Western Lombard dialect


Western Lombard is a group of dialects of Lombard, a Romance language spoken in Italy. It is widespread in the Lombard provinces of Milan, Monza, Varese, Como, Lecco, Sondrio, a small part of Cremona, Lodi and Pavia, and the Piedmont provinces of Novara, Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, the eastern part of the Province of Alessandria, a small part of Vercelli, and Switzerland. After the name of the region involved, land of the former Duchy of Milan, this language is often referred to as Insubric or Milanese, or, after Clemente Merlo, Cisabduano.

Western Lombard and Italian

In Italian-speaking contexts, Western Lombard is often incorrectly called a dialect of Italian. Western Lombard and Standard Italian are very different. Some speakers of Lombard varieties may have difficulty understanding one another and require a standard to communicate, but all Western Lombard varieties are mutually intelligible. Western Lombard is relatively homogeneous, but it has a number of variations, mainly in relation to the vowels, and the development of into.
Western Lombard has no official status in Lombardy or anywhere else. The only official language in Lombardy is Italian.

Grammar

The general lines of diachronics of Western Lombard plural declension are drawn here, with reference to Milanese orthography:

Feminine

Most feminine words end with the inflection -a; the feminine plural is non-inflected. The final vowel keeps its original length, which is often long when it is followed by a voiced consonant and short when it is followed by a voiceless consonant. When the stem ends with a particular consonant cluster, there can be the addition of a final -i or of a schwa between consonants. For adjectives, the plural form and masculine form are often the same.

Masculine

Most masculine nouns lack inflections, and the plural masculine is always non-inflected. When the word stem ends with a particular group of consonants, both singular and plural forms can add a schwa between consonants; otherwise, a final -o is added to singular nouns, -i for plurals.
Msculine words ending in -in or, less commonly, in -ett, have plurals in -itt. Those ending in -ll have plurals in -j,. The same occurs in the determinate article: singular ell > el, plural elli > ej > i.
Masculine words ending in -a are invariable and are proper nouns, words from Ancient Greek or idiomatic words such as pirla, a derogatory term for a person.

Varieties

Western Lombard can be divided into four main varieties: lombardo alpino, lombardo-prealpino occidentale, basso-lombardo occidentale, and macromilanese. The boundaries are obviously schematic, since the political division in provinces and municipalities are usually independent from languages spoken.
Examples of Western Lombard language are:
This based on the Milanese dialect:

Consonants

occurs only as a nasal sound before velar stops.

Vowels

A double vowel aa is pronounced as. but may also be pronounced as.

Orthography

The most important orthography in Western Lombard literature is the Classical Milanese orthography.
It was used by Carlo Porta and Delio Tessa. It was perfected by the Circolo Filologico di Milano. Other orthographies are the Ticinese, the Comasca, the Bosina, the Nuaresat, and the Lecchese.

Literature

An extensive Western Lombard literature is available. Texts include various dictionaries, a few grammars, and a recent translation of the Gospels.