ABSTRACT
The German language islands of Northern Italy are small villages and hamlets stretching from the Italian-French border in the Aosta valley in the west to the Italian-Slovenian border in the east (see Figure 9.1). They were settled in the Middle Ages by immigrants from what is now Switzerland (‘Walser’—language islands around the Monte Rosa)1 and from what is now Austria and Bavaria (all the other language islands).2 Only in the last village of the valley, isolated even by today’s standards, could a separate language and a culture be maintained throughout the centuries.3 Ancient customs, habits and traditions were abandoned less easily than in the Italian villages in the valley below and than in the areas where the original settlers of the language islands had migrated from. In childbirth too, home deliveries attended by a midwife who spoke the local language were still practised in the language islands when hospital birth had become commonplace elsewhere, but this custom too, eventually vanished. The aim of this study was to document the gradual fading of home deliveries attended by midwives in the language islands.
