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Romagnol

Romagnolo
Rumagnôl [rumə'ɲoə̯l]
Native to	Italy, San Marino
Region	Italy: Emilia-Romagna (Province of Ravenna, Province of Rimini, Province of Forlì-Cesena, part of the Province of Ferrara and around Imola in the Province of Bologna) Marche (part of the Province of Pesaro and Urbino) Tuscany (a few communes in the Province of Florence) Outside of Italy: San Marino
Ethnicity	1.1 million (2008)
Native speakers	ca. 430,000, assuming Romagnol and Emiliano retained at same rate (2006)
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Western Gallo-Italic Emiliano–Romagnolo Romagnolo
Language codes
ISO 639-3	rgn
Glottolog	roma1328
Linguasphere	51-AAA-oki ... okl

Romagnol (also known as Rumagnol) is an Romance language that descended from Vulgar Latin. It is named after the region of Italy in which it is found, which is derived from the Lombard name of the then-Byzantine territory, Romania . It is also spoken outside of Emilia-Romagna, particularly in the neighboring province of Pesaro-Urbino (part of the Le Marche region) and 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” .

Classifcation

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 . This includes the dialects Emilian, Ligurian, Lombard, and Piedemontese. 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

Geographic distribution of Romagnol (shown in dark pink)

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). 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 ("Sammarinese"), in the Marecchia Valley, in the Conca Valley (Montefeltro) and in all of the Pesaro e Urbino province.

History

Romagnol's first acknowledgement outside of regional literature was in Dante Alighieri’s treatise De vulgari eloquentia, wherein Dante compares “the language of Romagna” to his native Tuscan dialect . 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.

There is also a large repertoire of folklore legends, myths, and fables in Romagnol, due to its role in local geopolitical history (e.g. Caesar crossing the Rubicon and Theodoric’s conquest and subsequent rule of the Ostrogothic Kingdom). 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 (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).

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
• Tonino Guerra (1920–2012), wrote poems during his exile to WWII-era Germany, focusing on people of suffering and poverty
• Olindo Guerrini, with "Sonetti romagnoli"
• Aldo Spallicci, an antifascist exiled from Romagna. He wrote poems such as "Rumâgna" that were often descriptive of Romagna

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 .

Romagnol		Italian
Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Sacrêri (m. sg.)	Sacrëri (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.)	laughter
e' red	la rete	retiaculum (neuter)	net

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.

Romagnol	Italian	English
Mè a so lavê	(Io) mi sono lavato	I washed myself
Mè a sò	(Io) sono	I am
Mè 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 .

Phonology

Romagnol has lexical and syntactic uniformity throughout its area. However, its pronunciation changes as one goes from the Po Valley to the hills.

Syllable Structure

Some words that in Latin were trisyllabic or tetrasyllabic (where 'u' is without stress) are reduced in Romagnol to monosyllables. The atonic syllable(s) is cut off.

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

Vowels

Romagnol, has an inventory of up to 20 contrastive vowels, in comparison to Italian's 7 (marked in orthography using diacritics on a, i, o, u, and e ).

The following table has the nasal vowels, oral vowels and diphthongs in the northern (around Lugo) variety of Romagnol:

IPA symbol	Orthography	Example in Romagnol	IPA pronunciation	English meaning
ɛɐ̯~ɛː	ë	bël	[ˈbɛɐ̯l]	"nice" (masculine, singular)
ɛ~e̞	è	bèll	[ˈbe̞lː]	"nice" (masculine, plural)
eə̯	ê	fê	[ˈfeə̯]	"to do"
eɪ̯	é	méla	[ˈmeɪ̯lə]	"apple"
ɔɐ̯~ɔː	ö	cöl	[ˈkɔɐ̯l]	"neck"
oə̯	ô	rôda	[ˈroə̯d̪ɐ]	"wheel"
ɔ~o̞~o	ò	òng	[ˈo̞ɲd͡ʒ]	"eleven"
oː~ow	ó	sól	[ˈʂowl]	"sun"
æ̃ɨ̃~ɛ̃ɨ̃~ɛ̃ː	ẽ,èn	bẽ	[ˈbæ̃ɨ̃]	"fine"
ɤ̃ː	ã,â	cã	[ˈkɤ̃ː]	"dog"
ɔ̃w~õw	õ,on	bõ	[ˈbɔ̃w]	"good"
äː	à	fàza	[ˈfäːθɐ]	"face"
ɐ~ə	a	mnëstra	[ˈmnɛɐ̯ʂt̪rɐ]	"pasta"
uː~ʊu̯	u, ù	dùr	[ˈd̪uːr]	"hard" (masculin, singular)
iː~ɪi	ì	fnì	[fˈniː]	"ended"
i	i	zinqvãnta	[θiŋ̩ˈkvɤ̃ntə]	"fifty
ĩː	ĩ	pĩ	[ˈpĩː]	"full"

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labio-Dental	Dental	Alveolar	Palato-Alveolar	Palatal	Retroflex	Velar
Nasal	m (m)			n (n)		ɲ (gn)		(ŋ)
Stop	p (p) b (b)			t (t) d (d)				k (c,ch) ɡ (g,gh)
Affricate					tʃ (c,cc) dʒ (g)
Fricative		f (f) v (v)	θ (z) ð (ẓ)				ʂ (s) ʐ (ş)
Approximant						j (j)
Lateral				l (l)
Trill				r (r)

Romagnol, in addition to its larger inventory of vowels, also has more consonants compared to standard Italian. Additionally, consonants bear the following differences compared to Standard Italian:

• In central dialects, word-final n is deleted and the preceding vowel is nasalized
• Consonants are doubled in length after a closed vowel.
• /d͡ʒ/ and /t͡ʃ/ can occur word-finally, and is usually distinguished by the lack or presence of an "h" in orthography
• In subdialects that have the dental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/, voicing can be contrastive