Mentonasc, also called Mentonasco (in Italian) or Mentonnais (in French), is a Ligurian (Northern Italian) dialect spoken even near Ventimiglia, Sanremo (intemelio) and the Upper Roya Valley (royasque/roiasc).
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The Mentonasc shows some transition features to Occitan subdialect, traditionally assigned to the Occitan language (Provençal Niçard dialect).
In the Archivio Glottologico Italiano XII, 1890/92, pp. 97-106 there is written that « Il dialetto di Mentone, in quanto egli tramezzi ideologicamente tra il provenzale e il ligure » (The dialect of Mentone is in the middle between the Ligurian and Provential dialects/le dialecte de Menton, en ce qu'il est intermédiaire idéologique entre le provençal et le ligure).
The French scholar Bernard Cerquiglini pinpoints in his Les langues de France the actual existence of a Ligurian minority in Tende, Roquebrune and Menton, a remnant of a bigger mediaeval "Ligurian" area that included Nice and most of the coastal County of Nice.
When the area of Menton was part of the Republic of Genoa and later of the Kingdom of Savoy, the Mentonasc was used in all the coastal area between Monaco and Ventimiglia. It was a local version of the historical intemelio, a medieval western ligurian dialect.
In the XIX century the Mentonasc was used in the territories of the Free cities of Mentone & Roccabruna, an independent little State created in connection with the Italian Risorgimento.
When France annexed all the county of Nice in 1860, Mentonasc started to disappear, substituted by the French language and the Occitan dialect of French immigrants from Provence. It is still spoken by a minority (approximately 10%) in the city of Menton and surrounding villages like Roccabruna, near the border with Italy. Isolated communities of Nizzardo Italians still use the Mentonasc.
Furthermore, since the inclusion of the County of Nice in France in 1860, the Mentonasc has been influenced by the French language and it is nearly extinct.[citation needed]
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