Talk:Gallo-Italic languages

Naming
gallo-siculo or siculo-gallic? --Jorgengb 04:57, 19 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I have often wondered myself. I note that the Italian article uses "gallo-siculo".  Prof.  Hull in Polyglot Italy, talks of Gallo-Romance elements in the koine, but then says:  Siculo-Padanian had died out or been sicilianized beyond recognition by the twelfth century everywhere except in the towns of Novara, San Fratello, Nicosia, Sperlinga, Aidone and Piazza Armerina.  Might be worthwhile asking the same question in the Italian article.  πίππύ δ'Ω∑ -  (waarom? jus'b'coz!)  13:10, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Move this page?
Hi all, after completing a bit this page, we could envisage to move it into Cisalpine language/Cisalpine languages. What about that? Bests regards, --10caart 12:47, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
 * "Cisalpine" is a quite confusing name, see Cisalpine (disambiguation). Best regards.--Aubadaurada 13:23, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I had to revert the last modifications (and the last renaming) made by 10caart, which are misleading and undocumented; Hull calls the language 'Padanian', only Pellegrini calls it 'Cisalpine'.--Aubadaurada 01:01, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Which reliable sources do we have actually supporting the idea that "Northern Italian" is a single language, as opposed to a language family (which is consistent with Ethnologue and ISO codes)? I think the name of this article really should be made plural myself. LjL (talk) 18:37, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Name
I don't mean to start this whole language/ dialect debate, but shouldn't this article be "Northern Italian languages" (plural) since Piedmontese, Venetian, Lombard and maybe others are seen by some scholars as languages in their own right? Dionix (talk) 18:42, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
 * This is not the view of mainstream Romance linguistics.--Nil Blau (talk) 10:54, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I've never heard of such a language before. This article should be changed to "Northern Italian languages" (as someone already mentioned) or "Gallo-Italic languages."  There is no sole Northern Italian Language.  There are many languages, and many of them are mutually unintelligible, i.e., Venetian and Piemontese!  These languages comprise the Gallo-Italic language group.  The view of mainstream Romance linguistics?  Where are your references?  I've never heard such a thing in English or Italian!  Scherziamo!? --Nocontinental (talk) 08:05, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * My references are given at the beginning of the article: Pellegrini 1975 and Rohlfs 1975 (for a group within Italian) or Hull 1982 (for an autonomous language). And I could add other references. The unity of Northern Italian is a scientific fact. You should read academic publications in Romance linguistics. Anyway, the vision of a group of distinct languages, although it is not supported in linguistics, is also mentioned in the definition; so everyone should be satisfied.--Nil Blau (talk) 11:03, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I wanted to know where you have references of "Northern Italian Language" or in italiano "lingua italiana settentrionale"? I've never heard either of these titles, in either English or Italian.  I've heard of Gallo-Italic but never N. Italian.  I've heard of gallo-italico but never italiano settentrionale.  That's what I disagree with, the name of this language group. --Nocontinental (talk) 01:10, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Look: Pellegrini (1975) says "italiano settentrionale", Hull (1982) says "Padanian" and sometimes "Northern Italian". I suggest you to read and follow what scholars say. Wikipedia has to inform people about academic publications, not about personal research nor personal claims. The point is not if you "agree" or "disagree" with academic research. — — — Something else: "Gallo-Italic" is a part of "Northern Italian", both terms are not synonyms.--Nil Blau (talk) 09:47, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

