Canzés

Infobox Language
name = Canzés, Canzees
familycolor = Indo-European
states = Italy
speakers = ~2,000
fam2 = Italic
fam3 = Romance
fam4 = Italo-Western
fam5 = Western
fam6 = Gallo-Romance
fam7 = Gallo-Italic
fam8 = Lombard
fam9 = Western Lombard
fam10 = Brianzöö
iso2=roa |lc1=lmo |ld1=Lombard |ll1=Lombard language

Canzés (also written Canzees) is a variety of Western Lombard language spoken in the commune of Canz, Italy.

Features

It's similar to common Brianzöö, to varieties of Vallassina and those of Como, but it have also similarities with Milanese because of historical ties with Milan. Lexicon is partially common with other Brianzöö and partially original; in comparison with common Brianzöö, Canzés has a broader variety of style tones, from peasant ones to courtly ones; confronting with modern Milanese, Canzés preserves better archaic lexicon and it's less contaminated by Italian.

Phonetically, it's evident, for example, the predominance of vowel /a/ or similar (written "a"), instead of unstressed /e/ (written "e"). In Canzés, instead of Milanese nasalization of vowel, there is a velar nasal (written "n") with abbreviation of the vowel. There aren't geminate consonants in words, excepting half-geminate affricate (written "z"), that never change to /s/. The final consonants are always voiceless. Written "v" have a very weak sound, almost semivocalic. There are also vowel allophones as /ɪ/ and /ʊ/, /æ/ and /ɑ/ (both written "a") and opener /y/ (written "ü", sometimes "i" when variant of /i/), in addition to basic Western Lombard vowels: /a/ (written "a"), /e/ (written "é"), /ɛ/ (written "è"), /i/ (written "i"), /o/ (written "ó"), /ɔ/ (written "ò"), /ø/ (written "ö") with /œ/ (written "ö", sometimes "ü" when variant of /y/), /u/ (written "u") and normal /y/ (written "ü"). Vowels /u:/ and /o:/ are inverted (for example: "cóo", head; "cuut", whetstone) as to many others Brianzöö and Milanese varieties. Syllables closed by /l/ and based on vowel "a", often change it with /ɔ/ (written "ò"), that, like other rounded consonants also in other Western Lombard varieties, change to /u/ when unstressed. Letter "s" before consonant is usually aspirated. There are many phaenomena of assimilation or adaptation, caused by meeting of two words, especially in crashes of consonants. In the word "culzùn", trousers, you can see the adesinential plural, the use of /uŋ/, not /õː/, the conservation of "z", the mutation "cal-" > "còl-" > "cul-".

The origin of this language is the insertion of Latin on the Celtic substratum, because the inhabitant of the region were Insubres, Lambrani, Lepontii, Orobi (local populations already merged with Gauls). On that there have been a superstratum of Langobardic and others, besides influences from Spanish, French and Austrian dominations. Canzés is famous as the language of Wizards and vagabonds and is seldom spoken today.

Consonants

Literature

In the little written literature, almost totally poetry, bloomed in the 1970s basing on Brianzöö and Milanese literatures (born in XIII century), it's used a simple orthography, adherent to the pronunciation and based on Italian and Milanese ones, using dieresis, letter "j" for semivocalic "i", not applying the circumflex accent but the redoubling of long vowels, or the redoubling of consonant for short vowels. The wide oral literature is composed by proverbs, poems, legends, prayers, that have histories of several centuries. An important role of Canzés and other local languages is in toponyms, often derived from Celtic words, and traditional gentilics.

Examples

There are some examples of written and oral literature.

Use

There are variants also within the borough, according to the social class and the zone, for influence in the first case from Milanese and from common Brianzöö, in the second case from the neighbouring villages. You can say that every joint family has own dialect of Canzés because, until the half of XX century, every joint family was very united and isolated in the "cuurt" (the local kind of courtyard) world.

Canzés, even if it has a consistent heritage of oral and witten literature, besides high importance for the local identity, doesn't have an official recognisement, so it's getting uncommon in young generations. Western Lombard has a general recognisement, but no one from State. UNESCO and Ethnologue consider Lombard language as union of Western Lombard, Eastern Lombard and intermediate varieties.

Bibliography

* Tiziano Corti, "In ucasiun", 2005.
* Cumitaa F.N., "Librett da la Festa di Nost", 1988-2003.
* Stefano Prina, "Al Cadreghin - gazetin di bagaj da Canz", 2003-2007 (in particular n° 9bis of 2006).
* Gigliola Campiotti, "Proverbi e modi di dire Lariani", 1997.
* Andrea Rognoni, "Grammatica dei dialetti della Lombardia", 2005.
* Several authors, "Parlate e dialetti della Lombardia. Lessico comparato", 2003.