Emilian (Reggiano, Parmesan and Modenese: emigliân; Bolognese: emigliàn; Piacentino: emigliän; Italian: emiliano) is a Gallo-Italic unstandardised language spoken in the historical region of Emilia, which is now in the western part of Emilia-Romagna.
Emilian has a default word order of subject–verb–object and both grammatical gender (masculine and feminine) and grammatical number (singular and plural). There is a strong T–V distinction, which distinguishes varying levels of politeness, social distance, courtesy, familiarity or insult. The alphabets, of which there are multiple, largely adapted from the Italian (Tuscan) one, generally use a considerable number of diacritics.
Contents
Classification
Emilian is a Gallo-Italic language. Besides Emilian, the Gallo-Italic family includes Romagnol, Piedmontese, Ligurian and Lombard, all of which maintain a level of mutual intelligibility with Emilian.
Dialectal varieties
The historical and geographical fragmentation of Emilian communities, divided in many local administrations (as signorie then duchies, with reciprocal exchanges of land), has caused a high dialectal fragmentation, to the point the existence of an Emilian koiné has been questioned.
Linguasphere Observatory recognises the following dialects:
Mantuan, spoken in all but the very north of the Province of Mantua in Lombardy. It has a strong Lombard influence.
Vogherese (Pavese-Vogherese), spoken in the Province of Pavia in Lombardy. It is closely related phonetically and morphologically to Piacentine. It is also akin to Tortonese.
Piacentine, spoken west of the River Taro in the Province of Piacenza and on the border with the province of Parma. The variants of Piacentine are strongly influenced by Lombard, Piedmontese, and Ligurian.
Parmesan, spoken in the Province of Parma. Those from the area refer to the Parmesan spoken outside Parma as Arioso or Parmense, although today's urban and rural dialects are so mixed that only a few speak the original. The language spoken in Casalmaggiore in the Province of Cremona to the north of Parma is closely related to Parmesan.
Reggiano (Arzân), spoken in the Province of Reggio Emilia, although the northern parts (such as Guastalla, Luzzara and Reggiolo) of the province are not part of this group and closer to Mantuan.
Modenese, spoken in the centre of the Province of Modena, although Bolognese is more widespread in the Castelfranco area.
Mirandolese, spoken in the northern part of the Province of Modena, it is very different from the Modenese dialect in the phonology, grammar and vocabulary.
Bolognese, spoken in all the Metropolitan City of Bologna but the Romagnol comuni of: Imola, Dozza, Borgo Tossignano, Fontanelice, Castel del Rio, Mordano and Casalfiumanese (all beyond the river Santerno); in around Castelfranco Emilia (Modena); in the Province of Ferrara (Cento, Poggio Renatico, Sant'Agostino and Mirabello) and in Pavana (Province of Pistoia, Tuscany).
Vocabulary
There is no widespread standard orthography. Several major urban dialects will be compared with each other, with respective local orthographies and relative pronunciations.
Phonology
Consonants
/ŋ/, while present as an allophone of /n/ before velars in most to all varieties, is only phonemic in certain dialects, including those of Bologna, Ferrara, and (debatably) Parma, where it can occur word-finally and contrast with /n/.
The phonemes /ʃ, ʒ, c, ɟ/ are present in many dialects of the Apennines, but they are generally absent in dialects native to the plains. Their regular correspondences in plains dialects are, respectively, /s, z, t͡ʃ, d͡ʒ/.
/t, d/ are dental [t̪, d̪]. On the other hand, /s, z/ are retracted alveolar [s̠, z̠].
In the dialects in and around Ferrara, /l/ is strongly velarized [ɫ]. In the dialects of the mountains of the provinces of Modena and Bologna, /l/ is vocalized to [j] in coda position before labials and velars, similarly to what happens in Romagnol. Some dialects go even further and vocalize all instances of coda /l/.
Affricate sounds /t͡s, d͡z/ can also be heard in place of the fricative sounds /θ, ð/ particularly among southern dialects, and are in fact the more conservative realization. West of Modena (including the dialects of Carpi and Sassuolo), as well as in Comacchio, /θ, ð/ merge with /s, z/ as [s̠, z̠].
In the dialects of the provinces of Piacenza and Parma, an /r/ sound can be heard as either an alveolar trill [r], or as a uvular fricative [ʁ] sound. This realization is most widespread in and around Fidenza (PR).
/ʎ/ can be analysed as an allophone of the sequence /lj/, as it alternates with /li/ and only ever occurs before a vowel. The sequence /nj/ is also often realized as [ɲ]; however, the phonemic status of /ɲ/ is undisputed, as it can also occur word-finally and before other consonants.
Vowels
Vowels vary greatly across different Emilian varieties, to the point where even the amount of vowels can range from as few as 7 (as in the dialect of Ferrara) to as many as 23 (as in the dialect of Valestra, RE).
In most dialects belonging to the Central Emilian subgroup (provinces of Reggio Emilia, Modena, and Bologna), vowel length is distinguished for the following vowels [iː eː ɛː aː ɔː oː uː]. There, after a short stressed vowel, the consonant is allophonically lengthened (but not doubled, as in Italian), e.g. /ˈmeːl/ [ˈmeːl] "honey", /ˈmel/ [ˈmelː] "thousand". In Western Emilian dialects (provinces of Piacenza and Parma), vowel length is neutralized word-finally, which has led dialectologists to analyse those dialects as having consonant length as the contrastive feature instead. Length contrasts have been receding in Parma in favour of pitch distinctions. No length distinctions of any kind are found in the dialect of Ferrara, in continuity with the bordering Venetian. The dialect of Comacchio, however, shows a contrast between monophthongs and diphthongs, analogous to that present in Western Romagnol.
In unstressed position, only /a, e, i, o, u/ can occur. In stressed position, all 16 vowels are found. /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ only occur in recent unadapted Italian borrowings.
Short vowels /i e ɛ a ɔ o u/ are normally realized as centralized [i̙ e̙ ɛ̙ ɐ ɔ̘ o̘ u̘]. Similarly, long vowels tend to be realized as diphthongs in which the first component is the centralized short counterpart, and the second is the non-centralized vowel. /aː/ is generally pronounced [ɐʌ̯].
Until relatively recently, there were two additional phonemes, generally represented by ä /æ/ and å /ʌ/. Those have both merged with /a/ into [ɐ] in the urban dialect, but they are still distinguished outside the city walls and, regardless of variety, follow different patterns when it comes to vowel reduction and metaphony: ä reduces to /i/ when unstressed and is raised to /e/ under metaphony, while å reduces to /u/ and is raised to /o/ in the same conditions.
All seven vowels occur and contrast in accentual position. In non-accentual position, /e/ and /ɛ/ are in complementary distribution, as are /o/ and /ɔ/: only close-mid vowels [e, o] appear before the accent, and only open-mid vowels [ɛ, ɔ] appear after it.
Writing system
Emilian is written using a Latin script that has never been standardised, and spelling varies widely among the dialects.
The dialects were largely oral and rarely written until some time in the late 20th century; a large amount of written media in Emilian has been created since World War II.