There are many others, inluding Ethnologue, who see it differently. They see Gallo-Italian as a linguistic group, including Venetian (see here). The bit about including Rhaetian-Ladin is even more perplexing and seems to be postulated by only Hull. I don't see any unity there as Hull is the only one who sees this diverse group as one language. On the whole, at best this is a linguistic sub-set that includes various languages or dialects, not a unified, single language. Dionix (talk) 21:46, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree. The decision to name the article "Northern Italian language" is on the premise that just two publications use this terminology.  On the other hand, I could probably list hundreds of sources that refer to this, more appropriately said language group, as Gallo-Italic (Gallo-Italian), with some designating this group as Cisalpine (ancient use) or Padanian (modern/political use).  The term Northern Italian (italiano settentrionale) is the most rarely used term I've ever heard - in English and Italian!  Please, tell me where you're from.  I respect your point of view, and the point of view of the general linguistic community.  But: 1. You're either NOT Italian.  Or 2.  You may be Italian, but I have a feeling that you're trying to further some political agenda.  Northern Italian, in theory, may lead many to believe this is some variation of Italian in Northern Italy.  Most of us know this to be anything but the truth, that Gallo-Italic is independent of Italian and any variation of Italian, however, this title will confuse readers unfamiliar with the historical and linguistic attributes of the area.  Further, one only needs to look at the Italian, French, Occitan, Dutch, Polish Wikipedia versions of this article - they all use Gallo-Italian.  This also demonstrates which name is most commonly used by and most familiar to the general European community.  --Nocontinental (talk) 04:12, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm confident that Dr Hull's work is not politically inspired (I'm reasonably familiar with it), but unfortunately there are many others who definitely come to this debate carrying a bit of policitical baggage. Wikipedia consistently falls back on Ethnologue to resolve virtually all of its linguistic disputes.  It's on the strength of Ethnologue that we have Piedmontese, Lombard and Venetian wikipedias at all.  If Ethnologue refers to these these belonging to a particular linguistic group, let's run with it - to do anything else is to tend towards personal views and original research.  πιππίνυ δ -  (dica)  09:37, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Gallo-Italic is one of the two branches of Padanian/Cisalpine/Northern Italian (the other branch is Venetian). So Gallo-Italic is not a synonym of Padanian/Cisalpine/Northern Italian. If you want to replace "Northern Italian" by "Gallo-Italic", you will exclude Venetian: it would not be a very clever deed. — — — The ultimate name of Padanian/Cisalpine/Northern Italian is not important for me; the important fact is that it is recognized as a liguistic set in academic circles. Ethnologue is not an academic circle but a religious organization which is not recognized by serious linguists; please see SIL International.--Nil Blau (talk) 20:58, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * However, there is an inherent inconsistency in both the article and your argument, and that is: the article is entitled "Northern Italian language", but the article itself goes on to talk about two separate language groups, in which case, surely we are talking about a Northern Italian lanaguage group, rather than a Northern Italian language?  πιππίνυ δ -  (dica)  06:42, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
 * There is no inconsistency. I suggest you to read carefully my last edits and the scientific references I gave: nobody says that Gallo-Italic and Venetian are two separate languages, I say (with Pelligrini, Hull and other romanists) that they are two dialectal groups of the same Padanian/Cisalpine/Northern Italian linguistic set.--Nil Blau (talk) 11:22, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Use of Venetian language/dialect
The article declares that in Veneto the local language/dialect is prevalent because "slightly less than half of the local population currently speaks it", but this is a questionabile statement as it relies on a document of the Italian Camera dei Deputati (Parliament) which is not a scientific article or essay but a political act presented by a Lega Nord politician, Mr Federico Bricolo. Can an encyclopedia article rely on such political documents which are mostly no more than propaganda and have no scientific value? --93.40.120.240 (talk) 11:06, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

In Veneto, almost everyone speaks the venetian language! Unfortunately, there are many Southern Italians racists who try to discredit our languages and our culture! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.20.199.44 (talk) 07:41, 22 October 2009 (UTC)


