Padania
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Padania is an alternative name for Northern Italy, which was sparingly used until the beginning of the 1990s, when the Northern League political party (in Italian, Lega Nord) proposed it as the denomination of a common homeland for northern Italians dissatisfied with the Italian state government. Therefore, since the 1990s the term carries strong political implications in the Italian context.
Territory
In the narrowest sense, Padania refers to the valley of the Po river (in Latin, Padus). The term has been rarely used, since pianura Padana or Val Padana was preferred in most geography textbooks and in atlases. Since the 1960s, the renown journalist Gianni Brera used the term Padania to indicate the territory of Cisalpine Gaul. The Northern League later used the term with a similar meaning since about the 1990s. In this meaning, Padania's boundaries can be approximately defined according to the historical regional languages spoken in the Italian State territory, which divide northern Italy from central-southern Italy along the La Spezia - Rimini line. An alternative definition of Padania's boundaries can be based on Harvard University political scientist Robert Putnam's work Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, where Italy's "civic North" is defined according to the civic traditions of its inhabitants, which may be related to the historical medieval communes. According to the latter definition, which is frequently used by the Northern League, Padania includes all Italian regions north of and including Tuscany, Marche and Umbria. Putnam's findings are confirmed by sociologists at the University of Newcastle, the United Kingdom, who also found that the border between Padania and the rest of Italy corresponds to a boundary in the population's attitudes on civic issues, and linked the difference to the emergence of the free communes after the first millennium AD.
Languages
The dominant language in the area is standard Italian. French, Franco-provençal, Occitan, German, Friulian, Ladin and Slovenian are spoken close to the borders of Italy and officially recognized by the State as minority languages.
The various vernaculars or local languages, generically indicated as dialetti (plural of dialetto) (dialect) by their speakers, are not in common use except in closed contexts (families, acquaintances who speak the same vernacular). However, the situation varies depending on the Region and the age group. Veneto is generally considered to be the Region where the local language continues to be used most. Older people are more likely to speak the local language than younger people and also to use a less Italianized version. These so-called dialects are considered to be regional minority languages by the Red Book on Endangered Languages, by UNESCO and by Ethnologue. The various local languages (Lombard, Ligurian, Emiliano-Romagnolo, Piedmontese andVenetian) are to a large extent mutually intelligible with each other, and to a much lesser degree with the Italian language.
A linguist of world-wide repute, Professor Geoffrey Hull of Macarthur University of West Sydney, has shown the original unity of the Padanese group of languages in his thesis entitled: The Linguistic Unity of Northern Italy and Rhaetia (1982). His findings are confirmed by most experts today, which use the term Rheto-cisalpine in place of Padanese.
Hull divides the Padanese group into two sub-groups: highland and lowland. The highland group includes Friulan, Ladin and Rumantsch. The first two have achieved official recognition in Italy, whilst Rumantsch, in the form of Rumantsch Grischun, a compromise variety, is the fourth official language of Switzerland. This sub-group of languages is better known as Rhaeto-Romance languages.
- [Furlan (Friulan) Language]
- [Liguru (Lìgure-Ligurian) Language]
- [Lumbaart (Lombard) Language]
- [Piemontèis (Piedmontese) Language]
- [Vèneto (Venetian) Language]
- [Ladin Language]
- [Emilian-Romagnolo Language]
- [Rumantsch Grischun Language]
- See also Dialects of Italy
National anthem
The Northern League political party chose the Va' Pensiero chorus from Verdi's Nabucco as Padania's national anthem. In the Va' Pensiero chorus, the exiled Hebrew slaves lament for their lost homeland. Some dispute this choice because of the myth of Verdi's role in the Risorgimento.Popular support for independence
Since about 1989, the Northern League political party called either for secession or larger autonomy of Padania, and defined its flag and national anthem. The Northern League also created an (un-official) Padanian "parliament" in Mantua, and held (un-official) elections.Support for the Northern League inside Padania is diverse. The party has its strongest electoral base in Lombardy (especially Bossi's native Varese province, where the League originated with the name Lombard League, echoing a 12th-century alliance of Northern Italian city-states that rose against the Germanic Holy Roman Emperor and defeated him), and in Veneto. The party has considerably less popular consensus in Emilia-Romagna, and very low consensus south of the La Spezia - Rimini line.
Support for the Northern League has varied over the time, reaching a maximum of 10% in 1996 (when with about 20% it was the most voted single party north of and including Emilia-Romagna). Popular consensus later fell down to slightly less than 4% in 2001. In 1997 the Northern League controlled 5 of over 100 Italian provinces, namely Sondrio, Varese and Como in Lombardy and Treviso and Vicenza in Veneto. In the 2005 regional elections they scored 10% of total popular votes in Northern Italy (15.8% in Lombardy, 14.7% in Veneto, 8.5% in Piedmont, 4.8% in Emilia-Romagna, 4.7% in Liguria, 1.3% in Tuscany and 0.9% in the Marche, while in 2003 it scored 9.3% in Friuli-Venezia Giulia and 6.1% in Trentino). While support for a federal versus sharply centrally administered State is high in polls held inside Padania, reaching about 80% in average everywhere north of the Po river, support for independence is more uncertain and less studied. One poll estimated that about 30% Padanians considered secession an advantage for Padania's citizens.
See also
- Cisalpine Gaul
- Cisalpine Republic
- Cispadane Republic
- Northern Italy
- Central Italy
- Mezzogiorno
- Insular Italy
- Pampas Republic
- Volkstaat
References
- [Origin of the Name]
- [Gianni Brera's Padania] from Guerin Sportivo, 28/10/1963.
- [Flags of the World's Padania page]
- Geoffrey Hull, "The Linguistic Unity of Northern Italy and Rhaetia" (1982, p.650).
- [Ethnologue report for Italy]
- [La Padania] (Northern League's party newspaper)
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