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In the
linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
of the
Romance languages The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...
, the La Spezia–Rimini Line, also known as the Massa–Senigallia Line, is a line that demarcates a number of important
isogloss An isogloss, also called a heterogloss, is the geographic boundary of a certain linguistics, linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or the use of some morphological or syntactic feature. Isoglosses are a ...
es that distinguish Romance languages south and east of the line from Romance languages north and west of it. The line divides northern and
central Italy Central Italy ( or ) is one of the five official statistical regions of Italy used by the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), a first-level NUTS region with code ITI, and a European Parliament constituency. It has 11,704,312 inhabita ...
, running approximately between the cities of
La Spezia La Spezia (, or ; ; , in the local ) is the capital city of the province of La Spezia and is located at the head of the Gulf of La Spezia in the southern part of the Liguria region of Italy. La Spezia is the second-largest city in the Liguria ...
and
Rimini Rimini ( , ; or ; ) is a city in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. Sprawling along the Adriatic Sea, Rimini is situated at a strategically-important north-south passage along the coast at the southern tip of the Po Valley. It is ...
(or, according to some linguists, between Massa and
Senigallia Senigallia (or Sinigaglia in Old Italian; ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) and port town on Italy's Adriatic Sea, Adriatic coast. It is situated in the province of Ancona, in the Italian region of Marche, and lies approximately 30 kilometres nor ...
, which lie about 40 kilometres further to the south). Romance languages south and east of it include
Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...
and the
Eastern Romance languages The Eastern Romance languages are a group of Romance languages. The group comprises the Romanian language (Daco-Romanian), the Aromanian language and two other related minor languages, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian. The extinct Dalmat ...
( Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, Istro-Romanian), whereas Catalan, French,
Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language, spoken in parts o ...
, Portuguese, Romansh, Spanish, and the Gallo‒Italic languages are representatives of the Western group. In this classification, the
Sardinian language Sardinian or Sard ( , , , , or , ) is a Romance languages, Romance language spoken by the Sardinians on the Western Mediterranean island of Sardinia. The original character of the Sardinian language among the Romance idioms has long been know ...
is not part of either Western or Eastern Romance. It has been suggested that the origin of these developments is to be found during the last decades of the
Western Roman Empire In modern historiography, the Western Roman Empire was the western provinces of the Roman Empire, collectively, during any period in which they were administered separately from the eastern provinces by a separate, independent imperial court. ...
and the
Ostrogothic Kingdom The Ostrogothic Kingdom, officially the Kingdom of Italy (), was a barbarian kingdom established by the Germanic Ostrogoths that controlled Italian peninsula, Italy and neighbouring areas between 493 and 553. Led by Theodoric the Great, the Ost ...
(–535 AD). During this period, the area of Italy north of the line was dominated by an increasingly Germanic
Roman army The Roman army () served ancient Rome and the Roman people, enduring through the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC), the Roman Republic (509–27 BC), and the Roman Empire (27 BC–AD 1453), including the Western Roman Empire (collapsed Fall of the W ...
of (northern) Italy, followed by the
Ostrogoths The Ostrogoths () were a Roman-era Germanic peoples, Germanic people. In the 5th century, they followed the Visigoths in creating one of the two great Goths, Gothic kingdoms within the Western Roman Empire, drawing upon the large Gothic populatio ...
; the
Roman Senate The Roman Senate () was the highest and constituting assembly of ancient Rome and its aristocracy. With different powers throughout its existence it lasted from the first days of the city of Rome (traditionally founded in 753 BC) as the Sena ...
and
Papacy The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...
became the dominant social elements south of the line. As for the provinces outside Italy, the social influences in Gaul and Iberia were broadly similar to those in northern Italy, whereas the
Balkans The Balkans ( , ), corresponding partially with the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throug ...
were dominated by the
Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...
at this time (and later, by
Slavic peoples The Slavs or Slavic people are groups of people who speak Slavic languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout the northern parts of Eurasia; they predominantly inhabit Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, Southeast ...
). In either case, it coincides approximately with the northern range of the
Apennine Mountains The Apennines or Apennine Mountains ( ; or Ἀπέννινον ὄρος; or – a singular with plural meaning; )Latin ''Apenninus'' (Greek or ) has the form of an adjective, which would be segmented ''Apenn-inus'', often used with nouns s ...
, which could have helped the development of these linguistic differences. Generally speaking, the Western Romance languages have common innovations that the eastern Romance languages tend to lack. The three isoglosses considered traditionally are: * the formation of the
plural In many languages, a plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated as pl., pl, , or ), is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than ...
form of nounsbased on the Latin
accusative case In grammar, the accusative case ( abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to receive the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: "me", "him", "he ...
in Western Romance and on the
nominative case In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case, or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb, or (in Latin and formal variants ...
in Eastern Romance; * the voicing (in Western Romance) or not (in Eastern Romance) of some Latin voiceless consonants; * the pronunciation of Latin ''c'' before
front vowel A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned approximately as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction th ...
s as (in Western Romance) or (in Eastern Romance). To these should be added a fourth criterion, generally more decisive than the phenomenon of voicing: * preservation (in Eastern Romance) or simplification (in Western Romance) of Latin
geminate consonant In phonetics and phonology, gemination (; from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), or consonant lengthening, is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...
s.