 * According to ISTAT: http://www.istat.it/salastampa/comunicati/non_calendario/20070420_00/testointegrale.pdf (page 5) by 2006 Venetians were speaking inside friends/family enviroment:
 * 23.6/24.2% only Italian;
 * 38.9/37.3% only Venetian;
 * 31.0/33.3% both Italian and Venetian;
 * thus we have about 69.9/70.6% of Venetians currently speaking it, and only 23.6/24.2% speaking Italian only.
 * Filippo83 (talk) 12:01, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Move this article?
I suspect this article has scant scientific foundations and strong political aims. It's basically something to support the ideology of Lega Nord. The idea that there is a Northern Italian Language is basically ludicrous to anyone who knows a bit of linguistics. Surely before 1861 the people who lived in the Valley of Po (N-Italy) spoke a variety of languages, which were subsequently called dialects to distinguish them from the national language, Italian, which is actually Tuscanian. But nobody who is not politially biased can deny that the languages of Northern Italy were quite different, and that linguists (e.g. Tagliavini, but others might be mentioned) never said that all those languages/dialects belonged to the same family. Ladin, spoken in some parts of Southern Tyrol/Alto Adige (the province of Bozen/Bolzano) is quite different from Piedmontese or Venetian and does not belong to the same group of languages; the same may be said for Friulian which, to most linguists, is Eastern Ladin. And there are relevant differences between the dialects/languages of Veneto and those of Lombardy/Piedmont. To put all these in the same box is only an ideologically-oriented move that might then be used to support a purported cultural identity of Padania, forgetting--by the way--that the vast majority of Northern Italians mostly speak Italian, not the local dialects.--93.40.120.240 (talk) 09:48, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Considering your comment as well as the section, which nobody had objections to, I'll move the article to a plural name. You're right that, even though this article mentions various points of view, its very "lumping together" of various different languages is politically motivated and should be kept a watchful eye on.--LjL (talk) 13:13, 9 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Just call the article "Gallo-Italic" or "Gallo-Italian". Those are the only terms I'd encountered before this article was renamed to "Northern Italian".  Gallo-Italic is Gallo-Romance anyway, no?-Gilgamesh (talk) 00:48, 17 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Agree. This article should be moved to "Gallo-Italian languages" (see ).--Enok (talk) 00:14, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page not moved: no concensus after 23 days. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 09:42, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Northern Italian languages → Gallo-Italian languages — See discussion above.--Enok (talk) 00:24, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Gallo-Italic (occasionally Gallo-Italian [2]) is imprecise, as it refers to just part of the Northern Italian complex (see Subdivisions below). I suggest you clarify and resolve this issue first - does Gallo-Italic refer to all the northern language or only a subset? It's worth doing this if only because if the move is made then this sentence will make no sense. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 09:00, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Weak oppose - I'm not an expert on this matter, so don't know myself the scope of the term "Gallo-Italian languages". However, according to the article:
 * The article has to be rewritten completely. A Northern Italian set does not exist; Gallo-Italic, Rhaeto-Romance languages and Istriot language are totally different.--Enok (talk) 11:15, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Since you've now rewritten the article to clarify the points I mention, and there is apparently no need for a "Northern Italian languages" article (from your assertion that the various languages are unrelated to each other), I am now happy to Support the requested move. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 12:40, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Just read what is said in mainstream linguistics: Northern Italian (italiano settentrionale) is the traditional name used by most specialists (see Pellegrini and the majority of handbooks of Romance linguistics, references have been given in the article). Padanian was promoted in 1982 by linguist Geoffrey Hull, a long time before the rise of the Lega Nord.--82.226.240.4 (talk) 22:35, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The majority of handbooks of linguistics say that Gallo-Italic and Rhaeto-Romance are two different language groups. Please, don't delete sources.--Enok (talk) 02:06, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * You're just twisting and manipulating what is really said in those linguistics handbooks. I have restored the truth by exposing the three, main different views about Northern Italian. You reverted me and imposed only one view that is minoritary in mainstream linguistics. Your behavior is fanatical and non encyclopedic.--82.226.240.4 (talk) 09:53, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I basically agree with 82.226.240.2. Regarding the move, I would support a move to "Gallo-Italic languages" or "Padanian languages", not "Gallo-Italian languages". But, is Venetian part of Gallo-Italic languages? Padanian would be more generic and thus more correct, despite the use done by Lega Nord. --Checco (talk) 17:19, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Padanian (or Northern Italian) is used only by Hull, which uses a totally different classification (should be rewritten or deleted many pages on this encyclopedia); Gallo-Italian (or -Italic) and Rhaeto-Romance are used by most of linguistics handbooks, contrary to what 82.226.240.4 says (see sources in the article).--Enok (talk) 17:49, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Here's how it was before  (I call these illegitimate edits). Obviously could not afford to change the category, without first discussing it with the other users. Indeed, it is still here: Category:Gallo-Italic_languages.--Enok (talk) 18:02, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Two hypotheses: 1º Enok is honest but can't understand the handbooks of Romance linguistics. 2º Enok can read these handbooks but lies deliberately about what they say. It's just another, typical edit war on Wikipedia. Rubbish...--82.226.240.4 (talk) 20:00, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Please, don't remove references (i.e. sources). This is vandalism.--Enok (talk) 20:50, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Please, don't twist what the sources say, this is manipulation.--82.226.240.4 (talk) 21:40, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Google Books: Gallo-Italic, Galloitalico , Galloitalisch ; Northern Italian languages .--Enok (talk) 23:26, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * My poor Enok, 1º Since "Gallo-Italic" (or "Gallo-Italian") is not a synonym of "Northern Italian", it has no sense to compare these two concepts on Google Books; 2º Google isn't a scientific source, it's only Google. You behave and think like a typical amateur, without any serious, scientific knowledge in linguistics, and, as a typical amateur, you manipulate sources and information on Wikipedia. Shame on you.--82.226.240.4 (talk) 18:12, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I just wanted to show that, in books indexed by Google Books, "Northern Italian languages" is used by a handful of texts, while "Gallo-Italian" by high number (including the sources cited in this article, that you accusing me of manipulating them).--Enok (talk) 19:42, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Gallo-Italic vs. Northern Italian
I think the page has a reason d'etre since the languages of Northern Italy have been classified differently by different researchers. For example (list is not exhaustive): (1) Italian dialectologists traditionally talk about "italiano settentrionale", hence Northern Italian, NO plural. (2) Hull talks about Padanian, at least 10 years before Lega Nord usurped the term (3) Pellegrini talks about "Cisalpino", arguing (convincingly) that Gallo-Italic & Raeto-Romance are different varieties of the same language (with the latter being more conservative due to geographical isolation). Given these positions, it would be oversimplistic to just jam everything under "Gallo-Italic" as if it was a "fact". --Dakrismeno (talk) 11:17, 20 February 2011 (UTC)


