Dissertation
The pre-Roman elements of the Sardinian lexicon
On the 12th of February, Cid Swanenvleugel successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Cid on this achievement!
- Author
- Cid Swanenvleugel
- Date
- 12 February 2025
- Links
- Leiden University Repository
The Sardinian language descends from Latin, introduced to Sardinia following the Roman conquest in 238 BCE. Yet, parts of the Sardinian vocabulary cannot be explained from a Latin perspective and may instead reflect remnants of extinct languages once native to the island. This dissertation aims to uncover Sardinia’s linguistic prehistory by systematically examining these non-inherited words. Through phonological and morphological analysis, it reconstructs several properties of the pre-Roman Sardinian language. The study argues that there is insufficient evidence to support a genetic relationship between Pre-Roman Sardinian and languages such as Berber, Basque, or Etruscan. However, it does find evidence suggesting that Sardinia’s Pre-Roman language was closely related to other unattested languages once spoken along the western Mediterranean Sea coast of Europe.