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Minorities Formation in Italy

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Minorities Formation in Italy Minorities Formation in Italy GIOVANNA CAMPANI Minorities Formation in Italy Introduction For historical reasons Italy has always been characterized as a linguistically and culturally fragmented society. Italy became a unifi ed nation-state in 1860 after having been divided, for centuries, into small regional states and having been dominated, in successive times, by different European countries (France, Spain, and Austria). As a result, two phenomena have marked and still mark the country: - the existence of important regional and local differences (from the cultural, but also economic and political point of view); the main difference is represented by the North-South divide (the question of the Mezzogiorno) that has strongly in- fl uenced Italian history and is still highly present in political debates; and - the presence of numerous “linguistic” minorities (around fi ve percent of the Italian population) that are very different from each other. In Italy, one commonly speaks of linguistic minorities: regional and local differences are expressed by the variety of languages and dialects that are still spoken in Italy. The term “ethnic” is scarcely used in Italy, even if it has been employed to defi ne minorities together with the term “tribes” (see GEO special issue “the tribes of Italy”). When minorities speak of themselves, they speak in terms of populations, peo- ples, languages, and cultures. The greatest concentration of minorities is in border areas in the northeast and northwest that have been at the centre of wars and controversies during the 20th century. Other minorities settled on the two main islands (where they can sometimes constitute a ma- 1 Giovanna Campani jority, such as the Sardinians). Small numbers of minorities from the Balkans or Greece are scattered in the southern part of the peninsula, where they settled centuries ago. In the central part of the country (Emilia-Romagna , Tuscany, Umbria, Marche) most minorities have disappeared with the exception of the Gypsy and Roma communities. The Roman Jews represent the largest minority in Rome. According to the defi nition of the European Union, all these populations represent regional minorities (RM). The EU defi nition makes a distinction between RM and IM, im- migrant minorities. In Italy, immigrant minorities are a recent presence dating back to the 1980s. In the Italian context, which institutions have dealt with cultural and linguistic difference? How? What has been the relationship between State institutions and minorities’ institu- tions? What are the connexions between the cultural-linguistic and the political struggles? How has the Italian nation-state handled these issues? What measures have been taken by differ- ent government administrations? What kind of proposals have been drafted by various political forces? In order to answer these questions it is necessary to simultaneously consider the histori- cal dimension and the present situation; the political dimension and the language issue; legislation and culture. The historical dimension is the object of chapter one, where the oldest institutions defending cultural and linguistic differ- ence are considered, from the Agrupació Catalanista de Sarde- nya, founded in 1902, to the autonomist parties that were created after the end of World War II and the resistance movements that still exist: the “Union Valdôtaine”, a political federalist move- ment established in 1945 in Val d’Aosta and the “South-Tyroler Volkpartei” – SVP: a political party founded in 1945 in Bol- zano-Bozen, in southern Tyrol. The paper begins with the unifi cation of the country and the development of the Italian nationalism in the period preceding World War I, through the phenomenon of irredentism. It consid- ers the fascist period and the repression of any cultural, linguis- tic, religious and ethnic diversity in Italy. Only a few minorities’ associations were able to survive during the fascist regime. Au- 2 Minorities Formation in Italy tonomist and regional movements recovered during the Resist- ance (1943-45). The chapter analyses the complex relationships between regionalism, autonomies, federalism and the partisan movement, a topic that deserves further investigation. The second chapter considers the Italian Constitution and the attention given to minorities in various articles. In the Constitu- tion, language is the main element defi ning minorities, and as stated in Article 6, aimed at protecting linguistic minorities. The distinction between the majority and minority is based on a clear division between minority languages and dialects. The linguistic approach is embedded in the political point of view. According to the offi cial linguistic theory, minority languages have no prox- imity to the Italian Volgare (the language that appeared in Italy circa the 10th century, spoken by the people – vulgus- in opposi- tion to Latin) that is the origin of the Italian language and began to be written in the 10th century. The fi rst document containing Volgare dates back to 960 A.D. and is the Placito di Capua, but there were a few texts in the “koiné” spoken in the Italian pe- ninsula between 900 and 1200; the written language remained essentially Latin. According to linguistic theory, Volgare gave birth to the different dialects of the peninsula. Among them, Tuscan was later chosen to become the Italian, the language of the country. The main actors of the nation-building process, the Risorgimento, considered linguistic unifi cation a central task of the new state: the school of unifi ed Italy repressed dialects. Graziadio Isaia Ascoli, a Jew from Gorizia (a town at the bor- der with Slovenia, which, in Ascoli’s time, still belonged to the Austrian Empire) was the fi rst Italian linguist in the 19th century. Ascoli scientifi cally studied the Italian language and its dialects, paying great attention to them as well to minority languages such as Friulan or Ladin. After Ascoli’s death, linguistic studies were scarce in Italy until the 1960s. The Linguistic History of United Italy, by Tullio De Mauro was published in 1963 and it marks a new phase of linguistic studies. Tullio De Mauro maintains the distinction between the dialects as languages associated with Italian, because they are 3 Giovanna Campani descendents of Volgare (De Mauro: 1987) and the minority lan- guages. There are twelve minorities that are recognized and pro- tected by the legislation: Albanian (Arbëresh), Catalan (Català), German (Deutsch), Greek (Grico), Slovenian (Slovensko) and Croatian (Hrvatski) populations as well as the French (Français), French-Provençal (Franco-provenzale), Friulan (Furlan), Ladin (Ladin), Occitan (Occitan) and Sardinian (Sardu) (Article 6 of the Constitution and Law no. 482, 1999, art. 2, subsection 1). These linguistic minorities are spread all over the country, both in the north and the south (see map). The law doesn’t recognize all 21 minorities who speak different languages, according to Tullio De Mauro (Fenoglio: 1998, 1), including: Carinzian, Cimbri, Corsicans of the Maddalena Island (Sardinia), Jews of Rome,Gallo-Italici and Gallo-Romanzi in the south (small minor- ities speaking northern Italian dialects in the South), Mòchens, Occitans, Tabarchini, Walser (see maps). According to estimates from the Ministry of the Interior, around fi ve percent of the Italian population (around 2.5 million people) has a mother tongue that is not Italian (or from an Italian dialect). This datum doesn’t take immigrants into account, but only territorial, regional or historical minorities. Italia Settentrionale Occitani A Franco-provenzali CH Tirolo Meridionale Walser Tirolesi Trentino Friuli Val d'Aosta SLO Gruppi tedeschi Lombardia Veneto Ladini Piemonte CRO Friulani F Sloveni Emilia-Romania Piemontesi Liguria Liguri e Brigaschi Toscana Veneti Trentini Table 1. Northern Italy 4 Minorities Formation in Italy Italia Meridionale Croati Lazio Molise Albanesi Campania Puglia Grecanici Basilicata (Franco-) Provenzali Sardegna Sardi Catalani Calabria Siciliani Gruppi Galloitalici Tabarchini Sicilia Gruppi Corsi Table 2. Southern Italy Source: De Mauro, Italia delle Italie, op.cit./BIVS Besides the linguistic minorities, the presence of dialects that are still used in Italy is another important phenomenon. The linguis- tic division between dialects and minority languages proposed by De Mauro has not been accepted by various associations and cultural groups fi ghting for the recognition of their language. Recently, the Northern League (Lega Nord per l’Indipendenza della Padania), a populist movement that has recently ques- tioned the unity of the country in the name of federalism and the independence of the northern part of the country. Padania has as well claimed the recognition of language status to the “padania dialects”. This demand is particularly explicit inside the Liga Veneta, which has reverted to the traditional use of the Venetian dialect inside the Republic of Venice. The toponymy has been changed in some northern cities administrated by the Northern League (Bergamo has, for example, become Berghem); some private schools now offer some subjects taught in the Pada- nian dialect. These new populist movements, using local identity 5 Giovanna Campani as a political argument and the recognized linguistic minorities’ associations or political parties have completely different sto- ries: in some areas they might have collaborated together, as it is the case in Friuli, but in the majority of the contexts there is no common platform, no shared view of the future.
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