 * There is also another point. The page is still called "Northern Italian languages", but it is about just Gallo-Italian dialects. If the title has to stay as it is, we should then include all the languages spoken in Northern Italy out of Italian: that is to say Venetian, Friulan, Ladin which are autoctonous (and have their own Wikipedia pages), but also German/Bavarian dialects, Provençal/Franco-Provençal and Slovene/Venetian Slovene (people inside Venetian Slovenia speak a different dialect of Slovene language and are very jealous of their own identity, refusing to mix with the nearby Slovene minority in Gorizia and Trieste neither supporting the Slovene minority party).
 * Filippo83 (talk) 09:52, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Venetian language is not a Gallo-Italian language
I think that there is a bit confusion (maybe also among authors). Enok states: In fact, the only similar are Lombard, Piemontese, Venetian, Emiliano-Romagnolo and Ligurian; commonly known as Gallo-Italian. while Nocontinental states: There are many languages, and many of them are mutually unintelligible, i.e., Venetian and Piemontese! This is a common but not true point of view: above all, Venetian is markly different from the other Gallo-Italian family languages; which are, as Enok states, "similar" among them; but Nocontinental statement is really absurd, he should have never listened to both a Piedmontese and a Venetian speaker, or at least coming from a completely different enviroment and knowing nothing about them. Venetian is different in both grammar and phonetics, and it cannot be considered a Gallo-Italian language; nor some similar word (e.g. Venetian carega and Lombard cadrega for chair) can be used to state it. Actually the Italian Wikipedia page about Gallo-Italic does not include Veneto; another example of this different classification can be found inside this page. A famous author to refer to can be Ascoli. There is also an historical problem, because Gallo means Gaul, and by no way Veneto was ever inhabited by Gauls as were North-West Italy and Emilia-Romagna.

Thus, in my opinion, the correct classification of Northern Italian languages (dialects) is:
 * Gallo-Italian:
 * Lombard
 * Emilian-Romagnolo
 * Piedmontese
 * Ligurian
 * etc.


 * Venetian:
 * Lagoon (Sea) Venetian
 * Central Venetian
 * etc. (from Verona and Trento to Trieste and Istria)


 * Rhaeto-Romance:
 * Friulan
 * Ladin


 * Istriot

Take note that the difference between Venetian and Ladin dialects can be very thin: Ladin dialects of the Dolomites can be intelligible to a Venetian speaker, and viceversa (while a Venetian speaker would hardly understand many Gallo-Italian dialects), and there is even a Ladin-Venetian variety. Istriot is not to be confused with the Venetian-Istrian dialect, which is part of Venetian language, even if Istriot is strongly influenced by Venetian.

Filippo83 (talk) 13:58, 7 March 2011 (UTC)


 * If we like to put Gallo-Italian and Venetian dialects together, we should then create a page for Northern Italian or High Italian (cfr. Marcato) or Galloromance dialects. Filippo83 (talk) 14:06, 7 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I do not think, in my opinion, that Ethnologue should be considered a primary source for our classifications; specialised authors (like Ascoli, Pellegrini, Marcato et al.) must instead be considered before. Filippo83 (talk) 14:06, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * See Pellegrini's Map of Italian Dialects for another example. Filippo83 (talk) 14:08, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I beg your pardon to have modified the page by myself, to be quicker. Filippo83 (talk) 14:16, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I have seen just now that the map included in the page considers itself Venetian language as distinct from Gallo-Italian ones: so I think that my modify is even more justified. Filippo83 (talk) 14:19, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Filippo83 is right: Venetian is not part of Gallo-Italic languages and I apologize whether I was not so clear on this point in my previous posts. However, if the article stays at its current title, it should include Venetian; if the article is moved to "Gallo-Italic languages", then Venetian should stay out of this article. I would personally prefer to have two articles, one about "Gallo-Italic languages" (not including Venetian) and one about "Northern Italian languages" (including Venetian and Hull's classification). Filippo83, do you agree with me? Would you craft the two articles? --Checco (talk) 02:48, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

