Romagnol dialects


Romagnol is a group of closely related dialects spoken in the historical region of Romagna, which is today in the south-eastern part of Emilia-Romagna, Italy. The name itself is derived from the Lombard name for the region Romania. It is also spoken outside the region, particularly in the independent country of San Marino. It is classified as a threatened language, due to older generations having “neglected to pass on the dialect as a native tongue to the next generation”.

Classification

While contemporaneous with modern Standard Italian, it is a member of the Gallo-Italic language family. This includes the languages Emilian, Ligurian, Lombard, and Piedmontese. It is sometimes considered a subdialect of a larger Emilian-Romagnol language, which encompasses a broad continuum of dialects spanning the region of Emilia-Romagna.

Geographic distribution

Western border

West of Romagna, the Emilian language is spoken. The border with Emilian-speaking areas is the Sillaro river, which runs 25 km east from Bologna to the west of. Emilian is spoken, to the east, in Imola, the language is Romagnol. In Emilia-Romagna, Emilian is spoken in all the rest of the region moving from the Sillaro river to the west, up to Piacenza.

Northern border

The Reno River is the border between Romagnol and the dialect of Ferrara. Romagnol is spoken also in some villages northwards of the Reno River, such as Argenta, Emilia–Romagna and Filo, where people of Romagnol origin live alongside people of Ferrarese origin. Ferrara goes into Emilian language territory.

Southern border

Outside Emilia-Romagna, Romagnol is spoken in the Republic of San Marino and in two municipalities located in the province of Florence, Marradi and Palazzuolo sul Senio.

History

Romagnol's first acknowledgement outside regional literature was in Dante Alighieri's treatise De vulgari eloquentia, wherein Dante compares “the language of Romagna” to his native Tuscan dialect.
There is also a large repertoire of folklore legends, myths, and fables in Romagnol, due to its role in local geopolitical history. Romagna's geographic diversity was home to a variety of lifestyles and trade backgrounds, such as “the mountaineers of the Alps, the fisherman of the Adriatic, the farmers of the plains, and the city folk,” which in turn, allowed for a large range of topics and themes present in the literature. Darker themes, such as poverty and pessimism, are also known to be common subjects of Romagnol poetry, fables, and prose.

Literature

16th to 19th century

The first appearance of a distinct Romagnol literary work is "Sonetto romagnolo" by Bernardino Catti, from Ravenna, printed 1502. It is written in a mixture of Italian and Romagnol.
The first Romagnol poem dates back to the end of 16th century: E Pvlon matt. Cantlena aroica, a mock-heroic poem based on Orlando Furioso and written by an anonymous author from. The original poem comprised twelve cantos, of which only the first four survived.
The first Romagnol poet to win fame was the cleric Pietro Santoni,. He was the teacher of Vincenzo Monti, one of the most famous Italian poets of his time.
In 1840 the first Romagnol-Italian Dictionary was published by, printed in Faenza.

20th century

The 20th century saw a flourishing of Romagnol literature. Theatrical plays, poems and books of a high quality were produced. Some of the best known Romagnol authors are:

Morphology

Unlike Standard Italian, not all nouns end in a theme vowel. Masculine nouns lack theme vowels and feminine nouns typically terminate in "a." To form plurals, masculine nouns and adjectives undergo lexically-specified ablaut. In the case of feminine nouns and adjectives, "a" becomes "i" or deletes if after a consonant cluster or double consonant.
Though both languages derive their lexicon from Vulgar Latin, some words differ in gender.
RomagnolItalianLatinEnglish
la risail risorisus laughter
la sèciail secchiosiclum bucket

Syntax

Italian and Romagnol share much of the same features when it comes to verbs. Both languages are SVO in simple sentences. Verbs are conjugated according to tense, mood, and person. Romagnol also has 4 conjugations compared to Italian's 3: the 1st, êr; the 2nd, -ér; the 3rd, -ar; and the 4th, -ìr. One marked difference in syntax between Romagnol and Italian is that pronouns are obligatory, and some verbs in Romagnol use a reflexive construction where Italian uses an intransitive construction.
RomagnolItalianEnglish
Me a'm so lavê mi sono lavatoI washed myself
Me a sò sonoI am
Me a j'ò hoI have

Verbs that are impersonal in Romagnol use "avèr," in contrast with Italian which uses "essere." Even though the subject is null, an expletive pronoun inserts itself in the specifier position, much like English's "it".
Additionally, whereas Standard Italian and other Northern dialects omit the definite article before “singular names and names of relatives,” Romagnol does not do so.

Phonology

Romagnol has lexical and syntactic uniformity throughout its area. However, its pronunciation changes as one goes from the Po Valley to the hills.
It has an inventory of up to 20 contrastive vowels in stressed position, in comparison to Italian's 7.
These are marked in orthography using diacritics on a, i, o, u, and e.
The absence of an official institution regulating its orthography leads in many cases to ambiguities in the transcription of vowel sounds.

Syllable structure

Some words that in Latin were trisyllabic or tetrasyllabic are reduced in Romagnol to monosyllables. The atonic syllable is/are cut off.
LatinRomagnolItalianEnglishEmilian
geniculumznöccginocchiokneeznocc
tepidustèvdtiepidotepidtevad
oculusöccocchioeyeocc
frigidusfrèdfreddocoldfredd

Vowels

The next three tables list the vowel inventory of the "classical" version of the northern macro-dialect of Romagnol.
FrontCentralBack
High
Mid
Mid
Low

SymbolValue
ê
ô
ë
ö

The following table lists the vowels above alongside their relative ortography:
Symbol in
orthography		"Classical"
pronunciation		Dialectal pronunciation
around Lugo 		Example in RomagnolComparison with ItalianEnglish meaning
ëæ̯bëlbello"nice"
è, e~ɜbèlbelli"nice"
êɜ̯~iɜ̯fêrfare"to do"
éjmélamela"apple"
öɒ̯cölcollo"neck"
ôɞ̯rôdaruota"wheel"
ò, o~ɞònggundici"eleven"
ówsólsole"sun"
ẽɛ̃æ̃j̃bẽbene"fine"
ã, âə̃cãcane"dog"
õõõw̃bõbuono"good"
aa~zèngiacinghia"belt"
à, a afàzafaccia"face"
uuupurtêportato"brought"
ù, u uʊu̯durduro"hard"
iiiistêestate"summer"
ì, i i~partìrpartire"to leave"

Consonants

The letter Z is always pronounced as either or and never like in Italian, as or .
only occurs before velar stops.
Romagnol, in addition to its larger inventory of vowels, also may have more consonants compared to standard Italian. Additionally, consonants bear the following differences compared to Standard Italian: