WALSERSPRACHE - The four main objectives of the Alpine Space ...

Monica Valenti
congiunzioni siano gli elementi con il maggior numero di occorrenze in
tutti i parlanti. A seguire si trovano i sostantivi, verbi, aggettivi ed infine
fenomeni transitori, legati al concetto di commutazione di codice.
Concludendo vorrei sottolineare l’importanza di effettuare studi anche
nell’ambito dei Walser su corpus di analisi ampi in modo da soppesare le
conclusioni e le considerazioni possibili con una quantità considerevole
di prove. Nel caso dei fenomeni di contatto si risolve, utilizzando la frequenza
d’uso, il problema metodologico presente per la definizione di ciò
che è inserito nel sistema ricevente e ciò che è più un elemento transitorio.
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Linguistic, sociolinguistic research and initiatives in the Walser community of
Formazza. I will report on some recent studies on the linguistic situation in the
Formazza valley. At the same time I would like to speak about some of the initiatives stemming
from the renewed interest in language minorities and research connected thereto.
One of the most important contributions is the work by Angela Bacher on toponyms in
the Formazza valley. This scholar, a native of this valley, gathered as many as 1051 place
names which make up a hefty heritage when it comes to the culture and traditions of this
valley. Another important work is the dictionary by Pio Scilligo which houses some 60,500
words drawn from his own personal heritage. Scholars like Silvia Dal Negro have supplied
us with important sociolinguistic studies. She studied the Walser dialect from the point of
view of the decline and death of a language, applying the same principles used by Nancy
Dorian on the death of the East Sutherland Gaelic. From Dal Negro’s research emerge
three different patterns of erosion: 1) the uniform pattern, 2) the contiguous pattern, 3)
the non-contiguous pattern. The non-contiguous relationship with German-speaking
communities north of the Alpine range brought about a lexicon erosion and the convergence
with the dominant language. Dialect was sidelined. Yet there appears to persist a
sort of “formal allegiance”. Particularly interesting appears to be the future of cultural
and linguistic studies in this valley. Here a recent initiative involved the entire community.
It is the setting up of a voice archive. The project was carried out by Silvia Dal Negro
and the Formazza community in 2002/2003. It comprises some 30 hours of sound track
which is at present being printed. They are semi-guided conversations, loose from any
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