As to the dictionary, the Italian certainly comprises a goodly number of German deriva tives, but incomparably less than the French, and furthermore, has no other ancient or for eign roots, in the way that Arabic is found in Spanish.
Among the pre-eminent qualities of Italian must be put that inner power of preservation which we have already mentioned. Whatever may be the cause — and only in certain parts can it be attributed to the power of literary tradition, that is to say, because its greatest masterpiece, the 'Divine Comedy,' was written originally in that tongue, and afterward the I Decameron' and the (Canzoniere,)—this among all the known tongues is the most tenaciously conservative, which is undoubtedly a great ad vantage, both morally and practically, Italian is the literary language of the entire kingdom of Italy (with some restrictions among the Valdesi and the French-Provencal of Val d'Aosta), and also of some Italian subjects in Austria, some in Switzerland and some in Malta. Corsica alone prefers French for its literary productions.
The Dialects.—Italy is, in regard to its language, one of the countries most compact and homoeneous. According to the last cen sus (10 June 1911), the resident population numbered 35,845,048of whom only about 83,300 were of French origin; 9,600 of Teutonic origin; 81,000 of Albanian; 29,000 of Greek; 11,700 of Catalanian origin, and 42,200 Slays.
Not all the heterogeneous population of the kingdom of Italy can be considered as °colo or as °islands.° The following may be considered as °colonies° linguistically: (a) Germans of Veneto, of Tyrol origin (in the 13th century there was an emigration), who reformed themselves into the Thirteen Com munes of Verona (reduced, it seems, now to two) and to the Seven Communes of Vicenza (now five at the most) and of Piedmont, around Monte Rosa and at the Simplon (12th and 13th centuries) ; (b) the Albanians, who form the most important group of foreign lan guages, not Romance, in Sicily, in Calabria, in the southern provinces upon the Adriatic (from about half of the 15th century excepted) ; the last colony was Badessa in Abruzzo Tera mano (1744) ; the Slays in Molise; (d) the Greeks, from Ontrano (9th and 10th cen turies) ; and reduced to very few in Bova in Calabria (11th century). In Corsica, at Car gese, 650 Greeks settled in 1675.
Roman Colonies : The Catalanians of Al ghero, of Barcelona origin (135342) ; the few Franco-Provencals or Facto and Celle (of the time of Charles of Anjou) near Foggia (see following text for the Provencals of Guardia Piemontese in Calabria, for the Lombards in Sicily, etc.) ; and finally about 3,000 Rumanians in eastern Istria, now strongly Slavic in its language.
But to pass over the Semitics in Matta, we cannot call colonies the Provencals and Franco-Provencals of the Alps, who keep up the idioms of the other slope. The boundary between the Ligurian and the Provencals is to be found at the Roja: Mentone and around there is more Provençal than Ligurian. They may become Provencals — or they may con tinue many of the Provençal expressions, mix ing with them Piedmontese and local words— the dialects under the Maritime Alps and the Cozie, down to the Monviso — to the right of which are the Valli Valdesi (Prat, etc.), with a dialect allied to that of Delfinato more to the east,— and also more south toward the upper course of the Clusone and to the sources of the Dora Riparia. A colony of Valdesi (about 1,400), is Guardia Piemontese in the province of Cosenza.
From the district so influenced by the Pro vencal, we pass by some intermediate grades, to that which is plainly Franco-Provencal, above all in the valleys of the southern Stura of Orco (Val Soana), of the Dora Baltea (Val d'Aosta). In the Val d'Aosta the Franco Provencal has its stronghold, so that the lan guage of culture is French. Then follows the Valsesia, plainly Piedmontese of Piedmontese Lombardian, which forms a sort of dividing wedge between them and the successive Alpine districts of various linguistic types. It is the Ladin dialect which is found in these parts; the Ladin dialect exists in the mountain regions more or less from Mount Rosa and farther. From these Lombardy valleys and especially from the more western, from Toce and from Maggia, alike, come the so-called Lombards of Sicily, of Sanfratello, etc. (11th to 13th cen turies.) The Ladini of the southern slope of the Alps are to-day reduced to very few in number (40,000 Grigioni), losing touch with the Ladini of Italy. To these belong entirely the small central zone, or Tridentine-Bellunese and that which is incomparably the most considerable, the eastern, that is, the Friuli. In official docu ments the Ladini are considered to be among those who °speak Italian .° Here, in fact, there is no sign of that literary language which the Ladini of Switzerland have; and on the other part nearly half a million Friulani (with about 11,000 in the central zone), form in the southern part of the Alps a strong, flourish ing linguistic union, opposed to the few Gri gioni, that one could well consider the Ladin an Italian language. At a time not so far distant there was a Friulano dialect as well as a Trieste dialect and a Muggian, now Veneto; at Trieste they still spoke Ladino in the first half of the 19th century; and at Muggia also in the second half.