Emilian language
Encyclopedia
The term Emilian refers to a group of local languages, popularly also called dialect
s, which are part of the Gallo-Italic group, and are spoken in the historical region of Emilia
. Although commonly referred to as an Italian dialect (even by its speakers), it does not descend from the Italian language.
Gallo-Italic languages are Western New Latin
(they conserve innovative phonetic and syntactic features), as in French
, Occitan and Catalan
, while Italian
is part of Eastern New Latin
.
Phonetics
and Vocabulary
borders between Emilian and the other Gallo-Italic languages are not exactly defined. For example, some dialectologists regard “pavese“ (the dialect of Pavia
, in Lombardy
) as a transitional variety between "real Emilian" and Western Lombard, while others think it is an Emilian language.
The dialect of Piacenza
features elements of both Emilian and Western Lombard, as does the dialect of Cremona
.
Emilian group includes other local languages as transitional idioms between Emiliano and Lombard, since they have common features:
Emiliano is not mutually intelligible with Italian and the two languages belong to different branches of the Romance language family tree (respectively Western Romance and Italo-Dalmatian
). An uncommon feature for a Romance language is the extensive use of idiomatic phrasal verbs (verb-particle constructions) much in the same way as in English and other Germanic languages, above all in Western Emilia, Vogherese-Pavese and Mantovano.
Examples:
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s, which are part of the Gallo-Italic group, and are spoken in the historical region of Emilia
Emilia (region of Italy)
Emilia is a historical region of northern Italy which approximately corresponds to the western and north-eastern portions of today’s Emilia-Romagna region...
. Although commonly referred to as an Italian dialect (even by its speakers), it does not descend from the Italian language.
Gallo-Italic languages are Western New Latin
New Latin
The term New Latin, or Neo-Latin, is used to describe the Latin language used in original works created between c. 1500 and c. 1900. Among other uses, Latin during this period was employed in scholarly and scientific publications...
(they conserve innovative phonetic and syntactic features), as in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Occitan and Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
, while Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
is part of Eastern New Latin
New Latin
The term New Latin, or Neo-Latin, is used to describe the Latin language used in original works created between c. 1500 and c. 1900. Among other uses, Latin during this period was employed in scholarly and scientific publications...
.
Phonetics
Phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech, or—in the case of sign languages—the equivalent aspects of sign. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds or signs : their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory...
and Vocabulary
Vocabulary
A person's vocabulary is the set of words within a language that are familiar to that person. A vocabulary usually develops with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge...
borders between Emilian and the other Gallo-Italic languages are not exactly defined. For example, some dialectologists regard “pavese“ (the dialect of Pavia
Pavia
Pavia , the ancient Ticinum, is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, northern Italy, 35 km south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It is the capital of the province of Pavia. It has a population of c. 71,000...
, in Lombardy
Lombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
) as a transitional variety between "real Emilian" and Western Lombard, while others think it is an Emilian language.
The dialect of Piacenza
Piacenza
Piacenza is a city and comune in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Piacenza...
features elements of both Emilian and Western Lombard, as does the dialect of Cremona
Cremona
Cremona is a city and comune in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po River in the middle of the Pianura Padana . It is the capital of the province of Cremona and the seat of the local City and Province governments...
.
Varieties
Emiliano varies considerably across the region, and several dialects exist:- Piacentino
- Lunigiano
- Massese (mixed with some Tuscanian features)
- Reggiano and Modenese
- Parmigiano
- Bolognese
- Ferrarese
Emilian group includes other local languages as transitional idioms between Emiliano and Lombard, since they have common features:
- Carrarese, spoken in West-northern TuscanyTuscanyTuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
, - Mantovano, spoken in MantuaMantuaMantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family, made it one of the main artistic, cultural and notably musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole...
(Lombardy), - Vogherese-Pavese (spoken in Southern Province of PaviaPaviaPavia , the ancient Ticinum, is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, northern Italy, 35 km south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It is the capital of the province of Pavia. It has a population of c. 71,000...
, Lombardy. - Casalasco, spoken in Southern Province of CremonaCremonaCremona is a city and comune in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po River in the middle of the Pianura Padana . It is the capital of the province of Cremona and the seat of the local City and Province governments...
, Lombardy.
Features
The variants of both dialects have common features with all the other languages of the Gallo-Italic group. The most important are:- With respect to ItalianItalian languageItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, the loss of all final unstressed vowel except for a and the subsequent vowel stretching of the tonic syllable, that may generate a diphthong. In BologneseBologneseBolognese is someone or something from the city of Bologna. It can refer to:*Bolognese sauce*Bolognese *Bolognese dialect, a language that is often considered a dialect of Italian for political reasons but is historically quite different from standard Italian.*Bolognese School *Bolognese...
we have: mèder (mother), dutåur (doctor), âlber (tree). - Rounded vowels which are typical of the Gallo-IberianGallo-Iberian- Gallo-Italic languages :* Gallo-Italic group ** Piedmontese** Ligurian** Lombard*** Western Lombard*** Eastern Lombard** Emiliano-Romagnolo*** Emiliano*** Romagnolo**Gallo-Italic of Sicily...
