The Vowels of the Pavese Dialect: A Case Study in Preserving and Promoting Local Linguistic Diversity

This study aims to shed light on the variation and change of the oral dimension of the Pavese dialect, an understudied and low-resourced Gallo-Italic dialect spoken in the province of Pavia (Southwestern Lombardy). We aim to account for the latest developments regarding the impact of the Milanese dialect on the Pavese vowel system, through an experimental assessment. This influence, ongoing from the 19th century, has reduced the phonemic inventory of all Pavese varieties by deleting the distinctive value of /ɐ/, eventually preserved only as an allophone of /a/ in velar contexts but not in the Pavese variety now spoken in Marzano, a town located in the Northeastern part of Pavia’s province in close contact with the Milanese dialect. To address the limited availability of empirical data, and to actively support the conservation and promotion of local linguistic diversity, this study employs an acoustic analysis of the vowels of the Pavese dialect spoken in Marzano. Fieldwork data from six speakers have been collected to provide the first documentation of the tonic vowel system of this variety of Pavese. Finally, results are compared against previous theoretical (general) accounts of the vocalic inventory of Pavese to outline innovations.