It was already declining by the seventh century because the invaders quickly adopted the Vulgar Latin spoken by the local population.

In the case of loanwords, these are often attested much later, by which time their form will have been affected not only by the adaptation to the phonology of the various Gallo-Italic languages but also by subsequent sound changes in the development of Italian.

The term stolesazo (ablative)[17] (the second element is cognate with English seat) in the Edictum Rothari shows the same shift.

[20][21] In any case, the Lombard host which had invaded Italy was not monolingual: in addition to a sizeable body of Saxons, there were also "Gepids, Bulgars, Sarmatians, Pannonians, Suevi, Noricans and so on" (Historia Langobardorum, II, 26).

"[23] The Lombard conversion from Arianism to Roman Catholicism in the 7th century would have removed a major barrier to the integration of the two populations.

The 8th century also saw the development of hybrid names with both Lombardic and Latin elements (e.g. Alipertulus = Lgb Alipert + Lat.

[30] One problem in detecting Lombardic loans is that they are not always readily distinguishable from Gothic, the language of the previous Germanic rulers of Italy.

[31] However, the Sound Shift is equally present in Alemannic and Bavarian, which are also potential sources of loans into Northern Italian varieties at this period.

[32] The main areas of the Lombardic vocabulary surviving in Italian are: warfare and weapons, the law, government and society, housebuilding and the household, objects and activities from daily life.

Of these, however, Lombardic government and legal terms were to a great extent superseded by the Gallo-Roman vocabulary of the Frankish conquest.

[33][7] The predominance of loans relating to daily life "would appear to be a sign that the Longobards fitted in and integrated with the locals at a grass-roots level.

For example the Lombardic name Gairo ("spear") is the source of: Noci Garrioni (Cremona), Garin (Turin), Garini (Cuneo and Alessandria), Carengo (Novara), Ghiringhello (Verona), Gairilo (Brescia), Ghirla, (Verona), Garlasco (Pavia), Garleri (Porto Maurizio), and Garlazzolo (Pavia).