"On ne peut pas faire l'histoire des mots sans faire l'histoire des choses" (Jaberg 1936, 23).

In the Romance, but above all, Italian research tradition, dialectology has been very closely connected with the social sciences since the beginning, meaning at least since Giuseppe Pitré in Italy. Sociology and ethnology especially are areas of focus in that regard. From this perspective, geolinguistics as a whole can even be understood as a sub-discipline of an overarching 'ethnoscience'. The term – etnoscienza in Italian (from eng. ethnoscience) – has, however, not been able to establish itself either in Italy or Germany. In the very perceptive and informative Manuale di etnoscienza by Giorgio Raimondo Cardona (Cardona 1995) it says:


"[...] il prefissoide etno- permette un'immediata 'etnologizzazione' di qualunque sottodisciplina [...]. L'inglese offre ancora un altro tipo di formazione, quella con folk- (folk-taxonomy), che ha però lo svantaggio di non essere atrettanto facilmente esportabile quanto il suo concorrente grecizzante.
Il termine con etno- copre però due cose distinte, nella letteratura: etnobotanica può significare:
a) una vera botanica scientifica, ma ritagliata sull'habitat, uso ecc. di una specifica etnia;
b) la scienza botanica posseduta da una specifica etnia.
Nel primo caso, il ricercatore è soprattutto un naturalista, che compie il suo lavoro consueto, anche se con una particolare attenzione alle denominazioni locali ecc.; nel secondo il ricercatore è piuttosto un antropologo conoscitivo, che studia come venga categorizzato il mondo naturale da una data etnia; dei dati naturalistici egli si servirà soprattutto per ancorare le classificazioni così individuate a referenti reperibili e riconoscibili anche per chi è esterno alla cultura studiata. [...]
Gran parte dell'analisi etnoscientifica si basa sull'analisi di enunciati della lingua del gruppo [...] " (Cardona 1995, 15 f.; highlights in bold font: TK)

In US-tradition, the etnoscienza as outlined above is referred to as cultural anthropology. In the German language area in particular, a distinction was also made between Volkskunde for the study of indigenous culture(s) and Völkerkunde for the study of foreign, especially non-European, cultures. Presently, the term ethnology is generally used instead with the special sub-field of European ethnology (in the sense of Volkskunde). The designation ethnolinguistics (cf. Krefeld 2021) therefore, too, is ambiguous as it is often restricted to the linguistic study of non-European cultures (cf. Senft 2003) although it should not exclude European ones. In any case, this categorical separation proves pointless regarding the large and widespread migration flows, which are rapidly increasing.

One ambiguity in Cardona's quoted passage remains to be clarified. It concerns the 'prefixoid' ethno-, which, on the one hand, is used as a synonym of eng. folk and refers to etnia on the other hand. Folk (in folk-taxonomy etc.) points to knowledge of the everyday life and lifeworld as well as conventions of the layperson or non-scientist. It is precisely in this sense that ethnicity (or ethno-) should refer to cultural communities in everyday life without, however, implying idealised notions of homogeneity, archaicity, social seclusion etc. Cardona's distinction (a vs. b) further points to two complementary research perspectives in cultural and social studies.

Incidentally, a substantial connection between linguistics and ethnology arises from the fact that languages themselves are cultural techniques. In summary, dialectological or geolinguistic research in Cardona's sense may be called 'ethnolinguistic' (even in retrospect) if it describes local languages and/or dialects in their mutual interdependence with other cultural techniques. The special significance of languages is that they provide a privileged kind of access to the historical depth of all cultural techniques. It is therefore not at all surprising to find that the historical strata of the region can be identified through the names of characteristic technologies of the Alpine region, such as milk processing. In the Romance tradition, this orientation towards the everyday culture of the speakers was established by the prototypical Linguistic and Ethnographic Atlas of Italy and Southern Switzerland (AIS). It undoubtedly marks the greatest difference and advance compared to the ALF as Karl Jaberg strongly emphasises. The following passage, which is quite informative with regard to the self-image and scientific background of the AIS, deserves to be highlighted:

"L'importance des «choses» n'a pas échappé à l'esprit de Gilliéron [...] Que Gilliéron ait complètement négligé ce point de vue dans la conception de l'Atlas et qu'il n'en ait tenu compte qu'en passant dans ses autres publications, c'est un fait d'autant plus étrange qu'il connaissait fort bien les «choses» et s'y intéressait passionnément. A-t-il approuvé l'enseignement que Ferdinand de Saussure a tiré de ses incursions dans les domaines limitrophes de notre science, à savoir que la «linguistique a pour unique et véritable objet la langue envisagée en elle-même et pour elle-même», principe qui, malgré l'admiration que j'ai pour le grand savant genevois, m'a toujours semblé singulièrement rétrécir le champ d'action du linguiste." (Jaberg 1936, 27 f.)

Jaberg explicitly and perfectly legitimately points out that Saussurean structuralism retains neogrammarian ideas, especially in this regard. From the perspective of contemporary geolinguistics, the attempt to view language as an isolable 'module' is thus by no means perceived as a new paradigm, but as downright traditionalist:

"La conception du Petit Atlas phonétique du Valais roman [also by Gilliéron; TK] et celle de l'Atlas linguistique de la France remontent à une époque qui était encore sous l'empire des néogrammairiens, et on sait ce que les néogrammairiens doivent aux sciences naturelles. Ce n'est certes pas un hasard que le Cours de linguistique générale s'en ressente également. M. Jud et moi, nous avions pas ces attaches avec les néogrammairiens, Gilliéron lui-même nous avait aidés à les rompre. Nous étions en revanche fortement impressionnés par les brillants articles de Meringer et de Schuchardt. La réalité des choses était autours de nous. Nous avions nous-mêmes parcouru les pays romans ; nous avions recueilli sur le terrain des observations ethnographiques et folkloriques. Comment en rester aux mots? Tout en sauvegardant le caractère essentiellement linguistique de notre ouvrage, nous croyions devoir fournir à l'historien des mots les données nécessaires pour se faire une idée des choses, afin qu'il ne bâtisse pas dans le vide." (Jaberg 1936, 28).

Here, Jaberg also mentions two important pioneers, namely Rudolf Meringer and Hugo Schuchardt (cf. Onomasiology). Schuchardt had called for a programmatic "comparative history of Romance culture", which had to be understood in a "broader and preferably lower sense than it tends to be conceived in." (Schuchardt 1899, 195).
Hugo Plomteux’s 1980 participation-based study of the Cultura contadina in Liguria points the way forward for the ethnolinguistically oriented tradition of Italian dialectology. Ethnolinguistically, Sicily is very well researched, perhaps the best in comparison with other regions. Most notable are: Fanciullo 1983 and several important works produced as part of the Atlante linguistico della Sicilia (see Sottile 2019 for more details). The following titles provide information on the respective cultural techniques and traditions that were studied: Bonanzinga/Giallombardo 2011, Matranga 2011, Sottile 2002 and Castiglione 1999. The consideration of more current technologies (ecology and tourism), which will be the focus during the third phase of VerbaAlpina, is not yet self-evident.