FOOTNOTES:
[24] H. Witte: Forsch. z. deut. Landes- u. Volkeskunde, Vol. 10, 1897, No. 4, pp. 299-424.
[25] L. Gallois: Les limites linguistiques du Français, Ann. de Géogr., Vol. 9, 1900, p. 215.
[26] P. Langhans: Sprachen Karte von Deutsch-Lothringen, 1:2,000,000, Deutsche Erde, 1909, Pl. 3.
[27] Das deutsche Sprachgebiet Lothringen und seine Wandelungen, etc., Forsch. z. deut. Landes- u. Volksk., Vol. 8, 1894, pp. 407-535.
[28] Translation: By the love of God and that of Christian people and of our common salvation, from this day on, in so far as God shall grant me knowledge and power, I will support my brother Karl, here present, by every manner of help, as one must, in duty bound, support one’s brother, provided he acts in the same manner with me; neither will I ever make agreements with Lothaire which, through my own will, shall prejudice my brother Karl here present.
[29] Anthropologic data for the southwestern section of Alsace are instructive. The generation of a transition type between the short and sturdy Alpine type and the “sesquipedal” Teuton is observable. Cf. Ripley: The Races of Europe, New York, 1899, pp. 225-226.
[30] The name has been traced to the generic meaning of forest through its consonants v-s-g, which are convertible into b-s-k, the latter corresponding to bosquet, busch, bush, etc. Cf. J. C. Gerock: Die Benennung und Gliederung des linksrheinischen Gebirges, M. Philomath. Ges. Elsass-Loth., Vol. 4, 1910, pp. 251-274.
[31] R. Blanchard: Deux grandes villes françaises, La Géogr., Vol. 30, Nos. 2-6, 1914, pp. 120-121.
[32] The Statesman’s Yearbook, 1915, p. 972.
[33] J. B. Masson: Die Siedelungen des Breuschtals Elsass, Monatschrift Gesch. u. Volksk., 1910, pp. 350-373 and 479-498.
[34] Zur Geschichte des Deutschtums in Elsass und im Vogesengebiet, Forsch. z. deut. Landes- u. Volksk., Vol. 10, No. 4, 1897.
[35] H. Witte: Romanische Bevölkerungsrückstände in deutschen Vogesentälern, Deutsche Erde, Vol. 6, 1907, pp. 8-14, 49-54, 87-91.
[36] DuMont Schanberg: Die Bevölkerung Elsass-Lothringen nach den Ergebnissen der Volkszählung vom 1 Dezember 1905 an der Früheren Zählungen. Stat. M. über Elsass-Lothringen, Vol. 31, Stat. Bur. f. Elsass-Lothringen, Strassburg, 1908.
[37] After the language map of Alsace-Lorraine in Andree’s Handatlas, pp. 67-68, 6th ed.
[38] After Gallois’ map, Ann. de Géogr., Vol. 9, 1900, Pl. 4.
[39] P. Langhans: Die Westschweiz mit deutschen Ortsbenennung, 1:500,000, Deutsche Erde, Vol. 5, 1906, Pl. 5.
[40] E. Gallois: Les limites linguistiques du Français, Ann. de Géogr., Vol. 9, 1900, p. 218.
[41] P. Clerget: La Suisse au XXme siècle, Paris, 1908, p. 55.
[42] L. Courthion: Le front des langues en Suisse, Mercure de France, Vol. 112, No. 420, Dec. 1, 1915, pp. 636-646.
[43] J. Brunhes: La géographie humaine, Paris, 1912, pp. 599-601.
[44] The French-speaking population of the Valais is estimated at 70 per cent of the inhabitants of the canton.
[45] M. L. Poole: Historical Atlas of Modern Europe, Oxford, 1902, Pl. 44.
[46] Introduction à l’étude comparative des langues indo-européennes, Paris, 1915.
[47] Graphisch-statistischer Atlas der Schweiz, Bureau des eidgen. Departements des Innern, Berne, 1914, Taf. 7.
[CHAPTER IV]
BORDERLANDS OF ITALIAN LANGUAGE
Italy’s early history is molded by the shape of the land and its natural divisions. In the beginning, each valley was a tribal seat. The basin of the Po was the home of Celtic-speaking Gauls. Etruscans, whose early language cannot fit into the Indo-European group, peopled Tuscany. Greeks settled in southern Italy in numbers sufficiently large to bestow the name of Magna Graecia on the districts they occupied. The welding of these territorial elements into the Roman state was attended by the spread of the Latin language within the land. Rome’s Latin eventually reached far beyond peninsular frontiers.
Modern Italian nationality did not, however, acquire concrete expression before the nineteenth century. For fully two hundred years prior to that time the Hapsburgs had steadily encroached on Italian territory. It remained for the democratic ideals of the French Revolution to become the moving force in the shaping of Italian nationality. Unity of language favored its rapid development. Beginning with Piedmont in the first half of the nineteenth century Italy grew to its present extent by the addition of territory to the south. Lombardy was added in 1859, Tuscany and the kingdom of Two Sicilies in 1860, Venetia in 1866 and the Papal States in 1870. Prior to these years Italian national aspirations had found solace in a Venetian saying, expressive of Austrian covetings, “Carta tua, montagna mia,” which may be rendered as “Yours is the map, but mine the land.” Since then, a people speaking the same language has become united into a single nation on the Italian peninsula. The land frontier of Italy, however, has remained to this day a zone of linguistic mingling.
Districts of non-Italian languages are occupied by populations made up of descendants of immigrants from beyond the Alps or from beyond the seas. Six foreign linguistic groups can be distinguished, to wit: (1) Franco-Provençal, (2) German, (3) Slovene, (4) Albanian, (5) Greek, (6) Catalan.[48] The political significance to be attached to these settlements is slight, as they contain a negligible proportion of the kingdom’s population. The foreign languages are used only in the home. Beyond the threshold Italian prevails everywhere.
Franco-Provençal dialects are in current use among the dwellers of the Stura, Orco and Doire Baltée valleys. In the province (circondario) of Aosta the foreign language was current in over 70 villages (communi) at the time of the census of 1901. The province of Pignerol boasted of the two communi of Praly and San Martino di Perrero in which the same French dialects prevailed. The names of the communi of Beaulard, Bousson, Champlas du Col, Clavières, Fenils, Mollières, Rochemolles, Salbertrand, Sauze d’Oulx, Solomiac and Thures, all in the circondario of Suse, likewise indicate the presence of French-speaking inhabitants. It was computed that the language was used in the daily life of 18,958 families out of the 30,401 recorded in the census of that year. The average number of individuals to a family being 4.22 in those districts, it follows that about 80,000 subjects of the king of Italy speak a French dialect. In 1862, French was spoken by 76,736 inhabitants of the valley of Aosta. The importance of the language has hardly changed since then, as it has remained the medium of church, school and general culture. Nevertheless the use of French dialects is on the wane in the circondarii of Pignerol and Suse since the reconstitution of Italy.
