Origins
The Corsican language has been influenced by the languages of the major powers taking an interest in Corsican affairs; earlier by those of the Medieval Italian powers: Tuscany (828–1077), Pisa (1077–1282) and Genoa (1282–1768), more recently by France (1768–present), which, since 1789, has promulgated the official Parisian French. The term gallicised Corsican refers to Corsican up to about the year 1950. The term distanciated Corsican refers to an idealized Corsican from which various agents have removed French or other elements.
The general classification of Corsican as a Romance language allows two possibilities as to the identity of the speakers of the first distinct Corsican, or Proto-Corsican. They created the language either from Proto-Romance or from a subsequent Romance language.
In 40 AD neither a Romance nor an Italic language were spoken by the natives of Corsica. The Roman exile, Seneca the younger, reports that both coast and interior were occupied by natives whose language he did not understand (see under Prehistory of Corsica). Latin at that time was generally spoken only in the Roman colonies. There was probably a substratic language that is still visible in the toponymy or in some words, for instance Gallurese zerru 'pig'. The same is valid for Sardinian. The occupation of the island by Vandals about 469 AD marks the end of authoritative influence by Latin-speaking Romans (see under Medieval Corsica). If the natives of that time were speaking Latin they must have acquired it during the late empire. The documents of the early Christian church concerning Corsica are in Latin, but they are only communications between church officials (see under Ajaccio).
The next window of opportunity for the predecessor of a Proto-Corsican was the administration of Corsica by Tuscany, then speaking the Tuscan dialect, an immediate predecessor of Italian. The first Italian documents date from the 10th century but Italian must have developed earlier and Tuscan even earlier. Tuscan would have come from the latest phases of Vulgar Latin; Proto-Corsican from the Tuscan spoken on Corsica.
The last historical possibility is that Proto-Corsican came from the Tuscan dialect of Pisa; its period of Corsican administration, however, was relatively short. Genoese is not a likely possibility as Corsican is attested before the presence of Genoa on Corsica, and the linguistic features of Corsican do not match well with those of Genoese. Historical circumstances alone reduce the window of opportunity only to within several hundred years.
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