Sardinia Culture

Sardinia's culture survived because the island was repeatedly conquered at the edges and left alone in the middle.

Language

Sardinian (sardu) is a Romance language in its own right, and linguists generally regard it as the most conservative surviving descendant of Latin — it retained sounds the rest of the family lost. It has two main groups, Logudorese in the north and Campidanese in the south, and holds official recognition.

It is not the only minority language. Catalan is spoken in Alghero, a legacy of 14th-century repopulation. Tabarchino, a Ligurian dialect, survives on San Pietro and Sant'Antioco, brought by families who came via Tunisia. Gallurese and Sassarese in the north are Corsican-derived rather than Sardinian.

Music

Cantu a tenore is four-part male polyphony in which three voices produce a deep guttural drone under a soloist. It sounds unlike anything else in Europe and was inscribed by UNESCO in 2005. The launeddas, a triple clarinet of cane played with circular breathing, is documented in a bronzetto from around 800 BC and is still played.

Masks and festivals

The winter carnivals of the Barbagia are the island's strangest survival. At Mamoiada, the Mamuthones wear black sheepskins, carved wooden masks and up to 30 kg of cowbells, moving in a slow, heavy procession controlled by the Issohadores. The ritual is certainly pre-Christian; what it originally meant is unknown.

Elsewhere: the Sartiglia at Oristano, a masked equestrian joust at Carnival; the Cavalcata Sarda at Sassari in May, which brings out costume from across the island; and the Faradda di li Candareri, Sassari's candlestick procession, UNESCO-listed alongside Italy's other macchine a spalla.

Craft and art

Filigree jewellery, particularly the fede sarda wedding ring; weaving at Samugheo and Nule; cork from Gallura; and basketwork. At Orgosolo, several hundred political murals have covered the village since the 1960s, addressing land rights, war and emigration.