paoli was sympathetic to italian culture and regarded his own native language as an italian dialect (corsican is an italo-dalmatian tongue closely related to tuscan and sicilian). he was considered by niccolò tommaseo, who collected his "lettere" (letters), as one of the precursors of the italian irredentism. the so-called "babbu di a patria" ("father of the fatherland"), as pasquale paoli was nicknamed by the corsican italians, wrote in his letters the following appeal in 1768 against the french: