Ligurian language (Romance) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Ligurian is a Gallo-Romance language spoken in Liguria

Liguria

Liguria is a coastal region of north-western Italy, the third smallest of the Italian regions. Its capital is Genoa. It is a popular region with tourists for its beautiful beaches, picturesque little towns, and good food.-Geography:...

in Northern Italy

Northern Italy

Northern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian state, also referred as Settentrione or Alta Italia...

, parts of the Mediterranean coastal zone of France, Monaco

Monaco

Monaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a sovereign city state on the French Riviera. It is bordered on three sides by its neighbour, France, and its centre is about from Italy. Its area is with a population of 35,986 as of 2011 and is the most densely populated country in the...

and in the villages of Carloforte

Carloforte

Carloforte is a fishing and resort town of located on Isola di San Pietro , approximately 7 km off the South Western Coast of Sardinia, Italy....

and Calasetta

Calasetta

Calasetta is a small town and comune located on the island of Sant'Antioco, off the Southwestern coast of Sardinia, Italy.-History:While the town itself dates to 1770...

in Sardinia

Sardinia

Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...

. Genoese

Genoese dialect

Genoese is a dialect of the Ligurian language, the one spoken in Genoa .Ligurian is listed by Ethnologue as a language in its own right, of the Romance branch, and not to be confused with the ancient Ligurian language...

(Zenéize), spoken in Genoa

Genoa

Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

, the capital of Liguria, is its most important dialect. It belongs to the Northern Italian group of Romance languages

Romance languages

The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...

.

Ligurian has almost two million speakers, and is still widely spoken by many, especially the elderly. Nevertheless, the language may be in decline. Notable native speakers of Ligurian include Niccolò Paganini

Niccolò Paganini

Niccolò Paganini was an Italian violinist, violist, guitarist, and composer. He was one of the most celebrated violin virtuosi of his time, and left his mark as one of the pillars of modern violin technique...

, Giuseppe Garibaldi

Giuseppe Garibaldi

Giuseppe Garibaldi was an Italian military and political figure. In his twenties, he joined the Carbonari Italian patriot revolutionaries, and fled Italy after a failed insurrection. Garibaldi took part in the War of the Farrapos and the Uruguayan Civil War leading the Italian Legion, and...

, Eugenio Montale

Eugenio Montale

Eugenio Montale was an Italian poet, prose writer, editor and translator, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1975.- Early years :...

, Giulio Natta

Giulio Natta

Giulio Natta was an Italian chemist and Nobel laureate. He won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1963 with Karl Ziegler for work on high polymers.-Early years:...

, Italo Calvino

Italo Calvino

Italo Calvino was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. His best known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy , the Cosmicomics collection of short stories , and the novels Invisible Cities and If on a winter's night a traveler .Lionised in Britain and the United States,...

, and Fabrizio De André

Fabrizio De André

Fabrizio De André was an Italian singer-songwriter.Known for his sympathies towards anarchism, libertarianism, and pacifism, he also was a convicted atheist , and his songs often featured marginalized and rebellious people, prostitutes and knaves, and attacked the Catholic Church...

.

There is, however, an uninterrupted literary tradition of Ligurian poets and writers that goes from the 13th century to the present, such as Luchetto (the Genoese Anonym), Martin Piaggio and Gian Giacomo Cavalli.

Geographic extent

Besides Liguria

Liguria

(Ligurian Ligùria), the language is traditionally spoken in coastal, northern Tuscany

Tuscany

Tuscany 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 ....

, southern Piedmont

Piedmont

Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...

(part of the province of Alessandria

Province of Alessandria

The Province of Alessandria is an Italian province, with a population of some 430,000, which forms the southeastern part of the region of Piedmont. The provincial capital is the city of Alessandria....

), western extremes of Emilia-Romagna

Emilia-Romagna

Emilia–Romagna is an administrative region of Northern Italy comprising the two historic regions of Emilia and Romagna. The capital is Bologna; it has an area of and about 4.4 million inhabitants....

(some areas in the province of Piacenza

Province of Piacenza

The Province of Piacenza is a province in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Piacenza.The province has 273,689 inhabitants . Its total area is 2,589 km². There are 48 comuni in the province, see Comuni of the Province of Piacenza...