Plural of nouns

North and west of the line (excluding all Northern Italian varieties) the plural of nouns was adapted from the Latin accusative case, and is marked with regardless of
grammatical gender In linguistics, a grammatical gender system is a specific form of a noun class system, where nouns are assigned to gender categories that are often not related to the real-world qualities of the entities denoted by those nouns. In languages wit ...
or
declension In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence by way of an inflection. Declension may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and det ...
. South and east of the line, the plurals of nouns are marked by changing the final vowel, either because these were taken from the Latin nominative case, or because the original changed into a vocalic sound (see the Romance plurals origin debate). Compare the plurals of
cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical effects on both the s ...
nouns in Aromanian, Romanian, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, French, Sardinian and Latin:


Result of ''ci''/''ce'' palatalization

The pronunciation of Latin ''ci''/''ce'', as in and , has a divide between different affricates that roughly follows the line: Italian and Romanian use palatal (as in English church), while most Western Romance languages use non-palatal (later or ). The exceptions are some
Gallo-Italic languages The Gallo-Italic, Gallo-Italian, Gallo-Cisalpine or simply Cisalpine languages constitute the majority of the Romance languages of northern Italy: Piedmontese, Lombard, Emilian, Ligurian, and Romagnol. In central Italy they are spoken in th ...
immediately north of the line, as well as Mozarabic and (partially) Norman.


Voicing and degemination of consonants

Another isogloss boundary that coincides with La Spezia–Rimini Line deals with the restructured voicing of
voiceless consonant In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...
s, mainly Latin sounds , and , which occur between vowels. Thus, Latin ('chain') becomes ''catena'' in Italian, but ''cadeia'' in Portuguese, ''cadena'' in Catalan and Spanish, ''cadéna''/''cadèina'' in Emilian, ''caéna/cadéna'' in Venetian and ''chaîne'' in French (with loss of intervocalic ). Voicing, or further weakening, even to loss of these consonants is characteristic of the western branch of Romance; their retention is characteristic of eastern Romance. However, the differentiation is not totally systematic, and there are exceptions to the isogloss: Gascon dialects in south-west France and Aragonese in northern
Aragon Aragon ( , ; Spanish and ; ) is an autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. In northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces of Spain, ...
, Spain (geographically Western Romance) also retain the original Latin voiceless stop between vowels. The presence in Tuscany and elsewhere below the line of a small percentage but large number of voiced forms both in general vocabulary and in traditional toponyms also challenges its absolute integrity. The criterion of preservation vs. simplification of Latin geminate consonants is more definite. The simplification illustrated by Spanish ''boca'' 'mouth' vs. Tuscan ''bocca'' , both continuations of Latin , typifies all of Western Romance and is systematic for all geminates except (pronounced differently if single/double even in French), in some locales (e.g. Spanish ''carro'' and ''caro'' are still distinct), and to some degree for earlier and which, while not preserved as geminates, did not generally merge with the singletons (e.g. > but > in Spanish, > 'year'). Nevertheless, the La Spezia–Rimini line is real in this respect for most of the consonant inventory, although simplification of geminates to the east in Romania spoils the neat east-west division. Indeed, the significance of the La Spezia–Rimini Line is often challenged by specialists of both Romance
dialectology Dialectology (from Ancient Greek, Greek , ''dialektos'', "talk, dialect"; and , ''-logy, -logia'') is the scientific study of dialects: subsets of languages. Though in the 19th century a branch of historical linguistics, dialectology is often now c ...
and Italian dialectology. One reason is that while it demarcates preservation (and expansion) of phonemic geminate consonants (Central and
Southern Italy Southern Italy (, , or , ; ; ), also known as () or (; ; ; ), is a macroregion of Italy consisting of its southern Regions of Italy, regions. The term "" today mostly refers to the regions that are associated with the people, lands or cultu ...
) from their simplification (in Northern Italy, Gaul, and Iberia), the areas affected do not correspond consistently with those defined by voicing criterion. Romanian, which on the basis of lack of voicing, ''i''-plurals and palatalisation to is classified with Central and Southern Italian, has experienced simplification of geminates, a defining characteristic of Western Romance, after the rhotacism of intervocalic .


