and acquiring Italian as a cultural norm represented a means through which they could distance themselves from their original group, which they perceived as marginalized and lacking in prestige, and thereby incorporate themselves into an altogether different social group. The Sardinians have been thus led to part with their language as it bore the mark of a stigmatized identity, the embodiment of a long-suffered social and political subordination in a chained society, as opposed to the social advancement granted them by embracing Italian; such social stigma went beyond the Sardinian language itself to also encompass the Sardinian-influenced accent when speaking Italian, which, unlike other accents, was equally considered uncouth and befitting criminals, or ignorance. Research on ethnolinguistic prejudice has pointed to feelings of inferiority amongst the Sardinians in relation with mainlanders and the Italian language, perceived as a symbol of continental superiority and cultural dominance. Many indigenous cultural practices were to go extinct, shifting towards other forms of socialization. Within a few generations Sardinian, as well as Alghero's Catalan dialect, would become a minority language spoken by fewer and fewer Sardinian families, the majority of whom have turned into monolingual and monocultural Italians. This process has been slower to take hold in the countryside than in the main cities, where it has become most evident instead. Nowadays, the Sardinians are linguistically and culturally assimilated into Italian and, despite the official recognition conferred to Sardinian by the national law in 1999, according to Giulio Paulis "identify with their language to lesser degree than other linguistic minorities in Italy, and instead seem to identify with Italian to a higher degree than other linguistic minorities in Italy". It is estimated that around 10 to 13 percent of the young people born in Sardinia are still competent in Sardinian, and the language is currently used exclusively by 0.6% of the total population. A 2012 study conducted by the University of Cagliari and Edinburgh found that the interviewees from Sardinia with the strongest sense of Italian identity were also those expressing the most unfavourable opinion towards Sardinian. References History of Dalmatia History of Istria Cultural assimilation Ethnic cleansing in Europe Italian language Italian culture Contemporary history of Slovenia 20th century in Italy History of the Slovenes History of the Slovene Littoral Linguistic discrimination Language policy in Italy