), in northern and southern west parts of Sardinia

Sardinia

(Italy), the Alpes-Maritimes

Alpes-Maritimes

Alpes-Maritimes is a department in the extreme southeast corner of France.- History : was created by Octavian as a Roman military district in 14 BC, and became a full Roman province in the middle of the 1st century with its capital first at Cemenelum and subsequently at Embrun...

of France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

(mostly the Côte d'Azur from the Italian border to and including Monaco

Monaco

), and parts of Corsica

Corsica

Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....

(France). It has been adopted formally in Monaco as the Monegasque language

Monégasque language

Monégasque is a dialect of the modern Ligurian language, spoken in Monaco.- Language family :Forming a part of the Western Romance dialect continuum, Monégasque shares many features with the variety of Ligurian spoken in Genoa, but differs from its neighboring dialects Intemelio and Mentonasc. It...

; or locally, Munegascu.

The Mentonasc dialect, spoken in the East of the County of Nice

County of Nice

The County of Nice or Niçard Country is a historical region of France, located in the south-eastern part, around the city of Nice.-History:Its territory lies between the Mediterranean Sea , Var River and the southernmost crest of the...

, is considered to be a transitional Occitan dialect to Ligurian; conversely, the Roiasc and Pignasc spoken further North in the Eastern margin of the County are Ligurian dialects showing Occitan influences.

In Italy, the language has given way to Standard 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...

and in France to 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...

Linguistic structure

Ligurian exhibits distinct Italian

Italian language

features, while also having features of other Romance languages. No link between Romance Ligurian and the Ligurian language of the ancient Ligurian populations, in the form of a substrate or otherwise, can be demonstrated by linguistic evidence. There are, however, toponomastic derivations from ancient Ligurian.

Variants

Variants of the Ligurian language are:

Zeneize (meaning Genoese, main Ligurian variant, spoken in Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

)
Spezzino (in La Spezia
La Spezia
La Spezia , at the head of the Gulf of La Spezia in the Liguria region of northern Italy, is the capital city of the province of La Spezia. Located between Genoa and Pisa on the Ligurian Sea, it is one of the main Italian military and commercial harbours and hosts one of Italy's biggest military...

)
Monegasque (in Monaco
Monaco
Monaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a sovereign city state on the French Riviera. It is bordered on three sides by its neighbour, France, and its centre is about from Italy. Its area is with a population of 35,986 as of 2011 and is the most densely populated country in the...

)
Mentonasque
Mentonasque
Mentonasc , is a transition dialect historically in and around Menton, France. It is generally classified as Occitan, with some strong features from the neighbouring Intemelian Ligurian dialect spoken from Monaco to San Remo.-Characteristics:The Mentonasc shows some transition features to the...

(in Menton
Menton
Menton is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.Situated on the French Riviera, along the Franco-Italian border, it is nicknamed la perle de la France ....

(France))
Intemelio
Intemelio
Intemelio is a Ligurian dialect spoken historically from the Principality of Monaco to the Italian province of Imperia.-History:Since before the Renaissance the Ligurian language was spoken in all the territories of the Republic of Genoa : in the western area of this republic one of its groups was...

(in Sanremo
Sanremo
Sanremo or San Remo is a city with about 57,000 inhabitants on the Mediterranean coast of western Liguria in north-western Italy. Founded in Roman times, the city is best known as a tourist destination on the Italian Riviera. It hosts numerous cultural events, such as the Sanremo Music Festival...

and Ventimiglia
Ventimiglia
Ventimiglia is a city and comune in Liguria, northern Italy, in the province of Imperia. It is located southwest of Genoa by rail, and 7 km from the French-Italian border, on the Gulf of Genoa, having a small harbour at the mouth of the Roia River, which divides the town into two parts...

)
Brigasc
Brigasc
Brigasc is a dialect of the Ligurian language. It is spoken in Italy and France.-Area of use:The Brigasc dialects are Roya, Tanaro, and Argentina, named respectively after the rivers Roya, Tanaro and Argentina. Roya is spoken in the French department of Alpes-Maritimes. Tanaro is spoken in the...

