1. Here first of all is the extensive system of the dialects usually
called Gallo-Italian, although that designation cannot be considered
sufficiently distinctive, since it would be equally applicable to the
Franco-Provençal (A. 1) and the Ladin (A. 2). The system is sub
divided into four great groups, (a) the Ligurian, (b) the Piedmontese,
(c) the Lombard, and (d) the Emilian, the names furnishing
on the whole sufficient indication of the localization and limits.
These groups, considered more particularly in their more pronounced
varieties, differ greatly from each other; and, in regard to the
Ligurian, it was even denied until very recently that it belongs to
this system at all (see Arch., ii. 111 sqq.). Characteristic of the
Piedmontese, the Lombard, and the Emilian is the continual elision
of the unaccented final vowels except a (e.g., Turinese oj, oculo ;
Milanese voc, voce; Faenzan red, rete), but the Ligurian does not
keep them company (e.g., Genovese öǵǵu, oculo; vgže, voce). In the
Piedmontese and Emilian there is further a tendency to eliminate
the protonic vowels a tendency much more pronounced in the
second of these groups than in the first (e.g. , Pied, dne, danaro; viin,
vicino ; Faenzan fnocc, finocchio ; dsprazion). This phenomenon
involves in large measure that of the pro thesis of a; as, e.g., in
Turinese and Faenzan armor, rumore; Faenzan alve, levare ; &c. V
for the long accented Latin u and d for the short accented Latin o (and
even within certain limits the Latin 6 of position) are common to the
Piedmontese, the Ligurian, and the Lombard: e.g. , Turinese and
Milanese, d ur, and Genovese duu, duro; Turinese and Genovese,
move, and Milanese mov, movere ; Piedmontese dorm, dorm.6 ;
Milanese, vb lta, volta. Ei for the long accented Latin e and for
the short accented Latin i is common to the Piedmontese and the
Ligurian, and even extends over a large part of Emilia: e.g., Turinese
and Genovese, avei, habere, Bolognese, aveir; Turinese and Geno
vese, bcive, bibere, Bolognese, beir. In Emilia ei occurs also in
the formulae %n, eut, emp; e.g., Bolognese and Modenese bciii, sola-
meint. The system shows a repugnance throughout to ie for the
short accented Latin e (as it occurs in Italian piede, &c. ) ; in other
words, this diphthong has died out, but in various fashions :
Piedmontese and Lombard dc<", dieci; Genovese dcSe; Faenzan die..
The greater part of the phenomena indicated above have " Gallic "
counterparts too evident to require to be specially pointed out.
One of the most important traces of Gallic or Celtic reaction is the
reduction of the Latin accented a into e (d, &c. ), of which pheno
menon, however, no certain indications have as yet been found in
the Ligurian group. On the other hand it remains, in the case of
very many of the Piedmontese dialects, in the e of the infinitives
of the first conjugation: porte, portare, &c. ; and numerous ves
tiges of it are still found in Lombardy (e.g., in Bassa Brianza:
and&, andato; guarded, guardato; s, sale; see Arch. i. 296-298,
536). Emilia also preserves it in very extensive use: Modenese
ander, andare ; ariveda, arrivata ; PCQ, pace ; Faenzan parle, parlare
and parlato; parleda, parlata; dies, caso; &c. The phenomenon, in
company with other Gallo-Italian and more specially Emilian
characteristics, extends to the valley of the Metauro, and even
passes to the opposite side of the Apennines, spreading on both
banks of the head stream of the Tiber and through the valley
of the Chiane : hence the types artrover, ritrovare, porteto, portato,
&c., of the Perugian and Aretine dialects (see infra C. 3, b). In
the phenomenon of d passing into e (as indeed, the Gallo-Italic
evolution of other Latin vowels) special distinctions would require
to be drawn between bases in which a (not standing in position)
precedes a non-nasal consonant (e.g., amdto), and those which have
a before a nasal : and in the latter case there would be a non-
positional subdivision (e.g., fame, pane] and a positional one (e.g.,
qudnto, amdndo, cdmpo); see Arch. i. 293 sqq. This leads us to
the nasals, a category of sounds comprising other Gallo-Italic
characteristics. There occurs more or less widely, throughout
all the sections of the system, and in different gradations,
that "velar" nasal in the end of a syllable (pail, man; cdhta,
mont) which may be weakened into a simple nasalizing of a vowel
(pa, &c.) or even grow completely inaudible (Bergamese pa, pane;
padrA, padrone; tcp, tempo; met, mente; mut, monte ; pdt, ponte;
PUM, punta, i.e., "puncta"), where Celtic and especially Irish
analogies and even the frequent use of t for nt, &c., in ancient Um-
brian orthography occur to the mind. Then we have the faucal n
by which the Ligurian and the Piedmontese (lana, luna, &c. ) are con
nected with the group which we call Franco-Provengal (A. 1).
