From: Mangiat (mangiat@tin.it)
Date: Sat Sep 01 2001 - 03:05:18 EST
> Let's see some Lombard paradigms, at least. Perhaps some example
> texts!
>
> Padraic
A sample text... perhaps related to languages? I think I've got what you're
looking for. It's a poem by the greatest Lombard poet ever, Carlo Porta (a
poet lived in Milan at the beginning of the xix century):
I paròll d'on lenguagg.
I paròll d'on lenguagg, car sur Gorell,
hin ona tavolòzza de color,
che pònn fa el quader brutt, e el pònn fa bell
segond la maestria del pittor.
Senza idej, senza gust, senza on cervell
che regola i paròll in del descor,
tutt i lenguagg del mond hin come quell
che parla on sò umilissim servitor:
e sti idej, sto bon gust già el savarà
che nò hin privativa di paes,
ma di coo che gh'han flemma de studià:
tant l'è vera che in bocca de Usciuria
el bellissem lenguagg di Sienes
l'è el lenguagg pù cojon che mai ghe sia.
-- rough translation --
The words of a language.
The words of a language, dear mister Gorelli,
are like a painter's palette,
the colours can make the painting beautiful or ugly
according to the skills of the painter.
Without ideas, without taste, without a brain
ruling words in the act of speaking,
every lanugage of this world is like the one
spoken by one of your humblest servant:
And you probably already know that these ideas, this good taste
are not a private right of single nations,
but belong to those heads who long for studing:
This is true as the fact that in your mouth, my lord,
the very beautiful language of Siena
becomes the most terrible lanugage one can hear.
--- Notes to pronounce Lombard: everything as in Italian, but: <o> reads /u/ <ò> reads /O/ <u> reads /y/ <oeu> reads /Y/ Double consonants are not geminates! They just stand after short vowels. Anyway many dialects have also lost the long-short distinction in most places, so... Final consonants are in most dialects devoiced. Luca
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