POV
An obviously politically biased article. The unitarian view lacks completely: See Hull: the linguistic unity of northern Italy and Rhaetia ann Meneghin, Rhaeto-Cisalpine at a glance, Vol 1 & 2. An article which is making wikipedia much less reliable --151.82.133.34 (talk) 11:12, 11 September 2011 (UTC)


 * OK, it looks like you have a particular interest in Hull's Padanian theory, and hence want it included in Wikipedia. Be careful here -- Wikipedians generally look askance at people who are trying to promote one view over another (they're called "POV pushers").  Abuse of "need verification" and "citation needed" and "non-neutral" etc. templates, esp. when they're only attached to viewpoints opposed to the viewpoint that the author is trying to push, is also likely to get you in hot water.  Do enough of these things and you may get banned.  I'm not accusing you of doing all these things -- there may be multiple editors tag-teaming, and I may be misinterpreting what's going on.  But in general, Wikipedians appreciate most editors who strive to make the article as a whole better without being attached to particular viewpoints.


 * As for your complains above, just because a particular view is lacking completely does not mean the article is biased. We include views based on their notability.  A fringe viewpoint or other non-notable viewpoint doesn't deserve any mention at all, and thus including such a viewpoint biases the resulting text.  I don't know much about Hull's Padanian theory but I gather it's very much a minority view, quite possibly a fringe view.  No mainstream scholar AFAIK accepts the Padanian theory (besides Hull, to the extent he counts as a mainstream scholar), and few if any mainstream scholars (again, besides Hull) even refer to the Padanian theory in summaries of the theories of the Northern Italian languages.  The burden is on you to show that Hull's theory is mainstream by finding other mainstream authors who consider the Padanian theory to be notable and describe it in articles that cover the genetic background of the Northern Italian languages. Benwing (talk) 09:04, 16 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I used to think that Northern Italian or Gallo-Italic was Western Romance, due to several developments shared with Gallo-Romance in particular (though not necessarily all of Gallo-Romance), and also Occitano-Romance, but Romance plurals in combination with Diachronics of plural inflection in the Gallo-Italian languages heavily implies that the whole group shared the defining Italo-Romance innovation s > j (word-finally after vowels) from the very beginning on. Even if there was a Western-Romance-type substratum north of the Po, which the presence of the palatalisation of k and g before a in place-names might or might not indicate, the attested modern languages are clearly Italo-Romance by this criterion. Amusingly, the article about Gallo-Italian plurals references Hull's paper, but he seemed to have overlooked this point: the ancient isogloss in question is considered effectively one central feature separating Italo-Romance from Western Romance, as it is invoked in delimiting Ladin from adjacent languages as well. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:46, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with you Florian, for the reasons you give and for many others.Nortmannus (talk) 01:56, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Quality
This article is very poor. It should be deleted and seriously rewritten. --79.25.24.72 (talk) 12:37, 11 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Poor, or simply not biased the way you want it to be? Benwing (talk) 09:09, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

More ancient versions; new reliable scientific sources
More ancient versions were quite more wikipedia-suitable, i.e. neutral and encycopedic. The present version is politically biased and representative of a (technically speaking) fascist pov, biased to diminish a specific cultural area. The title itself is not neutral, inasmuch as this language (or these languages) are not Italian, according to the available scientific sources. Even the "Italianist" name this/these language(s) as "Italian" inasmuch as they are spoken within the Italian state, not for an affiliation to the Italian language.

It can be instructive too read Haiman-Benincà: The Rhaeto-Romance languages, introduction: "Confusion arises by referring to [the Cisalpine] dialects as ‘Italian dialects’ or even ‘dialects of Italian’, which is absurd"

I suggest a google search for "padanian language" or "Rhaeto-Cisalpine": to get a whole bunch of reliable scientific sources. This article should not express a particular point of view or give a stage to some protagonist, but simply tell about what has been published (books or peer reviewd journals) on the subject. Best regards --79.21.158.4 (talk) 14:20, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Google for "Padanian language"
 * Google for "Rhaeto-Cisalpine"


 * Please assume good faith. Don't call the existing authors fascists ("technical" or not); that's not going to get you anywhere, and will alienate a lot of people.  Also, until you can separate out your evident pro-Padanian political and linguistic bent from your discussion of the overall quality of this page, I'm afraid this discussion won't go anywhere.  Benwing (talk) 09:09, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

drive-by tagging
I've removed all of the excessive inline tags. The tags looked highly politically motivated. It would be better for the author(s) in question who have these issues to discuss them here in the talk page, because the issue is obviously not the various little nitpicky things that got inline tags added to them, but something much more general.