Planted between France and Italy, Piedmont became a connecting province in which the transition from one country to the other can be followed. Its rôle is analogous to that of Alsace-Lorraine on the confines of the French and the German languages. French taste and mode of living prevail in many sections of Piedmont. Turin strikes travelers proceeding from southern Italy as being in many respects a city of French customs. The French spoken in Italy also represents a transition speech between the langue d’oïl and the langue d’oc. It has close analogy with the patois spoken in French Switzerland, the Dauphiné, the Lyonnais and the valley of Aosta. All these regions once formed part of the kingdom of Burgundy.
Fig. 21—Map showing some of the important localities of French speech in Northwestern Italy.
The French vernacular of thousands of Piedmontese is furthermore related to the cause of Protestantism, which has taken solid root in this mountain land in spite of the persecutions to which it had been formerly subjected. As used by the natives of the region the local dialect consists, more properly, of a modern form of an old langue d’oc dialect similar to the patois of various districts in the French High Alps. To the Protestant inhabitants of these mountain communities French has served as the only medium of intercourse with their co-religionists in Switzerland and France.
The little village of Torre Pellice, on a small mountain railway leading into one of the main valleys of Piedmont, offers the strange contrast of being peopled by inhabitants whose language is French, while their customs are Italian, and their religion Protestant. The austerity of their manners recalls at first impression the natural gravity of mind observable among French-speaking Swiss who belong to the same faith. Ampler acquaintance with the simple mountaineers will draw out their pride of being descendants of Protestants whose religious views antedate Luther’s preaching by fully three centuries.
History and geography have concurred in the preservation of religious and linguistic individuality in the three Valdese valleys. Their inhabitants are sons of twelfth and thirteenth century heretics known by the names of Albigenses, Lollards, Cathars or Vaudois, against all of whom the persecution of the Roman church was directed. Massacres and forced conversions uprooted heresies everywhere in Europe except in the high valleys of Piedmont. Here the arduous character of the region afforded defense against the organized bands sent to conquer early adherents of reformed doctrines. The narrow gorges became the theater of bloody affrays in which victory would sometimes favor the attacking foreigners and sometimes the besieged. No definite conquest of the mountain zone was ever made by the Catholic armies. The surname of Israel of the Alps, bestowed locally on the village of Torre Pellice, is a memorial of this period of religious struggle.
An episode in this long contest, which is not unrelated to the current prevalence of French, took place in 1630. The operations of the army sent by Richelieu in that year were followed by an epidemic of plague to which thousands of natives succumbed. Many of the community’s religious leaders were carried off by the dread disease. Their places were taken by pastors and preachers who came from Geneva or the Protestant towns of France. From this period on religious services were carried on in French. The influence of the language spread beyond the rough mountain sanctuaries to which it was at first confined. In such retired valleys cultural influences generally emanate from the church, a fact observable particularly in the mountainous portions of Asia. Today along with the memory of former struggles the language, which was partly a result of their bitterness, has survived. To the highlander of western Piedmont, French is the symbol of successful resistance against religious oppression. He clings to it and will not tolerate Italian in its place. His mountain villages are in fact the nursery of hundreds of teachers of French employed in Italian schools.
The Franco-Italian linguistic boundary starts at Monte Rosa and extends south, past Gressoney, into the valley of the Doire Baltée, to the town of Settimo Vitone. French has always predominated in this region. It is at present the vernacular of the well-to-do inhabitants and is taught in schools concurrently with Italian. Thence to the west the linguistic boundary passes south of Grand Paradis Peak and attains the political boundary at the sources of the Orco river. Linguistic and political boundaries coincide in the next 27 miles, the line passing through a mountainous and scantily settled region.
North of Suse, linguistic and political lines diverge from each other. The former crosses the Doire Ripaire at about five miles east of the town. It then extends in a southerly direction to Pérouse on the Ghison river and traverses the Pellice where the river leaves the highland. The Po is attained near Monte Viso and the political frontier. From the latter peak the line reaches Sampeyre, beyond which it crosses the Stura at Vinadio. The Franco-Italian boundary is reached once more at a few miles east of Lantosque. From here on to the sea Italian speech invades French territory.
The structure of the Alps has contributed powerfully to the peopling of a part of the basin of the Po by a Celtic-speaking race. In Turin the name of the Taurins, a Celto-Ligurian tribe, has been preserved to this day. Alpine valleys converge towards the east and diverge towards the west. Human migrations have, therefore, been more intense from west to east than in the opposite direction. Western Piedmont thus passed under French influence after the Middle Ages. At that time the counts of Savoy obtained possession of the country around Suse and Turin. Later they added all of Piedmont to their domain. The upper valley of the Doire Ripaire was part of the French kingdom until the treaty of Utrecht in 1715.
From the Mediterranean northward, the last section of the Franco-Italian linguistic boundary traverses French soil and coincides roughly with the crest of the eastern watershed of the Var. This region is known administratively as the Département des Alpes-Maritimes. Linguistic unity within its boundaries has been determined mainly by the relief of the land.[49] Practically every one of the high Alpine valleys debouches into the Var. Connection between the sea and the mountain districts is obtained through the channels of this basin. Intercourse among the inhabitants of the département has thus been reflected towards France rather than Italy. The langue d’oc prevails in the entire Var system, but Genoese dialects of Italy, or the “si” languages, appear immediately to the west. The linguistic divide can, therefore, be located between the valley of the Var on the one side and those of the Roya and Bévéra on the other. It should be made to pass, according to Funel,[50] at the very point in La Turbie where Augustus, a Roman emperor, erected a monument to mark the boundary between his domain and Gaul. The inhabitants of the eastern section of this line appear, however, to be content with French nationality in spite of their Ligurian dialects. At the time Of the rectification of this frontier in 1860, their French leanings were proclaimed in a referendum which set forth their desire to acquire citizenship under the French tricolor.
Fig. 22—The dotted line indicates the divide between the areas of French and Italian language. Black dots near the Swiss border show Italian villages where German is the vernacular of the natives.
The city of Alghero and its environs in the island of Sardinia contain a colony of Catalonians whose language is identical with the vernacular in use on the Balearic islands. This group consists of 9,800 individuals out of a total of 10,741 inhabitants of the commune of Alghero. In 1862 this small community comprised 7,036 individuals. This rooting of a Spanish dialect on an Italian island is traced to the year 1354 when the Aragonians conquered Sardinia. The long period of Spanish rule over the island accounts for the survival of the language to this day.
