Lombard/Orthography and pronunciation rules

Orthographies overview

Since Lombard language consists of different varieties with a separate literary tradition, it has no spoken standard. In times past, different local spellings were used, especially for the main dialects. A first attempt to give a written standard to the Lombard language was that of the singer-songwriter Lissander Brasca in 2014 with his orthography “Scriver Lombard” (literally “Lombard Writing”). This was followed in 2020, with the establishment of the Academia Bonvesin de la Riva, by a new pan-Lombard writing system, the New Lombard Orthography.

They range from local orthographies, specifically designed for dialects but often inconsistent with each other, to the Scriver Lombard (Write Lombard) which claims to write the same word in the same way in all dialectal variants, and it will then be the reader to read it differently based on his dialect , the New Lombard Orthography is a bit of a middle ground, which at the same time guarantees spelling comprehension and consistency between the different variants of the language. In this book the New Lombard Orthography will be used.

For the classical Milanese orthography refer instead to the book on Insubric language (also known as Western Lombard), which precisely it is the western branch of the Lombard language, with the Milanese dialect in the historical centre.

Pan-Lombard orthographies

Name of the orthography	Year when the orthography was born	Importance of the orthography in the past (before 1950)	Importance of the orthography today
" New Lombard Orthography"	2020	-	FO
" Scriver Lombard"	2014	-	FO
" Modern Orthography "	1979	• RAR	-

Local orthographies

Name of the orthography	dialects written with this orthography	Year when the orthography was born	Importance of the orthography in the past (before 1950)	Importance of the orthography today
"classical Milanese orthography "	Western Lombard	1630	FO	FO
"Ticinese orthography"	CO TI CO	1907	FO	FO
"unified Insubric orthography "	Western Lombard	2003	-	• RAR
"Oriental insubric orthography"	Eastern Lombard	???	-	• RAR
"Duchy orthoghraphy"	BG	???	MED	MED
" orthography of Brescia "	BS	???	-	• RAR
"Classical Cremasque orthography"	Cr	???	MED	• RAR
"Lodesan orthography"	LO	???	????	• RAR
"Classical Cremonese orthography by Angelo Peri"	CR	???	MED	• RAR

Note

FO = fundamental importance

MED = medium importance

• RAR = rarely used

New Lombard Orthography

The New Lombard Orthography (NOL) is an orthography derived from the graphic tradition of various Lombard variants and designed for the entirety of Lombard language

Features

NOL was born as a polynomial orthography, i.e. with the possibility of writing in the same way for everyone, with the specific aim of involving all local variants and at the same time maintaining and showing local differences. This is achieved thanks to the flexibility of the handwriting: in fact, it is possible to write in a more standard or local way depending on the need of the person using it.

The spelling choices were made on the basis of past spelling proposals and the local spellings of Lombard, to try to make them more consistent with each other and not stray too far from traditional orthographies.

