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> Before becoming a politically united nation, they used to speak the very same language from Sicily to Piedmont, from Veneto to Sardinia. "Italia" was a geogra
by gattilorenz 6y ago
> Before becoming a politically united nation, they used to speak the very same language from Sicily to Piedmont, from Veneto to Sardinia. "Italia" was a geographic expression only for the blinds.
Source? According to linguist De Mauro, before the Italian unification the percentage of Italian speakers was around 2.5% (on 25 millions inhabitants). Most of the people were speaking their own dialects, which - albeit descending from Latin - are not necessarily mutually intellegible
- notorandit 6y ago> According to linguist De Mauro ... Source? Mine is here: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_italiana#Dal_latino_volgare_ai_volgari_italiani https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_italiana#Dal_latino_vol...
- gattilorenz 6y agoYour source quotes De Mauro as well :) I guess it very much depends on whether you consider writers, academics, and in general literate people, or the majority of the populace. In the former case, it's true that Italian was used across the peninsula.