area. In Carrarese and Western Emilia there are four of them: ä, ü, ö, and å (in Western Emilia there is also ë, a sort of schwaSchwaIn linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
similar to the third vowel of Piedmontese). In Bolognese there are two: (ä and å), in Central Emilia only ä. The phonetic of the same word may vary across the diffusion area of this idiom, as in the case of the word snail, written as lümäga in Western Emilia and as lumèga in Bolognese. Another typical feature of Emilian dialects is extreme syncopeSyncopeIn phonology, syncope is the loss of one or more sounds from the interior of a word; especially, the loss of an unstressed vowel. It is found bothin Synchronic analysis of languages and Diachronics .-Found synchronically:...
, i.e. loss of atonic vowels within a word.- example in Bolognese: śbdèl (Latin: hospitale, hospital), bdòć (Latin: pediculus, louse), and dscårrer (Latin: discurrere, to speak)
- example in Ferrarese: tgnosar (Latin: cognoscere, to know), rsvers (Latin: reversus, backwards),
- rezdora (Modenese), sdaura Bolognese, arzdora Romagnol, rzdora (Latin: regere, to lead) the house keeper, the core figure in the farming culture of the River Po plane.
- Absence of consonant geminationGeminationIn phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant. Gemination is distinct from stress and may appear independently of it....
: while Standard ItalianItalian languageItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
uses consonant length contrastively (e.g. ‘’palla’’ VS ‘’pala’’), this feature is typically absent in Northern Italian languages spoken above the La Spezia-Rimini lineLa Spezia-Rimini LineThe La Spezia–Rimini Line , in the linguistics of the Romance languages, is a line that demarcates a number of important isoglosses that distinguish Romance languages south and east of the line from Romance languages north and west of it...
. - The nasal velar ŋ (transcribed in Bolognese orthography with the grapheme ń) as in cuséń [ku'zeŋ] cousin').
- The plural forms are made up either with a consonant alternation, similarly to some Germanic languagesGermanic languagesThe Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
, or vowel distinctions: źnòć (knee) and źnûć (knees); dutåur (doctor) and dutûr (doctors); calzaider (bucket) and calzîder (buckets), with special suffix changes: martèl (hammer) and martî (hammers); fiôl (son) and fiû (sons), cuséna (female cousin) and cuséni (female cousins) [but: cuséna (kitchen) and cusén (kitchens)] or with no modifications: lèg (lake) and lèg (lakes). - Various verb classes
- Absence of gerundGerundIn linguistics* As applied to English, it refers to the usage of a verb as a noun ....
and present participle: an ongoing action is described by using the form Esar dre’ (to be after)- A son dre’ magnar la mnestra (Ferrarese, I am eating the soup, literally I am after to eat the soup)
- Absence of preteritePreteriteThe preterite is the grammatical tense expressing actions that took place or were completed in the past...
(simple past tense) substituted by present perfect.- Aier a son anda’ al marca’ (yesterday I went to the market, literally: yesterday I have gone to the market)
- A m’arcord quand Po l’ha giaza’ l’inveran del mil novzent vint (I remember that the river Po froze on winter of 1920)
- If the setting of an action in the future is marked by an adverbAdverbAn adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
of time than the present tensePresent tenseThe present tense is a grammatical tense that locates a situation or event in present time. This linguistic definition refers to a concept that indicates a feature of the meaning of a verb...
will be used instead of the future tenseFuture tenseIn grammar, a future tense is a verb form that marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future , or to happen subsequent to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future .-Expressions of future tense:The concept of the future,...
- At daro’ un pom (I will give you an apple)
- Adman at dag un pom (Tomorrow I will give you an apple)
- The presence of a verbal system with an affirmative conjugation and an interrogative conjugation (Example: the present tense form of the verb fèr to do):
- mé a fag (I do) - faghia (do I do?);
- té t fè (You do) - fèt (Do you do?);
- lò/lì al/la fà (he/she does) - fèl/fèla (does he/she do?);
- nuèter [or nuièter] a fän (We do) - faggna (Do we do?);
- vuèter [or vuièter] a fèv (You (pl.) do) - fèdi (do you do?);
- låur i/al fàn (they [m/f] do); fèni (do they do?)
- The presence of two negative markers, one preceding the verb (like the Italian non) and one following it (like the French pas)(1). The latter typically derive from words indicating small quantity like the FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
pas, (from LatinLatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
passus, step), the Lombard minga and VenetianVenetian languageVenetian or Venetan is a Romance language spoken as a native language by over two million people, mostly in the Veneto region of Italy, where of five million inhabitants almost all can understand it. It is sometimes spoken and often well understood outside Veneto, in Trentino, Friuli, Venezia...
miga (small round piece of bread), the Florentine punto (point), Romansh bucca (bite). Examples are Bolognese e Ferrarese: brisa (crumb):- A n al so brisa (I do not know it, It. St. Non lo so, Fr. Je ne sais pas
- A n vag brisa I am not going there (FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
: je n’y vais pas; Italian: non ci vado)
- the presence of grammatical gender for the first three numerals: differently from Italian that has feminine and masculine only for uno (one) Emilian dialects had the feminine also for the rest of the numbers:
- Ferrarese: un om, du oman, tri oman (one man, two men, three men) VS una dona, do don, tre don" (one woman, two women, three women)
- Bolognese un òmen, dû òmen, trî òmen (one man, two men, three men) VS una dòna, dåu dòn, trai dòn one woman, two women, three women).