The southern boundary of German speech abuts against Italian from Switzerland[51] to the Carinthian hills.[52] The intrusion of the Romanic tongue within the Austrian political line lacks homogeneity, however, for it is Italian proper in western Tyrol and Ladin in its western extension. But of the 400 odd miles of boundary between Austria and Italy a bare 60 will coincide with the linguistic divide between German and Italian. Moreover a number of enclaves of German speech exist within the area of Italian language spreading over Austrian territory. Some of these German settlements are found near Pergine and Fersina. Close to the Italian frontier, the town of Casotto in the Lavarone region is likewise peopled by German-speaking inhabitants.[53]
Fig. 23—The rearland of Nice as typified by this view of the Mediterranean Alps contains numerous bilingual settlements. The bridge in the photograph is the Pont du Loup.
Fig. 24—Nice with its pleasant approach and its Alpine background is built on the transition area between French and Italian language.
German is the vernacular of two small districts within Italian boundaries which adjoin the Swiss frontier and lie in the Alpine valleys of Piedmont. The most important of the two is situated south of Monte Rosa. It comprises the three adjacent valleys of Gressoney, Sesia and Macugnaga. The other is found in the Val Formazza or upper valley of the Toce. Both of these groups are extensions of the area of German speech which spreads over the eastern portion of the canton of Valais. This section of Switzerland was swamped between the ninth and sixteenth centuries by a flood of Teutonic invaders consisting mainly of Alemannic tribes[54] proceeding from the Bernese Oberland. All of the upper Valais, from Münster as far as Loeche and Zermatt, became Germanized during that period. The easterly spread of this movement led a number of German-speaking colonists to cross Gries Pass into the Formazza valley, while others went through the passes of Monte Moro and Monte Theodule to the upper valleys of Piedmont. According to historical documents the German settlers reached the shores of Lake Maggiore. But their language became lost in the midst of Italian speech and held its own only in the valleys already mentioned.
The Piedmontese group of German dialects occurs in small settlements distributed on the southern slopes of Monte Rosa. The most noteworthy localities of Teutonic speech are Gressoney, Saint Jean, Gressoney-La Trinité and Issime. Dialects belonging to the same group occur in the Alagna and Rima S. Giuseppe villages, in Valsesia as well as in the Agaro, Formazza, Macugnaga and Salecchio localities of the Ossola valley. Altogether these settlements contain about 5,000 German-speaking inhabitants. Occupation of the region by Germans dates from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries when emigration into upper Valais took place. The language once extended as far south as the Ornavasso. Its progress during the past half century has been insignificant.
Val Formazza comprises the entire upper valley of the Toce, north of Foppiano. The region is locally known as Val d’Antigorio in its southern stretch. To the north, from Domodossola onward, it acquires the name of Val d’Ossola. It has seven settlements scattered along the banks of the river and contains a population of about 800 inhabitants engaged chiefly in cattle-raising. La Chiesa is its most important village. The region is noted in the list of scenic spots of northern Italy on account of the Toce falls, which attract a large number of tourists. The dual character of its human institutions is reflected in the names of its villages, which are both Italian and German. Foppiano is also known as Unterwald; La Chiesa as Andermatten; San Michele as Pommat; Canza as Fruttwald. German names are gradually being dropped, however, concurrently with the steady replacement of the Teutonic language by Italian.
All these valleys are bridges which connect the areas of Italian and German. Travelers are struck by the transitional character of every human manifestation within their boundaries. As one proceeds northwards from the main Italian area, the type of stone habitation characteristic of Italian villages gives way to the wooden house of German villages. Examples of both styles are in evidence throughout the settlements of German speech on Italian soil. The native costume of the women also recalls the intermediary character of the region. Black skirts as well as high and tight waists, of the same color, are characteristic of the canton of Valais. The headdress—an ample foulard of black interspersed with green and red—worn close, is of unmistakable Italian origin. The style in which middle-aged native women comb their hair is also Italian. They part it into a number of small plaits held together by metallic combs after a fashion seen among elderly dames in Lombardy.
The eastern borderland of Italian language contains German-speaking inhabitants in the provinces of Verona, Vicenza, Belluno and Udine, who are living witnesses of the early German settlements founded as trading posts on the way to the Adriatic coast. Bavaria provided many of these emigrants in the beginning of the thirteenth century. The language spoken by their descendants is known locally as Cimbro. It has practically disappeared from the Veronese district, where its survival is traced in the forested areas of the “commune” of Progno through some 50 inhabitants. The inhabitants of the communes of Sappada and Sauris and of the Timau district in the Paluzza commune also employ German. It is estimated that 1,170 families, representing about 5,500 inhabitants, speak Teutonic dialects in these Venetian districts of Italy.
Fig. 25—The localities of German speech in the Sette Communi districts of Italy are underlined. The broken line indicates the Austro-Italian frontier.
South of the Dolomite Alps the tableland of the Sette Communi is also inhabited by German-speaking subjects of the king of Italy. Teutonic dialects have survived in seven villages scattered in the adjoining valleys of the Upper Astico and the middle Brenta. These communities formed the regency of the Sette Communi, which from 1259 to 1807 was an independent state. Rotzo, the westernmost and oldest, has a splendid location in the wooded area at the outlet of Val Martello. In Roana to the east over five hundred families still employ the German dialect as their vernacular. At Asiago, however, the German element has almost disappeared, although during the Middle Ages the town was an important center of Teutonism, as is testified by the historical collections deposited in its museums. Gallio is known in history as a trading center of local magnitude. Enego, the last settlement towards the east, was founded before its Teutonization, for it was a Roman colony. San Giacomo di Lusiana is the only settlement of German speech beyond the plateau borders. Its situation on the southern slope brought it within the sphere of Venetian influence to a degree never felt by its sister communities.
Past the Italian frontier, traveling towards Trent, every town and village of the valley of the Adige bears an Italian name and is peopled by Italians. Ala, Mori, Rovereto and Calliano are types of these Italian communities within Austrian territory. These small towns, scattered along the banks of the river which brought life to the region, are peopled mainly by farmers. The valley in which they are found has played an important part in Italian history. In ancient times barbarian invaders marched to the conquest of the peninsula through its conveniently situated gap. During three centuries the armor-clad troops sent by German emperors to crush revolts in Cisalpine cities crossed the Alps at the Brenner Pass and followed the channel of the Adige as it broadened towards the south. Down the same valley Austrian regiments poured into Lombardy in 1860, when the plainsmen gave signs of readiness to revolt from foreign rule. Modern changes have failed to detract from the importance of this ancient highway, for the shortest railroad route connecting Italy with central Germany is constructed along the natural groove carved by the southward flowing waters of the Adige, and the transit trade between the two countries follows its channel.
The most important Germanic invasion of the Trentino in historical times began in 375 A.D. and lasted two centuries. This movement was repeated in the last half of the tenth century. Under the rule of the bishop-prince Frederick of Vanga, a considerable number of German settlers established themselves on his territory between the years 1207 and 1218. The actual Germanization of the highlanders of the southern Tyrol had its start in this period, the records of the time showing changes from Italian to German in the names of localities as lands and estates were acquired by Germans. But throughout medieval times and to the end of the eighteenth century, historical records make mention of the Florentine character of its industrial and commercial life.
