Ligurian does not enjoy an official status in Italy. Hence, it is not protected by law. Historically, Genoese is the written koine, owing to its semi-official role as language of the Republic of Genoa, its traditional importance in trade and commerce and its vast literature. Like other regional languages in Italy, the use of Ligurian and its dialects is in rapid decline. ISTAT claims that in 2012, only 9% of the population used a language other than standard Italian with friends and family, which decreases to 1.8% with strangers. Furthermore, according to ISTAT, regional languages are more commonly spoken by uneducated people and the elderly, mostly in rural areas. Liguria is no exception. One can reasonably suppose the age pyramid to be strongly biased toward the elderly who were born before World War II, with proficiency rapidly approaching zero for newer generations. Compared to other regional languages of Italy, Ligurian has experienced a significantly smaller decline which could have been a consequence of its status or the early decline it underwent in the past. The language itself is actively preserved by various groups. Notable native speakers of Ligurian include Niccolò Paganini, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Christopher Columbus, Eugenio Montale, Giulio Natta, Italo Calvino, and Fabrizio De André. There is also a popular musical group, Buio Pesto, who compose songs entirely in the language. Because of the importance of Genoese trade, Ligurian was once spoken well beyond the borders of the modern province. It has since given way to standard varieties, such as Standard Italian and French. In particular, the language is traditionally spoken in coastal, northern Tuscany, southern Piedmont, western extremes of Emilia-Romagna, and in a small area of southern Sardinia, where its use is ubiquitous and increasing. Until recently, it was also spoken in the department of the Alpes-Maritimes of France, in a township at the southern tip of the French island of Corsica and by a large community in Gibraltar. It has been adopted formally in Monaco as the Monégasque dialect; or locally, Munegascu, without the status of official language. Monaco is the only place where a variety of Ligurian is taught in school. The Mentonasc dialect, spoken in the East of the County of Nice, 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 with Occitan influences.
Description
As a Gallo-Italic language, Ligurian is most closely related to the Lombard, Piedmontese and Emilian-Romagnol languages, all of which are spoken in neighboring provinces. Unlike the aforementioned languages, however, it exhibits distinct Italian features. No link has been demonstrated by linguistic evidence between Romance Ligurian and the Ligurian language of the ancient Ligurian populations, in the form of a substrate or otherwise. Only the toponyms are known to have survived from ancient Ligurian, the name Liguria itself being the most obvious example.
Semivowels occur as allophones of and, as well as in diphthongs. A sound occurs when a sound occurs after a consonant, or before a vowel, as well as after a q sound,.
Vowels
Diphthong sounds include ei and òu.
Alphabet
According to the standardised orthography proposed by the Genoese Academia Ligustica do Brenno, the Ligurian alphabet consists of 23 letters of the Latin alphabet, five diacritics, one orthographic ligature, as well as four digraphs and two trigraphs. The diacritics are:
