ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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The Ticino dialect is the whole of the dialects, belonging to the western and alpine branches of the Lombard language, spoken in the northern part of the Canton Ticino (Sopraceneri); the dialects of the region can vary generally from valley to valley, often even between individual locations, while preserving the mutual intelligibility that is proper to the Lombard linguistic continuum.

By Ticino, or dialect of the railway, we mean instead the lingua franca used by the speakers of local dialects (in particular those divergent from the same koinè, as for example the Leventinese) in the communication with speakers of other dialects western Lombards of Ticino, the Graubünden (collectively known as Italian Switzerland) or Italian Lombardy.

Diffusion

Bernardino Biondelli, in his "Saggio sui dialetti gallo-italici" of 1853, describes the Ticinese dialect as the dialect "parlato in the northern part of the Swiss canton of name, to the norte of Monte Cènere, in several varieties, among which distinguonsi over all the favelles of the Maggia, Verzale, Leventina". In this sense it excluded the dialects spoken in the Sottoceneri, instead associated with the comasco dialect.

The linguistic belonging of the dialects of the southern Canton of Ticino to the comasca area was later analyzed also by the Ticino linguist Franco Lurà in his "The dialect of Mendrisiotto" of 1987, in which it reports a dialectal pronunciation that "is considered the most important phonetic section of the Mendrisiotto from Keller, which considers it the characteristic that most clearly certifies the membership, from the point of Como. The Mendrisiotto is the extreme southern tip of the Canton Ticino and the immediate northern outskirts of the city of Como.

Fabio Pusterla, in his "Il dialetto della Valle Intelvi" of 1981 and in the following "Cultura e lingua della Valle Intelvi" of 1983, speaks of "koinè comasca" and "koinè comasco-luganese" with reference to the varieties of the Lombard language spoken between the lakes of Como and Lugano, including in his analysis the dialects included between "the western shore of the particular Lario and that

Koinè Ticino
In Italian Switzerland a koinè has developed over the decades, that is a lingua franca, commonly known as the dialect of the railway and modeled on the dialects of the main urban centers, which makes more intelligible among them the locutors of the different areas of Ticino, from Chiasso to Airolo, but also with the rest of Italian Switzerland (Italian regions) and with the Lombards of the Italian areas adjacent general (such as Varese and Como, Italy).

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