So please tell me:

1. What do you think is original research, and why? What do you think is the true scholarly consensus? 2. What do you think is biased, and why? How do you think it should be phrased so that it's unbiased?

Be concise, to the point, and most importantly: Be sure to separate out your political views from your views about this page as an encyclopedic work. If you're not capable of doing that, then you probably shouldn't be editing anything that touches on your political views.

Specific citations for particular facts aren't necessary now. We can add those later once we've worked out what actually goes in. Enough is simply a citation down below to a whole work.

I really don't think this ought to be so controversial. We are basically just reviewing the secondary sources and to some extent the primary sources, and summarizing them. Benwing (talk) 09:21, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Reverting DissidentAggressor Edits
I am reverting edits by User:DissidentAggressor. He is claiming WP:OR when there is in fact a huge number of sources for the sections he has deleted. I shall list them here:

--Mrjulesd (talk) 22:09, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Bernard Comrie, Stephen Matthews, Maria Polinsky (eds.), The Atlas of languages : the origin and development of languages throughout the world. New York 2003, Facts On File. p. 40.
 * Stephen A. Wurm, Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger of Disappearing. Paris 2001, UNESCO Publishing, p. 29.
 * Glauco Sanga: La lingua Lombarda, in Koiné in Italia, dalle origini al 500 (Koinés in Italy, from the origin to 1500), Lubrina publisher, Bèrghem
 * Studi di lingua e letteratura lombarda offerti a Maurizio Vitale, (Studies in Lombard language and literature) Pisa : Giardini, 1983
 * Brevini, Franco – Lo stile lombardo : la tradizione letteraria da Bonvesin da la Riva a Franco Loi / Franco Brevini – Pantarei, Lugan – 1984 (Lombard style: literary tradition from Bonvesin da la Riva to Franco Loi )
 * Mussafia Adolfo, Beitrag zur kunde der Norditalienischen Mundarten im XV. Jahrhunderte (Wien, 1873)
 * Pellegrini, G.B. "I cinque sistemi dell'italoromanzo", in Saggi di linguistica italiana (Turin: Boringhieri, 1975), pp. 55–87.
 * Rohlfs, Gerhard, Rätoromanisch. Die Sonderstellung des Rätoromanischen zwischen Italienisch und Französisch. Eine kulturgeschichtliche und linguistische Einführung (Munich: C.H. Beek'sche, 1975), pp. 1–20.
 * Canzoniere Lombardo – by Pierluigi Beltrami, Bruno Ferrari, Luciano Tibiletti, Giorgio D'Ilario – Varesina Grafica Editrice, 1970.

Lack of serious sources and serious developments
This article put the emphasize on the little phonetical differences separating Gallo-Italic from Standard Italian, but does not evoke at all the enormous gap there is between Gallo-Italic and Old French (phonetics, vocabulary, rythm), that can only be linked to the fact that Gallo-Italian is not Gallo-Romance, that has only two descendants : the Oïl Languages and Franco-Provençal. The site Ethnologue given as a reference seems to be poor, for example : they cite Picard as an Oïl Language, but not Norman, Bourguignon, Champenois, Bas-Lorrain, Angevin, Gallo, Poitevin-Saintongeais, that are all significant oil languages exactly like Picard. It cites an extinct Judeo-French language, but not Anglo-Norman, that was much more significant. Too bad.Nortmannus (talk) 01:49, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Ethnologue is a notoriously poor source and only used as long as there are no better sources readily available to an editor (as frequently in the early days of Wikipedia, when there were even fewer linguists around). There is no doubt a rich literature on Gallo-Italic, which should be exploited.
 * The phonetic differences between Gallo-Italic and Standard Italian may be small from the historical linguist's point of view, but the effects are certainly considerable. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:16, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Comparisons section
I have modified the section by putting in comment brackets all the examples that pertain to languages which are not within the Gallo-Italic family. I think it is a good idea to compare languages but there were far too many examples which were not related. I have therefore changed the name of the section as well. Regards! Suturn (talk) 23:16, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Italian /kj/ from Latin /kl/ is further palatalized to /tʃ/...
Is this meant to say what it says, i.e. that Italian (/kl/ >) /kj/ > /tʃ/? If so, does that mean it's referring to borrowings from Italian rather than indigenous developments? And if that's the case, what happens natively to pre-Romance /kl/, i.e. without the interference of Italian? 47.32.20.133 (talk) 13:54, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

