Sardinian on Facebook: Analysing Diatopic Varieties through Translated Lexical Lists
Authors: Irene Russo, Simone Pisano, Claudia Soria (CNR-ILC, Università Guglielmo Marconi, 2016)
Topic: Textual Genres & Literature Linguistics

Abstract
Presence of regional and minority languages over digital media is an indicator of their vitality. In this paper, we want to investigate quantitative aspects of the use on Facebook of the Sardinian language. In particular, we want to focus on the co-existence of diatopic varieties. We extracted linguistic data from public pages and, through the translation of the most frequent words, we find out similarities and differences between varieties.

Introduction
Everyday life makes an increasingly extensive use of digital devices that involve language use; for this reason, usability of a language over digital devices is a sign for that language of being modern, relevant to current lifestyles and capable of facing the needs of the XXI century. A positive correlation between presence in new technologies and better appreciation of a language has been repeatedly observed in the literature, see for instance AUTHOR and AUTHOR. Regional and minority languages (RMLs henceforth) are usually very poorly represented digitally AUTHOR. \\Since poor digital representation of regional and minority languages further prevents their usability on digital media and devices, it is extremely important to enhance every bottom-up effort that can boost the quantity of available digital content. In fact, if the perception of the marginal role and limited applicability of RMLs persists, their attractiveness diminishes. \\An increase in quantity of digital content available online represents today an opportunity for regional and minority languages. Online speakers can make visible the existence of a community that uses the language to interact; they can use online communication to converge toward a standard and they can instruct less skilled speakers toward better mastering of the rules of the language, especially when the language is not formally included in education. From the perspective of computational linguistics, the presence of digital content written in RMLs means that corpora can be built for them and basic tools (lemmatizers, spell checkers, lexicons etc.) can be developed. \\The presence of RMLs over digital media and their usability through digital devices is often limited to instances of digital activism and/or by means of cultural initiatives focused on the preservation of cultural heritage. \\In this paper we promote the first study we are aware of about the use on social networks (more specifically, Facebook) of Sardinian, an Italian minority language characterised by the coexistence of varieties and the difficulties for the promoted standard to emerge as unifying factor. Our starting hypothesis concerned the vitality on social networks of a language that is mainly spoken. With the help of a Sardinian linguist, we identified a small set of FB public groups where specific varieties of Sardinian are chosen as their main language plus groups where generic, not further defined Sardinian is used to communicate. We extracted messages from these pages and created a frequency lexicon for each variety. The most frequent 150 words have been translated by a Sardophone expert linguist with the aim of finding differences and commonalities between varieties. This preliminary analysis is the first step toward the use of computational linguistics methodologies in the promotion of a standard for Sardinian based on quantitative data.

Conclusion
In this paper we address the following open question: could quantitative analysis of written data help Sardinian community to find out a common core (not specific of a variety) that could reinvigorate the idea of a standard? We plan future work on this issue, with the awareness that digital content on social media is both an opportunity and a challenge for this kind of analyses. \\This paper is a first analysis of diatopic varieties of Sardinian through orthographical comparisons of word forms with the same meaning. Thanks to translated lists it was possible to look at commonalities and differences between varieties. Social media are a source of real data about language uses and the best observatory for regional and minority languages. Concerning Sardinian Facebook offers the possibility to test the distance between the proposed orthographic standard and the existing varieties. We will test the interplay between varieties with other methodologies to measure the distance and to find out usage patterns (e.g. Levenshtein distance for similar words). \\This work is being carried out in the framework of the project DLDP (Digital Language Diversity Project, http://www.dldp.eu). DLDP is a three year project funded under the Erasmus+ programme. It aims at addressing the problem of low digital representation of EU regional and minority languages by giving their speakers the intellectual and practical skills to create, share, and reuse online digital content. DLDP fully embraces a bottom-up approach to language revitalization by addressing the speakers’ cognitive and practical skills as the cornerstone of effective revitalization initiatives. This work is partially funded by the Erasmus + DLDP Project (Grant Agreement no. 2015-1- IT02-KA204-015090). The opinions expressed reflect only the authors’ view and the Erasmus+ National Agency and the Commission are not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained.