Gallo-Italic languages

The Gallo-Italic languages, also called Gallo-Italian languages (although the former term is preferred to avoid confusion), comprise the Northern Romance languages of Italy, more precisely the languages located to the north of the Massa-Senigallia line (except for the Rhaeto-Romance languages of Italy: Friulan and Ladino). They form a transitional dialect continuum between the Gallo-Romance languages and the Italo-Romance languages.

Historical, social and cultural aspects

Geographic distribution

The linguistic domain, or set of Gallo-Italic languages, extends across northern Italy and largely coincides with the Po plain. More precisely, the Gallo-Italic languages comprise the autochthonous Romance varieties of most of Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy, Trentino and Veneto (not included: Valle d'Aosta, where Franco-Provencal has historically been spoken, Alto Adige where German is spoken, nor Friuli-Venezia Giulia, where the Romanesque style predominates). Southern Switzerland (so-called Italian Switzerland and especially the canton of Ticino) was historically dominated by varieties of Lombard.

The southern limit, between the Gallo-Italic languages and the Italo-Romance languages, corresponds to the La Spezia-Rimini line or, with more geographical precision, to the Massa-Senigallia line. The Gallo-Italic group to the north of this line is in turn separated from another Romance group to the northeast (the Romanesque).

There are also some Gallo-Italic enclaves in southern Italy: two in Basilicata and the Gallo-Italic varieties in four areas in Sicily.

History

Although Italian, from the XVI century, had become an official, administrative and literary language in all In the former pre-unitarian Italian states, the colloquial languages used by the common people—in this case, those of the northern part of the peninsula—were the Gallo-Italic varieties. Although Italian was used in administration and literature, it continued to be spoken only by the educated or educated classes and, at the time of the unification of Italy, it has been estimated that only 2.5% of the population understood standard literary Italian well, a figure that also corresponded to the percentage of the non-illiterate population.

The subsequent promotion of post-unitarian free literacy, mass schooling open to all social classes, as well as the media during the 19th century XX, allowed a deep penetration of the national standard language in all homes, even in the most humble ones; Despite this, in north-western Italy, around 1985, almost half of Italians continued to exclusively use the regional variety in the family home, while in north-eastern Italy, in regions such as Veneto, the percentage was even higher, exceeding 70 %.

Galloitalic in Sicily

In Sicily there are some enclaves of Gallo-Italic languages in the center and east of the island. These enclaves are the result of immigration from northern Italy (specifically from the current regions of Piedmont and Liguria) during the decades that followed the Norman conquest of Sicily (between 1080 and 1120). The speakers of these languages have historically been referred to as "Lombards of Sicily". Given the long span of time and the influence of the Sicilian language on these linguistic minorities, these languages differ markedly from the Northern Gallo-Italic speeches. The main towns where the Gallo-Italic varieties are still preserved today are: Piazza Armerina, Aidone, Sperlinga, San Fratello, Nicosia and Novara di Sicilia. In other enclaves of the province of Catania, where important Lombard communities existed, the language has not been preserved. The language of San Fratello seems to have originally had more Franco-Provencal elements than Lombard proper.

"Italian" from the north

Some authors have used the term "North Italian" (and also "Northern Italian", Padano or cisalpine) to refer to the Gallo-Italic languages. However, this name is misleading as it suggests that Northern Italian is merely a minor dialectal variation of Standard Italian. Worse still is that the expression "Italian" del norte has also been used for different and mutually exclusive concepts:

• Aception 1 (galoitálico): It is a set of Romanesque varietiesother than the standard Italian, according to certain linguists such as Heinrich Schmid, Andreas Schorta and above all, Geoffrey Hull.
• Aception 2 (northern Italian readings): It is a group of dialects of the Italian language Pierre Bec, Jacques Allières). However, for this definition to be valid one must understand by Italian language, as in the works of the German linguist Gerhard Rohlfs, the whole of the dialects romances of Italy (and even Corsica) that make up the group known as italorromance, among which stands out the Italian literary and official language, which comes from the Florentine dialect of Dante, Boccaccio and Petrarca.

Regional Northern Italian

The Gallo-Italic languages, as they gave way to Italian in recent centuries, have influenced the Italian spoken in these areas, adding lexicon and grammatical constructs unique to local languages.

