Romagnol ( or ; ) is a Romance language spoken in the historical region of Romagna, consisting mainly of the southeastern part of

Emilia-Romagna Emilia-Romagna (, , both , ; or ; ) is an Regions of Italy, administrative region of northern Italy, comprising the historical regions of Emilia (region), Emilia and Romagna. Its capital is Bologna. It has an area of , and a population of 4.4 m ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. The name is derived from the Lombard name for the region, ''Romagna''. Romagnol is classified as

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching, inv ...

because older generations have "neglected to pass on the dialect as a native tongue to the next generation".

Classification

Romagnol belongs to the Gallo-Italic family alongside Piedmontese, Ligurian and Lombard, forming with Emilian and as one of the two branches of the Emilian-Romagnol linguistic continuum.Gregor, D. B. (1972). Romagnol Language and Literature. Stoughton Harrow: Oleander Press. Further groupings of variants of Romagnol have not been set yet and both speakers and authors tend to refer to their own town or the nearest major province cities. The variants of Romagnol form a

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...

with their neighbouring varieties, while the more distant dialects might be less mutually intelligible. Variants spoken north of the Santerno river are considered by speakers of Sammarinese as being less, but still, intelligible, while past the Sillaro such intelligibility is lost.

Forlivese dialect

Forlivese is the central variety of Romagnol spoken in the city of Forlì and in its province. In Italian-speaking contexts, Forlivese (like most of the other non-Italian language varieties spoken within the borders of the Italian Republic) is often generically called a "

dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...

". This is often incorrectly understood as to mean ''a dialect of Italian'', which actually is not the case. Forlivese and Italian are different languages and are not mutually intelligible. Forlivese is a central Romagna variety and is intelligible to speakers of other neighbouring Romagna varieties. Like all other dialects of Romagna, Forlivese is a Western

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 ...

related to French, Romansh and Italian. However, the use of Forlivese is mostly limited to familiar terms and sentences, and is rare amongst Forlì inhabitants. Some pieces of literature and a recent translation of the

Gospels Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the second century AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message was reported. In this sen ...

are available. In his '' De vulgari eloquentia'',

Dante Alighieri Dante Alighieri (; most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri; – September 14, 1321), widely known mononymously as Dante, was an Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer, and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called ...

also speaks of the Romagna dialect and cites the city of Forlì as ''meditullium'', that is, as the central place of Romagna, where the Romagna dialect evidently finds its most characteristic and peculiar form. Therefore the Forlì dialect is not a "variant" of the Romagna dialect, but its own and main version.

Geographic distribution

Western border

In the West, The Sillaro river marks the cultural and linguistic border between Emilian language speakers and Romagnol speakers; it runs 25 km east from

Bologna Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...

to the west of Castel San Pietro Terme. Romagnol is spoken to the east of this river and to the south of the Reno river.
In the rest of Emilia-Romagna Region, Emilian is spoken in all the rest of the region moving from the Sillaro river to the west, up to

Piacenza Piacenza (; ; ) is a city and (municipality) in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Piacenza, eponymous province. As of 2022, Piacenza is the ninth largest city in the region by population, with more ...

, and to the north of the Reno, up to the Po.

Northern border

The Reno river is the border between Romagnol and the dialect of Ferrara. Romagnol is spoken also in some villages northwards of the Reno river, such as Argenta and Filo, where people of Romagnol origin live alongside people of Ferrarese origin.

Ferrara Ferrara (; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, capital of the province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main ...

goes into Emilian language territory.

Southern border

Outside Emilia-Romagna, Romagnol is spoken in the Republic of

San Marino San Marino, officially the Republic of San Marino, is a landlocked country in Southern Europe, completely surrounded by Italy. Located on the northeastern slopes of the Apennine Mountains, it is the larger of two European microstates, microsta ...

("Sammarinese"), and in two municipalities located in the province of Florence, Marradi and Palazzuolo sul Senio. In the province of Pesaro and Urbino of

Marche Marche ( ; ), in English sometimes referred to as the Marches ( ) from the Italian name of the region (Le Marche), is one of the Regions of Italy, twenty regions of Italy. The region is located in the Central Italy, central area of the country, ...

region, Gallo-Picene is spoken, but its status as sub-variant of Romagnol or as separate language is disputed.

History

Romagnol's first acknowledgement outside regional literature was in Dante Alighieri's treatise '' De vulgari eloquentia'', wherein

Dante Dante Alighieri (; most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri; – September 14, 1321), widely known mononymously as Dante, was an Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer, and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called ...

compares "the language of Romagna" to his native Tuscan dialect.Alighieri, D. (1996). Dante: De vulgari eloquentia (S. Botterill, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eventually, in 1629, the author

Adriano Banchieri Adriano Banchieri ( Bologna, 3 September 1568 – Bologna, 1634) was an Italian composer, music theorist, organist and poet of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. He founded the Accademia dei Floridi in Bologna. Biography He w ...

wrote the treatise ''Discorso della lingua Bolognese'', which countered Dante's claim that the Tuscan dialect was better, arguing his belief that Bolognese (an Emilian dialect influenced by Romagnol that saw wide use in writing) was superior in "naturalness, softness, musicality, and usefulness". Romagnol received more recognition after Romagna gained independence from the

Papal States The Papal States ( ; ; ), officially the State of the Church, were a conglomeration of territories on the Italian peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope from 756 to 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from the 8th c ...

.Haller, H. W. (1999). The Other Italy: The Literary Canon in Dialect (Toronto Italian Studies). University of Toronto Press.

Literature

16th to 19th century

The first appearance of a distinct Romagnol literary work is "Sonetto romagnolo" by Bernardino Catti, from

Ravenna Ravenna ( ; , also ; ) is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. It was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire during the 5th century until its Fall of Rome, collapse in 476, after which ...

, printed 1502. It is written in a mixture of Italian and Romagnol. The first Romagnol

poem Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

dates back to the end of the 16th century: ''E Pvlon matt. Cantlena aroica'' (Mad Nap), a

mock-heroic Mock-heroic, mock-epic or heroi-comic works are typically satires or parodies that mock common Classical stereotypes of heroes and heroic literature. Typically, mock-heroic works either put a fool in the role of the hero or exaggerate the heroic ...

poem based on Orlando Furioso and written by an anonymous author from . The original poem comprised twelve cantos, of which only the first four survived (1848 lines). The first Romagnol poet to win fame was the

cleric Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...

Pietro Santoni, ( Fusignano, 1736–1823). He was the teacher of Vincenzo Monti, one of the most famous Italian poets of his time. In 1840, the first Romagnol-Italian Dictionary was published by ; it was printed in Faenza.

20th century

The 20th century saw a flourishing of Romagnol literature. Theatrical plays, poems and books of a high quality were produced. Some of the best known Romagnol authors are: * Raffaello Baldini, who won in 1988 the "Premio Viareggio" and in 1995 the "Premio Bagutta", known for long pessimistic poems and prose * Tonino Guerra (1920–2012), wrote poems during his exile to WWII-era Germany, focusing on people of suffering and poverty * Olindo Guerrini, with "Sonetti romagnoli" * , an antifascist exiled from Romagna. He wrote poems such as "Rumâgna" that were often descriptive of Romagna *Francesco "Checco" Guidi, with his activity as poet and recorder of local popular expressions and says. He is specialized in the variant of Sammarinese dialect spoken in Serravalle, which is close to Riminese.

Grammar

Orthography

Romagnol lacks a standardized orthography, leading to a huge varieties among authors.
The orthography adopted here is from Daniele Vitali's ''L'ortografia Romagnola'' (2008).

Morphology

Unlike Standard Italian, not all nouns end in a theme vowel. Masculine nouns lack theme vowels, and feminine nouns typically (but not always) terminate in ''a''. Masculine nouns and adjectives undergo lexically-specified umlaut to form the plural, and feminine nouns and adjectives form the plural by ''a'' becoming ''i'' or being deleted after a consonant cluster or geminate consonant. Both languages derive their lexicon from

Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Colloquial, Popular, Spoken or Vernacular Latin, is the range of non-formal Register (sociolinguistics), registers of Latin spoken from the Crisis of the Roman Republic, Late Roman Republic onward. ''Vulgar Latin'' a ...

, but some words differ in gender.

Syntax

Italian and Romagnol share many of the same features when it comes to verbs. Both languages use subject–verb–object in simple sentences for their

word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how languages employ different orders. Correlatio ...

. Verbs are conjugated according to tense, mood, and person. Romagnol also has four conjugations, compared to Standard Italian's three: the first, ''-êr''; the second, ''-ér''; the third, ''-ar''; and the fourth, ''-ìr''. Marked differences in Romagnol from Standard Italian are that personal pronouns are required, and some verbs in Romagnol use a reflexive construction even if the speaker is not the second argument of the verb although Italian uses an intransitive construction.Pelliciardi, F. (1997).Grammatica del dialetto romagnolo: la lengva dla mi tera. Ravenna: Longo Editore.

Impersonal verb In linguistics, an impersonal verb is one that has no determinate subject. For example, in the sentence "''It rains''", ''rain'' is an impersonal verb and the pronoun ''it'' corresponds to an exophoric referrent. In many languages the verb takes ...

s, which lack a canonical subject, in Romagnol use "avèr" but in Standard Italian use "essere." Even though the subject is null, an expletive pronoun is inserted in the specifier position, much like "it" in English. * Italian: è piovuto, ''It rained'' * Romagnol: l'à piuvù, ''It rained'' Also, whereas Standard Italian and other northern dialects omit the

definite article In grammar, an article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" ...

before "singular names and names of relatives", Romagnol keeps it.Ledgeway, A., & Maiden, M. (Eds.). (2016).The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages(1st ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Phonology

Romagnol has lexical and

syntactic In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency ...

uniformity throughout its area. However, its pronunciation changes as one goes from the

Po Valley The Po Valley, Po Plain, Plain of the Po, or Padan Plain (, , or ) is a major geographical feature of northern Italy. It extends approximately in an east-west direction, with an area of including its Venetian Plain, Venetic extension not actu ...

to the hills. It has an inventory of up to 20 vowels that contrast in the stressed position, compared to seven in Italian. They are marked in the orthography by using diacritics on ''a'', ''e'', ''i'', ''o'' and ''u''.Vitali, D. (2008). L'ortografia romangnola cholarly project In www.dialettoromagnolo.it. Retrieved March 5, 2017, from http://www.dialettoromagnolo.it/uploads/5/2/4/2/52420601/pb-233-file-ortografiaromagnola.pdf The absence of an official institution regulating its orthography often leads to ambiguities in the transcription of vowel sounds.

Syllable structure

Some words that in

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

are trisyllabic or tetrasyllabic in which ''u'' is not stressed are reduced in Romagnol to being only monosyllabic. An atonic

syllable A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...

is dropped.

Vowels

These three tables list the vowel inventory of the "classical" version of the northern macro-dialect of Romagnol. The following table lists the vowels above alongside their relative orthography:

Consonants

The letter ''z'' is always pronounced as either [] or [] and not [] or [] as in Standard Italian. [] occurs only before velar stops. Romagnol, in addition to its larger inventory of vowels, also has more consonants compared to Standard Italian. Additionally, consonants have these differences from Standard Italian:Grementieri, S. (2012, January 7). The Romagnolo Dialect: A Short Study On its History, Grammar, and How it Survives cholarly project In www.dialettoromagnolo.it. Retrieved March 4, 2017, from http://www.dialettoromagnolo.it/uploads/5/2/4/2/52420601/pb-241-file-grementieri_the_romagnolo_dialect.pdf * In central dialects, word-final ''n'' is deleted, and the preceding vowel is nasalised, as is shown above. * and can occur word-finally and are usually distinguished by the doubling of the final consonants (''cc'' or ''gg''). * and may be realised as alveolars and by some speakers from the influence of Standard Italian. * The voicing of those consonants is always contrastive.