In Italian-speaking contexts, Western Lombard is often incorrectly called a dialect of Italian.[citation needed] Western Lombard and Standard Italian are very different.[3] Some speakers of Lombard varieties may have difficulty understanding one another and require a standard to communicate, but all Western Lombard varieties are mutually intelligible.[3] Western Lombard is relatively homogeneous (much more so than Eastern Lombard), but it has a number of variations,[4] mainly in relation to the vowels/o/, /ɔ/ and the development of /ts/ into /s/.
The general lines of diachronics of Western Lombard plural declension are drawn here, with reference to Milanese orthography:
Feminine
Most feminine words end with the inflection -a; the feminine plural is non-inflected (la legora / i legor ; la cadrega / i cadregh). The final vowel keeps its original length (non-final syllables have no difference), which is often long when it is followed by a voiced consonant and short when it is followed by a voiceless consonant. When the stem ends with a particular consonant cluster, there can be the addition of a final -i or of a schwa between consonants (for example: in Milanese sing. scendra, plur. scendr > scender). For adjectives, the plural form and masculine form are often the same.
Masculine
Most masculine nouns lack inflections, and the plural masculine is always non-inflected (el tramvaj/i tramvaj; el lett/i lett ). When the word stem ends with a particular group of consonants, both singular and plural forms can add a schwa between consonants; otherwise, a final -o (pron. /u/) is added to singular nouns, -i for plurals.
Masculine words ending in -in or, less commonly, in -ett, have plurals in -itt (fiolin/fiolitt). Those ending in -ll have plurals in -j, (el sidell/i sidej ; el porscell/i porscej ; el cavall / i cavaj). The same occurs in the determinate article: singular ell > el, plural elli > ej > i.
Masculine words ending in -a are invariable and are proper nouns, words from Ancient Greek or idiomatic words such as pirla, a derogatory term for a person.
Varieties
Western Lombard can be divided into four main varieties: lombardo alpino (spoken in the provinces of Sondrio and of Verbania, Sopraceneri of Canton Ticino and Grigioni in Switzerland), lombardo-prealpino occidentale (spoken in the provinces of Como, Varese and Lecco, Lugano and its neighbors in Canton Ticino), basso-lombardo occidentale (Pavia and Lodi), and macromilanese (provinces of Milan, Monza, Novara and Valsesia of Vercelli). The boundaries are obviously schematic, since the political division in provinces and municipalities are usually independent from languages spoken.
A double vowel aa is pronounced as [ɑː] or [ɒː]. /a/ may also be pronounced as [ɑ].
Orthography
The most important orthography in Western Lombard literature is the Classical Milanese orthography.
It was used by Carlo Porta (1775–1821) and Delio Tessa (1886–1939). It was perfected by the Circolo Filologico di Milano. Other orthographies are the Ticinese, the Comasca, the Bosina, the Nuaresat, and the Lecchese.[citation needed]
^Although the upper bound to the number of speakers is around 2,500,000,[citation needed] this figure represents more closely the number of people who can understand Western Lombard. Because of immigration (mostly to Milan) from other parts of Italy, the use of Western Lombard is very rare in western Lombardy and most people are not able to speak it fluently.[citation needed]
^Merlo, Clemente (1960). "I dialetti lombardi". Storia di Milano (in Italian). 13: L'età napoleonica, 1796–1814. Milan: Fondazione Treccani degli Alfieri: 466–475.
