Lombard language

Lombard (lumbaart, or lengua lumbarda, in milanese classical ortography "lengua lombarda") is a member of the Cisalpine or Gallo-Italic group within the Romance languages. It is spoken natively in Northern Italy (most of Lombardy and some areas of neighbouring regions, notably the eastern side of Piedmont) and Southern Switzerland (Ticino and Graubünden).

The two main varieties (Western Lombard dialect and Eastern Lombard dialect) show differences and are often, but not always, mutually comprehensible.

Present situation

Status

Lombard is considered a minority language, structurally separated from Italian, by the Ethnologue reference catalogue and by the UNESCO Red Book on Endangered Languages. However, Italy and Switzerland do not recognize Lombard speakers as a linguistic minority. This official line is the same as for most other minority languages in Italy, which are normally considered Italian dialects in spite of the fact that they belong to different sub-groups of the Romance language family, and in their historical development are in no way derivative of Italian (this fact being obscured to some extent by the use of Italian orthography to write these languages, and by influence from Italian).