LINGUA LOMBARDA?

The paper deals with the vivid concept of ‘lingua lombarda’ (often in between higher and lower cultures) as it is can be traced in a wide range of authors, from the first centuries to Dante, from Manzoni to 20th- and 21st-centuries scholars. It is in Italian dialectal areas where it is especially clear the cultural and methodological connection between (micro-)history and (micro-)geography for the long linguistic history of Italy. On the steps of a willing and yet perfectible regional law, scholars and academics (and the very Crusca too) should take actions in favour of these documentary and oral testimonies of ‘local varieties’ in order to avoid their disappearance; they are an immaterial and now endangered treasure which was able, over the centuries, to give voice to so many ‘vili e meccanici’. One important step in this direction could be a new (historically and geographically oriented) reading of the AIS maps.