural diffusion’ of knowledge, habits and rites. A possible answer could be offered by either “demic diffusion” from the Balkans or if the proto-Slovenian population were already present in the Alps in accordance with the PCT in the neolithic or even earlier. This is attested by the toponomastics of the Rhaeto-Romanic Eastern Alps in Switzerland, the Dolomites and Friuli. The “Slovenian voiced” oronyms, hydronyms, rural names and place names, which have similar or often even identical semantic meaning and use, are abundant here. The toponyms (some of them frequently present) like Bister, Bran, Cauco, Crastascha, Glina, Golo, Gotschna, Gradisc, Greben, Hubel, Lepa, Lubie, Medji, Moesa, Mutta, Niva, Orell, Potoc, Praschitsch, Predell, Peca, Petsch, Petschna, Planezza, Raschitsch, Resia, Rove, Rovna, Rude, Sedel, Stog, Stol/Stou, Strel, Strela, Studen, Tratza, Urschai, Wisch(berg) are common in present-day Slovenia or on the territories where Slovenians still live or lived in the past. A few of the toponyms are present south of Slovenia, in Dalmatia, e.g. Lonja, Wis, Bratsch, Welesch. The theonyms of ancient settlers – Belin, Devin or Devva, Vid, Vidos, Welesch (old Slavic god Velež), Zavragia (vrag/devil) offer evidence of the ancient-prehistoric age of these toponyms. Ethnonyms with the roots Wend-, Venett-, Windisch- testify to a prehistoric settlement area of ancient settlers and their ethnicity. Wend and Windisch are German synonyms for Slovene, Slovenian. Some of the toponyms can be found outside the Rhaeto-Romanic area in Switzerland, e.g. Devin, Belin, Louche. The apparent similarity of the lexicon of Latin and Slovenian language and numerous isogloses between the Rhaeto-Romanic/Ladinic dialects, Latin and Romanic languages and on the other side, Slovenian and Slavic languages also point to the possible greater influence of the Balkan neolithic cultures (Sprachbund) on the formation of the Italids elsewhere in Italy. Alinei does not tackle the question of the neolithisation and agroculturisation of the Italids in the central part of Italy, e.g. of Latins, Etruscans, Umbrians etc., who conquered and Romanised Northern Italy and the Alps in Antiquity. Alinei does not discuss the role of the Veneti in the neolithisation of the Eastern Alps and does not touch on the question of the formation of their identity. These questions are worthwhile for future exploration.
The search for the Slovenian substrate in Ladinic and Rhaeto-Romanic dialects provided additional evidence of the ancient settlement of proto-Slavic (proto-Slovenian) population in the western part of the Eastern Alps;
To understand the processes of how and when the settlement of Proto-Slavic (Slovenian) population so far west in the Eastern Alps occurred requires additional evaluation of the migration models of how of Europe was populated and how agroculturalisation and metallurgy spread.
New data provided by modern archaeology, archaeo-genetics and paleo-linguistics would be helpful to solve this puzzle.
 

Handout of a talk given at the University of Siena in June 2016.
It deals with a new proposal that aims at explaining the variation found in the possibilities of fronting constituents (only one in strict V2 languages; more than one, but with heavy restrictions, in "relaxed" V2 languages; everything or almost everything in non-V2 languages like Italian or Slavic languages). In our proposal, these differences boil down to a parametric variation in the sensitivity of Relativised Minimality (Rizzi 1990, 2004): while languages like German have a "strong" Relativised Minimality (similar to that proposed in Rizzi 1990), relaxed V2-languages have more fine-grained versions of RM.

