Emilian dialect

Emilian
Emiliano
Emigliân
Native to	Italy
Region	Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy, Tuscany, Liguria
Ethnicity	3.3 million (2008)
Native speakers	ca. 1.3 million (2006)
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Western Gallo-Italic Emiliano-Romagnolo Emilian
Dialects	Bolognese, Ferrarese, Modenese, Reggiano, Parmigiano, Piacentino
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	egl
Glottolog	emil1241
Linguasphere	51-AAA-oka ... -okh

Emilian is a group of dialects of the Emilian-Romagnol language spoken in the area historically called Emilia, the western portion of today's Emilia-Romagna region in Italy.

There is no standardised version of Emilian.

The default word order is subject–verb–object. There are two genders as well as a distinction between plural and singular. Emilian has a strong T–V distinction to distinguish varying levels of politeness, social distance, courtesy, familiarity or insult. It uses a considerable number of diacritics.

Classification

Main articles: Emilian-Romagnol language and Gallo-Italic languages

Emilian is a dialect of the Emilian-Romagnol language, one of the Gallo-Italic languages. There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between the various varieties of Emilian and the other dialect, Romagnol. The Gallo-Italic family has Emilian-Romagnol, Piedmontese, Ligurian and Lombard.

Dialects

Linguasphere Observatory recognises the following dialects:

• Mantovano, spoken in all but the very north of the Province of Mantua in Lombardy. It has a strong Lombard influence.
• Vogherese (Pavese-Vogherese), spoken in the Province of Pavia in Lombardy. It is closely related phonetically and morphologically to Piacentino. It is also akin to Tortonese.
• Piacentino, spoken west of the River Taro in the Province of Piacenza and on the border with the province of Parma. The variants of Piacentino are strongly influenced by Lombard, Piedmontese, and Ligurian.
• Parmigiano, spoken in the Province of Parma. Those from the area refer to the Parmigiano spoken outside of Parma as Arioso or Parmense, although today's urban and rural dialects are so mixed that only a few speak the original. The language spoken in Casalmaggiore in the Province of Cremona to the north of Parma is closely related to Parmigiano.
• Reggiano, spoken in the Province of Reggio Emilia, although the northern parts (such as Guastalla, Luzzara and Reggiolo) of the province are not part of this group and closer to Mantovano.
• Modenese, spoken in the Province of Modena, although Bolognese is more widespread in the Castelfranco area. In the northern part of the province of Modena, the lowlands around the town of Mirandola, a Mirandolese sub-dialect of Modenese is spoken.
• Bolognese, spoken in the Province of Bologna and in around Castelfranco Emilia, Modena.
• Ferrarese, spoken in the Province of Ferrara, southern Veneto, and Comacchio.

Other definitions include the following:

• Carrarese and the Lunigiano dialect, spoken in Carrara, Lunigiana, in almost all of the Province of Massa and Carrara and a good portion of the Province of La Spezia, i.e. northwestern Tuscany. Historically, this region has been part of both Tuscany and the Duchy of Parma at different times, so has a close economic relationship with the Emilian area and is geographically proximate due to the Magra and Vara rivers.
• Massese (mixed with some Tuscanian features)
• Casalasco, spoken in Cremona, Lombardy.

Writing system

Main article: Latin script

Emilian is written using a Latin script that has never been standardised. As a result, spelling varies widely across the dialects. The language is largely oral and is rarely written; however, the Bible was published in Emilian-Romagnol in 1865; the work has since been lost.

Bibliography

• Colombini, F. 2007. La negazione nei dialetti emiliani: microvariazione nell’area modenese. University of Padua, MA Thesis.

Further reading

• Pietro Mainoldi, Manuale dell'odierno dialetto bolognese, Suoni e segni, Grammatica - Vocabolario, Bologna, Società tipografica Mareggiani 1950 (Rist. anast.: Sala Bolognese, A. Forni 2000)
• Fabio Foresti, Bibliografia dialettale dell'Emilia-Romagna e della Repubblica di San Marino (BDER), Bologna, IBACN Emilia-Romagna / Compositori 1997
• E. F. Tuttle, Nasalization in Northern Italy: Syllabic Constraints and Strength Scales as Developmental Parameters, Rivista di Linguistica, III: 23-92 (1991)
• Luigi Lepri e Daniele Vitali, Dizionario Bolognese-Italiano Italiano-Bolognese, ed. Pendragon 2007

External links

• A website in the Bolognese dialect
• A website in the Parmigiano dialect
• A website in the Piacentino dialect
• A website in the Ferrarese dialect
• Emilian basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database