Corsican language

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Corsu, Lingua corsa
Pronunciation [ˈkorsu] or [ˈkɔrt͡su]
Native to France
Region Corsica
Northern Sardinia
Native speakers
ca. 200,000 (1993–2009)[1]
Latin script (Corsican alphabet)
Official status
Recognised minority
language in
Regulated by No official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1 co
ISO 639-2 cos
ISO 639-3 Variously:
cos – Corsican proper
sdn – Gallurese
sdc – Sassarese
Glottolog cors1242  (Corsican/Gallurese)[3]
sass1235  (Sassarese)[4]
Linguasphere 51-AAA-p
Idioma corso.png
Dialetti corsi.png
Corsican dialects

Corsican (corsu or lingua corsa) is a Romance language within the Italo-Dalmatian subfamily and is closely related to the Italian language. It is spoken and written on the islands of Corsica (France) and northern Sardinia (Italy). Corsican was long the vernacular alongside Italian, the official language in Corsica until 1859; afterwards Italian was replaced by French, owing to the acquisition of the island by France from the Republic of Genoa in 1768. Over the next two centuries, the use of French grew to the extent that, by the Liberation in 1945, all islanders had a working knowledge of French. The 20th century saw a wholesale language shift, with islanders changing their language practices to the extent that there were no monolingual Corsican speakers left by the 1960s. By 1995, an estimated 65 percent of islanders had some degree of proficiency in Corsican,[5] and a small minority, perhaps 10 percent, used Corsican as a first language.[6]

Classification by subjective analysis[edit]

One of the main sources of confusion in popular classifications is the difference between a dialect and a language. Typically it is not possible to ascertain what an author means by these terms. For example, one might read that Corsican is a "central southern Italian dialect" along with Standard Italian, Neapolitan and others[7] or that it is "closely related to the Tuscan dialect of Italian".[8]

One of the characteristics of Italian is the retention of the -re infinitive ending as in Latin mittere, "send", which is lost in Corsican, which has mette/metta, "to put." The Latin relative pronoun, "who," "qui," "quae," and "what," "quod," are inflected in Latin while the relative pronoun in Italian for "who" is "chi" and "what" is "che" and "(che) cosa", and in Corsican, it is uninflected chì.


The Corsican language has been influenced by the languages of the major powers taking an interest in Corsican affairs; earlier by those of the medieval Italian powers: Tuscany (828–1077), Pisa (1077–1282) and Genoa (1282–1768), more recently by France (1768–present), which, since 1789, has promulgated the official Parisian French. The term gallicised Corsican refers to Corsican up to about the year 1950. The term distanciated Corsican refers to an idealized Corsican from which various agents have removed French or other elements.[9]

In 40 AD, the natives of Corsica did not speak Latin. The Roman exile, Seneca the Younger, reports that both coast and interior were occupied by natives whose language he did not understand (see the Ligurian hypothesis). Whatever language was spoken is still visible in the toponymy or in some words, for instance in the Gallurese dialect spoken in Sardinia zerru 'pig'. A similar situation is valid for Sardinian and Sicilian. The occupation of the island by the Vandals around the year 469 marked the end of authoritative influence by Latin speakers (see Medieval Corsica). If the natives of that time spoke Latin, they must have acquired it during the late empire.



The two most widely spoken forms of the Corsican language are Supranacciu or Cismonticu, spoken in the Bastia and Corte area (generally throughout the northern half of the island, known as Haute-Corse or Corsica suprana), and Suttanacciu or Pumonticu, spoken around Sartène and Porto-Vecchio (generally throughout the southern half of the island, known as Corse-du-Sud or Corsica suttana). The dialect of Ajaccio has been described as in transition. The dialects spoken at Calvi and Bonifacio are closer to the Genoese dialect, also known as Ligurian.

This division along the Girolata-Porto Vecchio line was due to the massive immigration from Tuscany which took place in Corsica during the lower Middle Ages: as a result, the northern Corsican dialects became very close to a central Italian lect like Tuscan, while the southern Corsican varieties could keep the original characteristics of the language which make it much more similar to Sicilian and, to some extent, Sardinian.

Languages in northern Sardinia




On October 14, 1997, Article 2 Item 4 of Law Number 26 of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia granted "al dialetto sassarese e a quello gallurese" – equal legal status with the other languages on Sardinia. They are thus legally defined as different languages from Sardinian by the Sardinian government.[10]

Number of speakers[edit]


The use of Corsican language over French language has been declining. In 1980 about 70 percent of the population of the island "had some command of the Corsican language."[11] In 1990 out of a total population of about 254,000 the percentage had declined to 50 percent, with only 10 percent using it as a first language.[6] (These figures do not count varieties of Corsican spoken in Sardinia.) The language appeared to be in serious decline when the French government reversed its unsupportive stand and initiated some strong measures to save it.

According to an official survey run on behalf of the Collectivité territoriale de Corse which took place in April 2013, in Corsica the Corsican language has a number of speakers situated between 86,800 and 130,200, out of a total population amounting to 309,693 inhabitants.[12] The percentage of those who have a solid knowledge of the language varies between a minimum of 25 percent in the 25-34 age group and the maximum of 65 percent in the over-65 age group: almost a quarter of the former age group does not understand Corsican, while only a small minority of the older people do not understand it.[12] While 32 percent of the population of northern Corsica speaks Corsican quite well, this percentage drops to 22 percent for South Corsica.[12] Moreover, 10 percent of the population of Corsica speaks only French, while 62 percent speak both French and Corsican.[12] However, only 8 percent of the Corsicans know how to write correctly in Corsican, while about 60 percent of the population does not know how to write in Corsican.[12] While 90 percent of the population is in favor of a Corsican-French bilingualism, 3 percent would like to have Corsican as the only official language in the island, and 7 percent would prefer French in this role.[12]

UNESCO classifies Corsican as a "definitely endangered language."[13] The Corsican language is a key vehicle for Corsican culture, which is notably rich in proverbs and in polyphonic song.

