On the German Alpine inhabitants of South Tyrol

Appendix.

Statistics.

On the German Alpine inhabitants of South Tyrol and the adjacent Venetian territory. (Continuation.) 6/7

4. This opinion is further supported by the nature of the dialect, which, as already stated, if not identical to that of the mountain inhabitants of North Tyrol, is nevertheless not very different from it, and which the Alpine inhabitants still use in daily intercourse today.

It is not believable that in the Cimbrian Chersonese and the other northern lands of Germany, from where those peoples came whom the Romans called Cimbri indiscriminately, such a great similarity of dialect with that of Tyrol should have formed, whereas even today throughout Germany, as everywhere from province to province, such a diversity of dialects is observed; one must therefore assume that the Cimbri were neither the first nor the only Germans in this place of refuge of theirs, and even less so numerous as to bring about a great change in the German dialect of the Alpine inhabitants.

5. But not only were the aforementioned Veronese, Vicentine, and Tyrolean communities German by language since ancient times, as they still are now, but it is even probable that this was also true of the entire Upper Valsugana with Piné, part of the Fleims Valley, and many other adjacent localities of Trento on the left bank of the Adige, where the older names of fields, waters, mountains, villages, and families are mostly German. One of the mountains closest to Trento on the north-east is still called the Calisberg today.

That up to the 13th century in the village of Pergine, now called Ferzen and Fersen in the popular tongue, a name it shares with the river flowing nearby, as well as in all the surrounding villages, the common language was German, as it still is today in its six mentioned curacies, is proved by the entirely German names of fields, villages, and almost every farmstead found in Latin documents from the 14th century, notwithstanding that many a document from that time written in German also exists, from which we select only the enclosed document No. 2, consisting of a kind of judgment pronounced in the year 1212 by the parish priest of Pergine, who was also a notary named Lindrick, between a man from Falesina residing in the village of Pergine and another from the nearby Ischia farmstead, which today is called Drischel. The same can be said of the parish of Calceranica, located between Pergine and Lavarone, of which a curacy called Centa still had several German-speaking families in the past century. The same is also asserted of Piné, situated between Pergine and Cembra.

The extensive parish of Fleims likewise has several curacies where the German language prevails, e.g., Antarivo, and one of them, namely Trodena (Trauden), is already connected with German Tyrol on the side toward Salurn.

One need only observe how, from the neighborhood, from Verona further northward, from mountain to mountain, from valley to valley, the Germans sequence one another until they finally unite with the rest of present-day German Tyrol. The intermediate spaces of each continuous territory of German communities have increased from century to century in the flatter, more accessible, more comfortable valleys endowed with a milder climate, but especially in those regions located along the main entry routes from Italy to Tyrol, where it was most useful for the overpowering forces of the various foreign peoples who invaded Tyrol by force to establish themselves. Whoever these peoples may have been after the Celts, likely their original inhabitants—namely Euganeans, Etruscans under Rhaetus's leadership, Gauls, Romans, Goths, or others—it is nevertheless evident that the inhabitants of these mountains remained untouched by these influxes, like their rocks and their snow masses; or they withdrew to safety to avoid their attack, leaving their dwelling place to the stronger and contenting themselves with settling permanently with their families where they used to pasture their herds in summer. Others perhaps had the courage to stay with these new uninvited guests, or settled there over time; and thus the mother tongue was preserved in the plains for a long time, later disappearing and being exchanged for that spoken by these strangers.

From this one can easily explain how an Italian dialect similar to that of the adjacent Venetians crept into Lower Valsugana, and in Fleims one similar to that of the neighboring Cadorins, and persists even now.

After all this, the author of this article believes that the alleged exclusive descent of the mentioned German Alpine inhabitants from the scattered Cimbrian nation cannot be defended, but rather that there is reason to assume that the Germans still remaining in the valleys and on the mountains of South Tyrol on the left bank of the Adige are remnants of an ancient people of those regions, and that it was newcomers, foreign in origin, who transplanted there the Italian language or those languages, especially Latin, from which the now current Italian dialect developed. To decide the matter otherwise, the difference in dialect of this people is not sufficient; for, closely examined and separated from defects of pronunciation, this difference is only very small and no greater than that encountered throughout Germany between neighboring provinces. Perhaps there would be no difference at all (deducting the Italian mixture) if one could compare this language with old Tyrolean German.

The Italian population inserted in between is not sufficient, for it is undeniably of foreign origin.

Nor is the circumstance sufficient that the Cimbri (which would extend too far back into antiquity) or other Teutons or Germans took refuge in this region; for this provides rather a proof that German peoples must have been settled there previously. Does the author of this article, then, wish to decide the question? No, he does not wish that, but only to demonstrate the weight of the arguments that both opinions have in their favor; meanwhile, he declares himself bound to regard the Alpine inhabitants in question as ancient inhabitants of the region rather than as foreigners.

(Conclusion follows.)