Monegasque dialect

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Monegasque (munegascu)

Spoken in

MonacoMonaco Monaco
Linguistic
classification
Official status
Official language in nowhere
(the only official language in Monaco is French)
Bilingual street sign in Monegasque and French

The Monegasque (proper name: munegascu ) is an Italo-Romanesque or Galloitalischer dialect that does not (to the adjacent Occitan ) Provencal , but the Ligurian language heard in the neighboring Italian region of Liguria is spoken. This also explains the large number of words that correspond to Genoese, the variant of Ligurian spoken in Genoa . In addition, unlike the neighboring Provencal dialects, there are no long vowels .

Today's meaning

Monegasque is only spoken by a small number of the inhabitants of Monaco . Since the Monegasque forms a minority in Monaco (approx. 22 percent), Monegasque was considered to be threatened with extinction in the 20th century. The language is now taught as a regular subject in schools and its continued existence is considered certain. At the schools, the Abitur ( Matura ) can be taken in Monegasque. In Monaco-Ville , the old town of Monaco, the street signs have not only French but also Monegasque names. Due to the origins of the ruling family Grimaldi from Genoa , Monegasque today has the unofficial status of a national language. The most common colloquial languages ​​in Monaco, on the other hand, are French and Italian, which are spoken by the two large immigrant groups (from France and Italy); French is the only official language of the principality. Occitan , another vernacular language that was traditionally spoken in Monaco due to immigration from the Provencal hinterland of the principality, is almost irrelevant today.

spelling, orthography

The Monegasque spelling shows the following differences, also in pronunciation, to Italian, which it generally follows:

  • The ü is pronounced like the German ü .
  • As in Ligurian, œ is spoken like French é .
  • The ç sounds like the French ç [s]: tradiçiùn .

vocabulary

Examples:

  • babulu (fool)
  • bugata (doll)
  • catà (buy, Neapolitan and other Italian dialects accattà or Piedmontese acatè )
  • carrugëtu (alley)
  • carrùgiu (street, similar to Corsican , Spanish carretera )
  • cioeve '(to rain, ital. piovere )
  • fenuglieti (red and white aniseed sweets)
  • geija (church, Italian chiesa )
  • marcau (market)
  • sclaratu (make noise)
  • scià (lady, similar to Corsican )
  • turta de ge (puff pastry pie with Swiss chard )
  • zenzin (sea urchin)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ monaco statistics pocket, edition 2014 ( PDF ; 4.5  MB ). Principality of Monaco. Retrieved December 22, 2014.