Ossolano is the

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...

spoken in the

Ossola The Ossola (, also Valle Ossola or Val d’Ossola) is an area of Italy situated to the north of Lago Maggiore. It lies within the Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola. Its principal river is the Toce, and its most important town Domodossola. E ...

valley in North West

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. It is an umbrella name for a myriad of dialects spoken in the main Ossola valley and the other seven valleys and their subvalley that spread from it. As the territory is very mountainous, many different variations of this language exist. They are mostly intelligible to one another, save for some specific words that seem to have arisen only in some villages and not others. For instance "cat" in mainstream Ossolano is "gat", but in Mozziese is "sciandrun" (the "cinder-one", due to domesticated mountain cats' habit to roll up in front of the fire in mountain huts). Ossolano belongs to the larger family of Insubric languages to which

Milanese Milanese (endonym in traditional orthography , ') is the central variety of the Western dialect of the Lombard language spoken in Milan, the rest of its metropolitan city, and the northernmost part of the province of Pavia. Milanese, due to ...

belongs. Perhaps the most famous poet in the Ossolan language is

Giovanni Leoni Giovanni may refer to: * Giovanni (name), an Italian male given name and surname * Giovanni (meteorology), a Web interface for users to analyze NASA's gridded data * '' Don Giovanni'', a 1787 opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, based on the legend ...

(affectionately known as "Ul Torototela", the bard), merchant, sea farer and alpinist who still inspires the locals.

References

{{Languages of Italy Western Lombard language