A corpus-based analysis of the vitality of Sardinian.A comparison with Māori

Abstract

Sardinian and Māori are two endangered languages belonging to similar language systems, despite their territorial distance. Both language systems are set on insular settings and shaped by language contact interactions involving local autochthonous languages ‒ Sardinian and Māori ‒ and imported languages ‒ Italian and English respectively. In both cases, language contact conditions have led Italian and English to become majority languages, while Sardinian and Māori have survived as endangered minority languages. This situation has produced new non-standard varieties of the imported majority languages: Regional Italian of Sardinia (RIS) and New Zealand English (NZE). Drawing on corpus-based research on Māori lexical presence in NZE (Macalister 2001; 2006a; 2006b), this study adapts existing methods of analysis to test the vitality of Sardinian, by measuring its influence on RIS. A new corpus, the RIS Corpus, has therefore been created, based on Macalister’s NZE Corpus (2001). A comparison between the lexical presence of Sardinian and Māori in the two corpora shows different representations of the autochthonous cultures in RIS and NZE, in line with UNESCO’s statement on the vitality of the two endangered languages, with Sardinian defined as definitely endangered, and Māori recognised as vulnerable.