Sö! fàt an bèl sigh !

The ancient language of the Lombards (or Langobards) has left numerous tracks in modern Italian. What’s more, that ‘mysterious’ language (a strange mix of Old Norse, Old Saxon and Old High German) had influences on the medieval formation of the so called ‘vulgar’, spoken dialects (but I prefer to use the term ‘languages’) of some regions as Lombardy, Emilia, Frioul etc. To say ‘to cry’ in modern Italian we say ‘piangere’ (from ancient Latin plangere (properly ‘to hit’), ancient Italian plorare (like the French pleurer or the Catalan plorar from Latin plorare (to cry, to complain). In my ‘dialect’ (low mantuan , aka Mantfàn) to say ‘cry, to cry’ , instead we say ‘ sigh /sighàa’. I still remember when my granny’s brother, knowing her capacity to be ‘moved’ when he reminisced of old aunties of theirs or ‘the old times’, to mock her, he told her jokingly, in ‘dialect ‘: ’ sö! fàt an bèl sigh’ (= c’mon! do a ’nice’ cry!) In my humble opinion this dialectal ‘sigh’ of ours is an ‘archeological’ relic of an ancient Lombard word cognate with the modern English word sigh ( from Old English sighte, past tense of sican (to sigh),Old Saxon swogan (to rustle)) . This shows how important, the so often ‘despised’ (in the past, by some ‘pompous’ lecturers ) ‘dialects’ for the study of mediaeval history, in fact are. Attached is a picture of our beloved Mantuan countryside, in early February, thanks to Joanna for the scan. Bibliografia minima: PAUL THE DEACON History of the Lombards, AA.VV. I Longobardi e la Lombardia. Saggi, 1978, OTTO VON HESSEN La Cultura Materiale Presso I Longobardi (ib. , 1978), WILLIAM D. FOULKE /AUGUSTA EDEL History of the Langobards, 1907, GIANCARLO MENIS(a cura di) L’Italia Longobarda, 1991, JÖRG JARNUT Storia dei Longobardi (Geschichte der Langobarden ),1982, CLAUDIO AZZARA L’Italia dei Barbari, 2002, GIANLUIGI BARNI I Longobardi in Italia, 1974, MARIO BRIOZZI (a cura di) Longobardi , 1980, VITTORIA GRAZI Le Parole Lombarde di Origine Longobarda, 1978,