Bolognese dialect

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Bolognese
bulgnaiṡ
Pronunciation[bul̪ˈɲai̯z̺]
Native toItaly
Indo-European
  • Emilian–Romagnol
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottologbolo1260
IETFegl-u-sd-itbo

Bolognese (native name bulgnaiṡ [bul̪ˈɲai̯z̺]) is a dialect of Emilian spoken in the most part in the city of Bologna and its hinterland (except east of the Sillaro stream), but also in the district of Castelfranco Emilia in the Province of Modena, and in the towns of Sambuca Pistoiese (Tuscany), Cento, Sant'Agostino, and Poggio Renatico (Province of Ferrara).

Terminology

Although the term

minority languages native to Italy, most of them are not mutually intelligible with Italian.[1] Bolognese is no exception and so is an Emilian
dialect, not an Italian one.

Classification

Bolognese is a dialect of

Ligurian
, and it is closer to them than to Italian.

History

"… I say, then, that perhaps those are not wrong who claim that the Bolognese speak a more beautiful language than most, especially since they take many features of their own speech from that of the people who live around them, in Imola, Ferrara and Modena I believe that everybody does this with respect to his own neighbours.... So the above-mentioned citizens of Bologna take a soft, yielding quality from those of Imola, and from the people of Ferrara and Modena, on the other hand, a certain abruptness which is more typical of the Lombards.... If, then, the Bolognese take from all sides, as I have said, it seems reasonable to suggest that their language, tempered by the combination of opposites mentioned above, should achieve a praiseworthy degree of elegance; and this, in my opinion, is beyond doubt true."
(Dante Alighieri, De Vulgari Eloquentia - Liber I, xv, 2-5)

Middle Ages

Bolognese evolved a group of Gallo-Romance languages sharing features with neighbouring northern Italian languages. It developed more distinctly into the

De Vulgari Eloquentia
, written in the beginning of the 14th century.

Modern

During the boom of interest in linguistic diversity during the 19th century, a number of efforts were made to create vocabularies, grammars, and collections of axioms, folk tales, and literature. The first dictionary was compiled in 1901 by

Italian alphabet. A period of stigmatisation followed in the 20th century, where children were punished for speaking the dialect in school,[citation needed] as it was considered to be a sign of poor education and etiquette.[citation needed
]

In 1964, Alberto Menarini proposed an alphabet with many of the same letters still used. In recent times, Bolognese has enjoyed a period of rebirth with some words, such as umarell, derived from Bolognese umarèl, becoming popular beyond Bologna itself.[2]

Phonology

Here are some prominent features of Bolognese phonology:[3]

The phonemes of Bolognese are realized phonetically very differently depending on the area in or around Bologna. Much free variation occurs in words from complex phonological processes.

Consonants

Bolognese has 25 consonant phonemes:

Consonant phonemes of Bolognese
Bilabial Labio-
dental
Dental Alveolar
Labio-
alveolar
Palatal Velar Labio-
velar
Nasal m
n
ɲ ŋ ŋʷ
Plosive
p b
d
k ɡ ɡʷ
Affricate
dz
Fricative
f v θ ð
z
Approximant
l
j w
Trill
r

Morphosyntax

Inflection

Bolognese distinguishes two genders, masculine and feminine, and two numbers, single and plural. In most nouns, the suffix -a is added to the masculine word to indicate femininity: defizänt, defizänta; påndg, påndga.

The formation of Bolognese plurals is complicated. Unlike Italian, inflection usually happens not by adding suffixes but rather by apophony:

  • å → ó: biånnd "blond," biónnd "blonds"
  • ô → û: żnôc' "knee," żnûc' "knees"

However, when words that end with -èl or -ôl are pluralised, the -èl or -ôl is changed to and respectively: martèl "hammer," martî "hammers;" fiôl "son," fiû "sons." There are some exceptions to that rule, such as nurmèl "normal," which is unchanged when made plural, and some others, such as sàntel "godfather," which are unchanged when made plural because words are not truncated, that is, with a stress that does not fall on è or ô.

Masculine words that end in a consonant are unchanged when made plural and so the number can be identified only by the preceding article: al râm "the branch," i râm "the branches." In addition, pluralised feminine words that are not constructed from a masculine word do not have an -a',: la rôda "the wheel," äl rôd "the wheels." The plurals of feminine words constructed from masculine words are formed by using an -i instead of an -a: biånnda "blonde," biånndi "blondes;" ziéṅna "aunt," ziéṅni "aunts."

References

  1. ^ Cerrato, Dominico (2022-02-07). "Che lingua parla un italiano? | Lettere e arti - Il Chiasmo | Treccani, il portale del sapere". Archived from the original on 2019-11-22.
  2. ^ "Gli umarells da Bologna si sono spostati a Firenze - DIRE.it". DIRE.it (in Italian). 2016-06-04. Retrieved 2017-07-26.
  3. ^ "I són dal bulgnaiṡ" [The sounds of Bolognese]. bulgnais.com (in Emilian and Italian).

External links