Ligurian language (Romance)

:"Ligurian is also the name of an extinct language of Italy."language
name=Ligurian
nativename=Líguru, Ligure
familycolor=Indo-European
states=flag|Italy
flag|France
flag|Monaco
region=Liguria
speakers= n.a.% out of 1,920,848
fam2=Romance
fam3=Italo-Western
fam4=Western
fam5=Gallo-Iberian
fam6=Gallo-Romance
fam7=Gallo-Italic
nation=Officially recognized in Italy (Law 482/1999)
iso2=roa|iso3=lij

Ligurian is a Gallo-Romance language, currently spoken in Liguria, northern Italy, and parts of the Mediterranean coastal zone of France, and Monaco. Genoese ("Zeneize" or "Zeneise") is one of the most well-known dialects, spoken in Genoa, the capital of Liguria.

It belongs to the Northern Italian group within the Romance languages.

The language may be dying out, but is still widely spoken by many, especially the elderly, out of a population of 1,920,848.

Geographic extent

Besides Liguria, the language is traditionally spoken in coastal, northern Tuscany, southern Piedmont (part of the province of Alessandria), western extremes of Emilia-Romagna (some areas in the province of Piacenza), in northern parts of Sardinia (Italy), the Alpes-Maritimes of France (Mostly the Côte d'Azur from the Italian border to and including Monaco), and parts of Corsica (France). It has been adopted formally in Monaco as the Monegasque language; or locally, "Munegascu".

Niçard, of the County of Nice, is considered by some scholars to have been a Ligurian language before the annexation of the region to France in 1860. [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=2WyS7i9UxowC&dq=italian+speaking+population+in+nice&pg=PA91&ots=DEU9qd7QJS&sig=4Ykq5z6N_Vq3EHjBvnwgmIDcJBE&prev=http://www.google.com/search%3Fhl%3Den%26ned%3Dus%26q%3Ditalian%2Bspeaking%2Bpopulation%2Bin%2Bnice%26btnmeta%253Dsearch%253Dsearch%3DSearch%2Bthe%2BWeb&sa=X&oi=print&ct=result&cd=3&cad=legacy#PPA91,M1 Beyond Boundaries: Language and Identity in Contemporary Europe Chapter Seven] ] In any event, it is seen as a transitional Occitan language dialect very similar to Ligurian.

In Italy, the language has given way to Standard Italian and in France to French.

Linguistic structure

Ligurian exhibits distinct Italian features, while also having features of other Romance languages. No link between Romance Ligurian and the Ligurian language of the ancient Ligurian populations, in the form of a substrate or otherwise, can be demonstrated by linguistic evidence. There does exist, however, toponomastic derivations from ancient Ligurian.

Alphabet

The ligurian alphabet has:
* 6 vowels: a, e, i, o, u, y
* 18 consonants: b, c, ç, d, f, g, h, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, x, z.

Vocabulary

* a péia: pear (It. and Sp. "pera", Pt. "pêra")
* u méi: apple (It. "mela")
* u setrun: orange (cf. Fr. "citron"; replacing Gen. "limon"--cf. It. "limone")
* u fîgu: fig (It. "fico" Fr. "figue")
* u pèrsegu: peach (Fr. "pêche", Cat. "préssec")
* u rîbes: currant
* u franbuâse: raspberry (Fr. "framboise")
* a sêsgia: cherry (it. "ciliegia", Fr. "cerise")
* u mêlu: strawberry
* a nûsge: hazelnut (Fr. "noisette")
* l'arbicòca: apricot (Cat. "albercoc")
* l'üüga: grape (Sp. "uva")
* u pinjöö: pine nut (It. "pinolo")
* arvî: to open (It. "aprire", Fr. "ouvrir", Sp. "abrir")
* serâ: to close (Sp. "cerrar")
* u cèeu: light
* a cà: home, house (casa; Cat. and Ven: "ca")
* l'öövu: egg (It. "uovo")
* l'ögiu: eye (It. "occhio", Fr. "l'œil", Cat. "ull")
* a buca: mouth (bocca)
* a tésta: head (It. "testa")
* a schèn-a: back (Cat. "esquena")
* u cüü: derriere, buttock (Fr. and Cat. "cul")
* u brasu: arm (Fr. "bras")
* a gamba: leg (It. "gamba", Fr. "jambe", Cat. "cama")
* u cöö: heart (Fr. "cœur")

References

External links

* [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=lij Ethnologue report]

See also

* Nizzardo Italians
* Monegasque
* Mentonasque