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Language planning in Alghero (Sardinia):
when standardization becomes problematic
Enrico Chessa, Queen Mary, University of London, e.chessa@qmul.ac.uk
Abstract
L’unica risposta alla sostituzione linguistica sembra essere la Pianifi cazione (o Normalizzazione). Sulla
scorta di una attenta analisi della situazione sociolinguistica, questa potrà però dare risultati soddisfacenti
solo se intesa in termini di obiettivi (abordabili) e strategie (adeguate) per raggiungerli. In caso contrario, il
processo di normalizzazione linguistica potrebbe risultare (in alcuni suoi aspetti) fallimentare. Con l’intento
di tradurre in termini pratici il quadro teorico appena tracciato, si è preso ad esempio il caso sociolinguistico
di Alghero, cittadina trilingue (italiano, catalano, sardo) della Sardegna. Alghero si caratterizza, da un lato,
per disporre di una varietà di catalano (l’algherese) strutturalmente distante dagli altri dialetti catalani (ivi
compreso lo standard); dall’altro, per un avanzatissimo processo di sostituzione linguistica. La diffusione di
uno standard – fase essenziale della pianifi cazione – in un contesto di tali caratteristiche, potrebbe rivelarsi
problematica: i parlanti (giovani), inseriti in un contesto prevalentemente italofono, saranno portati ad
associare i grafemi catalani ai suoni dell’italiano nel riprodurre i messaggi scritti in catalano.
1. Introduction
When two (or more) groups of people speaking different language varieties come into
contact, the linguistic repercussions can be several: borrowing of lexical items, changes in the
morphological paradigms, the emergence of an entirely new variety, etc. (Winford 2003: 2).
However, bearing in mind that contact always implies some sort of linguistic changes, it ‘often
takes the form of the spread of one tongue and its eventual dominance over another, or several
others’ (Hoffmann 1991: 158). If this is the case, language shift occurs and the subordinate
variety is subject to language decay (i.e., loss of competence among the population and,
subsequently, various kinds of linguistic reduction and simplifi cation) (Winford 2003: 256-264).
Under these circumstances, communities can either passively let the process reach its fi nal
stage (language death) or become proactive in order to reverse it. 1 This paper focuses on those
instances where minority communities decide to undertake the task of reversing the language
shift process. In particular, we will be looking at a peculiar sociolinguistic case (Alghero) where
the specifi c sociolinguistic circumstances make the reversing process of the threatened variety
(Catalan) quite problematic.
1.1 From shift to normalization
Schematically conceived, Language shift is the minority group’s transition from one stage of
monolingualism in Lx (the autochthonous language) to another stage of monolingualism, but in
Ly (the new language), through a more or less large and intense period of societal bilingualism
(Lx + Ly) (Trudgill 2003: 77-78). One of the causes at the root of language shift could be the
political dependence of a linguistic minority on an entity (a State) whose language is different
from the variety spoken by the minority group. If this is the case, the new variety usually starts
1 Language death occurs when, in a given community, the few (fl uent) speakers left don’t have anyone to talk to in the
threatened variety (Crystal 2000).
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