Emilian dialects explained

Emilian
Nativename:Emigliân, emigliàn
Pronunciation:pronounced as /egl/
States:Italy
Region:Primarily Emilia-Romagna. Border variants spoken in near Lombardy, Tuscany and Veneto's provinces.
Ethnicity:3.3 million (2008)[1]
Speakers:Unknown, 1.3 million (2006 estimate)
Date:2006
Familycolor:Indo-European
Fam2:Italic
Fam3:Latino-Faliscan
Fam4:Romance
Fam5:Italo-Western
Fam6:Western Romance
Fam7:Gallo-Romance
Fam8:Gallo-Italic
Fam9:Emilian–Romagnol
Dialects:see Dialectal varieties section
Script:Latin
Iso3:egl
Glotto:emil1241
Glottorefname:Emiliano
Lingua:51-AAA-oka ... -okh
Notice:IPA

Emilian (Reggian, Parmesan and Modenese: emigliân, Bolognese: emigliàn; Italian: emiliano) is a Gallo-Italic unstandardised language spoken in the historical region of Emilia, which is now in the western part of Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy.

Emilian has a default word order of subject–verb–object and both grammatical gender (masculine and feminine) and grammatical number (singular and plural). There is a strong T–V distinction, which distinguishes varying levels of politeness, social distance, courtesy, familiarity or insult. The alphabet, largely adapted from the Italian (Tuscan) one, uses a considerable number of diacritics.

Classification

See main article: Gallo-Italic languages. Emilian is an unstandardized Gallo-Italic language spoken in the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy.

Besides Emilian, the Gallo-Italic family includes Romagnol, Piedmontese, Ligurian and Lombard, all of which maintain a level of mutual intelligibility with Emilian.

Dialectal varieties

The historical and geographical fragmentation of Emilian communities, divided in many local administrations (as signorie then duchies, with reciprocal exchanges of land), has caused a high dialectal fragmentation, to the point the existence of an Emilian koiné has been questioned.

Linguasphere Observatory recognises the following dialects:[2]

Other definitions include the following:

Vocabulary

There is no widespread standard orthography. The words below are written in a nonspecific Emilian script.

Words in Emilian[3] [4] !Emilian!IPA!English
êit, èltpronounced as /[ɛːjt]/high
lêreghpronounced as /[ˈlɛːrɐg]/wide
longh, loanghpronounced as /[loŋg]/long, tall
tōl, teghpronounced as /[toːl]/, pronounced as /[teg]/to take
fâṡ, fâżpronounced as /[faːz], [faːð̠]/beech
bdoallpronounced as /[b.dœl]/birch
znêr, żnèrpronounced as /[ð̠nɛːr]/January
fervêrpronounced as /[fɐrˈvɛr]/February
ed, adpronounced as /[ɐd]/and
dîṡpronounced as /[diːz]/to say, ten (only in Bolognese)
ê, épronounced as /[e]/(he/she) is
alourapronounced as /[ɐˈlɔu̯rɐ]/so, then

Phonology

Consonants

!Labial!Dental!Alveolar!Post-alv./
Palatal!Velar
Stop/
Affricate
voicelesspronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/
voicedpronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/
Fricativevoicelesspronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/
voicedpronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/
Nasalpronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/
Rhoticpronounced as /link/
Approximantcentralpronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/
lateralpronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/

Vowels

FrontCentralBack
Closepronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/
Midpronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/
pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/
Openpronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/

Writing system

Emilian is written using a Latin script that has never been standardised, and spelling varies widely among the dialects.

The dialects were largely oral and rarely written until some time in the late 20th century; a large amount of written media in Emilian has been created since World War II.

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Request for New Language Code Element in ISO 639-3, page 1ISO 639-3 Registration Authority Request for New Language Code Element in ISO 639-3 . Miani . Ivan . 2008-04-12 . iso639-3.sil.org . en . 2012-12-17.
  2. Web site: 51-AAA-ok. emiliano + romagnolo. Linguasphere .
  3. Book: Lepri . Luigi . Dizionario bolognese-italiano, italiano bolognese / Dizionèri bulgnais-itagliàn, itagliàn-bulugnais . Vitali . Daniele . Pendragon . 2007 . 978-88-8342-594-3 . Bologna . it.
  4. Book: Vocabolario reggiano-italiano . Torreggiani . 1832 . Reggio . it . Biblioteca Panizzi.
  5. Book: Foresti, Fabio . Profilo linguistico dell'Emilia-Romagna . Laterza . 2009 . Roma . it.
  6. Book: Lepri . Luigi . Dizionario bolognese-italiano italiano-bolognese / Dizionèri bulgnaiṡ-itagliàn itagliàn-bulgnaiṡ . Vitali . Daniele . Pendragon . 2009 . 2nd . Bologna.
  7. Book: Hajek, John . The Dialects of Italy . Routledge . 1997 . Maiden . Martin . London . 275 . Emilia-Romagna . Parry . Mair.