Lombard language

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Lombard Language
)
For the extinct 6th-century Germanic language, see Lombardic language.

Lombard
lombard, lumbard, lumbart, lombart
Native to
RegionItaly[1][2][3]

Switzerland[1][2][3]

Brazil[4]

Native speakers
3.8 million (2002)[5]
Early forms
Dialects
  • Western Lombard
  • Eastern Lombard
Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3lmo
Glottologlomb1257
Linguasphere51-AAA-oc & 51-AAA-od
Lombard language distribution in Europe:
  Areas where Lombard is spoken
  Areas where Lombard is spoken alongside other languages (
Emilian and with Venetian
)
  Areas of influence of Lombard (Tridentine dialect)
? Areas of uncertain diffusion of Ladin
Lombard is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

The Lombard language (native name: lombard,

Graubünden.[9] The language is also spoken in Santa Catarina in Brazil by Lombard immigrants from the Province of Bergamo, in Italy.[4][10]

Origins

The most ancient

linguistic substratum that has left a mark on the Lombard language is that of the ancient Ligures.[11][12] However, available information about the ancient language and its influence on modern Lombard is extremely vague and limited.[11][12] That is in sharp contrast to the influence left by the Celts, who settled in Northern Italy and brought their Celtic languages and culturally and linguistically Celticised the Ligures.[13] The Celtic substratum of modern Lombard and the neighbouring languages of Northern Italy is self-evident and so the Lombard language is classified as a Gallo-Italic language (from the ancient Roman name for the Celts, Gauls).[11]

Roman domination shaped the dialects spoken in the area, which was called Cisalpine Gaul by the Romans, and much of the lexicon and grammar of the Lombard language have their origin in Latin.[13] However, that influence was not homogeneous[11] since idioms of different areas were influenced by previous linguistic substrata, and each area was marked by a stronger or weaker Latinisation or the preservation of ancient Celtic characteristics.[11]

The Germanic

linguistic superstratum on Lombard and neighboring Gallo-Italic languages since the Germanic Lombards did not impose their language by law on the Gallo-Roman population, but they rather acquired the Gallo-Italic language from the local population. Lombardic left traces, mostly in lexicon and phonetics, without Germanicising the local language in its structure and so Lombard preserved its Romance structure.[14]

Status

Lombard is considered a

Standard Italian, which is derived from Tuscan.[16]

Speakers

A Lombard speaker

Historically, the vast majority of

monolingual Lombard-speakers became a rarity as time went by, but a small minority may still be uncomfortable speaking Standard Italian. Surveys in Italy find that all Lombard-speakers also speak Italian, and their command of both two languages varies according to their geographical position as well as their socio-economic situation. The most reliable predictor was found to be the speaker's age. Studies have found that young people are much less likely to speak Lombard as proficiently as their grandparents.[18]
In some areas, elderly people are more used to speaking Lombard than Italian even though they know both.

Classification

Chart of Romance languages based on structural and comparative criteria

Lombard belongs to the

Western Romance subdivision.[19]

Varieties

Traditionally, the Lombard dialects have been classified into the Eastern, Western, Alpine and Southern Lombard dialects.[20]

The varieties of the Italian provinces of

Graubünden
) are Western, and both Western and Eastern varieties are found in the Italian areas.

The varieties of the Alpine valleys of

Grigioni can be considered as Alpine Lombard,[21] and those spoken in southern Lombardy such as in Pavia, Lodi, Cremona and Mantova can be classified as Southern Lombard.[22]

Literature

Main article: Western Lombard literature

Lacking a standard language, authors in the 13th and 14th language created

Old French
, for their literary works. The Lombard variety with the oldest literary tradition (from the 13th century) is that of
Second World War
.

koiné used by speakers of local dialects (particularly those diverging from the koiné itself) when they communicate with speakers of other Lombard dialects of Ticino, Grigioni or Italian Lombardy
. The koiné is similar to Milanese and the varieties of the neighbouring provinces on the Italian side of the border.

There is extant literature in other varieties of Lombard like La masséra da bé, a theatrical work in early Eastern Lombard, written by Galeazzo dagli Orzi (1492–?) presumably in 1554.[23][failed verification]

Usage

Eastern Lombard
; L03 – Southern Lombard; L04 – Alpine Lombard

Standard Italian is widely used in Lombard-speaking areas. However, the status of Lombard is quite different in the Swiss and Italian areas and so the Swiss areas have now become the real strongholds of Lombard.

In Switzerland

The LSI, published in 2004

In the Swiss areas, the local Lombard varieties are generally better preserved and more vital than in Italy. No negative feelings are associated with the use of Lombard in everyday life, even with complete strangers. Some radio and television programmes, particularly comedies, are occasionally broadcast by the Swiss Italian-speaking broadcasting company in Lombard. Moreover, it is common for people to answer in Lombard in spontaneous interviews. Even some television advertisements have been broadcast in Lombard. The major research institution working on Lombard dialects is in Bellinzona, Switzerland (CDE – Centro di dialettologia e di etnografia, a governmental (cantonal) institution); there is no comparable institution in Italy. In December 2004, it released a dictionary in five volumes, covering all Lombard varieties spoken in the Swiss areas.[N 5]

In Italy

A Lombard-speaker, recorded in Italy

Today, in most urban areas of Italian Lombardy, people under 40 years old speak almost exclusively Italian in their daily lives because of schooling and television broadcasts in Italian. However, in rural areas, Lombard is still vital and used alongside Italian.

A certain revival of the use of Lombard has been observed in the last decade. The popularity of modern artists singing their lyrics in Lombard dialects (in Italian rock dialettale, the best known of such artists being Davide Van de Sfroos) is also a relatively-new but growing phenomenon involving the Swiss and the Italian areas.[citation needed]

Lombard is spoken in Campione d'Italia, an exclave of Italy that is surrounded by Swiss territory on Lake Lugano.

