Sardinians

Sardinians or Sards are a Romance ethnolinguistic group indigenous to Sardinia, an island in the western Mediterranean administered as an autonomous region of Italy. They number roughly 1.5 million on their native island, with another 2.25 million residing abroad, mostly on the Italian mainland. Sardinians are characterized by their relative cultural, linguistic, and ethnic isolation from other groups in the Mediterranean basin; their demographic history reflects the highest detected levels of genetic similarity to ancient Neolithic peoples who expanded into Europe around 7,500 to 8,000 years ago. Although Italian is now their primary language, most Sardinians also speak their native tongue, Sardinian, a Romance language that is most similar to the Vulgar Latin introduced by the Romans in the mid third century BCE. Other native languages are Sassarese, which is rooted in the medieval Tuscan dialect; Gallurese, which is closely related to Corsican; and Tabarchino, a dialect of Ligurian (Genoese).