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Emilian
emigliân, emigliàn,
PronunciationIPA: [emiˈʎaːŋ]
Native toItaly
RegionPrimarily Emilia
border variants spoken in near Lombardy and Venice provinces
Ethnicity3.3 million (2008)[1]
Native speakers
Unknown, c. 1.3 million (2006 estimate) (2006)[2]
Dialectssee Dialectal variety section
Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3egl
Glottologemil1241
Linguasphere51-AAA-oka ... -okh
Emilian speaking provinces of Emilia Romagna region and surrounding regions
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Emilian (Reggian, Parmesan and Modenese: emigliân, Bolognese emiliàn; Italian: emiliano) is a Gallo-Italic unstandardised language spoken in the historical region of Emilia, which is now in the northwestern part of Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy.

Emilian has a default word order of subject–verb–object and both grammatical gender (masculine and feminine) and grammatical number (singular and plural). There is a strong T–V distinction, which distinguishes varying levels of politeness, social distance, courtesy, familiarity or insult. The alphabet, largely adapted from the Italian (Tuscan) one, uses a considerable number of diacritics.

Classification

Main article: Gallo-Italic languages

Emilian is a Gallo-Italic unstandardized language, part of the Emilian-Romagnol dialect continuum with the bordering Romagnol varieties.

Besides Romagnol, the Gallo-Italic family includes Piedmontese, Ligurian and Lombard, all of which maintain a level of mutual intelligibility with Emilian.

Dialectal varieties

The historical and geographical fragmentation of Emilian communities, divided in many local administrations (as signorie then duchies, with reciprocal exchanges of land), has caused a high dialectal fragmentation, to the point the existence of an Emilian koiné has been questioned.

Linguasphere Observatory recognises the following dialects:[3]

Other definitions include the following:[citation needed]

Vocabulary

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There is no widespread standard orthography. The words below are written in a nonspecific Emilian script.

Words in Emilian[4][5]
Emilian IPA English
êit, èlt [ɛ:jt] high
lêregh [ˈlɛ:rɐg] wide
longh, loangh [loŋg] long, tall
tōl, tegh [to:l], [teg] to take
fâṡ, fâż [fa:z] / [fa:ð̠] beech
bdoall [b.dœl] birch
znêr, żnèr [ð̠nɛ:r] January
fervêr [fɐrˈvɛr] February
ed, ad [ɐd] and
dîṡ [di:z] to say, ten (only in Bolognese)
ê, é [e] (he/she) is
aloura [ɐˈlɔu̯rɐ] so, then

Phonology

Consonants

Consonants in the Bolognese dialect
Labial Dental Alveolar Post-alv./
Palatal
Velar
Stop/
Affricate
voiceless p t t͡ʃ k
voiced b d d͡ʒ ɡ
Fricative voiceless f θ s
voiced v ð z
Nasal m n ɲ ŋ
Rhotic r
Approximant central j w
lateral l ʎ

Writing system

Emilian is written using a Latin script that has never been standardised, and spelling varies widely among the dialects.

The dialects were largely oral and rarely written until some time in the late 20th century; a large amount of written media in Emilian has been created since World War II.

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i iː y u uː
Mid e eː ø ə o oː
ɛ ɛː œ ʌ ɔ ɔː
Open æ a aː

References

  1. ^ Miani, Ivan (12 April 2008). "Request for New Language Code Element in ISO 639-3, page 1ISO 639-3 Registration Authority Request for New Language Code Element in ISO 639-3" (PDF). iso639-3.sil.org. Retrieved 17 December 2012.
  2. ^ Istituto nazionale di statistica (20 April 2007). La lingua italiana, i dialetti e le lingue straniere, Anno 2006 [The Italian language, dialects and foreign languages, Year 2006] (PDF) (in Italian). Retrieved 17 December 2012 – via portal-lem.com.
  3. ^ "51-AAA-ok. emiliano + romagnolo". Linguasphere.
  4. ^ Lepri, Luigi; Vitali, Daniele (2007). Dizionario bolognese-italiano, italiano bolognese / Dizionèri bulgnais-itagliàn, itagliàn-bulugnais (in Italian). Bologna: Pendragon. ISBN 978-88-8342-594-3.
  5. ^ Vocabolario reggiano-italiano (in Italian). Reggio: Torreggiani. 1832 – via Biblioteca Panizzi.
  6. ^ Foresti, Fabio (2009). Profilo linguistico dell'Emilia-Romagna (in Italian). Roma: Laterza.
  7. ^ Lepri, Luigi; Vitali, Daniele (2009). Dizionario bolognese-italiano italiano-bolognese / Dizionèri bulgnaiṡ-itagliàn itagliàn-bulgnaiṡ (2nd ed.). Bologna: Pendragon.
  8. ^ Hajek, John (1997). "Emilia-Romagna". In Maiden, Martin; Parry, Mair (eds.). The Dialects of Italy. London: Routledge. p. 275.

Bibliography

Further reading