Languages of the world
Cimbrian (zimbar)
Basic facts
Number of native speakers: 400
Recognized minority language: Trentino (Italy)
Script: Latin, 26 letters
Grammatical cases: 3
Linguistic typology: fusional, SVO
Language family: Indo-European, Germanic, West Germanic, Irminonic, High German, Upper German, Bavarian
Number of dialects: 2 dialects
History
1287 - first evidence of Cimbrian presence
16th century - first text written in Cimbrian
1948 - proposal of a theory about the Lombardic origin of the Cimbrians
Writing system and pronunciation
These are the letters that make up the alphabet: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z.
Diacritics and graphemes common in German are used for sounds that do not exist in Italian, while diphthongs are written as in Italian.
Grammar
Nouns have three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), two numbers (singular and plural), and three cases (nominative, accusative, and dative). The genitive case was formerly used, but has now been replaced by vo (of) + dative.
Both definite and indefinite articles have long and short forms depending on stress.
Verbs are conjugated for tense, mood (indicative, subjunctive, conditional, and imperative), voice (active and passive), person, and number. Infinitives have two forms, a simple and a dependent infinitive.
As a result of Italian influence, Cimbrian verbs do not move to the second position as in German.
Dialects
There are two dialects, one is spoken in the Thirteen and Seven communities and the other in Luserna. The differences between them are mainly phonological and orthographic.