Fig. 26—View of the historic Brenner Puss. Through this mountain gap Teutonic invaders have poured into Italy since the dawn of history.
Fig. 27—The mountain settlement of Cortina in the Ampezzo district in the Trentino is inhabited mainly by Italians.
Fig. 28—The approach to Meran in the Austrian Tyrol and at the Italo-Germanic language border.
Fig. 29—Stelvio Pass at the eastern edge of the area of Romansh dialects, showing the mountainous character of the country in which this language has survived.
The southerly advance of the German language in the mountainous province has followed the valleys of the Etsch and Eisack, for the channels through which mountain waters flowed towards the Adriatic also facilitated the transportation of goods from the German highlands of central Europe to the Mediterranean. A steady current of freight has been maintained in a southerly course along this route since the beginning of continental commerce in Europe. In the Middle Ages numerous colonies of German traders had acquired solid footing along the much traveled road over the Brenner Pass which connected Augsburg and Venice.[55]
Fig. 30—Sketch map of the Trentino showing languages spoken. Scale, 1:2,400,000.
Early activity of German traders stamped its imprint on the linguistic map by a wedge of Teutonic speech thrust towards the Trentino, between Italian on the west and Ladin on the east. This linguistic protuberance occupies the valley of the Etsch south of its confluence with the Eisack. The divide between the two languages has its westernmost reach near Trafoi,[56] known also as Travis. The junction of Swiss and Austrian political boundaries at this point corresponds to the contact between the German of the Tyrol and the Romanic idioms of Engadine. Thence, the linguistic line of separation skirts the base of the Ortler massif and subsequently coincides with the watershed of the Etsch and Noce rivers. Ladin settlements begin north of the Fleims valley[57] and spread beyond the Gradena basin (Grödenthal) to Pontebba (Pontafel) and Malborghet where the meeting of Europe’s three most important linguistic stocks, the Romanic, Germanic and Slavic, occurs.
The language spoken by the Italians of the Trentino consists of Lombard and Venetian dialects. Ladin dialects are spoken in some of the small valleys east of the Adige. In the valley of Monastero, near the Swiss frontier, the inhabitants speak a dialect of Ladin or Romansh which is akin to Friulian. This patois was in greater use during the Middle Ages. The Ladins, both in Austria and Italy, are Italians in every respect save that of language, although here also the two peoples are closely related. Ladin language is a slightly altered form of Latin containing words of non-Romanic stock which differ according to the locality overrun by the Romans. The same definition applies to the Romansh language of Switzerland. Romansh and Ladin are therefore basically Latin languages which did not develop to the stage of Italian or French and which differ from each other in the number of pre-Roman words they contain. Friulian belongs to the same category of Romance languages and differs from Ladin merely in having a larger proportion of Italian words. Like Ladin it is not a literary language and is therefore being superseded by Italian. Romansh dialects of Switzerland will probably survive longer since in the canton of Grisons they are recognized as official together with German and Italian, and in Engadine Romansh is still a literary dialect.
The claims of Italy in the Trentino include[58] the Bolzano district lying at the confluence of the Isarco and the Adige. This locality is peopled by 16,000 Germans and 4,000 Italians. Meran, the upper valleys Of the Adige and Isarco together with their affluents, Bressanone on the Isarco, and Bruneco on the Rienza likewise fall within the territory claimed by Italy. A return to the Italian fold of the small groups of Italians scattered between Salorno and Bolzano, between Bolzano and Meran and between Bruneco and Bressanone is shown in this manner to lie within the realm of possibility. As early as 774 Charlemagne’s division of the region between the kingdoms of Bavaria and Italy had implied recognition of linguistic variations. But the importance of maintaining German control over natural lines of access to southern seas determined his successors to award temporal rights in the southeastern Alps to bishops upon whose adherence to Germanic interests reliance could be placed. The bishopric of Trentino thus passed under the Teutonic sphere of influence. The present political union of the territory of the old see with the Austrian Empire is hence a relic of medieval German politics.
Historically the Trentino’s connection with Italy rests on ancient foundations. At the height of Roman power Tridentium was an important city. It was situated in the tenth Italian region, known as Venetia et Histria. After the fall of the western Empire it was included in the Italian districts conquered by the Ostrogoths and Byzantines. Under the Lombards Trent became the capital of a dukedom. In the Romano-Germanic feudal period it was part of the kingdom of Italy constituted by Charles the Great, and later, of the Marches of Verona established by Otto I. Conrad II in 1027 turned the region over to religious ownership. From this date on it is known as the princely bishopric of Trent. The bishop-princes who ruled in the Trentino, however, were constantly at war with the feudal lords who had authority over the lands north and south of the Trentino. In the sixteenth century the court of Bernardo Clesio, one of the most famous of these religious rulers, was distinctly Italian in thought and customs.
The Trentino bishopric was abolished in 1805 by Napoleon and the region then became part of the kingdom of Bavaria. From 1809 to 1814, however, the Trentino, together with a part of the upper Adige valley, was converted into an Italian administrative district under the name of Dipartimento dell’ Alto Adige. In 1815 the region was assigned to Austria together with Lombardo-Venetia and the Tyrol.
Throughout the eventful history of the present millennium the Tyrol has been the cockpit of Germano-Romance clashes. A lively competition between German and Italian traders has always been maintained within its borders. During the era of religious upheavals, the Germans rallied to the cause of the Reformation while the Italian element remained faithful to the authority of the Vatican. Contact with the Teutonic element appears to have failed, however, to eradicate or modify the Italian character of the region’s life and institutions.[59]
The splendor of the Italian Renaissance stamped its mark on all the Tyrolese districts drained by waters flowing southwards. Castles and churches of the Trentino show the influence of Italian architectural styles. Their interior ornamentation derived its inspiration from the same source. In painting, the Bressanone and Bolzano schools of the fifteenth century likewise maintained Italian traditions in the valley of the upper Adige. Statues and bas-reliefs in the towns of this region also bear witness to the Italian taste of its inhabitants.
All these artistic leanings towards Italy are best observed in Trent itself. The celebrated castle of the “Buen Consiglio” is a blend of Venetian and Veronese styles. Bramante was the architect of the Tabarelli palace, and a disciple of Tullio Lombardo built that of Moar. The Duomo di Trento owes its beauty mainly to the artistic conceptions of the Comacini masters. Some of its frescoes dating from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are the handicraft of Veronese artists. This Italian influence has been maintained to the present day. A tourist reaching the city will behold Dante’s symbolic statue—the work of Zocchi, a Florentine—immediately upon leaving the main station.[60] Roaming through the city his attention will be attracted by innumerable reminders of modern Italian work of the type seen in the façade of St. Peter’s church. These are concrete manifestations of an intellectual and artistic outflow from the Italian border northward.
