Lombard

A Gallo-Italic language spoken in Italy. It is co-official with Italian in Lombardy, Italian and Emilian in Mantua, and Italian, German, Helvetian and Venetian in Trento. It is also spoken in parts of Piedmont and the Two Sicilies.

Orthography

Lombard uses the classical Milanese orthography, which is broadly similar to the classical Milanese orthography *here* except for one small difference: the digraph ou is used, as in French, to represent the phoneme [u]. This change arose in the mid-19th century out of a necessity for a standard Lombard; the vast majority of Lombard dialects used had the phoneme [o], which did not exist in Milanese and was not distinguished in writing from [u]. As the language was unified with a standard intended to represent all dialects, the two phonemes had to be distinguished, and therefore "ou" was imported from French and Narbonósc.

Indo-European - Italic languages
Latin / Romance Languages								Faliscan † Oscan † Umbrian †
Western Romance							Lessinu Sardinian Xliponian South-Central Romance North-Central Romance Eastern Romance
Britanno-Romance	Gallo-Romance			Northern Italian	Ibero-Romance	Jovian
	Langues d'Oil	Langues d'Oua	Langues d'Oc
Breathanach Brehonecq Brithenig Brzhonegh Cumbreg Kerno	Francien Laurentian Normand Angli Picard Wallon	Dauphinois Forézien Jurassien Lyonais Savoyard	Auvergnat Gascon Limousin Narbonosc Catalan	Lombard Emiliano-Romagnolo Venetian Piedmontese Ligurian	Aragonese Asturian Castilian Galician Ladino Montreiano Portuguese	Jovian