Eastern Lombard dialects


Eastern Lombard is a group of closely related variants of Lombard, a Gallo-Italic language
spoken in Lombardy, mainly in the provinces of Bergamo, Brescia and Mantua, in the area around Cremona and in parts of Trentino. Its main variants are Bergamasque and Brescian.
In Italian-speaking contexts, Eastern Lombard is often called as dialetti, understood to mean not a variety of Italian, but a local language that is part of the Romance languages dialect continuum that pre-dates the establishment of Tuscan-based Italian.
Eastern Lombard and Italian have only limited mutual intelligibility, like many other Romance languages spoken in Italy.
Eastern Lombard does not have any official status either in Lombardy or anywhere else: the only official language in Lombardy is Italian.

Classification

Eastern Lombard is a Romance language of the Gallo-Italic branch, linguistically closer to Occitan, Catalan, French, etc. than to Italian, with a Celtic substratum.

Geographic distribution

Eastern Lombard is primarily spoken in Eastern Lombardy, in the provinces of Bergamo and Brescia, in the Northern region of the province of Mantua and in the area around Crema.
The varieties spoken in these regions are generally mutually intelligible for speakers of neighboring areas, but this is not always true for distant peripheral areas. For instance, an inhabitant of the alpine valleys of Bergamo can hardly be understood by a rural inhabitant of the plains of Mantua. Differences include lexical, grammatical and phonetic aspects.

Phonology

The following notes are essentially based on the variety of Eastern Lombard spoken in Brescia. The basic principles are generally valid also for the other varieties but local discrepancies can be found.
Eastern Lombard has 9 vowels and 20 consonants.

Consonants

The voiced consonants,,,,, never occur at the end of a word. This phenomenon, common to other languages, is called final devoicing. The phoneme only occurs in loanwords, often borrowings from Italian. For example, scià, "to ski" is pronounced. The phoneme is pronounced before a consonant. This never occurs inside a word as the segment + consonant does not exist in Eastern Lombard. However, it does occur when appears word-finally preceding another word which begins with a consonant. For example:
The approximants and are distinct phonemes from the vocalic sounds,. This can be seen in the following examples:
Locally, the alveolar fricative is replaced by the glottal fricative. This mainly happens in the prealpine valleys of the provinces of Bergamo and Brescia; thus Brèssa is pronounced instead of. However, even in areas where this phenomenon is the rule, there are some interesting exceptions to take in account. Words like grassie are never pronounced. At present, the most common pronunciation is but a more genuine outcome would be.
Other examples for this feature:
  • Licensià = /
  • Cristià = /
  • Pasiù = /

    Assimilation

Regressive assimilation at word boundaries is common in Eastern Lombard. Assimilation can be either complete or partial. Complete assimilation occurs when two occlusive sounds fall in contact. In this case the first occlusive is completely absorbed by the second and the resulting sound has all the features of the second consonant but is notably lengthened. For example:
  • el ga fat pàla =
  • l'è tròp calt =
  • el gat bianc =
The same phenomenon occurs when an occlusive consonant precedes a nasal or a liquid consonant. For example:
  • en gat négher =
  • l'è tròp mis =
  • so ché strac mórt =
Complete assimilation can also occur when an occlusive precedes a fricative. For example: l'è nit vért =.
When a sequence of nasal+occlusive falls in contact with another occlusive or a fricative, the first occlusive is completely elided and the nasal undergoes partial assimilation. In this case no lengthening occurs. For example:
  • el ga 'l sanch blö =
  • l'è lonc fés =
But when an occlusive precedes, assimilation involves both consonants and the result is an affricate sound:
  • l'è nit zó ècc =
  • l'è tròp zalt =
The phoneme can undergo assimilation in place of articulation with a following consonant. Thus, the /n/ in and is a velar, the /n/ in and is a labiodental. Within a word, the phoneme is never transcribed before and, where is written instead. Nasal assimilation, including to, also takes place across word boundaries. For example:
  • en ca =
  • vàghen fò =
  • l'an pasàt =

