Bustocco and Legnanese dialects explained

Bustocco and Legnanese
Nativename:büstócu
legnanés
Pronunciation:pronounced as /byˈstoku/
pronounced as /leɲaˈneːs/
States:Italy
Familycolor:Indo-European
Fam2:Italic
Fam3:Latino-Faliscan
Fam4:Romance
Fam5:Italo-Western
Fam6:Western Romance
Fam7:Gallo-Romance
Fam8:Gallo-Italic
Fam9:LombardPiedmontese?[1]
Fam10:Lombard
Fam11:Western Lombard
Isoexception:dialect
Glotto:none

Bustocco and Legnanese (natively büstócu and legnanés) are two dialects of Western Lombard, spoken respectively in the cities of Busto Arsizio (Province of Varese) and Legnano (Province of Milan), Lombardy.

Although there is little evidence of Ligurian settlements in the area,[2] they are widely thought to have been characterised by the Ligurian substratum.[3] While Legnanese is closer to the Milanese dialect, Bustocco is especially considered very similar to the modern Ligurian language,[4] for example for the frequent unstressed pronounced as /link/ at the end of masculine nouns and other words is more frequent (e.g. Bustocco gatu "cat", secu "dry", coldu "hot", bücéu "glass", candu "when" = Legnanese gatt, secch, cald, bicér, quand), as well as the elimination of some intervocalic consonants (e.g. Bustocco lauà "to work" = Legnanese lavurà). In both dialects stressed pronounced as //a// sounds like a mix between a and o.

A comic theatrical group called I Legnanesi uses Legnanese (with simplified grammar and lexicon heavily based on Italian) in its shows.[5]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Glottolog 4.8 - Piemontese-Lombard . 2023-07-10 . 2023-10-29 . . Hammarström . Harald . https://web.archive.org/web/20231029130658/https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/piem1239 . 2023-10-29 . live . . Harald Hammarström . Forkel . Robert . . 10.5281/zenodo.7398962 . Haspelmath . Martin . Martin Haspelmath . Bank . Sebastian . free.
  2. Web site: Bustocco: un dialetto ligure?. 28 August 2017. Patrimoni Linguistici. it. Bustocco: a Ligurian dialect?. 1 November 2018.
  3. Book: Marinoni, Augusto. Augusto Marinoni. 1957. I dialetti da Saronno al Ticino. Busto Arsizio-Legnano. it. The dialects from Saronno to the Ticino. Busto Arsizio-Legnano. Rotary Club. 37–50.
  4. Book: Giavini, Luigi. 2002. Le origini di Busto Arsizio dai Liguri ai Longobardi. it. The origins of Busto Arsizio from the Ligurians to the Lombards. Nomos Edizioni. 17–38.
  5. Web site: I lLegnanesi - Compagnia teatrale dialettale. 1 November 2018.