Comparing intelligibility between Occitan, Gallo-“Italic”, and Tuscan: Classification of Gallo-“Italic” empirically tested

Scholars unanimously describe Gallo-“Italic” as genealogically Gallo-Romance. Nonetheless, some refer to it as part of Italo-Romance. Some of the latter advocate their stance by claiming that heteronomy towards Italian/Tuscan would have made Gallo-“Italic” more similar to the bordering Italo-Romance than to the bordering Gallo-Romance varieties (‘critical convergence claim’). However, this claim, which is quantitative in nature, has never been supported by quantitative evidence. I have now tested it and will be presenting the results in this contribution. Based on the link between intelligibility level and linguistic distance demonstrated by empirical research, I argue that the critical convergence claim predicts that intelligibility is currently lower and decreases more abruptly across the Occitan–Gallo-“Italic” border than across the Tuscan–Gallo-“Italic” border. Therefore, through the SPIN method, I measured intelligibility between pairs of twelve geolects spoken in the Occitan-speaking Alps of France and Italy, in the Po valley and Romagna (Gallo-“Italic”), and in the Tuscan Apennines, and tested for statistical difference. Results falsify the critical convergence claim. They demonstrate that intelligibility is significantly lower and decreases more abruptly between Tuscan and Gallo-“Italic” than between Occitan and Gallo-“Italic”. These findings support a synchronological classification of Gallo-“Italic” as being still closer to the rest of Gallo-Romance than to Italo-Romance.