The only language spoken in France is French—right? Well, not quite. It depends on how you define “France,” although even within Metropolitan France, you can find Basque, Breton, and several minority Romance languages. With territories in South America, Africa, and the Pacific Ocean, a number of Amerindian and Austronesian languages are also technically spoken natively in France. But there’s another part of France that’s often overlooked: the small Mediterranean island of Corsica, found smack-dab in between mainland France and Italy, just north of the Italian island of Sardinia.
Although Corsica is fully incorporated into the French state and comprises its own administrative region, Corsicans have their own native language: Corsican. Corsican has an estimated 150,000 speakers, a little less than half the population of Corsica. However, it’s simultaneously estimated that only around 10% of Corsicans speak the language as their first. The pressure from French has been enormous and has slowly eroded away at Corsican’s vitality, even though the language is a major source of pride for the people of the island. Most translation agencies overlook Corsican, but we at TranslationServices.com are proud to offer Corsican translation services.
Would you like to see a free quote for our Corsican translation services? Message us today!
Here’s some more information on Corsican.
Corsican is similar to French, but it’s absolutely a separate language. In fact, it’s closer to Italian than French, particularly to Tuscan, owing to the island’s historical settlement by the Etruscans. Modern Corsican is split across numerous dialects, which can be roughly grouped into Northern Corsican and Southern Corsican, with the southernmost varieties of the language spoken in the northern tip of Sardinia. As the influence of French grows in Corsica, and of Italian in Sardinia, the number of Corsican speakers declines.
As a Romance language, Corsican’s grammar is similar to that of French and Italian—it has two grammatical genders, no cases, and a complex verb system with a number of tenses, aspects, and moods. It also shares much of its lexicon with French, Italian, and the other Romance languages, making it relatively easy for linguistically inclined speakers of other Romance languages to decipher Corsican texts. However, that doesn’t mean that a French or Italian translator is qualified to translate Corsican. The languages exhibit important differences, and even shared vocabulary may be used in different ways.
Our Corsican translation team: connecting Corsica and the rest of the world
Translating between Corsican and English is something our team devotes themselves to with pride. Whether translating into or out of Corsican, they know they’re contributing to the continued vitality of their precious endangered native language. That’s why they’re eager to help clients from all walks of life, including business, pedagogy, literature, and more.
If you run a business that you want to take to Corsica, why not print some advertising materials in Corsica? That’s a unique way to stand out and show Corsicans that you’re truly committed to their oft-overlooked island. Maybe you’re an advocate for Corsican-language education and want great pedagogical content in Corsican for kids—we can help you with that. If you have a historical document or literature in Corsican, we can help you disseminate it around the world, and if you want to translate books, websites, apps, games, or poems into Corsican, we can help you bring new literary and digital content to Corsica in the native tongue.
Our team of Corsican translators is excited to get started—so send us a message anytime!