Reports on the German propaganda carried on in the Trentino have been made on several occasions to their governments by Italian consular agents.[61] This movement is prosecuted with untiring perseverance by the members of the Tiroler Volksbund, an organization founded in 1905, for the purpose of diffusing German language and customs in southern Tyrol. Schools and other institutions managed by German staffs provide Teutonic education free of cost to the natives. Periodicals and pamphlets are distributed profusely to this end. Lectures setting forth the Germanic origins of Trentino settlements are delivered. A more aggressive method of action consists in sending out “Wanderlehrers” or traveling teachers to give elementary courses from village to village.
Descendants of Rheto-Romans settled in eastern Tyrol speak a language of Latin stock which, in common with other mountain languages, failed to blossom into literature mainly on account of the secluded life of its highland users. The dialect is closely allied to the Friulian. The two form together the western border of the Slovene linguistic area and attain Triest on the south. Lack of written masterpieces tends to weaken the life of the language and it is being replaced by Italian. Concurrently with the growth of the region’s foreign intercourse in modern times invasion of German words can also be detected, though not to the extent of impairing the fundamental Romanic strain.
The Adriatic provinces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire are peopled mainly by Italians and Slavs. German and Hungarian elements in the population consist of civil and military officials and of merchants. From an ethnological and linguistic standpoint the maritime district is Italian or Slav according to its elevation. The Romanic stock forms the piedmont populations while the dwellers of the hilly coast chains are of Slavic issue and speech. The western coast of the Istrian peninsula, however, is an area of Italian speech, which is generally confined to urban centers.
The following figures for the population of the Dalmatian islands show the numerical inferiority of the Italians:[62]
| Population according to census of 1910 | Inhabitants speaking Serbo-Croatian dialects | ||||
| Inhabitants speaking Italian | |||||
| Locality | |||||
| Number | Per cent | Number | Per cent | ||
| Lissa, St. Andrea and Busi | 10,041 | 9,939 | 98.98 | 92 | 0.92 |
| Lesina, Spalmadori and Torcola | 16,861 | 16,340 | 96.91 | 494 | 2.92 |
| Curzola, Cazza, Lagosta and adjoining reefs | 21,628 | 21,186 | 97.95 | 436 | 2.01 |
| Stagno district, including Meleda island[63] | 9,424 | 9,393 | 99.67 | 9 | 0.1 |
Zara, Spalato, Sebenico, Ragusa and Cattaro,[64] however, contain flourishing colonies of Italians whose commercial enterprise has helped their mother tongue to prevail if not predominate in their region. Outside of these cities, the Italian element, wherever present, is restricted to littoral strips. The Slavs invariably occupy the plateau and the slopes extending seaward.
The Istrian region of predominant Italian speech consists of the western peninsular lowland extending south of Triest[65] to the tip of the promontory beyond Pola.[66] Istrians to whom Italian is vernacular number 147,420 individuals according to the census of 1910. The Slavs of the Karst and terraced sections constituting the rest of the population belong to the Roman faith, but have no other common bond with their Italian countrymen.
Istria is a triangle about 60 miles long with a maximum breadth of 46 miles. It rises from the southwestern coast gradually up to the Dinaric Alps. Owing to its undulating surface and the absence of coastal plains, it may be regarded as a part of this range, jutting out into the sea. On the whole, Istria may be called a Karst land, for three-fourths of its surface consists of Karst-forming limestone and only one-fourth of sandstone and marl. With few exceptions its natural waterways are confined to the sandstone districts. The peninsula is also a transition region between the mild Mediterranean and central European climates. The summers are dry and in autumn heavy rains fall. Almost all the land is productive and 67 per cent of its population live by agriculture and forestry.
Settlement by Slavs of the hills dominating the Adriatic appears to have taken place continuously from the ninth to the seventeenth century. Feudatory chiefs of medieval ages first resorted to this method of developing the uncultivated slopes and highlands of the eastern coast. The Venetian republic and the Austrian government adopted similar measures of colonization. Slavic tribes, hard pressed by their kinsmen or by Tatars from the east, thus found refuge in the mountainous Dalmatian coastland under the ægis of western nations. A traveler taking ship today and sailing from harbor to harbor along the shores of the eastern Adriatic would readily notice the numerical superiority of these descendants of Slavs. They constitute the mass of toilers in every walk of life, and sooner or later probably will erect a political fabric on the foundations of their linguistic preponderance.
Slavic dialects are found in the Friulian sections of eastern Italy as well as in the Abruzzi and Molise regions. The Slavic population of Friuli was estimated in 1851 at 26,676. The census of 1901 records the existence of 5,734 Slavic-speaking families scattered in 16 communi and consisting of about 36,000 individuals.
The Slavs of Italy may be divided into four dialectical groups as follows:[67]
| Natisone group composed of | 17,291 | individuals |
| Torre “ “ “ | 12,986 | “ |
| Judrio “ “ “ | 1,230 | “ |
| Resia “ “ “ | 4,671 | “ |
The Molise group is the remnant of a once extensive Slav colony which had reached the province of Chieti. Round-headedness, accompanied by high stature and blondness, among inhabitants of the communes of Vasto, Cupello, Monteoderisio, Abbateggio, Lanciano, San Giovanni Teatino, Cascanditella and San Vito Chietino betrays Slavic ancestry. And yet Slavic dialects are hardly heard any longer in these country districts. The communes of Acquaviva Collecroce and San Felice Slavo alone boast of some 4,500 inhabitants who speak Slovene.
The Karst or Carso formation on which Slovene life developed is the western section of a long calcareous plateau which extends from the Julian Alps, along the border of the ancient Friulian gulf and attains Balkan ranges. It separates the valley of the Save from the Adriatic. A characteristic aspect is noticeable over all its extent in the thickness of its limestone beds and their deep fissures. Surface water cannot collect and flow for any distance without disappearing into a fissure. The erosion forms of the plateau are of the Karst type and differ radically from those of the average humid climate. Chambers of marvelous dimensions are formed; funnel-shaped sink-holes dot the surface; and the rivers run underground.
The Slovenes settled on the calcareous plateau of Carniola cluster around Laibach and attain the area of German speech on the north, along the Drave between Marburg and Klagenfurth. Eastward they march with Hungarians and the Serbo-Croat group of southern Slavs. Their southern linguistic boundary also coincides with that of the latter. Around Gottschee, however, a zone of German intervenes between Slovene and Croatian dialects. Practically the entire eastern coast of the Gulf of Triest lies in the area of Slovene speech. The group thereby acquires the advantage of direct access to the sea, a fact of no mean importance among the causes that contributed to its survival to the present day in spite of its being surrounded by Germans, Hungarians, Croats and Italians.
