The Sardinian language is mistakenly called a dialect, a generally incorrect categorisation, not dictated by linguistic reasons but by political and cultural issues. Sardinian is an independent language because it has its own grammar, a lexicon of distinct origin, an autonomous historical evolution, which does not derive from Italian but directly from Latin, and a written tradition. The Nuragic language and LatinAs already mentioned, Sardinian cannot be defined as a variant of Italian or a dialect, because it is one Romance language born autonomously, exactly like French, Spanish or Portuguese. Sardinian, in addition to its Latin heritage, retains traces of the Nuragic language, presumably spoken in the area in pre-Roman times. Subsequently, contacts with Byzantine Greek, Catalan, Castilian and other languages ​​of the Italian peninsula contributed to substantially modify Sardinian over the centuries.