Romagnol dialects

Romagnol (rumagnòl) is a group of closely related dialects of Emilian-Romagnol 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.[4] It is also spoken outside the region, particularly in the Provincia di Pesaro e Urbino and in the independent country of San Marino.[5] It is classified as an endangered language, due to older generations having “neglected to pass on the dialect as a native tongue to the next generation”.[6]

Romagnol
rumagnòl
Pronunciation	[rumɐˈɲoːl]/[rumɐˈɲoə̯l]
Native to	Italy, San Marino
Region	Primarily Emilia-Romagna, San Marino
Ethnicity	1.1 million (2008)[1]
Native speakers	Unknown, c. 430,000, assuming Romagnol and Emilian retained at same rate (2006)[2]
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Western Gallo-Italic Emilian-Romagnol Romagnol
Language codes
ISO 639-3	rgn
Glottolog	roma1328
ELP	Romagnol[3]
Linguasphere	51-AAA-oki ... okl
Geographic distribution of Romagnol (shown in dark pink)

Classification

While contemporaneous with modern Standard Italian, it is technically a member of the Gallo-Italic branch and more comparable to the “northern group” of Italian dialects.[7] This includes the dialects 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 Castel San Pietro Terme. Romagnol is spoken to the east of this river and to the south of the Reno river. In Emilia-Romagna, Emilian is spoken in all the rest of the region moving from the Sillaro river to the west, up to Piacenza, and to the north of the Reno, up to the Po .

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 ("Sammarinese") 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.[8] Eventually, in 1629, the author Adriano Banchieri wrote the treatise Discorso della lingua Bolognese, which countered Dante's claim that the Tuscan dialect was better, arguing his belief that Bolognese (a subdialect of Romagnol that saw wide use in writing) was superior in “naturalness, softness, musicality, and usefulness.” Romagnol received more recognition after Romagna gained independence from the Papal States.[9]

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 the 16th century: E Pvlon matt. Cantlena aroica (Mad Nap), a mock-heroic poem based on Orlando Furioso and written by an anonymous author from San Vittore di Cesena. The original poem comprised twelve cantos, of which only the first four survived (1848 lines).[9]

The first Romagnol poet to win fame was the cleric Pietro Santoni, (Fusignano, 1736–1823). 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 Antonio Morri, 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:

• Raffaello Baldini, who won in 1988 the "Premio Viareggio" and in 1995 the "Premio Bagutta," known for long pessimistic poems and prose[9]
• Tonino Guerra (1920–2012), wrote poems during his exile to WWII-era Germany, focusing on people of suffering and poverty[9]
• Olindo Guerrini, with "Sonetti romagnoli"
• Aldo Spallicci, an antifascist exiled from Romagna. He wrote poems such as "Rumâgna" that were often descriptive of Romagna[9]

Grammar

Morphology

Unlike Standard Italian, not all nouns end in a theme vowel. Masculine nouns lack theme vowels and feminine nouns typically (but not always) 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.[7]

Romagnol		Italian
Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Sacrêri (m. sg.)	Sacréri (m. pl.)	Sacrario	Sacrari
grând (sg.)	grènd (pl.)	grande	grandi

Though both languages derive their lexicon from Vulgar Latin, some words differ in gender.

Romagnol	Italian	Latin	English
la risa	il riso	risus (masc.)	rice
la sècia	il secchio	siclum (masc.)	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 (even if the speaker is not the second argument of the verb) where Italian uses an intransitive construction.[10]

Romagnol	Italian	English
Me a'm so lavê	(Io) mi sono lavato	I washed myself
Me a sò	(Io) sono	I am
Me a j'ò	(Io) ho	I have

Verbs that are impersonal (lacking a canonical subject) 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".

• Italian: è piovuto, It rained
• Romagnol: l'à piuvù, It rained

Additionally, whereas Standard Italian and other Northern dialects omit the definite article before “singular names and names of relatives,” Romagnol does not do so.[11]

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.[12][13]

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 (where u is not stressed) are reduced in Romagnol to monosyllables. The atonic syllable(s) is/are cut off.

