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Milanese (endonym in traditional orthography MilanesCategory:Articles containing Milanese-language text, MeneghinCategory:Articles containing Milanese-language text) is the central variety of the Western dialect of the Lombard language spoken in Milan, the rest of its metropolitan city, and the northernmost part of the province of Pavia.^[1] Milanese, due to the importance of Milan, the largest city in Lombardy, is often considered one of the most prestigious Lombard variants and the most prestigious one in the Western Lombard area.Category:All articles with unsourced statementsCategory:Articles with unsourced statements from December 2019^{[citation needed]}

In Italian-language contexts, Milanese (like most indigenous Romance varieties spoken in Italy other than standard Italian) is often called a dialettoCategory:Articles containing Italian-language text ('dialect'). This can be misunderstood to mean a variety of the Tuscan-derived national language, which it is not. Lombard in general, including Milanese, is a sister language of Tuscan, thus also of Italian, rather than a derivative. Typologically, Lombard is a Western Romance language, and more closely resembles other Gallo-Italic languages in northern Italy (e.g. Piedmontese, Ligurian, Emilian, Romagnol) as well as others further afield, including Occitan and Romansh.

Distribution

The Milanese dialect as commonly defined today is essentially concentrated around Milan and its metropolitan city, reaching into the northernmost part of the province of Pavia. Subdialects of Milanese – also known as dialètt ariosCategory:Articles containing Milanese-language text – are spoken in the western part of the province (Castano Primo, Turbigo, Abbiategrasso, Magenta), the eastern part (Gorgonzola, Cassina de' Pecchi, Cernusco sul Naviglio, Segrate, Bellinzago), the parts to the north of the Naviglio Martesana (Carugate, Cassano d'Adda, Inzago, Gessate), certain areas where the dialect becomes transitional (between Saronno and Rho), the southern parts (Binasco and Melegnano), and the northern parts of the province of Pavia (north of the line between Bereguardo and Landriano, which includes places such as Trovo and Casorate Primo).

Historically, up to the late 19th century, "Milanese" was also used to define the dialects spoken in Brianza and in the areas of Varese (VaresòttCategory:Articles containing Milanese-language text) and Lecco (LecchesCategory:Articles containing Milanese-language text); less commonly it was also used to cover the whole Western Lombard dialect area, which had in Milanese its most prestigious variety.

Orthography

As Milanese, like the Lombard language as a whole, is not an officially recognized language anywhere, there have been many different orthographic conventions, including pan-Lombard proposals (like the Scriver LombardCategory:Articles containing Lombard-language text orthography), and conventions limited to Western Lombard (the Unified Insubric Orthography). The de facto standard for Milanese, though, is the literary classical Milanese orthography (Ortografia Milanesa ClassegaCategory:Articles containing Milanese-language text).

Classical Milanese orthography is the oldest orthographic convention still in use and it is the one used by all writers of Milanese literature, most famously by Carlo Porta. The trigraph ⟨oeu⟩ (sometimes written ⟨œu⟩), used to represent the /ø/ phoneme, is considered the most distinctive feature of this standard. Since the latter half of the 20th century, as a consequence of the Italianization of Lombardy with the Lombard language ceasing to be the main language of daily use in Milan, the Classical orthography has been contested and lost ground as Italian speakers often find it counterintuitive. Classical Milanese orthography, which often reflects etymology, has indeed many words closely resembling their Italian cognates, but pronunciation is often different, one of the most striking examples being orthographic doubled consonants which represent geminates in Italian but a short preceding vowel (if stressed syllable) in Milanese: compare Italian ⟨caro⟩ /ˈkaro/Category:Pages with plain IPA (dear) and ⟨carro⟩ /ˈkarro/Category:Pages with plain IPA (cart) with its Milanese cognates ⟨car⟩ /ˈkaːr/Category:Pages with plain IPA and ⟨carr⟩ /ˈkar/Category:Pages with plain IPA.

Example

See also

• Carlo Porta
• Western Lombard dialects

References

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