What is it?
The Scriver Lombard spelling system (abbreviated as SL) is a polynomic orthography for the Lombard language.
Conceived by the linguist Lissander Brasca in the early years of the third millennium, SL is rooted in the oldest traditions of the language and is explained in detail in the , first published in December 2011.
SL draws inspiration from the oldest Lombard literary tradition, namely the medieval one: Vivaldo Belcalzer, Bonvesin de la Riva, Uguccione da Lodi, etc.
Objective
The SL spelling system aims to create an orthographic koiné for all Lombard varieties.
In other words, it is meant to be a partially uniform way of writing Lombard for all Lombard speakers, without anyone having to think in a dialect different from their own.
Partially uniform because some small differences remain between the various varieties, but they are minimized so as not to create problems in supra-provincial comprehension.
Why?
Like any “dialectalized” language—discriminated against and stripped of its sociolinguistic history, and for decades confined mainly to spoken use—Lombard today does not have a standard orthographic system.
The most widespread spellings, developed at the end of the nineteenth century and based on the Italian writing system (with the addition of the letters ü and ö), are not suited to the Lombard linguistic system and make supra-provincial communication more difficult. Even classical Milanese, perhaps the only Lombard system with a certain historical tradition, does not fit all Lombard varieties and has the drawback of having been developed in subordination to the Tuscan system, thus not fully respecting the idiosyncratic morphophonology of Lombard varieties. For these reasons, the Scriver Lombard project was created.