"Emilian and Romagnol are to be considered distinct"?
Why is Emilian–Romagnol being split into Emilian and Romagnol in the infobox? I get that the article often uses the word "language" to describe them as one language, but regardless of whether or not they can be adequately described as one language or two, the fact is that they form a distinct branch within the Gallo-Italic language family and are more closely related to each other than they are to the other Gallo-Italic languages. ~Strawberry of Arctic Circle System (talk) 23:32, 25 July 2023 (UTC)


 * If this from the Romagnol article reports reality, the separation is accurate: "In the West, The Sillaro river marks the cultural and linguistic border between Emilian language speakers and Romagnol speakers". Unfortunately, it's presented completely without source. If it's not accurate or no source can be found, a solid source is needed to claim that the two are not distinct, especially in light of the suspicion that the relatively recent administrative fusion of Emilia and Romagna pressures categorization of a lingua regionale unmotivated by linguistic factors. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 02:23, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I never said that they weren't distinct from one another. Two languages belonging to a certain branch does not mean they aren't also distinct from each other. Few would deny that Catalan and Occitan are distinct from one another despite both also forming the Occitano-Romance branch of the Romance languages. It's perfectly possible for two languages to be distinct from each other while also being more closely related to each other than to other languages. Those two statements do not contradict each other. Of course, if there are sources proving that the current consensus among linguists is that Emilian–Romagnol isn't a valid branch, then feel free to post them here and to the Emilian–Romagnol article. However, as of now it appears to me that there are more sources suggesting that they do form a valid branch than that they aren't. ~Strawberry of Arctic Circle System (talk) 06:35, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I think there is a relevant fact about this: in ISO 639-3 standardisation, Emilian-Romagnol (code eml) has been split in Emilian (egl) and Romagnol (rgn) by this change request in 2008.
 * So, now, code eml for Emilian-Romagnol is deprecated. -- Stévan (talk) 09:24, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Good find. As observed in the article ISO 639-3, ISO is inherently problematic for a number of reasons, but it's good to see that they've got the Emilian / Romagnol muddle sorted out. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 20:42, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, but again, that doesn't mean they don't form a branch within Gallo-Italic. It would be absurd to claim that saying Piedmontese, Ligurian, Lombard, Emilian, Romagnol, Gallo-Italic of Basilicata, and Gallo-Italic of Sicily form a Gallo-Italic branch within Gallo-Romance or Western Romance is the same as saying that these languages are actually one language. It is the same for Emilian–Romagnol. They may be two separate languages, but that doesn't mean they don't form a branch with each other within Gallo-Italic. In addition, ISO 639-3 doesn't have codes for language families like Gallo-Romance, Eastern Romance, etc. If Emilian and Romagnol are considered separate languages by ISO, then of course the ISO code lumping them together as if they're one language is going to be deprecated. ~Strawberry of Arctic Circle System (talk) 02:14, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * This discussion seems to have its wheels spinning tractionless on the concept of branching. If branching is meant to imply that tree diagrams can be expected to reflect geo- and sociolinguistic reality, a glance at this (among many others) might be helpful: []. In any case, even accepting the branching tree approach as useful for capturing typological congruities and distinctions, the quibble seems to be where to shut off observation of the branching: at Emilian-Romagnol, or branch further into Emilian and Romagnol -- or further still, another node or two, then down to e.g. Imola distinct from Faenza, etc.? Arbitrariness is inevitable, but Emilian and Romagnol identified seems adequate to me for encyclopdia purposes, even though each of the two includes quite a range of differentiation. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 18:09, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * @Arctic Circle System Classification among Gallo-Italic has always been a mess.
 * In this case, I'm not so sure that "they form a distinct branch within the Gallo-Italic language family and are more closely related to each other than they are to the other Gallo-Italic languages".
 * For example, Western Emilian varieties shares a lot of features with Lombard (like /y/ and /ø/ vowels, not existing in the other Emilian dialects), so that the border between Lombard and Emilian has always been disputed, including or excluding areas of Pavia and Mantua.
 * On the contrary, original classification of Bernardino Biondelli ("Saggio sui dialetti gallo-italici") from 1853 called the whole thing just as "Emilian", then subdivided in Western and Eastern Emilian, where Romagnol is a mere dialect of the second (within the Bolognese group).
 * So: I woundn't know what to do with this, because of arbitrariness of classifications (as well said by @Barefoot through the chollas above), and because there's in no clear distinction between what should be a language and what just a dialect... so that, to some extent, yes: we could even say that Gallo-Italic itself is a langugage composed by its dialects, which are languages as well.
 * Perhaps we should move to a more general definition of linguistic variety, instead of "language" or "dialect", but I'm moving beyond this talk page. Stévan (talk) 15:12, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
 * "Perhaps we should move to a more general definition of linguistic variety, instead of "language" or "dialect"" Definitely. Grazie. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 13:15, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
 * That's true, though it does appear thus far that the sources we have (other than Ethnologue, but Ethnologue isn't a very good source in general) suggest that Emilian and Romagnol form a clade within Gallo-Italic, so unless there are reliable sources that suggest otherwise, I'd stick to that. ~Cherri of Arctic Circle System (talk) 09:41, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Pellegrini's Carta dei dialetti d'Italia, which is based mainly on linguistic isoglosses, labels the entire group in question as 'Emilian'. It should be noted that the area in question very much constitutes a 'natural region' between the northern Apennines and the Po river, and so the approximate coincidence of administrative and linguistic boundaries is not a total surprise. Nicodene (talk) 17:16, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I see. I'm not sure how to handle this. It's a bit difficult to evaluate the consensus here. ~Cherri of Arctic Circle System (talk) 03:52, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
 * @Nicodene: yep, but it's one of the sources; Pellegrini uses about the same scheme of Biondelli (calling it all Emilian), and then went beyond the natural border of river Po, by including Mantua and Pavia.
 * Anyway, isoglosses shown in Pellegrini's map are just explicative of some phenomena, not to be taken as exaustive and not always as borders of linguistic regions: for example, it marks Mantua and Pavia areas as Emilian, but there is no isoglosses between them and Lombard varieties; yet, there is an isogloss between Bergamo and Brescia, but both are considered to be in the Eastern Lombard region by self Pellegrini books, as Eastern Lombard is defined by other isoglosses that are not shown in the map (like lost of Vs and nasals).
 * That's why I suggested not to be so tranchant in definitions. -- Stévan (talk) 08:12, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
 * The only relevant question, as far as Wikipedia is concerned, is whether there are reliable and preferably modern academic sources which present a contrary classification. Nicodene (talk) 08:24, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
 * As far as I'm aware, there are not. The closest I can think of is Ethnologue which does not list Emilian–Romagnol as a clade, but Ethnologue's classifications are frequently sketchy at best, and they appear to frequently ignore smaller clades, folding them into larger clades. However, I can't confidently say that we've looked as deeply into the subject as would be necessary to make a reasonable determination. ~Red of Arctic Circle System (talk) 04:08, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
 * So uh... What should be done here? I'm not sure how to evaluate the consensus of this discussion, or where to go to as for help in doing so. ~Cherri of Arctic Circle System (talk) 13:05, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the first thing to do is to ponder Stévan's observations above. And consequently re-boot after relaxing expectations that concepts of cladistics stemming from biological genetics can be re-engineered to apply usefully to a dialect continuum, and recognizing that typologically meaningful isoglosses aren't really expected to bundle along internal Italian administrative boundaries. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 20:46, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Classification of Gallo-Italic within Romance
I'd like to point out the following, in :


