Eastern Lombard and Italian have only limited mutual intelligibility, like many other Romance languages spoken in Italy.
Eastern Lombard is a Romance language of the Gallo-Italic branch, closer to Occitan, Catalan, French, etc.
[5] This phenomenon, common to other languages (including German, Catalan, Dutch, Turkish and Russian), is called final devoicing.
At present, the most common pronunciation is [ˈɡrasje] but a more genuine outcome (and often preferred by aged people) would be [ˈɡrahtʃe].
The sounds [e] and [ɛ] also no longer contrast in unstressed syllables, and therefore the word vedèl ("calf") can be pronounced [veˈdɛl] or [vɛˈdɛl].
Some examples: The situation can differ for other Eastern Lombard varieties, however, and the rules of the unstressed vowel system vary according to the area.
For example: Adjectives formed with the suffix -ùs (feminine -ùza) also exhibit this rule: Since Eastern Lombard is still principally an oral language, a commonly accepted orthography has not been established.
While in recent years there has been an increasing production of texts (mainly light comedies and poem collections), each author continues to follow their own spelling rules.
Furthermore, the umlaut is adopted to represent the rounded vowels /ø/ and /y/: Note that grave and acute accents are also used to indicate the stressed syllable in non-monosyllabic words.
This article adopts the convention of representing this sound as ⟨s·c⟩, although other texts may follow different traditions (so the same sequence can also be spelled ⟨s'c⟩ or ⟨s-c⟩ or even the ambiguous ⟨sc⟩; some authors use ⟨scc⟩).
This sequence, which is absent in Italian, can occur at the beginning of word, as in s·cèt ("son, boy") /stʃɛt/; in the middle, as in brös·cia ("brush") /ˈbrøstʃa/; or at the end, as in giös·cc ("right, correct", plural) /ˈdʒøstʃ/.
The word order is SVO (subject–verb–object) and it has a moderate inflection system: verbs are declined for mood, tense and aspect and agree with their subject in person and number.
The oldest known text written in Eastern Lombard consists of fragments of a laud known as Mayor gremeza il mund no pothevela ancor aver, a manuscript found in Bovegno (Trompia valley), and dating from the fourteenth century.
Today, literary production has increased in volume and mainly consists in light comedies and poem collections (Angelo Canossi is an example for poetry in the Brescian dialect).
E alùra 'l gà fàt nì fò 'n frèt che se n'ìa mài vést giü compàgn.
[i ˈmɛrli na ˈoltɔ i ˈɡiɔ le ˌpɛne ˈbjaŋke | ma ˌkɛl ɛɱˌverɛn ˈle lerɔ ˌstat ɛm ˈbɛl ɛɱˌverɛn ɛ ˌle | la ˈmɛrlɔ | la ɡa ˈditː | zeˈner de la ˌmalɔ ˈɡrapɔ | ˌper tɔ deˈspɛt ˌɡo j uziˈli ˌndelɔ ˈɲatɔ | aˈly | lzeˈner | ˌɡɛ nit aˈdɔs em ˌpo de ˈrabja | ˌɛ lː ɡa ˈdit | ˈspɛtɔ | ˌmɛrlɔ | kɛ tɛ la faˌro ˈme aˌdɛs a ˈte | ɛ sɛ tɛ ˌse ˈbːjaŋkɔ ˌme tɛ faro ˌɛɲɛr ˈneɡrɔ | ɛ pɔ ˈdɔpo l ɡaˌdit aˌmɔ | ˌdu ɡɛ ˈj o ɛ dʒy m ˌprɛstet ɛl tøaˈro ɛ sɛ tɛ ˌse ˈbːjaŋkɔ | ˌme tɛ faˌro ni ˈneɡrɔ | ɛ aˈlurɔ l ɡa ˌfa nːi ˌfɔ ɱ ˈfrɛt kɛ sɛ ˌnia mai ˌvez dʒy komˈpaɲ] [ˌle la ˈmɛrlɔ la saˌiɔ pjø ke ˈfa koj ˌsɔ uziˌli ndɛlɔ ˈɲatɔ | ɛ iˈse ˌlɛ nadɔ ˌa rifyˈdʒas ɛnˌdɛlɔ ˌkapɔ dɛl kaˈmi | ˌdre al kaˈmi va sø l ˈføm ɛ ˈlur j uziˈli j ɛ deɛnˈtaj ˌtøj ˈneɡɛr | e ˌkwaŋ kɛ j ɛ ˌnij fɔ de ˈla | la ˈmɛrlɔ la ˌɡiɔ miɔ ˌpjø le ˌpɛne ˈbjaŋke | ma la ɡɛ ˌj erɔ ˈneɡre | aˈlurɔ zeˈner | tø sːudisˈfat | el ɡa ˈdit | ˈtɔ ˌmɛrlɔ | kɛ tɛ lo ˌfadɔ ˈme staˌoltɔ | sɛ tɛ se ˌstadɔ ˈbjaŋkɔ ˌme to fa ˌnːi ˈneɡrɔ ɛ iˈse tɛ lasɛ ˈlːe dɛ seɡeˈta a tiˌram en ˈdʒir] Once upon a time blackbirds had white feathers, but in that time winter had been mild and a she-blackbird scorned January saying: "Bad-headed January, in spite of you I have got a brood in my nest."
Hearing this, January got angry and he said: "Just wait a bit, you she-blackbird, I will fool you and I will turn you from white into black."
And January, very happy, said: "This time it was me that fooled you, blackbird: you were white and I turned you black, this will teach you to stop teasing me."