Governmental support[edit]

Bilingual road-signs, with official (IGN) names being crossed out by the local nationalists.


At the primary school level Corsican is taught up to a fixed number of hours per week (three in the year 2000) and is a voluntary subject at the secondary school level,[15] but is required at the University of Corsica. It is available through adult education. It can be spoken in court or in the conduct of other government business if the officials concerned speak it. The Cultural Council of the Corsican Assembly advocates for its use; for example, on public signs.


According to the anthropologist Dumenica Verdoni, writing new literature in modern Corsican, known as the Riacquistu, is an integral part of affirming Corsican identity.[16] Individuals who had a notable career in France returned to Corsica to write in Corsican, such as the musical producers, Dumenicu Togniotti, director of the Teatru Paisanu, which produced polyphonic musicals, 1973–1982, followed in 1980 by Michel Raffaelli's Teatru di a Testa Mora, and Saveriu Valentini's Teatru Cupabbia in 1984.[17] The list of prose writers includes Alanu di Meglio, Ghjacumu Fusina, Lucia Santucci, Marcu Biancarelli,and many others.[18]

Throughout the 1700s and 1800s there was a steady stream of writers in Corsican, many of whom wrote also in other languages.[19]


The trail of written popular literature of known date in Corsican currently goes no further back than the 17th century.[21] An undated corpus of proverbs from communes may well precede it (see under External links below). Corsican has also left a trail of legal documents ending in the late 12th century. At that time the monasteries held considerable land on Corsica and many of the churchmen were notaries.

Between 1200 and 1425 the monastery of Gorgona, which belonged to the Order of Saint Benedict for much of that time and was in the territory of Pisa, acquired about 40 legal papers of various sorts written on Corsica. As the church was replacing Pisan prelates with Corsican ones there, the legal language shows a transition from entirely Latin through partially Latin and partially Corsican to entirely Corsican. The first known surviving document containing some Corsican is a bill of sale from Patrimonio dated to 1220.[22] These documents were moved to Pisa before the monastery closed its doors and were published there. Research into earlier evidence of Corsican is ongoing.

Alphabet and spelling[edit]

Main article: Corsican alphabet



Corsican has been regarded as a dialect of Italian historically, similar to the regional Romance languages in Italy proper, and in writing, it often resembles Italian (with the substitution of -u for final -o and the articles u and a for il/lo and la respectively). However, the phonemes of the modern spoken forms of Corsican undergo complex and sometimes irregular phenomena depending on phonological context, so the pronunciation of the language for foreigners familiar with other Romance languages is not straightforward.





The vowel inventory, or collection of phonemic vowels (and the major allophones), transcribed in IPA symbols, is:[24][25]

Description Grapheme
Phoneme Phone or
Usage Example
Open front unrounded
     Near open
a /a/ [a]

Occasional northern
casa [ˈkaza] house
carta [ˈkærta] card
Close-mid front unrounded
e /e/ [e]
Inherited as
open or close
Occasional northern
Occasional southern
u celu [uˈd͡ʒelu] the sky
ci hè [ˈt͡ʃɛ] there is
mercuri ['mærkuri] wednesday
terra [ˈtarra] land
Close front unrounded i /i/ [i]

1st sound, diphthong
['di] say
fiume [ˈfjumɛ] river
Close-mid back rounded
o /o/ [o]
Inherited as
open or close
locu [ˈlogu] place
notte [ˈnɔtɛ] night
Close back rounded u /u/ [u]

1st sound, diphthong
malu [ˈmalu] bad
quassù [kwaˈsu] up there
què [ˈkɥɛ] that


Bilabial Labio-
Retroflex Palatal Velar
plain labial.
Nasal m n ɲ
Plosive voiceless p c k
voiced b ɖ ɟ ɡ ɡʷ
Affricate voiceless t͡s̪ t͡ʃ
voiced d͡z̪ d͡ʒ
Fricative voiceless f ʃ
voiced β v ʒ
Approximant central j w
lateral l ʎ
Trill r

See also[edit]


  1. ^ a b Corsican proper at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Gallurese at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Sassarese at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  3. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Corsic". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. 
  4. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Sassarese Sardinian". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. 
  5. ^
  7. ^ Italian Language. Encarta. Archived from the original on 2009-10-31. Retrieved 2008-06-13. 
  8. ^ "Eurolang report on Corsican". Retrieved 2008-06-13. 
  9. ^ Blackwood, Robert J. (August 2004). "Corsican distanciation strategies: Language purification or misguided attempts to reverse the gallicisation process?" (PDF). Multilingua – Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication. 23 (3): 233–255. doi:10.1515/mult.2004.011. Retrieved 2008-06-13. 
  15. ^ (French) Dispositif académique d’enseignement de la langue corse dans le premier degré, année scolaire 2010-2011, Academy of Corsica
  24. ^ Ager, Simon (1998–2008). "Corsican (corsu)". Omniglot. Retrieved 2008-06-20. 



External links[edit]