| Also Known As: Corse,Corso,Corsi,Corsu,Corsican
Description:
Corsican (Corsu or Lingua Corsa) is a continuum of Romance languages spoken and written on the islands of Corsica (France) and northern Sardinia (Italy), alongside French and Italian, which are the official languages. Corsu is the traditional native language of the Corsican people, and was long the sole language of the island, which was acquired by France in 1768. In 1990, more than two centuries later, nearly all Corsicans were fluent in French, usually as a first language. In addition, an estimated 50% of those also had some degree of proficiency in Corsu, and a small minority, perhaps 10%, used Corsu as a first language.
The January 2007 estimated population of the island was 281,000, while the figure for the March 1999 census, when most of the studies - though not the linguistic survey work referenced in this article - were performed, was about 261,000 (see under Corsica). Only a certain percentage of the population at either time spoke Corsu with any fluency. The 2001 population of 341,000 speakers on the island given by Ethnologue exceeds either census and thus may be considered questionable, like its estimate of 402,000 speakers worldwide.
The use of Corsican over French has..... full article at Wikipedia |
