La minoranza italoalbanese: alcune considerazioni sociolinguistiche

Abstract

Of the approximately one hundred Italian communities founded or repopulated between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries by Albanian-speaking populations, only half continue to use the Arbëreshë variety, and even in these communities, the vitality of the minority language, both internally and externally, is steadily declining. The paper examines: (a) how certain social and economic conditions in the past may have interacted with the dynamics of the linguistic repertoires of Italian-Albanian communities; (b) the potentially positive results that changing conditions (in education, productive activities, mobility, communication practices), as well as certain tools (not only legislative), could have on the sociolinguistic dynamics of Italian-Albanian communities and on the linguistic structures of the minority varieties spoken there.