Canzés (also written Canzees) is a variety of Brianzöö (a Western Lombard dialect) spoken in the commune of Canzo, Italy. Historical and Cultural Characteristics Canzés is spoken by approximately 2000 people in and near the town of Canzo. It is similar to common Brianzöö, and to varieties of Vallassina, of Como, of Lecco and of Monza, but it also shares similarities with Milanese because of historical ties with Milan. Its lexicon is partially shared with Brianzöö. In comparison with common Brianzöö, Canzés has a broader variety of stylistic registers, from peasant style to courtly style. Because Canzo is in the northernmost zone of the Brianza, Canzés preserves lexical archaisms better than modern Milanese, and has changed less under the influence of Italian. In the Linguistic and Ethnographic Atlas of Italy and Southern Switzerland (AIS) of the Universities of Bern and Zurich (1928–1940) and in the Acoustic Vivarium of Italian Languages and Dialects (VivALDI) of the Humboldt University of Berlin (1998–2018) Canzo has been chosen as the only linguistic tracing point of a very large area, including not only the entire macro-Brianza, but also the entire provinces of Como and Milan (except for the Bustocco-Legnanese linguistic island). Indeed, Canzo has characteristics of conservation and authenticity otherwise absent in this geographic area, historically much innovative. For this reason it can be said that Canzés dialect – while preserving, in some of its registers, peculiar local features – is the reference variety for a study of the most archaic elements of the most prestigious variant of the Lombard language (see Milanese dialect). Historical origins The language descends from Latin with some influence from a Celtic substratum due to the original inhabitants of the region, the Insubres, Lambrani, Lepontii, and Orobi (local populations already merged with Gauls). Langobardic made an impact as a superstratum, as did the languages of later Spanish, French and Austrian rulers. Canzés is famous as the language of magicians and vagabonds and is seldom spoken today. Phonology Consonants Vowels Contrasts exist between long and short vowels in stressed syllables, but in unstressed syllables the contrast is neutralized. and have and respectively as allophones, when stressed and followed by ; and have as a rare allophone; is pronounced closed; the open pronunciation is an allophone by analogy, when the vowel is unstressed and in another dialect there is ; has and as allophones by analogy, when the vowel is unstressed and