Native to Italy Native speakers ca. 1.3 million (2006) | Ethnicity 3.3 million (2008) | |
Region Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy, Tuscany, Liguria Language family Indo-European
Italic
Romance
Western
Gallo-Italic
Emiliano-Romagnolo
Emilian Dialects Bolognese, Ferrarese, Modenese, Reggiano, Parmigiano, Piacentino |
Emilian is a group of dialects of the Emilian-Romagnol language spoken in the area historically called Emilia, the western portion of today's Emilia-Romagna region in Italy.
Contents
There is no standardised version of Emilian.
The default word order is subject–verb–object. There are two genders as well as a distinction between plural and singular. Emilian has a strong T–V distinction to distinguish varying levels of politeness, social distance, courtesy, familiarity or insult. Its alphabet uses a considerable number of diacritics.
Classification
Emilian is a dialect of the Emilian-Romagnol language, one of the Gallo-Italic languages. There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between the various varieties of Emilian and the other dialect, Romagnol. The Gallo-Italic family has Emilian-Romagnol, Piedmontese, Ligurian and Lombard.
Dialects
Linguasphere Observatory recognises the following dialects:
Other definitions include the following:
Writing system
Emilian is written using a Latin script that has never been standardised. As a result, spelling varies widely across the dialects. The dialects are largely oral and are rarely written; however, the Bible was published in Emilian-Romagnol in 1865; the work has since been lost.