Corsican language

Corsican
corsu, lingua corsa
Pronunciation	[ˈkorsu], [ˈkɔrsu]
Native to	France Italy
Region	Corsica Sardinia (Maddalena archipelago)
Ethnicity	Corsicans
Native speakers	150,000 in Corsica (2013)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Italic Latino-Faliscan Latin Romance Italo-Western Italo-Dalmatian Italo-Romance Tuscan Corsican
Dialects	Northern Corsican Southern Corsican Gallurese[a] Sassarese[a] Central Corsican Capraiese (semi-corsican dialect) [extinct] Castellanese
Writing system	Latin script (Corsican alphabet)
Official status
Recognised minority language in	France ( Corsica)
Regulated by	No official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1	co
ISO 639-2	cos
ISO 639-3	cos – Corsican
Glottolog	cors1241  Corsican sass1235  Sassarese Sardinian
ELP	Corsican
Linguasphere	51-AAA-p
Linguistic map of Corsica
Corsican is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
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Corsican (endonym: corsu [ˈkorsu], [ˈkɔrsu]; full name: lingua corsa [ˈliŋɡwa ˈɡorsa], [ˈliŋɡwa ˈɡɔrsa]) is a Romance language consisting of the continuum of the Italo-Dalmatian dialects spoken on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, France, and in the northern regions of the island of Sardinia, Italy, located due south.

Corsica, the island proper, is situated approximately 123.9 km (77.0 miles; 66 nautical miles) off the western coast of Tuscany; as such, the Corsican language is related to varieties of Tuscan, from that region of the Italian peninsula, and thus also to Florentine-based standard Italian.

Under the long-standing influence of Tuscany's Pisa, and the historic Republic of Genoa, over Corsica, the Corsican language once filled the role of a vernacular (in-combination with Italian), functioning as the island's official language until France acquired the island from the Republic of Genoa (1768); by 1859, French had replaced Italian as Corsica's first language so much so that, by the time of the Liberation of France (1945), nearly every islander had at least a working-knowledge of French. The 20th century saw a vast language shift, with the islanders adapting and changing their communications to the extent that there were no monolingual Corsican-speakers left by the 1960s. By 1995, an estimated 65% of islanders had some degree of proficiency in Corsican,^[2] and a minority of around 10% used Corsican as a first language.^[3]

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