The Slovenes may be considered as laggards among the Slavic immigrants who followed Avar invasions. They would probably have occupied the fertile plains of Hungary had they not been driven to their elevated home by the pressure of Magyar and Turkish advances. Confinement in the upland prevented their fusion with any of the successive occupants of the eastern plains below their mountain habitations. Racial distinctiveness, characterized by language no less than by a highly developed attachment to tradition, resulted from this seclusion.
Starting from the Adriatic Sea in the vicinity of Triest the boundary of Slovene territory, according to Niederle, extends to Duino, Montefalcone, Gradisca and Cormons. From the last locality it heads for Italian territory, within which it cuts off the districts east of Tarcento and Resia from the area of Italian speech. At Kanin the line is once more on Austrian soil. It now proceeds to Pontafel, Saint-Hermagoras, Dobrac and Villach, the latter city being mainly German. Beyond the Drave, the linguistic frontier passes close to Woerther Lake and thence by Kostenberg and Moosburg. From this town the divide is prolonged to Gurk and extends towards Diex, Greutschach, Griffen and St. Pancrace. It next attains Arnfels. Fifty years ago, according to the same authority, the environs of this village were inhabited by Slovene populations. The district has since then been reclaimed by German speech. The same is true of the right bank of the Mur in the vicinity of Radkersburg.
At Radgona, the Slovene boundary crosses the Mur once more and extends northward into Hungary as far as the German village of St. Gotthard, which it leaves to the north. Thence it turns southward at the Raab and heads for the Mur, which it crosses at Gornia Bistrica. The line then runs close to the provincial boundaries of Croatia and Carniola before attaining the sea again in Istria. The Slovene area thus delimited comprises the duchy of Carniola, excepting the Gottschee enclave, northern Istria, the Udine region, southeastern Karinthia, southern Styria and part of the Hungarian “comitats” of Vas and Zala. This Slovene land is now but a dwindled remnant of its former extension. At one time the Slovenes extended as far west as the Pusterthal in Tyrol, while their settlements even reached the Danube (at Linz and Vienna).
Contact between languages on the Italo-Austrian frontier has influenced the political relations between the two countries. The whole foreign policy of the Austrian Empire, in fact, may be said to have been stimulated mainly by the necessity of keeping its mixed population in subjection. The central position of Austria-Hungary had made it the meeting-place of every important race in Europe. The mountain-girt monarchy is a seething reservoir of nationalities. Germans from the west flow into it. Czechs and Slovaks press in from the northwest, Poles and Ruthenians from the north and northeast. A Rumanian drive proceeds from the southeast. Croats, Serbians and Slovenes are steadily pushing northward. Italians, advancing from the southwest, complete the ring. Facing these racial swarms a central mass of Hungarians are striving to expand against them.
Fig. 31—The area of Slovene speech in Austria and adjacent parts of Italy.
For more than twelve centuries Austria’s geographical position has made her the protectress of Europe from successive onslaughts of barbarian hordes pressing from the east. The German-speaking nucleus of the present Dual Monarchy was founded, at the end of the eighth century, by Charles the Great as a bulwark against the Avars. A little later the rôle of stemming the tide of Hungarian attacks also devolved upon it. Fighting incessantly and on the whole successfully against eastern invaders, the Austrians gradually extended their territory towards the Orient. The valley of the Danube provided them with settling-land and passage-way. War and marriages brought their share of added territory to the Hapsburg reigning family. By 1526 Moravia, Bohemia, Silesia and Hungary had been added to the Empire. Transylvania was conquered in the seventeenth century, Galicia and Bukovina in the eighteenth. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Austria was the leader among German-speaking states. Prussian shot and shell ousted her from this position at the battle of Sadowa in 1866. But the task undertaken over a thousand years ago is still being performed. Austrians today are engaged in another effort to check the westward Slavic flow.
The country is ill-prepared to meet its hereditary foe. The sovereign existence of Austria-Hungary to this day can be regarded only as an exceedingly marvelous feat of political jugglery. Its weakness lies in the presence of strong contingents of dissimilar races in its population. Struggle between the component masses is as unending as it is passionate. To the lack of linguistic or racial affinity must be added the want of a liberal form of government in the strictly representative or federative sense. Representative government, in the absence of everything else, might have provided the required bond of political cohesion. Of the total population of Austria only 11,000,000, or 24 per cent, are Germans. These Teutons pay allegiance to the Hapsburg emperor along with 9,000,000 Hungarians, 3,000,000 Rumanians and about 1,000,000 Italians. The Slavic race, however, outnumbers every other element in the Empire. Its 21,000,000 members constitute 44 per cent of the subjects of Charles I.
The American Geographical Society of New York
Frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe, 1917, Pl. III
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AUSTRIA–HUNGARY AND PARTS OF SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE SHOWING LANGUAGES
In one sense Austria’s mission of protecting Europe ended as soon as the Ottoman Empire ceased to be a source of danger. To consolidate Danubian nationalities in a single group capable of withstanding the Turkish advance had constituted Austria’s most glorious part in modern history. With the elimination of the Turkish danger, the necessity of political union among the peoples occupying the valley of the Danube was removed. The chief reason for the maintenance of an Austrian state thereby ceases to exist. Events of our own times reveal the natural working out of these international problems. As long as Mohammedanism threatened to absorb Christianity in southeastern Europe, the various peoples of the Austrian Empire stood shoulder to shoulder against a common foe. The sense of security now induces them to turn their thoughts on themselves and effectively hasten the growth of national consciousness based on ideals and aspirations which can be expressed in a common language.
The passing of Austria’s usefulness as a nation has been marked by the country’s growing vassalage to the leading Teutonic power. At Berlin, the center of Imperial Germany, the aim of every leader is to further the easterly expansion of the Empire. Austria, commanding the natural route to the southeast, figures as a precious asset in these imperial estimates. But success to German ambition spells defeat to the dreams of political independence cherished in the minds of the peoples of Austria-Hungary. A conflict of vital importance to each contestant is raging. The struggle is likely to be maintained wherever more than a single language continues to be spoken.
The mastery of the Adriatic, claimed by Italy at present, has been contested in the past twenty-five centuries by every people which succeeded in gaining a foothold on its shores. Illyrians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Venetians and Turks each in their day acquired maritime supremacy in the Mediterranean, and naturally aspired to control this waterway. The prize was worth fighting for. It was part of the lane of traffic between the rich valley of the Po, the lands beyond the Alps and eastern countries. In the present century eastern trade generally runs in different channels. A sufficient tonnage, however, finds its way to the great harbors of the Adriatic to excite Italian ambitions. Moreover Italian manufacturers are looking forward to the establishment of crosswise trade relations with the Balkan peninsula. These are economic considerations which impart definite aim to the policy of Italian statesmen.
