Talk:Western Lombard dialects

About the term Insubric.

I edited the article and changed the term Insubric to Western Lombard as this last is the term mainly utilised in international linguistic context. The term Insubre has possibly been sometimes used by Italian scholars but on the English Wikipedia I think it is worth to use a more widely accepted term.
On the other hand, the use inside this article of the Italian terms lombardo-prealpino occidentale, basso-lombardo occidentale (literally Western prealpine Lombard and Low Western Lombard) also testify the frequent use also in italian linguistic context of the equivalent italian term.
Ninonino 14:03, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

The mention inside the article is ok but leaving the term Insubric at the same level of the term Western Lombard is not correct as it is not accepted as international term for the language thus it will be removed again from the titles of the articles and templates.
-- Ninonino 13:17, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Hello, Codice1000, I wrote the the following lines also on your own talkpage in the hope of finding a consensus solution for the dispute that is potentially rising about the terms Western Lombard vs. Insubric. In the next lines I will try to explain my point of view on this matter. I am against an extended use of the term Insubric uniquely because it is not accepted in official linguistic contexts. In international linguistic literature the term Western Lombard is the sole in use and it is the standard name for that language (or group of languages or group of dialects whichever definition you prefer).

Despite my edits and notes on the related talkpage I noticed you are insisting using this term either on the Western Lombard article language family table (between parenthesis) and in all the related sublanguages.

Before changing it again, I would like to explain to you why I do not consider this a viable solution. Try to figure out what would happen if anyone with a different point of view from a standard definition of a language added his own preferred definition. We will find articles referring to Cisabduano, Transabduano, Orobico, Austrasiano, Western Venetian, etc. and this repeated each time the related term is mentioned. I hope you agree that this is not a serious option. I think that in Wikipedia we should use uniquely the standard term, and this is effectively the policy consensually adopted by the community.

The italian terms Insubre or Insubrico are may be occasionally used in Italian linguistic context, but Insubric is (as far as I know) never used in English (in lingustics I mean) and we are contributing on the English version of Wikipedia therefore we are expected to use the English standard terms.

I suggest, as possible way out of this dispute, extending the note on the Western Lombard article about the Insubric term, adding the Italian sources using this term and the reasons they give for the use of it instead of Western Lombard, but in all the other articles related to Western Lombard language and dialects, exclusively the standard term should be used.

I really hope to receive an answer from you on this subject.

-- Ninonino 12:18, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

167.196.224.71 (talk) 21:53, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Italian <-> Lombard dialects not mutually intelligible?

"Eastern Lombard and Italian are different languages and are not mutually intelligible." The last part of that statement is too disputable to be published. To a reader not familiar with either linguistic idiom, the impression might arise, that there are no similarities at all. Whereas in a everyday context not absolutely everything might be understood by a person mastering standard-italian, the grasp of more than just the basic meaning of a conversation is almost immediately possible. Furthermore, a lombard-speaker will always understand any speaker of standard-italian. Therefore, as this is a very arbitrary assertion and will strongly vary depending on the dialogue partners, i suggest that it be deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.3.12.61 (talk) 14:39, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

This point is about inherent mutual intelligibility, which is based on structural similarity. The reason that Lombard-speakers understand Standard Italian is because they have learned it. Illiterate, monolingual speakers of Lombard, who might still exist in some remote, rural areas, even though they would surely be very old by now, probably have a hard time understanding Standard Italian because it is quite different from Lombard. After being exposed to Standard Italian for a while, they will doubtless get used to it, but that is due to learning and not inherent intelligibility. Similarly, a speaker of Standard Italian will come to understand Spanish or other similar Romance languages relatively quickly, but that is only because of a learning effect, helped by the inherent similarity (you will pick up systematic structural differences that help you to recognise related words automatically), not because the languages are so close as to be mutually intelligible. Same goes, of course, for a (possibly monolingual) speaker of Standard Italian or another dialect: if they have never been exposed to (heard) Lombard or a similar language before, they will not immediately understand it.

Of course, there's strictly speaking a continuum. Even extremely closely related dialects are not necessarily 100% mutually intelligible. But after a couple of sentences, you will pick up on the most important differences, and stumble only if there is some special word whose meaning you cannot infer somehow and that is important to the conversation. Presumably, this is the experience you will have listening to varieties of regional Standard Italian that you are unfamiliar with, so for practical purposes, they count as mutually intelligible, as you will be able to assimilate the most important (systematic) differences quickly without consciously having to learn them, and you will only have to learn a couple of important words or expressions that are different or unfamiliar. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:08, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

NOT at all "mutually intelligible".

"real" Lombard dialect is NOT AT all mutually intelligible with italian; no more than Italian and French language are (it is a fact that Western Lombard dialects are much more similar to French than to Italian. Not only a mother tongue italian from another part of Italy will have dire difficulties in understanding a Lombard talking his dialect; also many young people from Lombardia are unable to properly understand their grandparents. I would challenge anyone arguing the opposite to listen to a stage play performed by "I Legnanesi" (a troupe performing their piece in "real" Lombard dialect). Please do no reverse the change... Dave4mame (talk)

I agree; it is important to recognise that in such situations of diglossia (bilingualism between relatively closely related languages), there is actually a continuum according to the acrolect – mesolect – basilect schema, and outsiders are likely to confuse "compromise" forms which are in the middle between the extremes of "bookish" Standard Italian and "broad" dialect – such as forms of Standard Italian strongly coloured by Lombard, or varieties of Lombard heavily influenced by Standard Italian (especially in the big cities!) – with "genuine" Lombard. The same sort of continuum could conceivably exist with isolated communities speaking forms of Occitan, Franco-Provençal or Ligurian etc. in the south, which are radically and obviously different from surrounding dialects, or with Sardinian, Ladin, Friulian etc., in that there are "intermediate" forms (regional Standard Italian) or "milder" forms of the non-Italian idiom, strongly influenced by Standard Italian in lexicon and other aspects. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:25, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

About the term adesinential.

"If you don't feel ready or qualified to fix the article yourself, please post a message on the article's talk page."

"The bulk of feminine words ends with the desinence -a; the feminine plural is adesinential"

"The bulk of masculine words end without desinences; plural masculine is adesinential"

Noun[edit]

desinence (plural desinences) 1.(linguistics) A suffix used as an inflection; an ending. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/desinence

I cannot find adesinential in any online dictionary. But, I don't want to assume if desinence is a suffex then adesinential is a prefix, because Ippolita is famine and Ippolito is masculine and both are "Lombardi an." This is a he/rstorical problem.

http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m983vpvcjP1rnvzfwo1_400.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.236.174.102 (talk) 15:12, 20 December 2013 (UTC)