Emilian dialects

Emilian
emigliân, emigliàn,
Pronunciation	IPA: [emiˈʎaːŋ]
Native to	Italy
Region	Primarly Emilia border variants spoken in near Lombardy and Venice provinces
Ethnicity	13 million (2020)
Native speakers	c. 9.3 million (2019 estimate) (2019)
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Western Gallo-Italic Emilian
Dialects	see Dialectal variety section
Writing system	Latin
Official status
Recognised minority language in	Slovenia
Language codes
ISO 639-3	egl
Glottolog	emil1241
Linguasphere	51-AAA-oka ... -okh
220px Emilian speaking provinces of Emilia Romagna region and surrounding regions

Emilian (Reggian, Parmesan and Modenese: emigliân, Bolognese emiliàn; Italian: emilianocode: it is deprecated ) is a Gallo-Italic unstandardised language spoken in the historical region of Emilia, which is now in the northwestern 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

Main article: Gallo-Italic languages

Emilian is a Gallo-Italic unstandardized language, part of the Emilian-Romagnol dialect continuum with the bordering Romagnol varieties.

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

Dialectal variety

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:

• Mantuan, spoken in all 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 Piacentin. It is also akin to Tortonese.
• Piacentine, spoken in the Province of Piacenza and on the border with the province of Parma. The variants of Piacentin are strongly influenced by Lombard, Piedmontese, and Ligurian.
• Parmesan, spoken in the Province of Parma. The language spoken also in Casalmaggiore in the Province of Cremona.
• Reggian (Arzân), 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 centre of the Province of Modena, although Bolognese is more widespread in the Castelfranco area.
• Mirandolese dialect, spoken in the northern part of the Province of Modena, it is very different from the modenese dialect in the phonology, grammar and vocabulary.
• Bolognese, spoken in all the Province of Bologna and in around Castelfranco Emilia (Modena); in the Province of Ferrara (Cento, Poggio Renatico, Sant'Agostino and Mirabello) and in Pavana (Province of Pistoia, Tuscany).
• Ferrarese, spoken in the Province of Ferrara (except for Cento and surroundings), southern Veneto, and Comacchio.
• Carrarese and Lunesan dialects, spoken in Carrara, Lunigiana, and almost all of the Province of Massa and Carrara in northwestern Tuscany, and a good portion of the Province of La Spezia in eastern Liguria. Historically, this region has been part of Tuscany and the duchies of Modena and Parma at different times, so it has a close economic relationship with the Emilian area and is geographically proximate due to the Magra and Vara rivers.

Other definitions include the following:

• Massese (mixed with some Tuscan features)
• Casalasco, spoken in Casalmaggiore, Lombardy.
• Comacchiese, as distinct from Ferrarese

Vocabulary

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

Words in Emilian

Emilian	IPA	English
êit, èlt	[ɛ:jt]	high
lêregh	[ˈlɛ:rɐg]	wide
longh, loangh	[loŋg]	long, tall
tōl, tegh	[to:l], [teg]	to take
fâṡ, fâż	[fa:z] / [fa:ð̠]	beech
bdoall	[b.dœl]	birch
znêr, żnèr	[ð̠nɛ:r]	January
fervêr	[fɐrˈvɛr]	February
ed, ad	[ɐd]	and
dîṡ	[di:z]	to say, ten (only in Bolognese)
ê, é	[e]	(he/she) is
aloura	[ɐˈlɔu̯rɐ]	so, then

Phonology

Consonants

Consonants in the Bolognese dialect

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alv./ Palatal	Velar
Stop/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t		t͡ʃ	k
	voiced	b	d		d͡ʒ	ɡ
Fricative	voiceless	f	θ	s
	voiced	v	ð	z
Nasal		m		n	ɲ	ŋ
Rhotic				r
Approximant	central				j	w
	lateral			l	ʎ

• Affricate sounds [t͡s, d͡z] can also be heard as alternates of fricative sounds /θ, ð/ particularly among southern dialects.
• In the Piacentino dialect, an /r/ sound can be heard as either an alveolar trill [r], or as a uvular fricative [ʁ] sound.

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.

Vowels

	Front		Central	Back
Close	i iː	y		u uː
Mid	e eː	ø	ə	o oː
	ɛ ɛː	œ		ʌ	ɔ ɔː
Open	æ		a aː

• Rounded front vowel sounds /y, ø, œ/ and a mid-central vowel sound /ə/ are mainly common in the Piacentino and western dialects.
• In the Piacentino dialect, five vowel sounds being followed by /n/, are then recognized as nasalized [ĩ ẽ ã õ ũ], unless /n/ occurs between two vowel sounds.

• Vowel length is also distinguished for the following vowels [iː eː ɛː aː ɔː oː uː].

Bibliography

• Luca Rognoni, Il sistema fonologico del dialetto modenese. L'Italia Dialettale 74, pp. 135–148, 2013.
• 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

• Emilian basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database