See also

* * * Classification of Romance languages *
Romance plurals The plurals of the Romance languages and their historical origin and development are an important area of study in comparative and historical Romance linguistics. There are two general categories that Romance languages fall into based on the w ...
*
Plural inflection in Eastern Lombard The general lines of '' diachronics'' of Lombard and Piedmontese plural declension are drawn here: Feminine In Lombard and Piedmontese, feminine plural is generally derived from Latin first declension accusative -as (compare ); nouns from other ...
*
Röstigraben (; , also transcribed to reflect the Swiss German pronunciation ) is a term used to refer to the cultural boundary between German-speaking Switzerland and Romandy, the French-speaking parts. There is also the term , referring to the boundary b ...
* Watford Gap


References


Sources

Note that, until , the word '' Lombard'' meant '' Cisalpine'', but its meaning has been narrowed, referring now only to the administrative region of
Lombardy The Lombardy Region (; ) is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in northern Italy and has a population of about 10 million people, constituting more than one-sixth of Italy's population. Lombardy is ...
. * Adolfo, Mussafia (1873) ''Beitrag zur Kunde der norditalienischen Mundarten im XV. Jahrhunderte.'' Wien. * Beltrami, Pierluigi; Bruno Ferrari, Luciano Tibiletti, Giorgio D'Ilario (1970) ''Canzoniere Lombardo.'' Varesina Grafica Editrice. * Brevini, Franco (1984) ''Lo stile lombardo : la tradizione letteraria da Bonvesin da la Riva a Franco Loi. (Lombard style: literary tradition from Bonvesin da la Riva to Franco Loi.)'' Pantarei, Lugan. * Brown, Peter (1970) '' The World of Late Antiquity '' W. W. Norton New York. * Comrie, Bernard; Stephen Matthews, Maria Polinsky, eds. (2003) ''The Atlas of languages : the origin and development of languages throughout the world.'' New York: Facts On File. p. 40. * Cravens, Thomas D. (2002) ''Comparative Romance Dialectology: Italo-Romance clues to Ibero-Romance sound change.'' Amsterdam: Benjamins. * Hull, Dr Geoffrey (1982) ''The linguistic unity of Northern Italy and Rhaetia.'' PhD thesis,
University of Western Sydney Western Sydney University, formerly the University of Western Sydney, is an Australian multi-campus public research university in the Greater Western region of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The university in its current form was founde ...
. * Hull, Dr Geoffrey (1989) ''Polyglot Italy: Languages, Dialects, Peoples.'' Melbourne: CIS Educational. * Maiden, Martin (1995) ''A linguistic history of Italian.'' London: Longman. * Maiden, Martin & Mair Parry, eds. (1997) ''The Dialects of Italy.'' London: Routledge. * Sanga, Glauco ''La lingua Lombarda, in Koiné in Italia, dalle origini al 1500. (Koinés in Italy, from the origin to 1500.)'' Bèrghem: Lubrina. * Vitale, Maurizio (1983) ''Studi di lingua e letteratura lombarda. (Studies in Lombard language and literature.)'' Pisa : Giardini. * Wurm, Stephen A. (2001) ''Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger of Disappearing.'' Paris: UNESCO Publishing, p. 29. {{DEFAULTSORT:La Spezia-Rimini Line Isoglosses Romance languages Italian language Languages of Italy Grammatical number