Ligurian (Romance language) Ligurian (Romance language) Ligurian ("ligure" or "lengua ligure") is a Gallo-Italic language spoken in Liguria in Northern Italy, parts of the Mediterranean coastal zone of France, Monaco and in the villages of Carloforte and Calasetta in Sardinia. It is part of the Gallo-Italic and Western Romance dialect continuum. The Genoese ("Zeneize"), spoken in Genoa, the capital of Liguria, is the language's prestige dialect on which the standard is based. There is a long literary tradition of Ligurian poets and writers that goes from the 13th century to the present, such as Luchetto (the Genoese Anonym), Martin Piaggio and Gian Giacomo
Ligurian language (ancient) the Ligurian place-name "Genua" (modern Genoa, located near a river mouth) is claimed by Delamarre to derive from PIE *"ǵenu-", "chin(bone)". Many Indo-European languages use 'mouth' to mean the part of a river which meets the sea or a lake, but it is only in Celtic for which reflexes of PIE *"ǵenu-" mean 'mouth'. Besides Genua, which is considered Ligurian (Delamarre 2003, p. 177), this is found also in "Genava" (modern Geneva), which may be Gaulish. However, "Genua" and "Genava" may well derive from another PIE root with the form *"ǵonu-", which means "knee" (so in Pokorny, IEW). Delamarre's second