Italian 

Hey Sajoch, if you can discuss things relaxed for a bit, I do have a question I'd like to ask a Ladin from Bolzano.  I always hear about the Italians coming and taking over.  But, can you explain to me who exactly are "the Italians"?  As far as I know, Italian in the modern sense is simply a citizen of the Italian Republic.  Going back a few hundred years ago, I suppose people might say they are a people "of Italy", or the Italic peninsula.  But, I'd say that even to this day, many people in Italy don't refer to themselves as Italian first.  Aren't the people of Sicily, Sicilians?  The people of Napoli, Napolitani?  As far as I can tell, the "Ladin" are the people of the region we happen to call Trentino-Alto Adige, and also the Romansch speakers in Switzerland are speaking essentially the same (or a VERY similar) language.  It would make sense that this pocket of Europe has its own particular language, and a language which is old-Latin based.  So, when you say you are Ladin, and not Italian... to me that is no different from someone saying they are Sicilian, and not Italian.  Then that brings me back to my original question: who is actually Italian?  Isn't the Italian language the Tuscan language actually?  So are Italians actually the people from Tuscany?  I know that Trentino is said to be majority Italian, but the people there speak Italian in modern times because it is the national language.  They still speak their original dialects like Nones, Solardo, etc.. which are actually Ladin languages.  You know that, right?  So are the people in Trentino Ladin people, or have they transformed into Italians because the Italian Republic has a National Language?  I'm just throwing these questions out there, as someone interested in my own history.  I mentioned this once to noclador, "who are the Italians?" and all the discussion got me was him giving me the link to the Wikipedia page on Italians.  My guess is that some of the questions I was asking blurred the lines of a politics he would rather dream is black and white.  I'd like to see if you'd actually be interested to discuss this, as you are a fellow Ladin at least...