We pass on to the " Gallic" resolution of the nexus ct (e.g., facto,
fajto, fajtjo, fait, fac ; tecto, tejto, tejtjo, teit, tec) which invari
ably occurs in the Piedmontese, the Ligurian, and the Lombard:
Pied, fait, Lig. fajlu, fxtu, Lombard fac ; Pied, teit, Lig. teitu,
Lorn, tec; &c. Here it is to be observed that besides the Celtic
analogy the Umbrian also helps us (adveitu = ad-vecto ; &c.) ; and
it is further most noteworthy that the Celtic and Umbrian analogies
lead us to that fusion of the ct series with the pt series (Irish secht,
Welsh scith, septem; Umbrian, scrchto, scrcihtor, scriptum, scripti)
by which is explained the scric, scripto, of the ancient Milanese,
Kriciira. scriptura, of the modern; just as also Provengal has
escrich (i.e., escric). The Piedmontese and Ligurian come close to
each other, more especially by the regular dropping of the d both
| primary and secondary, a phenomenon common in French (as
Piedmontese and Ligurian ric, ridere ; Piedmontese pue, potare ;
Genoese nasghe = naighe, natiche, &c.j. The Lombard type, or
more correctly the type which has become the dominant one in
Lombardy (Arch., i. 305-6, 310-11), is more sparing in this re
spect; and still more so is the Emilian. In the Piedmontese is
also found that other purely Gallic resolution of the guttural
between two vowels by which we have the types brtija, mania,
over against the Ligurian brdya, mdncga, braca, manica. Among
the phonetic phenomena peculiar to the Liguriau is a continual re
duction of I into r and the subsequent dropping of this r between
vowels and at the end of words in the modern Genoese ; just as
happens also with the primary r : thus <M = durur = dolore, &c.
Characteristic of the Ligurian, but not without analogies in Upper
Italy even (Arch., ii. 157-8), is the resolution ofj?y, bj, fj into c, g, S:
c u, pin, plus; rdyga, rabbia, rabies; M, fiore. Finally, the sounds S
and % have a very wide range in Ligurian (Arch., ii. 158-59). The
reduction of s into h occurs in the Bergamo dialects: hira, sera;
groh, grosso; cahtel, castello (see also B. 2). A general phenomenon
in Gallo-Italic phonetics which also comes to have an inflexional
importance is that by which the unaccented final i has an- influence
on the accented vowel. This enters into a series of phenomena
which even extends into southern Italy ; but in the Gallo-Italic
there are particular resolutions which agree well with the general
connexions of this system. The following plural forms may be
quoted : Genoese boin, from bon-i ; trdin from tron-i, tuoni ;
Milanese quist, from quist-i (sing, qitest), questi ; mis from mcs-i,
mesi (sing, mcs) ; Bolognese rin, from reu-i, regni (sing, rcn); cf.
Arch., i. 540-41. Among morphological peculiarities the first
place may be given to the Bolognese sipa (scppa), because, thanks
to Dante and others, it has acquired great literary celebrity. It
really signifies " sia " (sim, sit), and is an analogical form fashioned
on &pa, a legitimate continuation of the corresponding forms of the
other auxiliary (habeam, habeat), which is still heard in ch me sepa,
purt&, ch lu &pa pwt&, ch io abbia portato, ch egli abbia portato.
Next may be noted the third person singular in -p of the perfect of
esse and of the first conjugation in the Forli dialect (fop, fu ; man-
dip, mando; &c). This also must be analogical, and due to a
legitimate cp, ebbe (see Arch., ii. 401, and compare fobbe, fu, in
the dialect of Camerino, in the province of Macerata, as well as the
Spanish analogy of tuve cstuve formed after hube). Lastly, in the
domain of syntax, may be added the tendency to repeat the pronoun
(e.g. , ti te cdntct of the Milanese, which really is tu tu cdntas-tu,
equivalent merely to cantas "), a tendency at work in the Emilian
and Lombard, but more particular!} 7 pronounced in the Piedmontese,
With this the corresponding tendency of the Celtic languages has
been more than once and with justice compared; here it may be
added that the Milanese nun, apparently a simple form for " noi," is
really a compound or reduplication in the manner of the ni-ni, its
exact counterpart in the Celtic tongues.—The literary documents
of this system go back as far as the end of the 13th century in the
Milanese poems of Fra Bonvicino da Riva and the Rime Genovesi
(Arch., ii. 161–312).
2. Sardinian Dialects.—These are three the Logudorese or central, the Campidanese or southern, and the Gallurese or northern. The third certainly indicates a Sardinian basis, but is strangely disturbed by the intrusion of other elements, among which the Southern Corsican (Sartene) is by far the most copious. The other two are homogeneous, and have great affinity with each other ; the Logudorese comes more particularly under consideration here. The pure Sardinian vocalism has this peculiarity that each accented vowel of the Latin appears to be retained without alteration. Consequently there are no diphthongs representing simple Latin vowels; nor does the rule hold good which is true for so great a pro portion of the Romance languages that the representatives of the 6 and the t on the one hand and those of the 6 and the ft on the other are normally coincident. Hence plenu (e) ; deghe, dccem (e); binu, vino (i);pilu (l);fiorc (d); roda, rota (S); duru (u); nughc, mice (ii), The unaccented vowels keep their ground well, as has already been seen in the case of the finals by the examples adduced. Thes and t of the ancient termination are preserved, though not constantly: trcs t onus, passados annos, plantas, faghes, facis, tcncmus; mulghct, mift- ghent. The formula} ce, ci, ge, gimay be represented by che (ke), &c.; but this appearance of special antiquity is really illusory (see Arch., ii. 143-4). The nexus cl, &c., may be maintained in the beginning of words (claru, plus); but if they are in the body of the word they usually undergo resolutions which, closely related though they be to those of Italian, sometimes bring about veiy singular results (e.g. uSare, which by the intermediate forms uscare, usjare leads back to usclare = ustlarc = ustularc). Ni is the representative of nj (testimdnzu &c.); and Jj is reduced toi alone (e.g., mttus, melius; Campidanese melius). For U a frequent substitute is d<J: massidda, maxilla, &c. Quite characteristic is the continual labialization of the formulae qua, gua, cu, gu, &c. ; e.g., cbba, equa; sambene, san guine (see Arch., ii. 143). The dropping of the primary d (rocrc, rodere, &c.) but not of the secondary (finidu, sanidadc, maduru) is frequent. Characteristic also is the Logndorese prothesis of i before
