Ligurian language (Romance)

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Ligurian (Lìgure)

Spoken in

Liguria , Sardinia , Piedmont ( Italy ), southeastern France , Monaco , Argentina
speaker 505,100 (2002)
Linguistic
classification
Official status
Official language in none, officially recognized in Italy (Law No. 482/1999)
Language codes
ISO 639 -1

-

ISO 639 -2

-

ISO 639-3

lij

Ligurian is a Romance language spoken in Liguria , northern Italy, as well as parts of the southern French Mediterranean coast ( Côte d'Azur ) and Monaco . The Genoese dialect (Zenéize), spoken by long -established residents of the city of Genoa , the Ligurian capital, is one of the most famous dialects of the Ligurian language.

Ligurian belongs to the northern Italian (or: Padan) dialect group within the Romance languages and therefore differs significantly from standard Italian , which is spoken south of the La Spezia-Rimini line ; the same applies to the other northern Italian language forms Piedmontese , Lombard , Venetian and Emilian .

Like many minority languages, the language is disappearing more and more in recent years and is possibly threatened with extinction, but is still spoken by many, especially older, of the 1,920,848 Ligurians.

Geographical distribution

Ligurian language.

Outside Liguria, the language is also used in northern Tuscany (in parts of the province of Massa-Carrara around the city of Pontremoli ), in Piedmont (in parts of the province of Alessandria around Ovada and Novi Ligure and in the Borbera valley ), in Emilia Romagna (in parts of the province of Piacenza around Borgo Val di Taro ), in the French department Alpes-Maritimes (in some villages around Nice ), in parts of Sardinia and Corsica (left behind by the Genoese sailors who once ruled these islands) and spoken in Monaco . There the language was officially recognized as the third official language under the name Monegasque dialect (or locally: Munegascu ). The Nizzardo-Italians spoke a similar language until the annexation of the area around Nice by France in 1860.

alphabet

The Ligurian alphabet includes:

  • 8 vowels: a , e , i , o , u , y , æ , eu
  • 18 consonants: b , c , ç , d , f , g , h , j l , m , n , p , q , r , s , t , v , x , z .

pronunciation

The presence of the umlauts ä, ö and ü, unknown in most Romance languages, is one of the special features of Ligurian. There are several orthographies, as Ligurian is mainly used orally and rarely as a written language. Instead of æ, eu, y (or û ), the German umlauts ä, ö, ü are sometimes used. Alternatively, there is a on the Occitan exploratory notation in which u as [⁠ y ⁠] and o and ó as, however ò spoken as [o] [u].

Only the features that differ from German are described:

Vowels

  • æ - German ä
  • eu - German ö
  • y (or û ) - German ü
  • the grave accent `(the acute ´ when ó, é are spoken openly) indicates the syllable stress.
  • A letter with a circumflex ^ is spoken long, e.g. B. in o mâ , "the sea". However, û is pronounced like ü in German, e.g. B. in o sciûmme "the river".

Consonants

  • c - k before a, o, u; ch before e, i
  • ç - s
  • ch before e, i - k
  • g - g before a, o, u; dsch before e, i
  • gh before e, i - g
  • h - mute
  • j - j as in Italian
  • n , nn - nasalized to ng; m before b, p, v
  • nn- - not nasalized, like German n or nn, e.g. B. in Sann-a . In some areas (for example in Novi Ligure and the surrounding area) but nasalized like the word "sing"
  • qu - as in Italian, not k as in France
  • r - rolled (similar to the French r for long-established Genoese )
  • s - always sharp ß
  • sch - sk
  • v - w
  • x - soft (voiced) sch (like French j ) like xanbón ("ham")
  • z - soft (voiced) s (e.g. in the word zena (genoa) z is pronounced like sun or tendon )

vocabulary

In the spelling of the Genoese Académia Ligùstica do Brénno:

  • o péi "pear" (it. and sp. pera, fr. poire, pt. pêra ), pl. e péie (f.)
  • o méi "apple" (it. mela ), but feminine in the plural: e méie
  • o fîgo "fig" (it. fico, fr. figue ), pl. e fighe (f.)
  • o pèrsego "peach" (pt. pêssego , it. pesca , fr. pêche , cat. préssec )
  • a franboâza "raspberry" (fr. framboise )
  • a çêxa "cherry" (it. ciliegia, sp. cereza, fr. cerise )
  • o meréllo or o mêlo "strawberry"
  • l'articiòcca "artichoke" (it. carciofo )
  • a tomâta "tomato" (it. pomodoro )
  • a nôxe "nut", "walnut" (it. noce )
  • a nisêua "hazelnut" (it. nocciola , fr. noisette )
  • o bricòcalo "apricot" (it. albicocca, cat. albercoc )
  • l'ûga "grape" (it. and sp. uva )
  • o pigneu "pine nut" (it. pinolo )
  • arvî "open" (it. aprire, fr. ouvrir, sp. abrir )
  • serâ "close" (sp. cerrar )
  • a lûxe "light" (it. luce, fr. lumière )
  • a ca or a câza "house" (it. casa; cat. and ven. ca )
  • l'êuvo "egg" (it. uovo, fr. oeuf )
  • l'éuggio "eye" (it. occhio, fr. l'œil, cat. ull )
  • a bócca "mouth" (it. bocca )
  • a tésta "head" (it. testa )
  • a schénn-a "back" (it. seemed, cat. esquena )
  • o cû "butt" (it. culo, fr. and cat. cul )
  • o bràsso "arm" (it. braccio, fr. bras )
  • a gànba "leg" (it. gamba, fr. jambe, cat. cama )
  • o cheu "heart" (it. cuore, fr. cœur )

Works

Crêuza de mä , studio album by the Genoese cantautore Fabrizio De André

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ligurian. Ethnologue , accessed on March 18, 2013 (English).

Web links

Commons : Ligurian language  - collection of images, videos and audio files