Non sappiamo come scriverlo, perciò non lo parliamo: mille e una scusa per un suicidio linguistico

Abstract

In this paper, I discuss the situation of Sardinian against the background of the massive on-going language extinction, which has long being recognized as a major problem for the world cultural heritage. In Sardinia (and, more generally, in Italy), though, this awareness is not as developed as elsewhere, so that language suicide (i.e. the choice by speakers not to pass over to next generations the original mother tongue of their own local community) is still associated with positive values such as ‘modernization’ and the like. After putting Sardinian in this perspective, I then argue that the introduction and consolidation of a shared written standard, as well as the teaching of Sardinian at school, should be conceived of primarily as measures to foster language maintenance, via the signalization that this language (like any language) is worth caring about, by speakers not less than by authorities. For these institutional efforts to be effective, consequently, a serious policy aimed at language revitalization is urgently needed, and this is where Sardinian authorities and institutions do not seem to have done their homework yet.