The most satisfactory picture of Italian desire to annex Dalmatia appears on maps of the Adriatic, which show the contrast between the opposite coasts. On the Italian side, the coastline runs with monotonous uniformity. It is devoid of the headlands, gulfs or islands which impart economic, strategic and scenic value to Dalmatia. Barring short stretches in Puglia the entire Italian coast is shallow and sandy. Its well-known ports hardly deserve the name. Mariners are well aware of the obstacles to navigation along the whole western Adriatic shore. At the head of this sea, especially, the situation for Italian shipping is most unfavorable, owing to the large number of rivers which discharge material collected from practically the entire eastern watershed of the Alps and that of the northern Apennines. From west to east some among the most important of these rivers are the Po, Adige, Piave and Isonzo. This piling of material, added to the process of land emergence going on at the head of the Adriatic, impairs the value of the Gulf of Venice to modern navigation.
The Dalmatian coast, however, with its numerous bays and gulfs setting far into the land and broken by many headlands, is fringed by a garland of outlying islands. These natural features of the region provide the advantages denied to Italy. Almost every mile of shore in Dalmatia contains a commodious harbor for merchantmen or a well-sheltered base for war vessels. Most of the rivers originating in the mountain chains overlooking blue water flow eastward toward the Danube. Very little silt and sediment therefore finds its way to the Dalmatian coast.
Linguistically, the eastern shore of the Adriatic is Serbian or Albanian. But the history of this coastal land is Italian in spite of the showing of census returns as to the decided numerical inferiority of Italians within its limits. Rome had reached Dalmatia and the Near East by way of the Adriatic. A whole chain of imposing ruins extending to the wild Albanian shores bear the unmistakable impress of Roman splendor. In the partition of the Roman Empire in 295 A.D. Dalmatia was assigned to the western and not to the eastern half. The period of its subjection to Venetian rule is one of the most brilliant in its history. All the civilization it received came from the west.
The fact is that the Italian element has always been predominant. After 1866 its influence was viewed with disfavor by the Austrian government. Serbians and Croats were encouraged to settle in the Italian communities of the coast and officials of the Dual Monarchy were instructed to assist the Slavs in every possible manner with a view to counterbalancing Italian primacy in the province. In recent years the task of the Austrian government became doubly difficult, for its representatives could not avoid playing alternately into the hands of Serbians and Italians.
Dalmatia has always greeted Italian thought as the heritage of Rome and Venice. Its history, its most notable monuments and its whole culture are products of either Roman or Venetian influence. The maritime cities in particular still remain strongholds of Italian thought. Almost every one boasts of a native son who has distinguished himself in the cause of Italy.
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Fig. 32—Map of the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic. Scale, 1:4,000,000. (Ancient names in hair-line type.)
Zara, which Italian authors delight in qualifying as “italianissima,” is the native city of the Italian patriot Arturo Colantti. The great Dalmatian poet Niccoló Tomasseo, whose monument was erected in Sebenico in 1896, was a son of this city and, although an intensely patriotic Slav, nevertheless thus expressed himself in Italian:
Nè più tra’l monte e il mar, povero lembo
Di terra e poche ignude isole sparte,
O Patria mia, sarai; ma la rinata
Serbia guerriera mano e mite spirto,
showing thereby the extent of the hold of Italian culture over the land. Again, Spalato is the birthplace of Antonio Bajamonti, one of the greatest exponents of Italy’s claims over Dalmatia.
According to the Austrian census of 1910 the population of the province consisted of 645,666 inhabitants. Of these it is estimated that 60,000 are Italians, who constitute the progressive and educated element of the population. The Slav inhabitants number approximately 480,000, but only about 30,000 among them have a speaking knowledge of Italian. The mass of this Slavic element is uneducated.
The Illyrians were early inhabitants of the eastern Adriatic coast whom the Romans had conquered in order to check piracy in the Adriatic. After being tamed these barbarians formed the substratum of the population of Adriatic cities. Throughout the coast their language was displaced during the Middle Ages by the Venetian of Italian traders. In the Albanian mountains, however, the old Illyrian tongue strongly impregnated with Latin words still survives. Roman influence could not be exerted on this rugged land as strongly as on the coast.
Rome’s ancient domination of the Illyrian coast and Wallachian plains led to highly interesting consequences. A genuine Romance language was once spoken by the mountain population of shepherds which extended across the entire Balkan peninsula from the Dalmatian coast, through the Bosnian and Serbian highlands, into the easternmost ranges of the Carpathians. The similarity observable in Balkan and Carpathian mountain dialects thus finds its source in the original easterly expansion of Rome. The Banat territory, in which the proportion of Rumanian inhabitants is high, is the bridge land which connects the Rumanian form of Latin used on the broad Transylvanian shelf to the Albanian prevailing in the broken-up highlands of Albania. Romance speech therefore found a ready soil in the Balkan uplifts. It may even be detected in the mountainous sections of Thrace, a province which also fell under Roman rule during the transition period from pagan to Christian days.
The arrival of Slavs in the seventh century forced the Romans to take refuge behind city walls, so that although the vast non-urban part of the province became Slavic in population, the cities remained Latin and formed themselves into a number of independent republics. These city states passed under Venetian protection in the ninth and tenth centuries to safeguard themselves against the piratical raids of Slavs who had succumbed to the nefarious influence exerted by the dissected coast with its numerous fiords and deep-water harbors.
The Venetian protectorate soon became converted into direct sovereignty. But the yoke of the Doges lay light on the land, the administration of cities being left entirely in the hands of the citizens. Venetian authority was most strongly felt in Dalmatia after the assumption of the title of Dux Histriae et Dalmatiae by Doge Pietro Orseolo II. All the efforts of Hungarians in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and of Turks in the seventeenth, to insinuate themselves into Dalmatian affairs were futile. The imposing barrier of the Dinaric Alps forbade intercourse between Dalmatia and the east. Life and progress flowed into the province from the west over Adriatic waters.
Dalmatia changed hands frequently during the Napoleonic period. Perhaps it is on this account that the Dalmatian, when questioned regarding his nationality, answers by stating that he has two languages. Of these he calls one “lingua del cuore,” and the other “lingua del pane.” His native province was awarded to Austria by the treaty of Campoformio in 1797 and subsequently annexed to Napoleon’s Empire by the treaty of Presburg in 1805. It reverted to Austrian rule in 1814. Successive masters, however, failed to root out Italian in the region. The language was recognized as official until 1860. The formation of a united Italian state marked the beginning of a repressive policy directed against Italians by the Austrian government. The effort of the Hapsburg administration was entirely directed towards the development of the Adriatic Slavs in order to counterbalance Italian influence. A great revival of Croatian and Serbian national feeling resulted from this policy.
The award of the entire eastern Adriatic coast to Italy would not only trespass on lands of alien speech, but would seriously hamper future economic development of Croatians and Serbians by preventing these peoples from attaining the sea. These points are admitted by most Italian irredentists. They therefore limit their claims to the Istrian peninsula and the coast region of Dalmatia comprised between the Velebiti range and the Narenta river. Italy’s position in the Adriatic would be improved by the recognition of the rights of her Slav neighbors. The goodwill of a united and liberated Jugoslavia, which would be bound to Italy by ties of interest and sentiment, would thus be acquired.
