Pax Augusta
Elite member
Thanks for these, Pax Augusta,
I'm not a linguist, but from just listening to these people speak, the different demarcation lines in Massa Carrara and the La Spezia area make absolute sense to me. Vezzano Ligure (my maternal grandfather's area) is definitely north and west of all those lines, as is Pontremoli. The area where line 1 terminates looks to be pretty close to the ancestral villages of my mother's mother. Line 3, more in the black and white version than the colored one tracks the Magra River for part of the way, with the accents to the west being less influenced by Tuscan.* It's always been and is still extraordinary to me that there could be such a difference across a river that in the height of summer is often mostly dry and thus you can walk to the other side. However, even into my father's time if not my mother's (he was much older) to cross the river from where I was born was impossible for most of the year. You had to go far up or down river to reach a bridge. Interestingly, in Roman times there was a large bridge there. Lines 2,4,6 and 7 are in the Garfagnana, which definitely sounds more Tuscan to me, and the Fivizzano of Bonomi is under their influence..
The different demarcation lines in Massa Carrara and the La Spezia area demonstrate how the passage from Tuscan to Gallo-Italic (and vice versa) is gradual and that the Magra river could have had a role indeed.
*I don't have the link handy, but the division around this area is much earlier even than Diocletian's administrative reforms. Even in the earliest times the Magra served as a boundary (a secondary one after the Arno) between the "Etruschi" and the Celti-Liguri. For example, although the Etruschi were not far, no settlements have been found in the Lungiana, just trade goods, and, interestingly, some written Etruscan on some of our statue stele The earliest Roman administrators drew the administrative line nearby as well, at Luni at the mouth of the Magra.
Yes, Luni as most of modern-day Lunigiana was in Etruria region during the reign of Augustus. The mouth of the Magra seems to be the historical border. True that no Etruscan settlements have been found in the Lunigiana but according to historical sources (Titus Livius Patavinus known as Livy) Luni was an ancient Etruria town just before being occupied by Ligurians and then by Romans. Not to mention that there is another Luni in Italy and it's located in southern Etruria, modern-day Latium, Luni sul Mignone, but probably just a coincidence. In Liguria Etruscan remains were found, however, if I remember correctly in Genoa and other places (Chiavari?). Anyway the interactions between Ligurians and Etruscans, probably very ancient, deserve some other posts. I will be back on this.
Titus Livius Patavinus known as Livy, (XLI, 13)
.... De Ligure captus is ager erat. Etruscorum antequam Ligurum, fuerat.
Livy said that Ager Lunensis (Lunigiana) was Etruscan before than Ligurian.
Emanuele Repetti (he was born in Carrara), Dizionario geografico, fisico, storico della Toscana: contenente la descrizione di tutti i luoghi del granducato, ducato di Lucca, Garfagnana e Lunigiana, 1833-1845.
"LUNI (LUNA) nella Val di Magra. Piccola città distrutta di origine etrusca, per quanto sia stata per molto tempo dominata dai Liguri, cui sottentrarono i Romani, dai quali la, città col suo distretto fu riunita al governo di Pisa, e conseguentemente alla provincia toscana. Quindi Luni sotto il triumvirato di Ottaviano, M. Antonio e Lepido dov� acocogliere una colonia militare. Dal dominio imperiale passò in potere dei Visigoti. quindl tornò ligia degl'Imperatori d'Oriente, cui fu tolta al prinicipio del secolo VII dai Longobardi che la riunirono pacificamente al loro regno. Vinti cotesti, ed espulsi dai Franchi, Luni decadde ogni giorno più sotto il regno de'Carolingi. Finalmente saccheggiata varie volte da genti di mare e disertata di abitatori dai ristagni palustri, che resero ogni giorno più malsano quel suolo, nel secolo XV fu totalmente abbandonata anche dal clero, quando si trasportarono a Sarzana con le reliquie di Luni le onorificenze di città."
http://www.archeogr.unisi.it/repetti/dbms/sk.php?id=2513
a more exacting ( recent , 2 to 3 years old ) picture of the languages of the northern italian lands..............note even the cimbrian languages
The bergamo area , known as east-lombard has a very high concentration of venetian in it............most likely due to the 350 years of venetian control
http://digidownload.libero.it/alpdn/Mappe/LinguePadanesi.png
Thanks. My gf has Cimbrian ancestors. I will post something about them later.