Sardinia links
5th of October 1999 the following letter was sent to the daily Sardinian newpapers, asking for the possibility of having a page written in Sardinian since the language used in the papers is Italian only. The letter was written by Giovanni Falconi on behalf of the Sardinian mailing list Sa Limba and signed by most of its members.
If you want to know more about it, questions can be asked to the list.
5 October 1999: Open letter to the daily Sardinian newspapers:
We are a group of people who are meeting to discuss and write in Sardinian through the use of the electronic media the computer.
Through our debates, we have come to understand that even though it has now been two years since the regional law on the Sardinian language and culture was passed, little has been done by the news media to see to that this law should not remain the promotion of a mere Utopia.
We believe that the law was not made to please a number of nostalgic people. On the contrary, we think that the law ought to be put into practice.
The Sardinian language should be implied in the writing as well as it is spoken.
We are trying to do this work through the Internet, each person comparing his or her writing every day. But it is a practice that is in use only for the few, since the connection to the Internet is not as widespread as it ought to be. One will have to have a connection that is more than stable, maybe even the way writing is used today will have to change for all man kind, but today we need to imply the means that have been used always, the ones that for centuries at these parts have permitted people to be informed on everything that is happening in the world: the newspapers.
For this reason, we want to ask the editors of the two daily Sardinian newspapers to include a page written in Sardinian among the other pages written in Italian.
We feel that this is necessary. A newspaper is the point of reference for all the Sardinians. And today, when the papers are even publishing pages on the Internet, it would be yet another way of being read by Sardinians in the whole world. A page in Sardinian would be even better for the youth, for the children, for the ones that already speak Sardinian and for the ones that do not yet speak it.
We believe that it would be a good thing to be able to read something writen in Sardinian in important newspapers like the ones dealing with the Sardinian culture. We do not intend some poetry and some story once in a while, like it has been custom to do until now, but a dalily page instead.
A daily page, we are certain, would indeed help contributing to makig our language more visible. And it should not be necessary to mention that the newspapers would sell even more. This is important since the publishers are also businessmen and must earn their money in order to be able to continue. If not for anything else, then for curiousity, many Sardinians buy a newspaper that they know have even pages written in the language they use every day.
The daily newspaper, in many areas is almost a part of life itself. And thus it would be even for the Sardinian newspapers that imply the Sardinian as a language equal to the Italian. But even the Sardinian businessmen can see yet another means to make PR for themselves in this new way to make a paper.
There are many people in Sardinia who believe that the use of the written Sardinian is necessary, people who feel this need because the written Italian is no longer sufficient for the creation of "culture".
It is people who want to create culture in the Sardinian language.
Some might think that it is not important.
But why not?
What do we have to loose using the written Sardinian?
Are we perhaps afraid to compare our language to the Italian language?
Do we not feel able to express the same matters in equal terms?
What the Sardinians lack is only practice in the reading of the Sardinian language.
This impression of immense troubles the readers find when they try to read in the Sardinian language is not because of a difficulty in understanding the words, like some people think, it is because of the lack of practice.
The Sardinian papers can provide a remedy for this lack.
They should form the school in this moment.
They should once again do what they did for the Italian language a century ago: spread the written language so that most people possible can read it.
We, the readers, ought to have the possibility to exchange ideas and knowledge in the written Sardinian language, so that we can become accostumed to read correctly in Sardinian just as we are accostumed to read the Italian.
We are confident that this appeal will be heard by the editors of the Sardinian newspapers and that they will help by making this daily page in the Sardinian language.
Signed by various members of the mailing list Sa Limba
English version by Lone Elisabeth Olesen