Talk:Vastese

This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Languages Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Languages, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of languages on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LanguagesWikipedia:WikiProject LanguagesTemplate:WikiProject Languageslanguage articles Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

The first sentence reads Lu indialett di lu Uašt (Lu Uâʃtaréule) or Vastese (the dialect of Vasto) is a Romance language spoken in the town of Vasto. So which one is it? Just because a dialect is noticeably different from the standard language (compare Swiss German with Standard German) it doesn't mean that it has to be classified as a language.

- Vastesiworld.org describes it as a language, but it cites no sources to back it up. The first sourced part is Regarding the case of the Italian peninsula, the linguists Laura e Giulio Lepschy write, in their book The Italian language today: “When people talk of Italian dialects they are not usually referring to different varieties of Italian. Italian dialects differ from literary Italian and among themselves so much that one dialect may be unintelligible to the speaker of another dialect. They may differ among themselves as much as French differs from Spanish, or Portuguese from Romanian, or for that matter English from Italian.” (1), which, obviously, is about something else.

The previous part, about Vastese being a language is, as I said, completely unsourced, and contains things like Lu Uâʃtaréule does not appear in the official lists of the languages of the world. However, it is not a mere dialect of Italian; it is a language in its own right. It does not appear in these lists because the documentation necessary to have it included has not yet been completed. - is that even allowed on Wikipedia? These three sentences alone make me question the reliability of that source.

- Anelli's "Origine del alcuni modi di dire popolari nel dialetto vastese" (see [1]) uses the term dialetto ("dialect").

- I have no access to Iuliano (2010), so I'll let someone else check that.

According to the little research I've done, Vasto is a town in the Province of Chieti, in southern Abruzzo. According to Abruzzo#Dialects (unsourced, I know), Vastese would be merely a subdialect of the Abruzzo Adriatic dialect, which is a southern Italian dialect a variety of Neapolitan, which is indeed a language. Mr KEBAB (talk) 00:52, 22 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• The local languages of Italy are called dialetti in Italian, so the use of that word is not evidence of anything one way or another. Gorobay (talk) 01:03, 22 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Ok, but there's still a problem with using an unreliable source to prove that Vastese is a language, rather than a dialect. I think we just need better sources. Mr KEBAB (talk) 01:07, 22 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Well the source does mention Gorobay's point, so I'm inclined to go with it being its own language, and all sources have talked about its mutual unintelligibility, which according to the lead of Dialect, make it its own language. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 01:11, 22 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Well, as I said, that doesn't necessarily make it a language - see the point I made about Swiss German.

A thing I missed is that Abruzzo#Dialects actually describes Vastese as a variety of Neapolitan, which is indeed considered a language. We seriously need other sources here... Mr KEBAB (talk) 01:29, 22 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Mr KEBAB: the Vastesi language source describes Vastese as in the same group as Abruzzo, Quote:

Lu uâʃtaréule among the “dialects” of Italy

On the Italian peninsula, lu uâʃtaréule belongs to the group of intermediate central-south “dialects”, that is, those including the “dialects” of Abruzzo, northern Puglia, Molise, Campania, and Basilicata. Although these “dialects” are rather different among themselves, there are some common traits that they share, including the neutralization of final vowels followed by metaphony. End quote.Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 02:05, 22 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• There is a saying that "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.". (Info link: metaphony) Anthony Appleyard (talk) 05:12, 22 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Anthony Appleyard: it has its own wikipedia page as well. But the quips of arbitrary standards aside, I think that the fact that it doesn't link up that well with anything else (Even within their own grouping the main characteristic they share is the neutralization of final vowels followed by metaphony, if we accept the standards of mutual unintelligibility, it cannot be any other languages dialect, and therefore is either a language or someone a dialect of itself. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 05:27, 22 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Mr KEBAB, Gorobay, and Anthony Appleyard: I have sent an email to SIL international, LINGUIST list, and OLAC. I have also contacted the Vasto club of australia and requested information on the language, an admin has responded saying he would look into the matter. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 05:51, 23 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We'll see what happens. Thanks. Mr KEBAB (talk) 05:53, 23 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Mr KEBAB and Gorobay: I have contacted SIL International, and they have responded, has identified its 639-3 ISO code as "nap" meaning neapolitan, but mentioned there are some scholars who disagree with it, and that the code may be wrong. I have requested the theses of the scholars. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 21:49, 23 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Basically just a list of websites or books with something helpful.

Websites

• https://archive.org/stream/idialettidellere00devo/idialettidellere00devo_djvu.txt (Italian)
• http://vastesiworld.org/culture/vastesi-language/
• http://www.vastospa.it/html/home/home_vasto.htm
• http://www.vastospa.it/html/tradizione/voc_a.htm (Dictionary)
• http://www.vastospa.it/html/tradizione/vocab_a_it.htm (Dictionary)
• http://www.vastospa.it/html/notizie_dal_mondo/au_dialetto_vastese.htm (Contains some words)

Books

• Iuliano, Susanna (2010). Vite italiane : Italian lives in Western Australia. Crawley, W.A.: UWA Pub. p. 133. ISBN 9781921401503.
• Torres-Tamarit, Francesc; van Oostendorp, Marc; Linke,, Kathrin (2016). Approaches to Metaphony in the Languages of Italy. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. p. 151. ISBN 9783110366310.

Discussion

@Mr KEBAB: I have found several new sites, two of which are dictionaries! Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 14:49, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This page is quite ridiculous. Vasto's dialect is perfectly part of Eastern Abruzzese, among Neapolitan Language / South Italian Language. There isn't any reason to consider Vasto's dialect as a distinct language. --Jamala (talk) 10:23, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]