Emilian | |
---|---|
emigliân, emigliàn, | |
Pronunciation | IPA: [emiˈʎaːŋ] |
Native to | Italy |
Region | Primarily Emilia border variants spoken in near Lombardy and Venice provinces |
Ethnicity | 3.3 million (2008)[1] |
Native speakers | Unknown, c. 1.3 million (2006 estimate) (2006)[2] |
Dialects | see Dialectal variety section |
Latin | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | egl |
Glottolog | emil1241 |
Linguasphere | 51-AAA-oka ... -okh |
![]() Emilian speaking provinces of Emilia Romagna region and surrounding regions | |
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.
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.
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]
There is no widespread standard orthography. The words below are written in a nonspecific Emilian script.
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 |
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 |
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.
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 |