Line Spezia-Rimini

In the aspects Linguistic S of the Romance Languages, the line Spezia - Rimini (rather vague name which it would be advisable to replace by that of line Massed - Senigallia , sometimes the city close to Carrare being preferred in Massa), is a linguistic line of demarcation which refers to a big number of Isoglosse S distinguishing rather clearly the Western Romance languages from those Eastern.

In the south of the line Massed-Senigallia, the Eastern languages Romance constitute what is called by the linguists the Eastern Romania . They include/understand in particular the Italian standard, the Corsican , the Rumanian and its Wallachian alternatives as well as old the Dalmate.
In the north of the line Massed-Senigallia, the Western Romance languages constitute the Romania Occidentale . They include/understand the various speeches of the group of the septentrional Italian , the group Rhéto-roman (Ladin, Romanche and Frioulan), the French, the Francoprovençal, the Occitan, the Catalan, the Spanish (Castilian), and groups it Galician and Portuguese.

The Sarde is generally not included/understood in this distribution (the dialects Gallurais and Sassarese, in the north of Sardinia, are detached from the Sardinian and are closely related on the Corsica and the Italian , in Romania Eastern).

The line follows the watershed between continental Italy and that peninsular, its ends being the towns of Massed (Toscane) and of Senigallia (Marches). The main feature of this line relates to the voicing certain consonants in intervocalic position (between the vowels), and particularly /p/, /t/ /k/ of the Latin . The sound character, the weakening or the fall of these consonants are the characteristic of the Western part, in the north and the west of this line. Their maintenance is the constant in the part in the south and the east of the same line. For example, Latin focu (m) (/m/ final did not decide any more in traditional Latin) became fuoco in Italian and jib in Rumanian but evolved towards fogo in the Italian dialects of north (as in Vénitien), towards fuego in Spanish or fire in French.

Another important isoglossal is that relating to the Pluriel names. In the north and the west of this line, plural comes from the plural Accusatif from Latin and generally finishes by /s/ (except for the dialects of Italy of north, as the Vénitien which could have known a form of this type in the past but which regained the Italian shape since) and of French where the S does not decide any more, while being preserved in the writing and the connections, without reference of kind and variation. In the south and the east of the aforesaid the line, the plural of the names finishes with a vowel. The explanation is that this plural derives from the case Nominatif or then of the Latin change of /s/ in /i/. In several cases, especially in the dialects where the final vowel is neutralized in/ ə /, also often change the intermediate vowels, by phenomenon of Métaphonie, as in German. Here examples in Italian and Spanish:

Who more is, the Western Romance languages have common innovations, in Phonétique, which are absent from Eastern languages.

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