Friulian (/friˈuːliən/ free-OO-lee-ən) or Friulan (natively furlanⓘ or marilenghe; Italian: friulano; Austrian German: Furlanisch; Slovene: furlanščina) is a Romance language belonging to the Rhaeto-Romance family.

Friulian is spoken in the Friuli region of northeastern Italy and has around 600,000 speakers, the vast majority of whom also speak Italian.

Epigraphs and inscriptions from that period show some variants if compared to the standard Latin language, but most of them are common to other areas of the Roman Empire.

Often, it is cited that Fortunatianus, the bishop of Aquileia c. 342–357 AD, wrote a commentary to the Gospel in sermo rusticus (the common/rustic language), which, therefore, would have been quite divergent from the standard Latin of administration.

[8][9] In modern Friulian, the words of Rhaetic, Venetic or Celtic origin include terms referring to mountains, woods, plants, or animals, as well as local toponyms and onomastics (e.g. names of villages with -acco, -icco).

The Friulian language has never acquired primary official status: legal statutes were first written in Latin, then in Venetian and finally in Italian.

The idea of unity among Ladin, Romansh and Friulian comes from the Italian historical linguist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli, who was born in Gorizia.

The main document about the dialect of Trieste, or tergestino, is "Dialoghi piacevoli in dialetto vernacolo triestino", published by G. Mainati in 1828.

Most went to France, Belgium, and Switzerland or outside Europe, to Canada, Mexico, Australia, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, the United States, and South Africa.

The main examples of literature that have survived (much from this period has been lost) are poems from the 14th century and are usually dedicated to the theme of love and are probably inspired by the Italian poetic movement Dolce Stil Novo.

The most notable work is Piruç myò doç inculurit (which means "My pear, all colored"); it was composed by an anonymous author from Cividale del Friuli, probably in 1380. quant yò chi viot, dut stoi ardit cuant che jo ti viôt, dut o stoi ardît There are few differences in the first two rows, which demonstrates that there has not been a great evolution in the language except for several words which are no longer used (for example, dum(n) lo, a word which means "child").

The following chart shows how six words (sêt thirst, pît foot, fîl "wire", pôc (a) little, fûc fire, mûr "wall") are pronounced in four dialects.

Additional complications: Synchronic analyses of vowel length in Friulian often claim that it occurs predictably in final syllables before an underlying voiced obstruent, which is then devoiced.

[17] Analyses of this sort have difficulty with long-vowel contrasts that occur non-finally (e.g. pâri "father" mentioned above) or not in front of obstruents (e.g. fi "fig" vs. fî "son", val "valley" vs. vâl "it is worth").

[18] The indefinite article in Friulian (which corresponds to a and an in English) derives from the Latin unus and varies according to gender: A partitive article also exists: des for feminine and dai for masculine: des vacjis – some cows and dai libris - some books A Friulian adjective must agree in gender and number with the noun it qualifies.

Notice how these very often correspond to French nouns that form an irregular plural in -x: cheval-chevaux, chapeau-chapeaux, cheveu-cheveux, oeil-yeux, genou-genoux.

Therefore, many words are shared with the other Romance languages,[20] Here the composition: Nowadays, Friulian is officially recognized in Italy, supported by law 482/1999, which protects linguistic minorities.

An online newspaper is active[citation needed], and there are also a number of musical groups singing in Friulian and some theatrical companies.

Recently, two movies have been made in Friulian (Tierç lion, Lidrîs cuadrade di trê), with positive reviews in Italian newspapers.[when?]

[citation needed] The main association to foster the use and development of Friulian is the Societât filologjiche furlane, founded in Gorizia in 1919.

Only the Italian is official and used in administration, but it is widely expected[citation needed] that the Friulian ones will receive partial acknowledgement in the near future.

The regional law 15/1996 approved a standard orthography, which represents the basis of a common variant and should be used in toponyms, official acts, written documents.

They are usually distinguished by the last vowel of many parts of speech (including nouns, adjectives, adverbs), following this scheme: The word for home is cjase in Central Friulian and cjasa or cjaso in other areas.

The letter q is used only for personal names and historical toponyms, and in every other case, it is replaced by c. Besides that, k, x, w, and y appear only in loan words so they are not considered part of the alphabet.

It is less common, probably also because it is more difficult for a beginner for its use of letters, such as č, that are typical of Slavic languages but seem foreign to native Italian speakers.

In chel e a viodût un corvat poiât suntun pin, ch'al tigneve un toc di formadi tal bec.