Ladin flags fly high in Cortina as minority community seeks more recognition

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 2 : As the Winter Olympics return to Cortina d’Ampezzo, blue, white and green Ladin flags hang from balconies and windows across the Alpine resort, outnumbering Italy’s green, white and red tricolour and signalling a push for visibility by a minority community that says it has long been overlooked.

For Ladins in Cortina, the Milano Cortina Games offer a rare chance to assert their identity in a region where they feel sidelined compared with fellow Ladin speakers across the provincial border in South Tyrol.

Ladin, a Rhaeto-Romance language spoken by about 30,000 people in parts of northern Italy’s Dolomites, enjoys extensive legal protection and public visibility in South Tyrol, where the autonomous province embeds minority languages in schools, public administration and public broadcasting.

In neighbouring Veneto, where Cortina is located, Ladin representatives say the recognition is far weaker.

“This (the flags) was not meant only as a protest, but also as a sign of welcome to the Olympic public,” Roland Verra, president of the Union Generala di Ladins in Ortisei, South Tyrol, referring to initiatives launched to highlight Ladin culture during the Games, told Reuters.

Local activists are rolling out an information campaign timed with the Olympics, producing material aimed at journalists and visitors, including a mini dictionary of around 300 sports-related terms in Ladin, translated into Italian, German, English, French and Spanish.

“The Foundation Milano Cortina did not include us, did not say anything about our identity,” Elsa Zardini, president of the Union de i Ladis de Anpezo (Union of the Ladins of Ampezzo), told Reuters.

“So, we distributed about 500 flags to those who wanted to put on