- The presence of two kinds of personal pronouns, tonic and clitic (atonic and inseparable verb host) that are used in the verbal conjugation:
- me a sun [or so'] andèe - I went (not to be compared with e.g. moi, Je suis allé in FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, where moi and je are functionally quite different from the Bolognese forms).
- me a sun [or so'] andèe - I went (not to be compared with e.g. moi, Je suis allé in French
- Usage of second-person singular and plural pronouns in a classic T–V distinction to distinguish varying levels of politeness, social distance, courtesy, familiarity, or insult toward the addressee. This is different from ItalianItalian languageItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
where the respectful pronoun is Lei (she, third singular feminine person].
Emiliano is not mutually intelligible with Italian and the two languages belong to different branches of the Romance language family tree (respectively Western Romance and Italo-Dalmatian
Italo-Dalmatian languages
The Italo-Dalmatian languages are a group of Romance languages of Italy , Corsica, and, formerly, the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia...
). An uncommon feature for a Romance language is the extensive use of idiomatic phrasal verbs (verb-particle constructions) much in the same way as in English and other Germanic languages, above all in Western Emilia, Vogherese-Pavese and Mantovano.
Examples:
- dèr so (lit. give up, same as in EnglishEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
); *fèr so (lit. do up, meaning: to tidy up); - dèr zå (lit. give down, meaning: to brush or to beat);
- mètter vî (lit. to put away, meaning: to lock);
- dîr so (lit. to tell up, meaning: to call up);
- dèr vî (lit. to give away, same as in English);
- èser dré (action in progress, a form of gerundGerundIn linguistics* As applied to English, it refers to the usage of a verb as a noun ....
: A san dré ch'a fag - I'm doing); - avair dré (to have with yourself: A i ò dré di sold - I have money with me).
Usage
The use of Emiliano has in the past been stigmatized, due to a number of cultural and social reasons; speaking the 'dialect' was considered a sign of poor schooling or low social status. It now appears to have lost its negative connotations: native speakers use it to address close friends and family, so its usage has come to mean "I feel well, I feel in the company of friends". Emiliano is also commonly used in manufacturing industry or construction workplaces, where it is not uncommon to find foreign immigrants who speak it with workmates.Words
- Yes - Sé, Ói (bolognese); sì (piacentino)
- No - Nå (bolognese); no (piacentino)
- I love you - A t vói bän (bolognese); a t' vöi bëin (piacentino)
- Thanks, Thank you - A t aringrâzi (bolognese); a t' ringrasi (piacentino)
- Good morning - Bån dé (bolognese); bon giùran (piacentino)
- Good bye - A se vdrän (bolognese); arvëdas (piacentino)
- I - Mé, A (bolognese); me, mi (piacentino)
- And - E
- How much is it - Quant véńnel? csa cåsstel? (bolognese); cus al custa, quant al custa, cus al vegna? (piacentino)
- What's your name? - Cum t ciâmet? (bolognese); cma ta ciamat? (piacentino)
- My name is... - A m ciâm ... (bolognese); me/mi a m' ciam... (piacentino)
- Tree - Âlber (bolognese); pianta, ärbul (piacentino)
- England - Inghiltèra
- London - Lånndra
- Emilia - Emégglia (bolognese); Emilia (piacentino)
- Romagna - Rumâgna (bolognese); Rumagna (piacentino)
- Bologna - Bulåggna (bolognese); Bulogna (piacentino)
- City - Zitè
- Coffee - Cafà (bolognese); café (piacentino)
- Wine - Vén (bolognese); vëin (piacentino)
- Water - Âcua
- Nine - Nôv (bolognese); növ (piacentino)
- Sun - Såul (bolognese); sul (piacentino)
- Language - Längua (bolognese); lëingua (piacentino)
- God - Dìo (bolognese); diu (piacentino)
- See you - A t salût
- Excuse me - Scuśèm, ch'al scûśa bän (bolognese); scüsìm, scüsèm (piacentino)
- Do you speak English/Emilian? - Dscårret in inglaiś/emigliàn?
- Nation - Naziån
- Father - Pèder
- Mother - Mèder
- Brother - Fradèl
- Sister - Surèla
- Doctor - Dutåur
- America - Amêrica
- Africa - Âfrica
- Antarctica - Antàrrtide
- Italy- Itâglia
- Germany - Germâgna
- Army - Esêrzit
- World - Månnd
- Peace - Pèś
- War - Guèra