The Croatian coastland, in the section which extends along the waterway of the same name from the gulf of Fiume to the mouth of the Zermagna river, is known as the Morlacca. The bay of Buccari is strategically necessary for the protection of Fiume, and Italians would probably make a strong claim for its possession in case the larger seaport came into their possession. The Serbian coastland really begins south of the Narenta river and centers around Ragusa. This is the only city of any importance on the Adriatic coast in which evidences of Serbian culture are discernible.
The old Slavic settlers were probably traders who plied between the coasts of Dalmatia and Abruzzi during the Middle Ages. In the kingdom of Naples Slav colonists are known as early as the eleventh century, during the reign of Emperor Otto I. The bulk of Slavic immigration into Italy dates, however, from the beginning of the fifteenth century when possession of the coast provinces was disputed by the Aragonians and Angevins. Both claimants induced Slavs to colonize the contested regions on condition that they would recognize the authority of those who provided them with land. At a later period the advance of Turkish hordes in the Balkans drove a large number of Slavic families westward.
Fig. 33—The Slavic colonies of the Molise group in eastern Italy are shown by black dots.
The Turkish conquest of Greece also forced many Greek families to seek safety on the Italian mainland. As a result, two communities of Greek speech are found on Italian territory at Lecce in the province of Puglia and at Bora in Calabria. The vernacular of both these regions contains a strong proportion of Italian words without, however, losing its affinity with the original mother tongue. The Lecce community consists of 4,973 families scattered in nine communi. The southern group is represented by 2,389 families settled in four communi of the Bora district, in Reggio di Calabria and in Palizzi. Altogether Greek is spoken as a vernacular by 30,700 inhabitants of Italy.
Still another reminder of the Turkish conquests of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is afforded by the presence of an Albanian element living along the eastern coast of Italy. This group consists of between 80,000 and 90,000 Albanians speaking their own language. The purity of Albanian speech and custom has been preserved by them on the alien soil skirting western Adriatic waters.[68]
This total shows a marked decrease from the figure of 96,000 reported in the census of 1901. Emigration accounts mainly for this loss. At the same time, a tendency among Albanians to forsake their vernacular for Italian is discernible as intercourse with the dominant element increases.
All these nuclei of foreign languages cannot impair the unity of Italian nationality because the racial distinctions on which they are based have been largely obliterated. The final supremacy of Italian language is already in sight. From the valleys of Piedmont to the eastern coastlands which face Albania, the alien tongues are giving way before the national vernacular, perhaps just because no pressure or effort to hasten their disappearance is being exerted by the government.
TABLE I
Inhabitants of Italy Speaking Non-Italian Vernaculars[69]
| Language | Localities | Number of Families[70] (Average of four persons to the family) | |
| French | Saluzzo (Cuneo) | 238 | |
| Aosta (Torino) | 15,692 | ||
| Pignerol | 1,937 | ||
| Suse | 1,779 | ||
| German | Aosta (Torino) | 430 | |
| Domodossola (Novara) | 250 | ||
| Varallo | 412 | ||
| Asiago (Vicenza) | 501 | ||
| Tregnago (Verona) | 30 | ||
| Pieve di Cadore (Belluno) | 299 | ||
| Tolmezzo (Udine) | 280 | ||
| Slovene | Cividale del Friuli (Udine) | 3,769 | |
| Gemona | 120 | ||
| Tolmezzo | 990 | ||
| Tarcento | 1,371 | ||
| Serbian | Larino (Campobasso) | 1,069 | |
| Albanian | Larino (Campobasso) | 2,431 | |
| Penne (Teramo) | 66 | ||
| Ariano di Puglia (Avel.) | 763 | ||
| San Severo (Foggia) | 832 | ||
| Taranto (Lecce) | 757 | ||
| Lagonegro (Potenza) | 2,319 | ||
| Catanzaro | 701 | ||
| Cotrone (Catanzaro) | 789 | ||
| Nicastro | 434 | ||
| Castrovillari (Cosenza) | 3,330 | ||
| Cosenza | 1,441 | ||
| Paola (Cosenza) | 408 | ||
| Rossano | 1,702 | ||
| Corleone (Palermo) | 385 | ||
| Palermo | 2,733 | ||
| Greek | Lecce | 4,935 | |
| Gerace (Reggio di Calab.) | 129 | ||
| Reggio di Calabria | 1,841 | ||
| Catalonian | Alghero (Sassari) | 2,552 | |
| ——— | |||
| Total | 57,715 | ||
The proportion of inhabitants of Italian (including Ladin) speech in the Adriatic lands claimed by Italy is given as follows according to the Austrian Census of 1910:[71]
TABLE II
Proportion of Inhabitants of Italian (Including Ladin) Speech in the Adriatic Lands Claimed by Italy According to the Austrian Census of 1910:
| Number of Italian | |||
| Coast | Total number of | (and Ladin) speaking | |
| Provinces | Austrian subjects | Austrian subjects | |
| Triest (city) | 190,913 | 118,959 | |
| Görz “ | 29,291 | 14,812 | |
| Görz | (district) | 73,275 | 2,765 |
| Gradisca | “ | 31,321 | 26,263 |
| Monfalcone | “ | 47,858 | 45,907 |
| Sesana | “ | 30,078 | 343 |
| Tolmein | “ | 38,070 | 29 |
| Rovigno (city) | 11,308 | 10,859 | |
| Capodistria | (district) | 87,652 | 38,006 |
| Lussin | “ | 20,450 | 9,884 |
| Mitterburg | “ | 48,243 | 4,032 |
| Parenzo | “ | 60,368 | 41,276 |
| Pola | “ | 85,943 | 40,863 |
| Veglia | “ | 21,136 | 1,544 |
| Volosca | “ | 51,363 | 953 |
| Number of Italian | |||
| Total number of | (and Ladin) speaking | ||
| Dalmatia | Austrian subjects | Austrian subjects | |
| Benkovac | (district) | 44,054 | 84 |
| Cattaro | “ | 36,014 | 538 |
| Curzola | “ | 29,695 | 444 |
| Imotski | “ | 42,086 | 46 |
| Knin | “ | 54,936 | 186 |
| Lesina | “ | 26,902 | 586 |
| Makarska | “ | 27,649 | 117 |
| Metkovic | “ | 15,475 | 32 |
| Ragusa | “ | 38,632 | 526 |
| San Pietro (Brazza) | “ | 22,865 | 265 |
| Sebenico | “ | 57,658 | 968 |
| Sinj | “ | 57,021 | 111 |
| Spalato | “ | 98,509 | 2,357 |
| Zara | “ | 83,359 | 11,768 |