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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-/W3C/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional/EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META NAME="Classification" CONTENT="Languages, Romance, Lombard"> <META NAME="Description" CONTENT="Brief description of the Lombard language"> <META NAME="KeyWords" CONTENT="Lombard, Area of Distribution, Numbers of Speakers, History, Dialects"> <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Mozilla/4.06 [en] (WinNT; I) [Netscape]"> <META NAME="Author" CONTENT="Luca Mangiat, Zdravko Batzarov"> <TITLE>General Overview of the Lombard Language</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY BACKGROUND="../../Art/Backgrounds/Relief.jpg" NOSAVE> <CENTER>Lombard Language <IMG SRC="../../Art/Lines/ThinElectric.gif" VSPACE=10 NOSAVE BORDER=0 HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=508 ALIGN=BOTTOM> General Overview (Draft notes)</CENTER> <A NAME="Area of Distribution and Number of Speakers"></A>Area of Distribution and Number of Speakers Lombard is a Western Romance language spoken by 10,000,000 in northern Italy (the region of <A HREF="../../Encyclopaedia/L/Lombardy.html">Lombardy</A>, eastern Piedmont, the south-western part of Trentino-Alto Adige, the northern border area of Emilia Romagna) and various places in Sicily (1976), and some other 303,000 in the cantons of <A HREF="../../Encyclopaedia/T/Ticino.html">Ticino</A> and Grigioni (Graubüunden) in Switzerland (1995). <A NAME="Origin and History"></A>Origin and History <IMG SRC="../../Maps/Lombard/Lombardian_dialects.gif" HSPACE=10 VSPACE=10 NOSAVE BORDER=0 HEIGHT=434 WIDTH=441 ALIGN=RIGHT> According to H. Lausberg and G. Hull etc. there was a specific variety of Vulgar Latin from which the Gallo-Italic idioms (including Lombard), Venetan and Istriot evolved. In his study on "The Linguistic Unity of Northern Italy and Rhaetia" (published in 1982) Prof. G. Hull considered this ancestral protolanguage in the frames of the Gallo-Romance linguistic subgroup and gave it the techical name of "Padanian". <A NAME="Dialects"></A>Dialects The numerous Lombard dialects are classified in two main groups: <UL> <LI> Western Lombard: Milanese, Lodigian, Comask, Ticinese, Varesotto, Novarese, Pavese, Vogherese,</LI>    Lomellinese, Bosin (Ligurian-Lombard), Cremonese, Valtellinese and other minor varieties; <LI> Eastern Lombard: Bergamask, Brescian, Cremask, Mantuan, Tirolian (Tyrolean) Lombard and other minor varieties.</LI> </UL> <A NAME="Orthography"></A>Orthography The traditional orthography is modelled on the French pattern and give a blurred impression of the language phonology. More recently, in Switzerland and Valtellina, there has evolved a rather phonetic orthography, strongly influenced by German and marked by the usage of the letters ö and ü. The following examples illustrate the two systems in contrast with Italian:   <TABLE BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 COLS=3 WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" > <TR> <TD>Traditional Orthography</TD> <TD>Swiss Orthography</TD> <TD>Italian</TD> </TR> <TR> <TD BGCOLOR="#33CCFF">A voeuri portà foeura el can.</TD> <TD BGCOLOR="#33CCFF">A vöri purtà föra el can.</TD> <TD BGCOLOR="#33CCFF">Voglio portare fuori il cane.</TD> </TR> <TR> <TD>Grant, gross, pussé ciula che baloss.</TD> <TD>Grand, gross, püssé ciüla che baloss.</TD> <TD>Grande, grosso, più stupido che furbo.</TD> </TR> <TR> <TD BGCOLOR="#33CCFF">O mia bella madonina che te brilet de lontan...</TD> <TD BGCOLOR="#33CCFF">O mia bela madunina che te brilet de luntan...</TD> <TD BGCOLOR="#33CCFF">O mia bella madonnina che brilli da lontano...</TD> </TR> </TABLE> <A NAME="Phonology"></A>Phonology Lombard has 8 vowels: [a], [<IMG SRC="../../General_References/Alphabets/Phonetic/e-open.gif" HSPACE=1 NOSAVE HEIGHT=12 WIDTH=10>], [e], [i], [<IMG SRC="../../General_References/Alphabets/Phonetic/o-open.gif" HSPACE=1 NOSAVE HEIGHT=12 WIDTH=10>], [ø], [u] and [y].   <TABLE BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 COLS=2 WIDTH="100%" > <TR> <TD VALIGN=TOP WIDTH="5%">See:</TD> <TD> <UL> <LI> <A HREF="../../Linguistics_Comparative/Phonetics/Diphthongization.html">Occurrence of Diphthongs Replacing Stressed Short Vowels in Romance Languages</A>.</LI> <LI> <A HREF="../../Linguistics_Comparative/Phonetics/Intervocalic_p_and_t.html">Development of Latin Intervocalic p and t in Romance Languages</A>. </LI> <LI> <A HREF="../../Linguistics_Comparative/Phonetics/Palatalization.html">Results of Palatalization of Consonant Clusters</A>. </LI> </UL> </TD> </TR> </TABLE> Accent is free and may fall on the ultimate, penultimate or antepenultimate syllable. Its place is recognizable from orthography. <A NAME="Grammar"></A>Grammar Common Lombard has lost to great extent the difference between sg. and pl., at least amongst masculine nouns / adjectives: <UL> <LI> sg. gross : pl. gross.</LI> </UL> Lombard has almost everywhere two forms: 1) unmarked form: masculine sg. and both the plurals: <UL> <LI> tocch grand big piece(s);</LI> <LI> straad grand big streets.</LI> </UL> 2) marked form: feminine sg.: <UL> <LI> strada granda big street.</LI> </UL> So we have: <UL> <LI> giugaduur male player, male players, female players;</LI> <LI> giugadura female player.</LI> </UL> <A NAME="Vocabulary"></A>Vocabulary ... to be written ...     <CENTER> <IMG SRC="../../Art/Lines/Flaming-Italian.gif" VSPACE=10 NOSAVE BORDER=0 HEIGHT=38 WIDTH=558 ALIGN=BOTTOM> <A HREF="index.html">Lombard Language Main Page</A> <A HREF="../index.html">Modern Romance Languages Main Page</A> <A HREF="../../index.html">Orbis Latinus Main Page</A> This page is part of Orbis Latinus © Zdravko Batzarov</CENTER> </BODY> </HTML>