Friuli

Friuli

ETHNONYMS: Friulano, Friulane, Friulians, Priulians

Orientation

Identification. The Friuli are speakers of a Rhaeto-Romance language, Friulan, who live in the north of Italy, on the border of Austria and Slovenia.

Location. Friuli-Venezia-Giulia, the autonomous region of Italy in which Friulan speakers live, is bounded on the west by the Dolomite Alps, on the north by the Carnic Alps, on the east by the Julian Alps, and on the south by the Adriatic Sea. This territory, with an area of 7,900 square kilometers, has a total population of in excess of 1,232,000. Of this number, perhaps a little over half are Friulan speakers, most of whom live in the province of Friuli, between the Livenza and Timavo rivers. The environment is favorable to agriculture, with its high, reliable annual rainfall and fertile soils.

Demography. The total number of Friulan speakers today is on the order of 600,000, and most of these live in the province of Friuli. Within that province, Friulan speakers constitute the majority, but they share that territory with speakers of Venetian, Slovene, and German.

Linguistic Affiliation. Friulan is a Rhaeto-Romance Language, related to but distinct from Ladin and Romansh. It was derived from vulgar Latin some time after the fall of the Roman Empire. Its exact relationship to Ladin remains a matter of some linguistic debate. Many scholars have tended to treat Friulan as a Ladin dialect, but scholars today Generally agree that it is a separate language. Friulan displays Significant Germanic and Venetian influences. The earliest evidence of a Friuli written form are books that were written about 1150. Some attempts are currently under way to use Friulan as a literary language. The Friuli use both their own language and Italian in their everyday discourse. In some Friuli parishes, historical factors have resulted in a trilingual situation, the third language being a German dialect. In these areas, the three languages are used diatypically, which is to say that speakers select among their language options according to situational factors: Italian is used for church or school occasions, as the principal written form, and to speak to or in the presence of outsiders; Friulan is used within the Community among acquaintances and friends as a "locally public" language; and German is reserved for use in the home or in private conversation among close friends.

History and Cultural Relations

There is little known of the Friuli prior to Roman times. The region's Latin name, when it was the home of the Tenth Roman Legion, was Patria Fori Julii, from which the name "Friuli" derives. Its early history was extremely turbulent, as it was conquered by the Huns, by Charlemagne, by the Lombards, and by the Magyars. In the mid-900s it had become a sovereign state under the aegis of King Henry IV of Germany. In the mid-1700s this sovereign status was dissolved because of internal dissension, and in 1797 Napoleon occupied the region. The Friuli parliament, established in 942, met for the last rime in 1805. From 1814 to 1866, Friuli became a part of Austria. When the kingdom of Italy was proclaimed in 1866, however, Friuli voted to join it. In the early 1900s, Friuli once again but only briefly became a part of Austria, to be returned to Italy in 1919 with the collapse of the Hapsburg Empire and the Treaty of Saint Germain. After World War II, portions of traditional Friuli territory were lost to Yugoslavia, while the major part of the region remained in Italy's hands.

Settlements

The Friuli live in both rural and urban settlements. Rural settlements are small, agriculturally oriented villages; the towns and cities have an industrial focus.

Economy

Economic activity in Friuli is varied, although the region has never been a wealthy one. In the countryside, farming and animal husbandry are of great importance. Industrial activity centers on the urban areas, and individual cities are often associated with specialized products or services. Udine, for example, is associated with textiles; Monfalcone on the Adriatic coast serves maritime industries. Wood-based industries—sawmills, furniture manufacturing, and the like—have been significant economic pursuits since the 1500s. Friuli is also well known throughout Italy for the toys, basketry, and knives produced in the north of the province. The region also supports mining (of lead and tin), quarrying (marble), and factories for the production of paper, cement, clocks, clothing, and a variety of other products. Both men and women are represented in the work force, but there is a strong bias associating domestically related work with women. Real property, including land, tends to be passed from father to son.

Kinship, Marriage, and Family

Kinship is reckoned bilaterally, but with a strong patrilineal emphasis. Surnames are passed from the father to his Children, and a husband's name is assumed by a wife upon her marriage. The Friuli are monogamous. Marriage is proscribed between first cousins, whether the relation is reckoned Matrilineally or patrilineally. Divorce is prohibited. Neolocal Postmarital residence is the general rule, with the new household usually, but not always, established in the home village of the husband. The ideal typical household consists of the nuclear family, but in this as in postmarital residence, economic or personal factors result in variations on the general rule. Child rearing, as a domestically oriented task, falls primarily to the mother.

Sociopolitical Organization

While fully a part of Italy, Friuli has long considered itself united and deserving of regional autonomy—the demand for which made itself felt strongly in the post-World War II years. In 1963, Friuli-Venezia-Giulia achieved recognition as the Fourth Region of Italy, with its own regional council. At that time, Trieste was made the capital, against the wishes of Friuli nationalists who would have preferred the selection of Udine, their historic seat, and setting off a movement to remove Friuli from the Fourth Region and to establish a fully autonomous Friulian administrative unit, free of the Perceived dominance of Trieste and Venezia-Giulia. In conjunction with this effort, there have been movements to establish a university at Udine and the teaching of Friulan in the schools, as well as renewed interest in matters of local history, folklore, and other elements of Friuli culture. Politically, Friuli is predominantly Christian Democrat. The Friuli participate fully in local politics but have yet to make much of an impact in general elections, even within the region.

Religion and Expressive Culture

Friuli is a Catholic region and is subject to the principles, laws, and ethos espoused by that church. Recent studies have focused on the historical conflict between church and folk beliefs, as they are reflected in the records of Inquisition trials for heresy and witchcraft during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These studies present evidence of an Indigenous agrarian cult that relied upon rituals intended to promote or defend the fertility of the soil and the success of crops.

In the field of the arts, Friuli was noted for its own vigorous literary style throughout the fourteenth through eighteenth centuries, distinct from the more formal style employed elsewhere in Italy. This productivity suffered when, in the eighteenth century, Friulan lost status as a language and was treated as a form of rustic speech. In the nineteenth century, a renewed European interest in vernaculars brought back the work of Friulan poets and prose writers in a kind of renaissance. While Friulan has never achieved recognition as an official language in Italy, there have been writers, particularly poets, working in the language throughout this century. Other expressions of Friuli folk culture are to be found in local theater and folk dancing.

Bibliography

Ginzberg, Carlo (1980). The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller. Translated by John Tedeschi and Anne Tedeschi. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Ginzberg, Carlo (1983). The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Translated by John Tedeschi and Anne Tedeschi. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Gregor, D. B. (1975). Friulan Language and Literature. New York: Oleander Press.

Holmes, Douglas R. (1989). Cultural Disenchantments: Worker Peasantries in Northeast Italy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

NANCY E. GRATTON