Emilian dialects

Emilian
emigliàn / emiliân
Pronunciation	Emilian pronunciation: [emiʎa:ŋ]
Native to	Italy
Region	Primarily Emilia-Romagna
Ethnicity	3.3 million (2008)
Native speakers	Unknown, c. 1.3 million (2006 estimate) (2006)
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Western Gallo-Italic Emilian-Romagnol Emilian
Dialects	Bolognese, Ferrarese, Modenese, Reggiano, Parmigiano, Piacentino
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	egl
Glottolog	emil1241
Linguasphere	... -okh 51-AAA-oka ... -okh
Geographic distribution of Emilian (shown in light pink)

Emilian (Emilian: emigliàn / emiliân, Italian: emiliano) is a group of closely related dialects of Emilian-Romagnol language spoken in the historical region of Emilia, the western portion of today's Emilia-Romagna region in Northern 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. Its alphabet 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 unstandardized Gallo-Italic languages. The Emilian dialects naturally form a natural dialect continuum with the bordering Romagnol varieties, while the more distant dialects might be less mutually intelligible. Besides Emilian-Romagnol, the Gallo-Italic family includes Piedmontese, Ligurian and Lombard, all of which maintain a level of mutual intelligiblity with Emilian-Romagnol, which is further influenced by Standard Italian.

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 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 Metropolitan City 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 Lunigiano dialects, spoken in Carrara, Lunigiana, in 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.
• Massese (mixed with some Tuscan features)
• Casalasco, spoken in Cremona, Lombardy.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonants in the Bolognese dialect

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

• Affricates [t͡s, d͡z] are 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.

Vowels

	Front		Central	Back
Close	i	y		u
Mid	e	ø	ə	o
	ɛ	œ		ʌ	ɔ
Open	æ		a

• Rounded front vowel sounds /y, ø, œ/ and a mid-central vowel sound /ə/ are mainly common in the Piacentino dialect.
• 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].

Writing system

Emilian is written using a Latin script that has never been standardised. As a result, spelling varies widely across the dialects. The dialects were largely oral and rarely written until some the late 20th century; a number of written media in Emilian-Romagnol have been made since World War II.

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

• Emilian basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database