Phonology

The following tables show the sounds that are used in all Lombard dialects.

Consonants

Consonant phonemes[24]
Labial Alveolar (Palato-)

alveolar

Velar
Nasal m
n
 		ɲ (ŋ)
Stop voiceless p
t
 		k
voiced b
d
 		ɡ
Affricate voiceless t͡s t͡ʃ
voiced d͡z d͡ʒ
Fricative voiceless f s ʃ
voiced z ʒ
Approximant central ʋ j w
lateral l (ʎ)
Trill
r

In

debuccalized to [h
].

Vowels

Vowel phonemes[25]
Front Central Back
Unrounded Rounded
High i iː y yː u uː
Mid e eː ø øː o
ɛ (œ)[26] ɔ
Low a aː

In

Milanese andà "to go" and andaa "gone"),[27] but Eastern varieties normally use only short allophones
.

Two repeating orthographic vowels are separated by a dash to prevent them from being confused with a long vowel: a-a in ca-àl "horse".[27]

Western long /aː/ and short /ø/ tend to be back [ɑː] and lower [œ], respectively, and /e/ and /ɛ/ may merge to [ɛ].

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Classical Milanese orthography, Scriver Lombard [lmo] and New Lombard Orthography [lmo].
  2. ^ Ticinese orthography.
  3. ^ Modern Western orthography.
  4. Eastern unified orthography.[clarification needed
    ]
  5. ^ "Lessico dialettale della Svizzera italiana (LSI)" [Dialectal Lexicon of Italian Switzerland (LSI)], Centro di dialettologia e di etnografia (in Italian), archived from the original on 23 November 2005

References

  1. ^ a b Minahan, James (2000). One Europe, many nations: a historical dictionary of European national groups. Westport.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. ^ a b Moseley, Christopher (2007). Encyclopedia of the world's endangered languages. New York.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. ^ a b Coluzzi, Paolo (2007). Minority language planning and micronationalism in Italy. Berne.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. ^ a b Spoken in Botuverá, in Brazil, municipality established by Italian migrants coming from the valley between Treviglio and Crema. A thesis of Leiden University about Brasilian Bergamasque: [1].
  5. ^ Lombard at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  6. doi:10.5281/zenodo.7398962. Archived
    from the original on 29 October 2023. Retrieved 29 October 2023.
  7. ^ "Vocabolario dei dialetti della Svizzera italiana - CDE (DECS) - Repubblica e Cantone Ticino" [Vocabulary of Swiss Italian dialects]. www4.ti.ch. Retrieved 8 November 2022.
  8. ^ "Documentation for ISO 639 identifier: LMO". Identifier: LMO - Language(s) Name: Lombard - Status: Active - Code set: 639-3 - Scope: Individual - Type: Living
  9. ISBN 9781316352410. Archived from the original on 21 April 2017 – via Google Books. Lombard (Lumbard, ISO 639-9 lmo) is a cluster of essentially homogeneous varieties (Tamburelli 2014: 9) belonging to the Gallo-Italic group. It is spoken in the Italian region of Lombardy, in the Novara province of Piedmont and in Switzerland. Mutual intelligibility between Lombard and Italian has been reported as very low (Tamburelli 2014). Although some Lombard varieties, Milanese in particular, enjoy a rather long and prestigious literary tradition, Lombard is now used mostly in informal domains. According to Ethnologue
    , Piedmontese and Lombard are respectively spoken by between 1,600,000 and 2,000,000 speakers and around 3,500,000 speakers. Those are very high figures for languages that have never been recognised officially or systematically taught in schools.
  10. Enciclopedia Treccani
    (in Italian).
  11. ^ a b c d e Agnoletto 1992, p. 120.
  12. ^ a b D'Ilario 2003, p. 28.
  13. ^ a b D'Ilario 2003, p. 29.
  14. ^ "Il milanese crogiuolo di tanti idiomi" [The Milanese melting pot of many languages] (in Italian). Archived from the original on 24 September 2017.
  15. ^ Coluzzi, P. (2004). Regional and Minority Languages in Italy. Marcator Working Papers. Vol. 14.
  16. ^ von Wartburg, W. (1950). Die Ausgliederung der romanischen Sprachräume [The spin-off of the Romance language areas] (in German). Bern: Francke.
  17. ^ De Mauro, T. (1970). Storia linguistica dell'Italia unita [Linguistic history of unified Italy] (in Italian) (Second ed.). Laterza, Berkeley.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  18. ISTAT
    )
  19. doi:10.1093/llc/fqx041
    .
  20. ^ "Lingua lombarda" [Lombard language]. Lingua Lombarda (in Italian). Circolo Filologico Milanese.
  21. ^ "Lombardo alpino" [Alpine Lombard]. Lingua Lombarda (in Italian). Circolo Filologico Milanese.
  22. ^ "Lombardo meridionale" [Southern Lombard]. Lingua Lombarda (in Italian). Circolo Filologico Milanese.
  23. ISBN 978-88-343-1332-9
    (Google Books).
  24. ^ Sanga, Glauco (1984). Dialettologia Lombarda [Lombard dialectology] (in Italian). University of Pavia. pp. 283–285.
  25. ^ Sanga, Glauco (1984). Dialettologia Lombarda (in Italian). University of Pavia. pp. 283–285.
  26. ^ [œ] occurs in most areas of the language but may overlap in usage with [ø], as they both share the same trigram (oeu).
  27. ^ a b Sanga, Glauco (1984). Dialettologia Lombarda (in Italian). University of Pavia. pp. 283–285.

Sources

External links

Lombard edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lombard_language&oldid=1216593767"