The Bergamasque dialect is the western variant of the Eastern Lombard group of the

Lombard language The Lombard language (,Classical Milanese orthography, and . ,Ticino, Ticinese orthography. Modern Western orthography and Classical Cremish Orthography. or ,Eastern Lombard, Eastern unified orthography. depending on the orthography; pronuncia ...

. It is mainly spoken in the

province of Bergamo The province of Bergamo (; ) is a Provinces of Italy, province in the Lombardy region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Bergamo. The province has a population of 1,103,768 (2023), an area of , and contains 242 ''comune, comuni'' (municipali ...

and in the area around Crema, in central

Lombardy The Lombardy Region (; ) is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in northern Italy and has a population of about 10 million people, constituting more than one-sixth of Italy's population. Lombardy is ...

. Bergamasque has official status in the province of Bergamo, according to the Regional Law 25/2016.

Classification

Bergamasque is a

Romance language The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...

and belongs to the Gallo-Italic branch. Its position on the language family is genetically closer to

Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language, spoken in parts o ...

, Catalan, French, etc. than to Italian.

Geographic distribution

Bergamasque is primarily spoken in the province of

Bergamo Bergamo ( , ; ) is a city in the Alps, alpine Lombardy region of northern Italy, approximately northeast of Milan, and about from the alpine lakes Lake Como, Como and Lake Iseo, Iseo and 70 km (43 mi) from Lake Garda, Garda and Lake ...

and in the area around Crema, in central

. Bergamasque is generally mutually intelligible for speakers of Eastern Lombard's variants of neighbouring areas (i.e. from

Brescia Brescia (, ; ; or ; ) is a city and (municipality) in the region of Lombardy, in Italy. It is situated at the foot of the Alps, a few kilometers from the lakes Lake Garda, Garda and Lake Iseo, Iseo. With a population of 199,949, it is the se ...

) 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 correct, as Bergamasque and Italian are not mutually intelligible. Following the migrations of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Bergamo dialect was transplanted and is spoken in various communities of southern Brazil, for example in the municipality of Botuverá.

Speakers

Monolingual Monoglottism ( Greek μόνος ''monos'', "alone, solitary", + γλῶττα , "tongue, language") or, more commonly, monolingualism or unilingualism, is the condition of being able to speak only a single language, as opposed to multilingualism. ...

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 Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...

position as well as their socio-

economic An economy is an area of the Production (economics), production, Distribution (economics), distribution and trade, as well as Consumption (economics), consumption of Goods (economics), goods and Service (economics), services. In general, it is ...

situation, the most reliable predictor being the speakers' age.200
report
by the Italian institute for national statistics.( ISTAT)

Samples of literary works in Bergamasque

Another example

The Lord's Prayer English- Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Italian- Bergamasque-

Bibliography

* Bortolo Belotti, ''Storia di Bergamo e dei bergamaschi''. *Carmelo Francia, Emanuele Gambarini, ''Dizionario italiano-bergamasco'', Bergamo, Grafital, 2001. *Carmelo Francia, Emanuele Gambarini, ''Dizionario bergamasco-italiano'', Bergamo, Grafital, 2004. *Umberto Zanetti, ''La grammatica bergamasca'', Bergamo, Sestante, 2004. . *

References

External links

Orbilat
- An interesting site more for western lombard, but the map of the distribution of the two main varieties is noteworthy.
Italian/Bergamasque Dictionary - Carmelo Francia, Emanuele Gambarini - Ducato di piazza Pontida Ducato di piazza Pontida (folkloristical and linguistic association)
*
collection of comedies in Bergamasque

a dictionary for the Bergamasque variety of Casirate d'Adda village, in Italian. {{Languages of Italy Eastern Lombard language