- published: 26 Nov 2015
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Lombard is a member of the Cisalpine or Gallo-Italic group within the Romance languages. It is spoken natively in Northern Italy (most of Lombardy and some areas of neighbouring regions, notably the eastern side of Piedmont) and Southern Switzerland (Ticino and Graubünden).
The two main varieties (Western Lombard language and Eastern Lombard language) show differences and are often, but not always, mutually comprehensible[citation needed].
Lombard is considered a minority language, structurally separated from Italian, by the Ethnologue reference catalogue and by the UNESCO Red Book on Endangered Languages. However, the Italian Republic and Swiss Confederation do not recognise Lombard speakers as a linguistic minority. This official line is the same as for most other minority languages in Italy, which are officially considered Italian dialects in spite of the fact that they belong to different sub-groups of the Romance language family, and in their historical development are in no way derivative of Italian [ (this fact being obscured to some extent by the use of Italian orthography to write these languages, and by influence from Italian[citation needed][dubious – discuss]).