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media, education, government services,
industry, religion and culture. Allard and
Landry12 reconceptualized the social-structural
variables into four categories
or »capitals«: »demographic capital«, »political
capital«, »economic capital«, »cultural
capital«, and introduced the belief
system as the cognitive representation of
subjective vitality.
Summarizing the external historic factors
favoring language vitality of Molise
Croats it can be said that the major role
was played by
geographic isolation and culturally compact
settlements, high endogamy
rate (60-70%), self-subsistent
economy which required
little contact
with the outside
world, the related type of
traditional and collectivistic culture in |
which language is seen as an important marker
of group solidarity and identity
An important role was
also played by the
Southern Italian
context itself, peripheral with respect to northern
Italy, and the
vicinity of both Italian and Albanian
groups with similar
status characterized
by strong local
patriotism on one hand,
and a long-term
struggle for regional autonomy
of the Molise region itself obtained
only in 1963. In addition to the long-term search for an
ethnic-cultural identity and political and
administrative
autonomy with respect to the neighboring
regions, the Molisan
province as a whole
has been
characterized by the objective historical isolation,
chronic under development
and poor economic conditions. |
