The Ticinese dialect is the set of dialects, belonging to the Alpine and
Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
branch of the
Lombard language
Lombard (native name: ,Classical Milanese orthography, and . , Ticinese orthography. Modern Western orthography. or , Eastern unified orthography. depending on the orthography; pronunciation: ) is a language, belonging to the Gallo-Italic famil ...
, spoken in the northern part of the
Canton of Ticino (
Sopraceneri The Sopraceneri (''above the Ceneri'', lombard: ''Surascender'') is the part of the Swiss canton of Ticino that lies to the north of the Monte Ceneri Pass through the Lugano Prealps. It includes the whole of the valley of the Ticino river and it ...
); the dialects of the region can generally vary from valley to valley, often even between single localities,
while retaining the mutual intelligibility that is typical of the Lombard linguistic continuum.
''Ticinese koiné'' refers instead to a
koiné form used by speakers of local dialects (particularly those diverging from the ''koinè'' itself, as, e.g.,
Leventinese, etc.) when communicating with speakers of other
Western Lombard
Western Lombard is a group of dialects of Lombard, a Romance language spoken in Italy. It is widespread in the Lombard provinces of Milan, Monza, Varese, Como, Lecco, Sondrio, a small part of Cremona (except Crema and its neighbours), Lo ...
dialects of
Ticino
Ticino (), sometimes Tessin (), officially the Republic and Canton of Ticino or less formally the Canton of Ticino,, informally ''Canton Ticino'' ; lmo, Canton Tesin ; german: Kanton Tessin ; french: Canton du Tessin ; rm, Chantun dal Tessin . ...
, the
Grisons (collectively known as
Swiss Italian
The Italian language in Switzerland or Swiss Italian ( it, italiano svizzero) is the variety of the Italian language taught in the Italian-speaking area of Switzerland. Italian is spoken natively by about 700,000 people in the canton of Ticino ...
) or Italian
Lombardy.
Status
Ticinese is generally more lively than the Western Lombard varieties spoken in Italy, with a significant number of young speakers. Some radio and television programmes in Ticinese, mostly comedies are broadcast by the Italian language broadcasting company
RTSI.
A dictionary and some studies on the Ticinese variants are published by CDE – ''Centro di dialettologia e di etnografia'', a cantonal research institution.
Examples
Some possible expressions and idioms:
See also
*
Swiss Italian
The Italian language in Switzerland or Swiss Italian ( it, italiano svizzero) is the variety of the Italian language taught in the Italian-speaking area of Switzerland. Italian is spoken natively by about 700,000 people in the canton of Ticino ...
References
Bibliography
* Centro di dialettologia e di etnografia, ''LSILessico dialettale della Svizzera italiana'', Bellinzona 2004.
* Comrie, Bernard, Matthews, Stephen and Polinsky, Maria: ''The Atlas of Languages: The Origin and Development of Languages Throughout the World. Rev. ed.'', New York 2003.
* Lurà, Franco: ''Il dialetto del Mendrisiotto'', Mendrisio–Chiasso 1987.
* Lurati, Ottavio: ''Dialetto e italiano regionale nella Svizzera italiana'', Lugano 1976.
* Petrini, Dario: ''La koinè ticinese'' (''Romanica Helvetica'' vol. 105), Bern 1988.
* VSI – Vocabolario dei dialetti della Svizzera italiana'', Lugano / Bellinzona 1952–.
External links
Dialectal lexicon of Italophone Switzerland - Official dictionary for the dialectRTSI: Acquarelli popolari - Media files in Ticinese (site metalanguage and some media files are in Italian*
ttp://www.lessico.ch/wordtexte/Basso%20Mendrisiotto.htm Examples of Italian and Ticinese idioms with meanings (Basso Mendrisiotto)
{{Western Lombard language
Languages of Switzerland
Culture in Ticino
Western Lombard language