    Vowels

Eastern Lombard has 9 vocalic sounds:
IPAExampleItalianEnglish
sich cinquefive
sét setethirst
sèch seccodry, arid
sach saccosack, bag
ciót chiodonail
sòch cioccostump
söt asciuttodry
mür murowall
mur gelsomulberry

Only three vocalic phonemes occur in unstressed final syllables: in open syllables only, and and in both open and closed syllables. Other vowels can occur in final syllables in loanwords.
Locally, the phoneme is pronounced when it appears as last sound of the word in an unstressed syllable. For example:
  • lüna =
  • setemana =

    Unstressed vowel system reduction and local variability

Some vowel contrasts are eliminated in unstressed syllables. For example, in the urban Brescian variety, and no longer contrast. Thus, the word robà can be pronounced both and, with almost no difference noticed by speakers. In addition, a further variant is also possible, though in this case, a difference is noticed by speakers but it is considered a local variant and no loss of intelligibility results. The sounds and also no longer contrast in unstressed syllables, and therefore the word vedèl can be pronounced or. However, when affected by vowel harmony, the unstressed sounds /, /, and become,, and respectively.
In conclusion, it is possible to say that only five contrastive vowel qualities are found in unstressed syllables: //, /,, /, . Some examples:
  • molà
  • mölà
  • malàt
  • pelàt
  • Milà
The situation can differ for other Eastern Lombard varieties, however, and the rules of the unstressed vowel system vary according to the area. For example, in Franciacorta, a province of Brescia, the sounds and are regularly replaced by and in pretonic position:
  • mulà instead of molà
  • Ruàt instead of Roàt
  • Üspedalèt instead of Öspedalèt
Since in unstressed position these vocalic sounds are not contrastive, these local variants do not compromise reciprocal intelligibility.

Vowel harmony

Certain varieties of Eastern Lombard exhibit a process of regressive vowel harmony involving the feature of vowel height. When the stress falls on a close vowel the preceding vowels shift their height, becoming close as well. The vowel is not affected by this process and acts as opaque vowel blocking the harmonization process. In Camuno, harmonization occurs almost only where the stressed vowel is an and not where it is an.
This phenomenon affects all the words independent of the word's function.
Because the diminutive and augmentative are formed with the suffixes -ì and -ù respectively, this process is easily observable in nouns:
  • cortèl
  • * curtilì
  • * curtilù
As already mentioned, the vowel acts as opaque vowel which blocks the harmonization process:
  • fontàna
  • * fontanì, not funtanì
  • öspedàl
  • * öspedalì, not üspidalì
But vowels that occur after the and before the stressed vowel are still affected:
  • mortadèla
  • * mortadilìna
In these cases variants like funtanì and üspedalì or murtadilìna are accepted but fall under the normal unstressed vowel variability.
Verbs are affected by this process in their conjugation, when the inflection contains a stressed . For example:
  • öler
  • * öle
  • * ülìt
  • * ülìf
  • * ülìef
Adjectives formed with the suffix -ùs also exhibit this rule:
  • póra
  • * purús, ''purúza''

    Orthography

Since Eastern Lombard is still principally an oral language, a commonly accepted orthography has not been established. While in recent years there has been an increasing production of texts, each author continues to follow their own spelling rules. The most problematic and controversial issues seem to be the representation of intervocalic and and final vs. .
This article follows the rules of the Italian orthography, with the following exceptions.

Vowels

Diacritic marks are utilized for vowel sounds to distinguish from and from in stressed syllables. Furthermore, the umlaut is adopted to represent the rounded vowels and :
LetterPhoneme
a//
é//
è//
i//
ó//
ò//
u//
ü//
ö//

Note that grave and acute accents are also used to indicate the stressed syllable in non-monosyllabic words. Since unstressed vowels are less distinctive, it is not necessary to discriminate the open/close quality.