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Emiliano-Romagnolo (also known as Emilian-Romagnolo) is a western neo-latin language (just like other Italian minority languages such as Piedmontese, Lombard and Ligurian), like French, Provençal and Catalan. It is considered as a minority language, structurally separated from Italian by the Ethnologue and by the Red Book on endangered languages of UNESCO. Although commonly referred to as an Italian dialect (even by its speakers), it does not descend from the Italian language. It lacks of a koine.
Geographic extent
It is spoken in Northern Italy regions of Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy (provinces of Pavia and Mantua), in Central Italy regions of Tuscany (province of Massa-Carrara) and Marche (province of Pesaro-Urbino) and in the Republic of San Marino.
Varieties
Emiliano-Romagnolo varies considerably across the region, and several dialects exist (e.g.: Piacentino has much more in common with Lombard than with Central or Eastern Emiliano and it's hardly intelligible by a speaker from Bologna, the capital of Emilia-Romagna). A major distinction is usually made between Emiliano and Romagnolo, seen as separated by some linguists. The last one is spoken in the provinces of Forlì-Cesena, Ravenna, Rimini but also in the province of Pesaro-Urbino, belonging to the region of Marche, which formed the historical region of Romagna.
Emiliano-Romagnolo can be subdivided into
- Western Emiliano (Piacentino and Parmigiano)
- Central Emiliano (Reggiano and Modenese)
- Southern Emiliano (Bolognese)
- North-Eastern Emiliano (Ferrarese)
- Northern Romagnolo
- Southern Romagnolo
- Mantovano
- Vogherese-Pavese
- Lunigiano.
Features
Emiliano-Romagnolo is not mutually intelligible with Italian and the two languages belong to different branches of the Romance language family tree (respectively Western Romance and Italo-Dalmatian). An uncommon feature for a Romance language is the extensive use of idiomatic phrasal verbs (verb-particle constructions) much in the same way as in English and other Germanic languages, above all in Western Emiliano, Vogherese-Pavese and Mantovano.
Usage
The use of Emiliano-Romagnolo is usually stigmatized in the Emiliano-Romagnolo speaking areas. It is due to a number of historical and social reasons: speaking dialect is considered a sign of poor schooling or low social status, and its usage has been historically discouraged by Italian politicians, as it was a major linguistic obstacle to the integration of the many immigrants from southern Italy (this applies to most Italian dialects).
External links
- Emiliano Romagnolo on Ethnologue
- A website on the Bolognese dialect
- A website on the Piacentino dialect
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"Emiliano-Romagnolo"