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The Friulians and Their ‘Piçule Patrie’ (Little Homeland):
A Language and People without a State
Franco Finco
University of Udine

Friuli (loc. Friûl) is a region of northeastern Italy with its own particular cultural, historical and linguistic identity. It borders Austria to the north and Slovenia to the east. To the south, it faces the Adriatic Sea, and to the west, its internal border is with the Veneto region. Friuli is a part of the autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. The historical capital and most important city of Friuli is Udine, which was also the mediaeval capital of the Patriarchate of Aquileia, the so-called Piçule Patrie (“Little Homeland”).

While standard Italian is the primary official language of the region, several other regional languages and dialects are spoken in Friuli: Friulian, Slovenian, German and variants of Venetian.

Friulian is spoken throughout most of the region and is more predominant in the countryside, while standard Italian and Venetian are more common in the larger towns. Friulian (called furlan or Marilenghe “mother tongue” in the Friulian language) is a Romance language belonging to the Rhaeto-Romance sub-family and has more than 600,000 speakers (approximately 50% of the population), most of whom also speak Italian.

In addition, Friulian is spoken outside the region. Friuli was a poor area until the 1960s, which caused a large number of Friulian speakers to emigrate. This emigration began in the final decades of the nineteenth century and ended in the 1970s. It is estimated that more than a million Friulian people left the country over a period of approximately one hundred years. According to the most recent census by AIRE (2005), about 135,000 Friulian emigrants are living abroad. Of these, 56% are located in Europe, 24% in South America, 10.3% in North America and 4.7% in Oceania. These data only reflect those Friulians and their descendants who have Italian citizenship. The majority of Friulian descendants are excluded from the census because they are not Italian citizens. Friulians worldwide have created and supported cultural associations called Fogolârs furlans (“fireside”), of which 46 exist in Italy and 156 throughout the rest of the world. We don’t know how many of these emigrants or descendants still speak Friulian. There are no data for this. However, there are some towns in Argentina and Brazil, where the inhabitants still preserve the Marilenghe: e.g. Colonia Caroya, Reconquista, Avellaneda, Resistencia and others.

In the last 60 years, the number of Friulian speakers has fallen (in Friuli), especially among the younger generations. Their language attitudes reveal a loss of the prestige and efficiency of the Marilenghe, normally associated with the old rural world, considering it inadequate for more sophisticated communication. On the other hand, Friulian is being threatened by the Venetian dialect in its traditional domains, mainly in the western part of the region.

To give a complete picture of Friulian, it has to be noted that this code gained the status of “language” in the community’s representations: while the population claimed to speak the Friulian dialect when asked in the 1970s, by the 1990s most Friulians claimed to speak the Friulian language. This change of orientation towards the local language reflects the profound changes occurring in that period in the sociocultural identity of Friuli. In the late 20^th century, and particularly after the earthquake in 1976, there was a revival of interest in the Friulian language, culture and identity, which has continued up to the present day.

Unlike other minorities in Italy that are also protected by international treaties (e.g. Germans, French, Slovenians, Croatians, Greeks), Friulians do not have the support of any foreign country in which Friulian is the national language. The historical homeland of the Friulians, the so-called Piçule Patrie (“Little Homeland”), is entirely contained within the Italian Republic.

As a result, up to 1996, the only references to the Friulian language that could be found in legislative texts were incidental, or relegated the defence of this language to projects of general cultural promotion. The official recognition of the Friulian linguistic minority is very recent and is established by three laws: regional laws no. 15 of 1996 and no. 29 of 2007 of the Autonomous Region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia and law no. 482 of 1999 of the Italian Republic.

Among others, these laws establish measures to promote the Marilenghe in schools and through the media of radio and television. Therefore, teaching Friulian has been introduced in many primary and some secondary schools. There are also courses at the University of Udine.

Some newspapers and magazines that are totally or partially written in Friulian are available.

In Friuli, only one radio station broadcasts most of its programmes in Friulian (about 70%): Radio Onde Furlane (“Friulian Wave”). They began broadcasting in 1981 and currently do so seven days a week: news, cultural and musical programmes, etc. Another radio station that broadcasts some of its programmes in Friulian (about 30% of the total) is Radio Spazio 103, a commercial radio station established in 1993.

As far as television is concerned, very little has been broadcast in Friulian. There is news in Friulian (Lis gnovis, twice a day) on Telefriuli, which has been broadcasting weekly programmes in Friulian for years. A few other programmes in Friulian, including news, are broadcast by other private TV stations, while they wait for the state television, RAI, to commence regular programmes in Friulian.

There are also several musical groups that use Friulian in their songs, as do some theatre companies.

Recently, two movies have been shot in Friulian, both of which have received positive reviews in Italian newspapers (Tierç lion ‘The Third Lion’ and Lidrîs cuadrade di trê ‘Three squared’ a horror movie).

There is also an official translation of the entire Bible (1984), which was completed by two Catholic priests: Francesco Placereani and Antonio Bellina (pre Checo Placerean and pre Toni Biline).

In addition, some local brands use Friulian in their advertisements.

In many of Friuli’s municipalities, road signs are in both Friulian and Italian. However, only the Italian toponym is official and used in official documentation, although it is widely expected that the Friulian versions will receive partial acknowledgement in the near future.

There are almost four Friulian dialect groups, all of which are mutually intelligible. They are usually distinguished by the last vowel of many parts of speech, including nouns, adjectives and adverbs.

A challenge that Friulian shares with other minorities is to create a standard language and a unique writing system. The above-mentioned regional law no. 15 approved a standard orthography, which represents the basis of a common variety and should be used in toponyms, official acts, written documents, etc. This standard is based on Central Friulian, which was the language traditionally used in literature in the sixteenth century and even later, but with some changes.

However, there have been several critics about the standardisation of Friulian, mainly from speakers of local variants, which can differ from it a lot; they also claim that this standard could eventually kill local dialects. This has caused some negative reaction and it could impede the implementation of protection policies.

Moving on to conclusions. If compared with the language planning that has been carried out in other European countries (Catalonia, Wales, Belgium, Friesland, etc.), what has been implemented in Friuli has not been remarkable. Therefore, we hope that the situation will begin to improve when the measures and resources provided by Law no. 482 are fully available and some major delays on behalf of the institutions are completely overcome. However, while Law no. 482 can only help to slow down the decline of Friulian, it is not sufficient to guarantee its survival.