Romanesco

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For the vegetable, see cauliflower.
Romanesco
Romanesco - Romano
Spoken in: Italy (Rome)
Total speakers: ~2.000.000
Language family: Indo-European
 Italic
  Romance
   Italo-Western
    Italo-Dalmatian
     Central Italian
      Romanesco
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2:
ISO/FDIS 639-3:
Advertisement in Romanesco at Roman subway station
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Advertisement in Romanesco at Roman subway station

Romanesco is a Romance dialect spoken in Rome. It is one of the Central Italian dialects, and so it is very close to Tuscan and Italian.

There are notable grammatical and idiomatic differences. Rich in expressions and sayings, Romanesco is used informally by most natives of Rome.

[edit] History

[edit] Diffusion

Originally Romanesco was spoken only inside the walls of the city of Rome, while the little towns sorrounding the Eternal city had their own dialects; nowadays these dialects have almost disappeared and they have been replaced with a kind of Romanesco, which therefore is now spoken in an area larger than the original one.

[edit] Noteworthy figures

In fact today, Romanesco can be considered more of a regional idiom than a true language or dialect. Classical Romanesco, that made popular by Giuseppe Gioachino Belli, is in the process of disappearing. Replacing it is a more vulgar parlance called "Romanaccio." External forces such as immigration and the dominance of Italian are playing a role in the transformation.

Romano Proper, spoken in the city of Rome and the immediate surrounding areas, is somewhat different from the rest of the Romanesco dialects.

Ma nun c'è lingua come la romana

Pe dì una cosa co ttanto divario

Che ppare un magazzino de dogana.

"Le lingue der monno"

- G.G. Belli

In other languages