Latin	Romagnol	Italian	English	Emilian
geniculum	znöcc	ginocchio	knee	znocc
tepidus	tèvd	tiepido	tepid	tevad
oculus	öcc	occhio	eye	occ
frigidus	frèd	freddo	cold	fredd

Vowels

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

Monophthongs

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e	(ə~ɐ)	o
	ɛ		ɔ
Low		a

Diphthongs

Symbol	Value
ê	[eə̯]
ô	[oə̯]
ë	[ɛə̯]
ö	[ɔə̯]

Nasal Vowels

Symbol	Value
ã/â	[ə̃]
ẽ	[ɛ̃]
õ	[õ]

The following table lists the vowels above alongside their relative orthography:[12]

Symbol in orthography[12]	"Classical" pronunciation[12]	Dialectal pronunciation around Lugo (RA)[12]	Example in Romagnol	Comparison with Italian	English meaning
ë	ɛə̯	ɛæ̯	bël	bello	"nice" (masculine singular)
è, e	ɛ	ɛ~ɜ	bèl	belli	"nice" (masculine plural)
ê	eə̯	eɜ̯~iɜ̯	fêr	fare	"to do"
é	e	ej	méla	mela	"apple"
ö	ɔə̯	ɔɒ̯	cöl	collo	"neck"
ô	oə̯	oɞ̯	rôda	ruota	"wheel"
ò, o	ɔ	ɔ~ɞ	òngg	undici	"eleven"
ó	o	ow	sól	sole	"sun"
ẽ	ɛ̃	æ̃j̃	bẽ	bene	"fine" (adverb)
ã, â	ə̃	ɤ̃	cã	cane	"dog"
õ	õ	õw̃	bõ	buono	"good"
a	a	ɐ~ə	zèngia	cinghia	"belt"
à, a (when stressed)	a	äː	fàza	faccia	"face"
u	u	u	purtê	portato	"brought"
ù, u (when stressed)	u	ʊu̯	dur	duro	"hard" (masculine singular)
i	i	i	istê	estate	"summer"
ì, i (when stressed)	i	iː~ɪi̯	partìr	partire	"to leave"

Consonants

	Labial	Inter- dental	Dental/ Alveolar	Retroflex	Palato- alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal	m		n			ɲ	(ŋ)
Stop	p b		t d				k ɡ
Affricate					t͡ʃ d͡ʒ
Fricative	f v	θ ð	(s z)	ʂ ʐ
Lateral			l			ʎ
Trill			r
Approximant						j	w

The letter Z is always pronounced as either [θ] or [ð] and never like in Italian, as [t͡s] or [d͡z].[12]

[ŋ] 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:[5][14]

• In central dialects, word-final n is deleted and the preceding vowel is nasalized, as shown above.
• /dʒ/ and /tʃ/ can occur word-finally, and are usually distinguished by the doubling of the final consonants (cc or gg)
• /ʂ/ and /ʐ/ sounds may be realized as alveolar sounds [s] and [z] among different speakers out of Italian influence.
• Voicing of all the consonants above is always contrastive.

References

2. La lingua italiana, i dialetti e le lingue straniere Anno 2006
3. Endangered Languages Project data for Romagnol.
4. Larner, J. (1965).The Lords of Romagna: Romagnol Society and the Origins of the Signorie. Ithaca: New York.
5. Grementieri, S. (2012, January 7). The Romagnolo Dialect: A Short Study On its History, Grammar, and How it Survives [Scholarly project]. In www.dialettoromagnolo.it. Retrieved March 4, 2017, from http://www.dialettoromagnolo.it/uploads/5/2/4/2/52420601/pb-241-file-grementieri_the_romagnolo_dialect.pdf
6. Cenni, I. (2013). Code-switching as an indicator of language shift: a case study of the Romagnolo dialect of Gatteo a Mare, Italy. 46th International Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, Abstracts. Presented at the 46th International Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea.
7. Gregor, D. B. (1972). Romagnol Language and Literature. Stoughton Harrow: Oleander Press.
8. Alighieri, D. (1996). Dante: De vulgari eloquentia (S. Botterill, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
9. Haller, H. W. (1999). The Other Italy: The Literary Canon in Dialect (Toronto Italian Studies). University of Toronto Press.
10. Pelliciardi, F. (1997).Grammatica del dialetto romagnolo: la lengva dla mi tera. Ravenna: Longo Editore.
11. Ledgeway, A., & Maiden, M. (Eds.). (2016).The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages(1st ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
12. Vitali, D. (2008). L'ortografia romangnola [Scholarly project]. In www.dialettoromagnolo.it. Retrieved March 5, 2017, from http://www.dialettoromagnolo.it/uploads/5/2/4/2/52420601/pb-233-file-ortografiaromagnola.pdf
13. Vitali, Daniele; Pioggia, Davide (2010). Il dialetto di Rimini: Analisi fonologica e proposta ortografica.
14. Pelliciardi, Ferdinando (1977). Grammatica del dialetto romagnolo: la lèngva dla mi tëra. Ravenna: Longo.