Spelling choices

Grapheme	Phonology (pronounce IPA)	Examples	Translation into English
a	/a/, /ɐ/	articioch	artichoke
b	/b/	basell	step
c	/t͡ʃ/ before e, i or at the end of the word after consonant /k/ before a, o, oeu, u or any consonant	ciciarada can	chat dog
ch	/k/ before e, i and at the end of the word	chichera	coffee cup
cc	/t͡ʃ/ at the end of the word (also after consonant for the eastern Lombard plurals of words that end in "t" or "d" in the singular) rarely in the middle of the word for reasons of derivation	tucc lombarcc laccera (derived from lacc)	all Lombards milkwoman
d	/d/, /ð/ ∅ intervocalic in some word in some variant	dent radis	tooth root
e	/e/, /ɛ/	temp	time, weather
f	/f/, /θ/	fioeul	son
g	/d͡ʒ/ before e, i /g/ before a, o, oeu, u or any consonant	gesa magon	church dejection
gh	/g/ before e, i and a t the end of the word	ghell	cent
gg	/d͡ʒ/ alla fine della parola rarely in the middle of the word for reasons of derivation	oeugg veggia (derived from vegg)	eye old (feminine)
gn	/ɲ/	tegnì	to keep, to hold
h	∅	gh'hoo	have
i	/i/ after consonant before vowel ∅ tra sc, sg, s'c, s'g, g, c e vocale ∅ in some dialects in plurals ending in <l> after "oeu"	intregh aria ciamà fioeui	entire, whole air to call, to ask sons
j	/j/, /ʎ/ always intravocalic (∅ tra "e" e "a" in the last syllable, in some eastern variant)	tajà fameja	to cut family
l	/l/, /r/ - long preceding vowel	lassà	to leave, to let
ll	/l/ - short preceding vowel	balla	ball
m	/m/	mur	wall
n	/n/ (∅ in some variant before consonant)	nigola mont	cloud mountain
nn	/n/ (always) – at the end of the word rarely in the middle of the word for reasons of derivation	dann anniversari (derived from "ann")	damage
o	/o/, /ɔ/, /u/	tosa	girl
oeu	/ø/, /œ/	poeu	then, later
p	/p/	pas	peace
q	/k/ before u + vowel	quatà	to cover
r	/r/ - long preceding vowel	fera	fiera
rr	/r/ - short preceding vowel	carr (vs. car)	wagon
s	/s/ at the beginning of the word /z/ intravocalic or at the end of the word (before consonant /ʃ/ o /ʒ/ depending on the consonant, in some variant)	setàss nas stria (/ʃ/) | basla (/ʒ/)	sit nose witch|bowl
sh	/ʃ/	marshalles	Marshallese
ss	/s/	fuss	was
sc	/ʃ/, /s/, /t͡ʃ/ - before e, i	scernì	choose
s'c	/ʃt͡ʃ/	mes'cià	to mix
sg	/d͡ʒ/, /z/, /ʒ/ - before e, i	sgiornada	daytime
s'g	/ʃd͡ʒ/	s'giafon	slap
t	/t/	tolin	crown cork
u	/y/ /w/ after <q> e between vowel and consonant	cuna aqua | Europa	crib water | Europe
v	/v/ (∅intravocalic, in some variant)	vun tavol	one table
z	/t͡s/, /s/ at the beginning of the word and after a consonant /d͡z/, /z/ intravocalic or at the end of the word	zuca mez ghez	pumpkin means, half, middle green lizard
zz	/t͡s/, /s/	mazzà	to kill

Compound words

For compound words, a dash is used between the two words that make up the compound: (per exemple: mazza-pioeugg, ...).

Verbs

Infinitive

conjugation	1°	2°	3°	4°
desinence	-à	-é	-er	-ì
pronounce	[a(r)]	[ɛ(r)], [e(:)(r)], [i(r)]	[Ø], [er]	[i(r)]

There are some verbs that have an irregular ending in the infinitive and that do not follow the rules just explained (for example: prodù, toeu, …).

The infinitive verbs of the 1st, 2nd and 4th conjugation used with an enclitic maintain the graphic accent, instead they lose the -r in the 3rd. Even verbs with an irregular ending in the infinitive have the same ending (and sometimes also the graphic accent).

conjugation	1°	2°	3°	4°	irregular
examples	compràll	vedéll	scrivell	sentìll	prodùll, toeull, ...

Participle

The participle suffix is orthographically fixed:

conjugation	1°	2°	3°	4°
desinence	-ad	-ud	-ud/-id	-ud/-id
pronounce	[a:], [at], [ai]	[y:], [yt]	[y:], [yt] / [i:], [it]	[y:], [yt] / [i:], [it]
example	parlad	vedud	scrivud/id	sentud/id

For monosyllabic verbs of the first conjugation and the verb vesser there is the possibility of two endings:

forms	1° form	2° form
desinence	-ad	-ait
pronounce	[a:], [at]	[ai(t)]
examples	stad	stait

Imperative

The monosyllabic forms of the imperative of the second person singular are always written with the graphic accent (for example: fà, dà, stà, scrìv, bév, ...).

Local pronunciations and Wiktionary

As can be seen, the pronunciation of the New Lombard orthography is not unique for all the letters; the reader should know the correct pronunciation a priori, it may be useful to consult the Wiktionary. However, some more information can be obtained if one knows in which dialect the text was written, see for example:

• Phonology of the New Lombard Orthography in Milanese dialect
• Phonology of the New Lombard Orthography in Bergamasque dialect
• Phonology of the New Lombard Orthography in Laghee dialect

In the year 2021 a Lombard-language wikictionary was born, available on the site https://lmo.wiktionary.org/ which contains:

• definitions in Lombard;
• ways of writing the same word in different dialects and orthographies;
• etymology of the word;
• pronunciation, as far as pronunciation is concerned, it has also been specially designed to provide the pronunciation IPA of the same word in different dialects.

This will be discussed in more detail in the module about dictionaries

References

• New Lombard Orthography - History

External links

• Official web site