L’«area di convergenza italiana» (ACI): una rivisitazione

This paper focuses on the reworking of Žarko Muljačić’s “Area di convergenza italiana” [Italian area of convergence], starting from a critical discussion of its theoretical foundations. The result is a diagram conveying a new classification of the so-called primary dialects of Italy, based on such parameters as “structural distance”, Germ. Abstand , and “elaboration”, Germ. Ausbau . Following Muljačić’s “relativistic” model, the primary dialects are renamed “low” and “middle” languages depending on their sociolinguistic status; such “low” and “middle” languages are then compared to Standard Italian, i.e. the “high” language, in order to roughly evaluate their degree of both Abstand and Ausbau .