Talk:Southern Romance languages

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Sicilian language article says that Sicilian derives from Italo-Western, not from Southern

The above article also refers to the Ethnologue report which raises the possibility of Sicilian being part of Southern Romance rather than Italo-Western. This article should reflect that more accurately. πίππύ δ'Ω∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 00:30, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As Ethnologue is rather (in)famous for getting its fact wrong, building an article based purely on that source is very dubious. There are a great deal of publications by experts on the classification of Romance languages, none of which suggests a sub-group such as this one. I'll nominate this article for deletion unless some credible sources can be given. Suggesting that Corsican is closer to Sardinian that to Tuscan (and other Central Italian dialects) is exactly the kind of funny pseudo-research we have come to expect from Ethnologue, but which every Romance linguist rejects. JdeJ (talk) 11:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ethnologue is sometimes ill-informed (not surprising considering the fact they want to cover all of the world's languges...) and very eager to grant language status to variants perhaps better understood as dialects. If a Southern Romance group makes sense at all, it should certainly include mainland Italian. If you want to portray Corsican and Sicilian as separate languages, go ahead, but do recognise their very close relatianship with Italian proper, which is both obvious and universally recognised by linguists. Steinbach (fka Caesarion) 18:28, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I therefore suggest we nominate this article for deletion. Steinbach (fka Caesarion) 18:29, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia generally speaking already recognises Ethnologue as a valid reference. Even if the suggested categorisation of Corsican is outlandish (and I agree it looks incorrect), it seems perfectly valid to retain this article and for someone to add the point that most linguists would disagree with the categorisation of Corsican. I don't think Sicilian needs to be brought into this at all, but now that you mention it, those who see an obvious similarity between Italian and Sicilian are more often than not confusing the Regional Italian spoken in Sicily, and Sicilian proper - these are two very different things. Camilleri's Italian-Sicilian dictionary turns 50,000 Italian entries into 250,000 separate Sicilian words, most of which would be completely foreign to the average Italian, that's before we even get to the question of grammar, which is different again. Indeed I would put it to you that Sicilian is to Italian what Dutch is to Low German. πιππίνυ δ - (dica) 07:16, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good comparision. But can't we agree on classifying languages along grammatical and phonological lines in the first place, and consider differences in vocabulary much significant? If anything, it may make Sicilian a separate language, but is it closer to Sardinian than to mainland Italian? Steinbach (fka Caesarion) 13:35, 11 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

there's no doubt that Sicilian is far closer to Italian than Sardinian - no doubt about that at all (recalling that Sicilian and Italian both derived from forms of vulgar latin that were closeley related, and that when the great Tuscan writers began to create a literature that would form the basis of the modern Italian language, they were heavily influenced by an existing Sicilian literature, much of which is lost in its original form - but it was quite well known to the likes of Dante and Petrarch). I think that this article needs someone knowledgeable simply adding that few linguists would agree with Ethnologue's classification in this instance (but I don't feel that I am competent enough to do that). πιππίνυ δ - (dica) 07:51, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]