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Bergamasque dialect

Bergamasque
Bergamàsch
Native to Italy
Region Lombardy
Native speakers
700,000 (date missing)
Official status
Regulated by Ducato di Piazza Pontida (unofficial)
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog berg1241
Bergamasque.gif

...Se bé cognosse, chesto nost parlà
bergamasch no s'convè a lodà la zét,
gnè da fà pians, perché chi lès o sèt
al gà fà piotost gni vòia d'grignà...

The Bergamasque dialect is the western variant of the Eastern Lombard group of the Lombard language. It is mainly spoken in the province of Bergamo and in the area around Crema, in central Lombardy.

Bergamasque does not have any official status either in Lombardy or anywhere else: the only official language in Lombardy is Italian.

Bergamasque is a Romance language and belongs to the Gallo-Italic branch. Its position on the language family is genetically closer to Occitan, Catalan, French, etc. than to Italian.

Bergamasque is primarily spoken in the province of Bergamo and in the area around Crema, in central Lombardy.

Bergamasque is generally mutually intelligible for speakers of Eastern Lombard's variants of neighbouring areas (i.e. from Brescia) but this is not always true for distant peripheric areas, especially in alpine valleys. Differences include either lexical, grammatical and phonetic aspects. Bergamasque is often referred to as a dialect of the Italian language; this is not entirely correct, as Bergamasque and Italian are not mutually intelligible.

Monolingual Bergamasque speakers are now virtually non-existent. All Lombard speakers also speak Italian, and their command of each of the two languages varies according to their geographical position as well as their socio-economic situation, the most reliable predictor being the speakers' age.


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Wikipedia

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