Classification

Areas of occurrence of /y/ from ♫ Latina.

The languages or varieties that make up the Gallo-Italic group are:

• Emiliano-Romañol (Italy, San Marino)
• Ligur (Italy, Principality of Monaco)
• Lombard (Italy, Switzerland)
• Piemontés (Italy)
• Istriano (Croatia)
• Véneto (Italy, Croatia, Slovenia)

Some authors consider that Veneto constitutes a group apart from the others since it does not share some of the most notorious isoglosses of the Gallo-Italic languages —such as the existence of front rounded vowels [y] or [œ], present in Ligurian, Lombard and Piedmontese—, but if it shares the other isoglosses. Istrian could also be included since it shares several isoglosses typical of the Gallo-Italic languages and shows a close relationship with Veneto, in this case one could speak of a broad Cisalpine group that includes the main Gallo-Italic languages plus Istrian and Veneto.

Common features

In many phonetic respects the Gallo-Italic languages share developments with the Rhae-Romance languages, French, Occitan and Catalan in points where these differ markedly from standard Italian. However, that also does not mean that the Gallo-Italic languages are closer in all respects to the Gallo-Romance, Rhae-Romance, or Occitan-Romance languages than they are to Standard Italian (Tuscan language) and the Italo-Romance languages.

Phonology

The La Spezia-Rimini line in its western part (La Spezia) brings together a set of at least seven important isoglosses that distinguish the Gallo-Italic languages and Northern Italian from Tuscan. In its eastern part the isoglosses separate a little, the northernmost isoglosses being the one that passes closest to Rimini. To the north of this isogloss there are the following relevant characteristics:

• Vocals:
  • Vocable rounding stock (vocali turbate) in the north-west sector: lat. MRU(M) 'muro' 한 lombardo de Milan /myr/, Piemontés de Turin /myraja/. In the south of the Piedmont the /y/ evolved towards the /i/, and in some cases the latter became the diptongo /ej/.
  • Apocope, in most of the galoitálic languages the final atones have been lost except /-a/ (occasionally some /-i/ also kept). Examples the lombard has òm 'Man' (Latin) H HMш), nef Snow. NUNDVE), füm 'humo' (lat. FOUND), Ivory 'hilo' (lat. FINI), röda 'rueda' (lat. RTATA) (against Italian equivalents uomo, neve, fumo, filo, ruota that always keep the Latin final vowel. In ligur, however, some final vowels are preserved (except after -n, -l,r) as shown in the examples bou, rami; lüme, lümi "ramo, bouquets, light, lights" (Latin RAMU, RAMI; Lbranm giftN, L MotorstorM,NESItalian bouquet, rami; lume, lumi), while for words in - The ligur has can, c /ka pace, keg/ 'dog, dogs' (against Italian Cane, cani).
  • Syncopa or tendency to fall pretonic vowels: DENAR(I)U 'money'  footmontés de Turin /dne/ (toscano denaro).
  • Metaphony is very common and affects tonic open vowels è / and ! /// when followed by /i/ (occasionally also /o/). This phonetic change preceded the fall of final vowels so their effects persist even after the final vowels have disappeared. This leads to developments ie e uo that in many dialects goes further to the monopthongos i and ö /ø/. This diptongation is different from that which exists in standard Italian (which occurs in both open and closed syllables). So in Lombard. quest 'this' (Italian) I'm sorry.) but instead quist 'these' (Italian) that you).
• Consonants:
  • Lention of intervocálic deaf occlusive consonants. This lention can be a sonorazor as in FRAT giftLLU أع lombardo /fraшd participanl/, أما piemontés /ŭfr participanl/ (toscano/italiano standard fratello / French frère) or a spirantization CAPLLLU  piemontés /kaшv participanj/ (italiano cape / Catalan Cabell).
  • Palatalization of the consonant group -CT-: LÓCTE 'leche'  Piemontés de Turín /lajt/,  Lombardo /la./.
  • Palatalization of the Latin group -CL- for example /t implied KEY  piemontés y lombardo ciav /t implied av/ Chiave / Spanish Key).
  • Consonant degemining: *TUCCA 'suco, salsa'  /t.o/.
  • Palatalization to varying degrees, according to regions, of the A Latin tonic, as in CAVÁRE /2005 piemontés de Turín /gaŭv. (that trait is also presented in standard French CAPRA أعربية Русский أعربية