 * "Evidence of this comes from Rhaeto-Romance, in particular Sursilvan, which preserves reflexes of both final -us and -um, and where the latter, but not the former, triggers metaphony. This suggests the development -us > /ʊs/ > /os/, but -um > /ũː/ > /u/."

In :


 * "Metaphony in the northern Italian languages (those to the north of Tuscany) is triggered only by final /i/. In these languages, as in Tuscan, final /u/ was lowered to /o/; it evidently happened prior to the action of metaphony."

Moreover, strongly suggests that final /s/ was not preserved in Gallo-Italic, unlike in Western Romance, but instead became /j/ early, just like in Italo-Romance.

All of this implies that Gallo-Italic is most likely Italo-Romance in origin, and most closely related to Tuscan, but was later areally influenced by Western Romance (Rhaeto-Romance (cf. ), Northern Gallo-Romance (cf. Valdôtain), Occitano-Romance) – specifically, by a Western Romance (especially Rhaeto-Romance-like) substratum. (As an aside, for a Western Romance substratum much farther east affecting Slavic dialects, see here. This could have been "Carantano-Romance", an early form of Rhaeto-Romance of which Friulian might be a remainder.) Note my discussion with Benwing on this matter here. See also on this same talk page. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:35, 1 February 2024 (UTC)