Western Lombard and Italian
In Italian-speaking contexts, Western Lombard is often called a dialect of Italian. Western Lombard and Standard Italian are very different. Some speakers of Lombard varieties may have difficulty understanding each other and require a standard to communicate, but all Western Lombard varieties are mutually intelligible. Western Lombard is relatively homogenous (much more so than Eastern Lombard language), though it does present a number of variations, mainly in relation to the vowels /o/, /ɔ/ and the development of /ts/ into /s/.
At the present time, Western Lombard has no official status in Lombardy or anywhere else. The only official language in Lombardy is Italian.
Read more about this topic: Western Lombard Dialects
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