The following table presents some of the typical characteristics that differentiate the Romance varieties north and south of said line:

LATÍN		CLAVE(M)	VECLUS	CAPILLU(M)	IOCARE	CATENA(M)	VACCA	PAX	UNUM	N)CTE(M)	(M)	FUE(M)	(M)	H)MINE(M)
Galloitálico	Lombard	t offset	vet implied / ved exponen	ka'v	d circle urgeu'ga(anxiety)	ka'dŭna	'vaka	pas	yn	No.	la la	faʧ	kã(purchase)	m
	Ligur	t savings	ved impetus	ka'velu	d circle urgeu'ga(anxiety)	ka'dŭna	'vaka	pa	yn/in	nøite/ nøt cancellation	lajte / I	fajtu	ka	mumu
	Piemontés	t offset	v transformationd v	ka'v	(g)e(fix)	'k transformationjna	'vaka	pas	yn/in	nøit/nøt savings	lajt/lat accounting	fajt/fat replacing	ka	m
	Emiliano-romañol	t implied	vet implied	kæ'v	zu'gillar	kad	'vaka	Pæs	on	ntt	lat	Fat	kan	m
	Véneto	t savings	vet implied	ka'velo	zu'ga rays	ka'dŭna	'vaka	peace	One	note	♪	Fat	ka	mo
	Istriano	t savings	viet offseto	ka'velo	zu'ga(vaginal discharge)	ka'dena	'vaka	pas	One	nwtoto	the	Fat	kan	mo
	La Spezia-Rímini Line
Italorromance	Italian	kiave	vekkjo	kapello	d preceding	katena	vakka	path offset	One	nttette	latte	fatto	kane	Wmomo
	Romanesco	kiave	vekkjo	kapello	dvolvo'ka	katena	vakka	path offset	One	nttette	latte	fatto	kane	mo
	Napolitano	kiav	viekkjø	kapell	ju'ka	katena	vakka	path offset	a	not	latt	fattø	kan	mm
	Sicily	kiavi	vekkju	kapiddu	ju'ka reparationi	katina	vakka	peace	unu	nttitti	Latti	fattu	kani	mumu

The following changes are registered in the vowels:

• u /u/ tends to change ü /y/, as happens in French, so in lombard you have füm (in Italian) smoke "humo" and in ligurine üme, piemontés lüm (Italian lume 'luz'). In some regions, as in the Southern Piedmont, this has gone a step further and /u/ has given rise to /i/, for example fis (Italian fuse), lim (Italian lume 'luz'). In some mountainous regions of Piedmont, however (e.g. Canavese, Biellese, Ossolano), this change does not occur before a /a/ final, giving rise to a male crü (italian) raw "cross" but in female cru(v)a (italian) raw).
• The closed tonic vowel E /e/ and sometimes or /o/, when they appear in open syllables (followed by a syllable with simple attack) frequently diptonga in /ei/ and /ou/, as in ancient French; e.g. piemontés beive (Italian Bere *bévere 'beber'), Teila (Italian fabric 'tela'), Meis (Italian mese 'month'). In some variations of piemontés /ei/ gives place even to / or /i/, e.g. tèla /t pillar/. ♪ Teila (Italian fabric 'tela'), sira (Italian sera 'attack [about the sunset]'), My (Italian mese 'month').

The vowel system of many Gallo-Italic languages is heptavocalic but different from that in Proto-Romance. For example, Western Piedmontese and Turin in particular have a system that includes front semi-open rounded vowels (œ).

Latin	.			.	♫	.		Å		♫
Protorromance	i	e		‐	a			or		u
Turin	i	‐		e	a		What?	u		and

Definite Article

Gallo-Italic dialects (except Ligurian) have masculine singular definite articles derived from Latin forms in IL-, such as el, ël, al, il, ul while in the Ligurian dialects the forms lu, ru, u are found. In the plural masculine article there are forms lu and i, the latter being the most widespread. In the feminine article it has la almost universally (in some areas of eastern and southern Piedmont, western Emilia and western Lombardy it has the form a). For the plural feminine article we have le (but also in certain areas li, i).

