Gerhard Rohlfs e Paul Scheuermeier a confronto nelle inchieste etnodialettali per l'AIS in Abruzzo

The contribution examines the investigation reports written by Paul Schuermeier and Gerhard Rohlfs during their dialect surveys for the AIS in Abruzzo, a region that, together with Lazio, was investigated by both scholars (Scheuermeier in the north, Rohlfs in the south). A careful re-reading reveals not only the acuity of their observations about several phonetic and linguistic phenomena, but also their ability to overcome the limits of a questionnaire survey thanks to constant attention to the spontaneous speech of several subjects, and, above all, their special relationship with the informants, which they both set up in a particularly effective manner, thanks also to their unusual communication and human qualities. Indeed, Rohlfs' survey methodology proves to be more similar to Scheuermeier's than has been admitted so far, allowing us to recognize in him an uncommon sociolinguistic sensitivity, which has long been doubted.