Gallo-Italic languages
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Gallo-Italic
Cisalpine; Gallo-Italian (deprecated)
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| Geographic distribution: |
Italy, San Marino, Switzerland |
| Genetic classification: |
Indo-European Italic Romance Italo-Western Gallo-Romance Gallo-Italic |
| Subdivisions: | |
Gallo-Italic or Cisalpine is a language family within the Gallo-Romance languages. It is spoken in Northern Italy, Switzerland, and San Marino. It can be subdivided into Piedmontese, Ligurian, Lombard, Venetian and Emiliano-Romagnolo. Gallo-Italic nowadays is spoken by far fewer people in its area than Italian is in the same area. The area where Gallo-Italic is spoken roughly corresponds to Northern Italy.
Varieties of gallo-italic are also found in parts of Sicily, corresponding with the central-eastern parts of the island that received large numbers of immigrants from Northern Italy during the decades following the Norman conquest of Sicily (around 1080 to 1120). Given the time that has lapsed and the cross-fertilisation that has occurred between these varieties and the Sicilian language itself, these dialects are best described as gallo-siculo. The major centres where these dialects can still be heard today (in ever decreasing numbers) include Piazza Armerina, Aidone, Sperlinga, San Fratello, Nicosia, and Novara di Sicilia. Gallo-Italic dialects did not survive in some towns in the province of Catania that developed large Lombard communities during this period, namely Randazzo, Paternò and Bronte. However, the gallic influence in the local varieties of Sicilian are marked. In the case of San Fratello, some linguists have suggested that the siculo-gallic dialect present today has Provençal as its basis, having been a fort manned by Provençal mercenaries in the early decades of the Norman conquest (bearing in mind that it took the Normans 30 years to conquer the whole of the island).
[edit] References
- Hull, Dr Geoffrey (1989) Polyglot Italy:Languages, Dialects, Peoples, CIS Educational, Melbourne