Lexical comparison

The numerals in different Gallo-Italic varieties are:

GLOSA	Ligur	Piemontés	Lombard	Romañol	Véneto	Istriano
'1'	yarn	yarn	vy pace / v /na	oLOG / wave	uLOG / a	uLOG / a
'2'	dui / du Agenda	dui / du dimension	dy / d /	du / d	due / d /	dui
'3'	trei / tr	trei / tr	tri / tr	Tri / trai	tri / tr	Tri
'4'	kwatru	kw build	kwater	kwater	kwatro	kwatro
'5'	sigilkwe	sync	sync	θeŭk	sigilkwe	sigilkwe
'6'	sei	sez	ses	Yeah.	Yeah.	♪
'7'	s	s	s	s	s	Seven
'8'	øtu	øt	vtt	t	to	wtoto
'9'	nøve	nøv	nvv	nov	No.	♪
'10'	de	dez	des	diz	10e	≈

The numerals '1', and#39;2' and '3' distinguish between masculine and feminine forms.

Text comparison

The following table shows the same sentence in different Romance languages:

Group	Language	Frase	Territory
-	Latin	CLAUDIT SEMPER FENESTRAM ANTEQUAM CφNET
Italorromances	Italian	(She) chiude spreads the finest di supperre.
	Tuscan (modern Tuscan)	Lei la 'hiude sempre la finestra pria di'ccenà.
Galoitálico	Piamontés	Chila a sara sempe la fnestra dnans ëd fé sin-a/siné.	Piedmont: Provinces of Turin, Cuneo, Asti, Vercelli, Biella, Alessandria (partly)
	Ligur (even the Monegasque and the Romance)	Lê a særa sénpre o barcón primma de çenâ.	Liguria: from Ventimiglia to La Spezia; enclaves: Monaco, Bonifacio in Corsica, islands of San Pietro and Sant'Antioco in Sardinia); Romance (even the brigasco), speaking of the high Roya, transition to the west
	Ligur tabarquino	Lé a sère fissu u barcun primma de çenò.
	Western Lombard	(Read) the sara semper its fenèstra primma de sena.	Lombardy: Milan, Lodi, Lake Maggiore region, Piedmontan provinces of Novara and Verbania; South Switzerland, Tesino; Pavia (with some characteristics of the emiliano); Cremona (with some oriental features).
	Eastern Lombard	(Lé) la sèra sèmper sö la finèstra prima de senà.	Bergamo, Brescia y Crema (former Republic of Venice); Mantua (with mixed features)
	Emiliano bologne	(Lî) la sèra sänper la fnèstra prémma ed dsnèr.	Emilia-Romaña: Emilia: Piacenza, Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Bologna
	Romañol fanés (Fano, North of the Marks)	Lìa chìud sèmpr la fnestra prema'de cnè.	Emilia-Romaña: Romaña, San Marino, North of the Marks
	Venetian	Ła sàra/sèra senpre the balcony vanti senàr/dixnàr.	Venice, Padua, Verona, Trento
	Istriota	Gila insiera senpro lo balcon preîma da senà.	Southern coast of Istria, (Rovèigno, it.: Rovigno; cr.: Rovinj), in Croatia.
Retorromance	Ladin nonés (Val di Non, Trento)	(Ela) sera semper la fenestra inant zenar.
	Romanche	She clauda/sèrra adina the fanestra avant ch'ella tschainia.
	Friulano	Jê e siere simpri il boatn prin di cenâ.
Occitanorromance	Occitan	(Ela) bar totjorn/sempre la fenèstra abans de sopar.	Occitania: South Mitad of France, western strip of northern Italy, Aran Valley, diverse enclaves in southern Italy.
	Catalan	(She) tanca/barra spreads the fintra fanatics.	Rosellón, Catalonia, Valencia, Balearic Islands, La franja, El Carche and L'Alguer
Iberorromance	Castellano	(She) always closes the window before dinner.

The classification of Istriot is difficult and controversial, because it has been little researched and is in serious danger of extinction, but the available material allows us to establish a close relationship with the Gallo-Italic languages, mainly with the veneto with whom he shows more similarities.

According to Pierre Bec, in the past, there must have been some kind of diachronic unity between Northern Italian and the Romansh rehash group: Romansh in Switzerland and Ladin and Friulian in Italy. This close and evident link has been investigated in greater depth by the aforementioned Australian linguist Geoffrey Hull, leading him to the conclusion noted above (definition 2).