(in La Brigue
La Brigue
La Brigue is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in southeastern France.Brigue became part of France after the World War II, when Italy was forced to hand it over in September 1947 under the terms of the 1947 Peace of Paris. Before the hand over, it was part of Province of Cuneo...

and Briga Alta
Briga Alta
Briga Alta is a comune in the Province of Cuneo in the Italian region Piedmont, located about 80 km south of Turin and about 13 km southeast of Cuneo, on the border with France...

)
Roiasc (in Upper Roya
Roya River
The Roya , Roia , or Ròia is a 59 km river of France and Italy.The river rises in French territory near the Col de Tende and flows through the Mercantour National Park The river passes through the communes of Tende, Saorge, Breil-sur-Roya, La Brigue, before entering Italy in the commune of...

Valley)
Tabarchino (in Calasetta
Calasetta
Calasetta is a small town and comune located on the island of Sant'Antioco, off the Southwestern coast of Sardinia, Italy.-History:While the town itself dates to 1770...

and Carloforte
Carloforte
Carloforte is a fishing and resort town of located on Isola di San Pietro , approximately 7 km off the South Western Coast of Sardinia, Italy....

)
Bonifacino (in Bonifacio)

Alphabet

The Ligurian alphabet has:

7 vowels: a, e, i, ò (IPA: [ɔ]), o ([u]), u (y), æ ([ɛ]), plus the group eu ([ø]).
18 consonants: b, c, ç, d, f, g, h, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, x, z.
It uses the umlaut
Umlaut (diacritic)
The diaeresis and the umlaut are diacritics that consist of two dots placed over a letter, most commonly a vowel. When that letter is an i or a j, the diacritic replaces the tittle: ï....

(¨), circumflex
Circumflex
The circumflex is a diacritic used in the written forms of many languages, and is also commonly used in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from Latin circumflexus —a translation of the Greek περισπωμένη...

(^), acute (´), and accent (`) on most vowels when the full pronunciation key is given in the official spelling. It also uses the c-cedilla (ç).

Vocabulary

a péia: pear (It. and Sp. pera, Pt. pêra)
o méi: apple (It. mela)
o belìn or belàn (used as an exclamation, lit. 'penis
Penis
The penis is a biological feature of male animals including both vertebrates and invertebrates...

')
o çetrón: orange (cf. Fr. citron 'lemon'; replacing Gen. limón--cf. It. limone)
o fîgo: fig (It. fico Fr. figue, Gl. and Pt. figo)
o pèrsego: peach (It. pesca, Fr. pêche, Cat. préssec, Gl. pexego, Pt. pêssego)
a franboâza: raspberry (Fr. framboise, Pt. framboesa)
a çêxa: cherry (It. ciliegia, Fr. cerise, Pt. cereja)
o meréllo: strawberry
a nôxe: hazelnut (It. nocciola, Fr. noisette, Pt. noz)
o bricòcalo: apricot (It. albicocca, Cat. albercoc, Pt. abricó)
l'ûga: grape (It., Sp. and Pt. uva)
o pigneu: pine nut (It. pinolo, Pt. pinho)
arvî: to open (It. aprire, Fr. ouvrir, Sp. and Pt. abrir)
serâ: to close (It. chiudere, Sp. cerrar)
ciæo: light (cf. It. chiaro)
a cà: home, house (It., Sp. and Pt. casa; Cat. and Ven: ca)
l'êuvo: egg (It. uovo, Gl. and Pt. ovo)
l'éuggio: eye (It. occhio, Fr. l'œil, Cat. ull, Gl. ollo, Pt. olho)
a bócca: mouth (It. bocca, Sp. and Pt. boca)
a tésta: head (It. testa)
a schénn-a: back (It. schiena, Cat. esquena)
o cû: arse (It., Sp. and Gal. culo, Fr. and Cat. cul, Pt. cu)
o bràsso: arm (It. braccio, Fr. bras, Pt. braço)
a gànba: leg (It. gamba, Fr. jambe, Cat. cama)
o cheu: heart (It. cuore, Fr. cœur)

External links