Editing Dialect continuum (section)

====Western Romance continuum====
[[File:Romance languages accurate.png|thumb|300x300px|Romance languages in Europe]]
The western continuum of [[Romance languages]] comprises, from West to East: in Portugal, [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]]; in Spain, [[Galician language|Galician]], [[Leonese language|Leonese]] or [[Asturian language|Asturian]], Castilian or [[Spanish language|Spanish]], [[Aragonese language|Aragonese]] and [[Catalan Language|Catalan]] or [[Valencian language|Valencian]]; in France, [[Occitan Language|Occitan]], [[Franco-Provençal language|Franco-Provençal]], standard [[French language|French]] and [[Corsican Language|Corsican]] which is closely related to Italian; in Italy, [[Ligurian language|Ligurian]], [[Piedmontese language|Piedmontese]], [[Lombard language|Lombard]], [[Emilian dialects|Emilian]], [[Romagnol dialects|Romagnol]], [[Italian language|Italian]] Gallo-Picene, [[Venetian language|Venetian]], [[Friulian language|Friulian]], [[Ladin language|Ladin]]; and in Switzerland, [[Lombard language|Lombard]] and [[Romansh language|Romansh]]. This continuum is sometimes presented as another example, but the major languages in the group (i.e. Portuguese, Spanish, French and Italian) have had separate [[standard language|standards]] for longer than the languages in the Continental West Germanic group, and so are not commonly classified as [[dialect]]s of a common language.

Focusing instead on the local Romance lects that pre-existed the establishment of national or regional standard languages, all evidence and principles point to ''Romania continua'' as having been, and to varying extents in some areas still being, what [[Charles Hockett]] called an L-complex, i.e. an unbroken chain of local differentiation such that, in principle and with appropriate caveats, intelligibility (due to sharing of features) attenuates with distance. This is perhaps most evident today in Italy, where, especially in rural and small-town contexts, local Romance is still often employed at home and work, and geolinguistic distinctions are such that while native speakers from any two nearby towns can understand each other with ease, they can also spot from linguistic features that the other is from elsewhere.

In recent centuries, the intermediate dialects between the major Romance languages have been moving toward [[language death|extinction]], as their speakers have switched to varieties closer to the more prestigious national standards. That has been most notable in France,{{Citation needed|date=June 2009}} owing to the French government's [[Language policy in France|refusal to recognise minority languages]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.francetvinfo.fr/societe/le-senat-dit-non-a-la-charte-europeenne-des-langues-regionales_1712811.html|title=Le Sénat dit non à la Charte européenne des langues régionales|website=Franceinfo |date=27 October 2015 |url-status=live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20231203070556/https://www.francetvinfo.fr/societe/le-senat-dit-non-a-la-charte-europeenne-des-langues-regionales_1712811.html |archive-date= Dec 3, 2023 }}</ref> but it has occurred to some extent in all Western Romance speaking countries. Language change has also threatened the survival of stateless languages with existing literary standards, such as Occitan.

The Romance [[languages of Italy]] are a less arguable example of a dialect continuum. For many decades since Italy's unification, the attitude of the French government towards the ethnolinguistic minorities was copied by the Italian government.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.culturalpolicies.net/web/italy.php?aid=519|title=Italy : 5.1 General legislation : 5.1.9 Language laws|publisher=Council of Europe/ERICarts|website=Compendium of Cultural Policies and Trends in Europe |date=September 18, 2013 |access-date=26 February 2014|archive-date=2 March 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140302163710/http://www.culturalpolicies.net/web/italy.php?aid=519|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.treccani.it/magazine/lingua_italiana/speciali/italiano_dialetti/Cerruti.html|title=Italiano e dialetto oggi in Italia |website=Treccani |date=26 January 2011 |first1=Massimo |last1=Cerruti |url-status=live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20221023143019/https://www.treccani.it/magazine/lingua_italiana/speciali/italiano_dialetti/Cerruti.html |archive-date= Oct 23, 2022 }}</ref>