This paper explores two peripheral Northern Italian dialects (NIDs), namely Lamonat and Frignanese, with respect to their genealogical linguistic classification. The two NIDs exhibit morpho-phonological and morpho-syntactic features that do not fall neatly into the Gallo-Italic sub-classification of Northern Italo-Romance, but resemble some of the core characteristics of the putative Rhaeto-Romance language family. This analysis of Lamonat and Frignanese reveals that their conservative traits more closely relate to Rhaeto-Romance. The synchronic evidence from the two peripheral NIDs hence supports the argument against the unity and autonomy of Rhaeto-Romance as a language family, whereby the linguistic traits that distinguish Rhaeto-Romance within Northern Italo-Romance consist of shared retentions rather than shared innovations, which were once common to virtually all NIDs. In this light, Rhaeto-Romance can be regarded as an array of conservative Gallo-Italic varieties. The paper concludes with a discussion of the geo-sociolinguistic properties of the two peripheral dialect areas under investigation that lead to a conservative linguistic behaviour within the Lamonat and Frignanese speech communities. Given the relatively similar historical and geo-political background of these speech communities, we attempt the formulation of a geo-sociolinguistic model of linguistic innovation diffusion that captures the conservative behaviour of Lamonat and Frignanese. We propose that those dialect areas that, in Bartoli's (1945) geo-spatial linguistic typology, are both "lateral" and "isolated" deflect linguistic innovations. This proposal must be interpreted within a more general "gravity" and "wave" sociolinguistic model of diffusion of linguistic innovations, whereby "lateral" and "isolated" dialect areas give rise to a mechanism that we call "the pond rock effect" and that renders such dialect areas resistant to language change.

09-10 settembre 2021, Romanisches Seminar, Università di Zurigo

L’Istituto di Romanistica (Romanisches Seminar) dell’Università di Zurigo organizza l’undicesima edizione del Dies Romanicus Turicensis, dal titolo "Praesentia/Absentia: nuovi spazi d’interscambio nello studio della romanistica". Il convegno offre a giovani ricercatrici e ricercatori che si occupano di lingue romanze (negli ambiti degli studi letterari, linguistici e culturali) un’occasione di scambio scientifico a livello internazionale.

Il comitato organizzatore invita a presentare proposte di intervento entro il 20 febbraio 2021, scrivendo all’indirizzo diesrom@rom.uzh.ch.

CfP disponibile anche all’indirizzo: https://www.rose.uzh.ch/de/forschung/forschungamrose/kongresse/diesromanicusturicensis/diesromanicusXI2021.html.

Il Comitato Organizzatore
Martina Albertini, Larissa Binder, Stefano Bragato, Dayron Carrillo Morell, Marguerite Dallas, Charlotte Defrance, Bárbara Garrido Sánchez-Andrade, Alberto Giudici, Antony Kussmaul, Stefano Negrinelli

Con quest’edizione della rivista “Ladinia” possiamo presentare alle nostre stimate lettrici e ai nostri affezionati lettori il primo volume degli atti del convegno VII Colloquium Retoromanistich, tenutosi nel mese di giugno 2017 a San Martino in Badia e a Bressanone.

Mit dem vorliegenden Jahrgang der Zeitschrift “Ladinia” dürfen wir unseren geschätzten Leserinnen und Lesern den ersten Band der Tagungsakten zum VII. Colloquium Retoromanistich vorlegen, das im Juni 2017 gemeinschaftlich in St. Martin in Thurn und in Brixen ausgetragen wurde.

This paper explores two peripheral Northern Italian dialects (NIDs), namely Lamonat and Frignanese, with respect to their genealogical linguistic classification. The two NIDs exhibit morpho-phonological and morpho-syntactic features that do not fall neatly into the Gallo-Italic sub-classification of Northern Italo-Romance, but resemble some of the core characteristics of the putative Rhaeto-Romance language family. This analysis of Lamonat and Frignanese reveals that their conservative traits more closely relate to Rhaeto-Romance. The synchronic evidence from the two peripheral NIDs hence supports the argument against the unity and autonomy of Rhaeto-Romance as a language family, whereby the linguistic traits that distinguish Rhaeto-Romance within Northern Italo-Romance consist of shared retentions rather than shared innovations, which were once common to virtually all NIDs. In this light, Rhaeto-Romance can be regarded as an array of conservative Gallo-Italic varieties. The paper concludes with a discussion of the geo-sociolinguistic properties of the two peripheral dialect areas under investigation that lead to a conservative linguistic behaviour within the Lamonat and Frignanese speech communities. Given the relatively similar historical and geo-political background of these speech communities, we attempt the formulation of a geo-sociolinguistic model of linguistic innovation diffusion that captures the conservative behaviour of Lamonat and Frignanese. We propose that those dialect areas that, in Bartoli’s (1945) geo-spatial linguistic typology, are both “lateral” and “isolated” deflect linguistic innovations. This proposal must be interpreted within a more general “gravity” and “wave” sociolinguistic model of diffusion of linguistic innovations, whereby “lateral” and “isolated” dialect areas give rise to a mechanism that we call “the pond rock effect” and that renders such dialect areas resistant to language change.