Luserna – the Italian Village Where They Speak Cimbrian

According to some scholars – including the most famous Cimbrian writer, Mario Rigoni Stern (1921–2008) – the Cimbrians descend from the warlike tribe of Danish origin known as the Zimbar, who around 100 BC crossed the Alps and attempted to attack the Romans.

“And from the Zimbar might come the word Zimbrisch – the language of the Cimbrians,” says Aurora, a local woman. This theory is also supported by local toponymy (the study of place names) and numerous legends, often linked to Viking mythology. But historians tend to doubt this myth.

“Still, the tale of the fierce Zimbar tribe has endured as part of our local identity,” Aurora insists. “Many people in Luserna still proudly claim their ‘northern ancestors’.”Written records, however, show that the first Cimbrians were German colonists who came from the area around Lake Starnberg and Lake Ammersee. In the Middle Ages, the princes of Trento invited Bavarian carpenters, shepherds, woodcutters, and stonemasons to clear and settle the hard-to-reach and sparsely populated plateaus of southern Trentino and north-western Veneto. Some sources claim they were brought here by Prince-Bishop Federico Vanga, who ruled his principality in the Holy Roman Empire roughly between 1290 and 1310.The settlers spoke an old form of German with a Bavarian dialect, whose grammar and vocabulary evolved over centuries under the strong influence of Romance languages. The result is a language both soft and harsh: I grüazaz means “good day”, bóart is “work”, and studjàrn means “to study”. Its guttural sounds seem as if the wind had carried them from the far north and left them to take root on the plateau with the Bavarian woodcutters who, since the 13th century, felled the surrounding forests.

“The name Alpe Cimbra comes from them,” Aurora explains. “Alpe in Italian refers to a high-mountain area, and Cimbra points to the original inhabitants – the Cimbrians.”Cimbrian reached its peak between 1500 and 1700, when over 20,000 people spoke it. Then it began to be absorbed by local dialects. Mussolini completed the work of destruction: during fascism, only Italian was to be heard in Italy.In remote Luserna, this meant the banning of the mother tongue. Road signs were repainted, local German names disappeared from maps, and children were to be taught only in Italian at school.

While most nearby villages long ago switched to Italian or mix it with a South Tyrolean dialect, in Luserna more than two-thirds of the residents still speak Cimbrian in daily life – at home, in school, at celebrations. Remoteness and the barrier of high mountains allowed the people here, despite political decrees, to never stop using their language.When I enter the well-known restaurant Malga Millegrobbe, near the cross-country skiing area, I am greeted with: “Guute nàacht!” – Good evening.

Owner Massimo then switches into English and leads me to a table. I watch him converse with locals in Italian, German, and Cimbrian as if playing a three-voiced instrument.

Inside the former alpine hut, the air smells of wood, broth, and roasted onion.I want to try something from the Cimbrian kitchen.

“Our menu has simple traditional mountain dishes, based on recipes and memories of what was eaten here when there was little, but everything had flavour,” says Massimo.His chef uses herbs that local women still gather according to the Cimbrian calendar. In my soup I taste meadow wormwood; in the dumpling, goat’s cheese from a nearby farm.

For the main course, I order Millegrobbe – a mix of polenta, melted cheese, porcini mushrooms, beans, and salsa luganega, made from the traditional northern Italian pork sausage delicately spiced with nutmeg, pepper, and wine. And with it, a beer from a nearby brewery.

“Nothing here is imported; everything is grazed, grown, or made within a few kilometres,” Massimo explains. “We pick the porcini ourselves in the surrounding woods, the goats are raised by Serafino at his farm in Nosselari, and the beer is brewed by Mateo in Folgaria. Everything has a source and a story.”

A local, ultra-modern brewery in Folgaria with a breathtaking view over the Rosspach valley is among the highest-altitude breweries in Europe. It was founded seven years ago and is already collecting international awards. Its name is BarbaForte—which in Italian means “horseradish,” but in the local Cimbrian dialect also something like “tough old man.” And that “tough old man” is Mateo, a patron of local culture.

For years, he dreamed of opening his own brewery and creating recipes with a distinctive character.

Already the owner of several bars on the Alpe Cimbra plateau, he began experimenting passionately with beer. “I was fascinated by the whole brewing process. The most important thing is high-quality ingredients, including crystal-clear Alpine water, which makes up 95% of any beer. In 2016, with the support of two companies, I started production based on my own recipes—and in August 2018 I fulfilled my dream,” says the respected brewmaster in his new microbrewery, offering very original beers in playfully designed bottles and cans. And because music is just as important to him as hops, he creates beer recipes dedicated to specific musicians and musical styles in Alpe Cimbra.

One example is Doppio Scoop, a light pale beer with notes of pineapple, lime, and grapefruit, named after a band that collaborates with the brewery during summer cultural events. Skaromantika, meanwhile, takes its name from the ska music genre and pays tribute to the legendary Trentino band Red Solution.

“I want every beer to have something of me in it, to reflect my personality,” he says, almost sentimentally.

Mateo’s creative experimenting is also evident in other avant-garde ideas, such as the popular Brünn Cuvée, which blends beer with local red wine.

Opposite the old bell tower in the village of San Sebastiano is a cheese shop run by Mrs. Morena. Hanging on the door is a wooden sign with the Cimbrian words Maso Guez—and next to it, a picture of a cow with a bold heart-shaped marking on its side.

“Guuten mòrgont!” she greets me in Cimbrian, inviting me in to taste homemade cheeses.

“Good morning!” I reply in kind, while looking at the curious goat-themed logo. She tells me how, on their farm, a white goat was born with a brown marking on its side in the shape of a heart. “We named her Gertrude II. It was a sign from nature. My husband Serafino made her the visual identity of our company,” Morena laughs. “And do you know what Maso Guez means? It’s simple—‘goat farm.’ But in Cimbrian.”

I am amazed at how small the world is up on the Alpe Cimbra plateau: Morena is the wife of farmer Serafino, who has a farm in nearby Nosellari and supplies Massimo’s Malga Millegrobe restaurant in Luserna. She insists I must visit, because there Serafino—and in the summer, even their son Simone—teach tourists how to milk goats, make goat cheese, and even predict an approaching storm by watching the herd’s behavior.

As we say goodbye, Morena asks me: “Dóus dai fénn?” I don’t understand.

“Do you want some hay?” she says, pushing a handful of feed into my hand for the baby goats, and shows me the way to their family farm, 1,000 meters above sea level. And so I meet Serafino, who is just then leading a group of tourists to the goat enclosure. But here’s the twist—Serafino is not Cimbrian. He is an immigrant from Sardinia, where his family had a flock of sheep that he no longer wanted to care for.

“I longed for life in a big city. I didn’t want to be a shepherd and inherit the family farm in Sardinia. So I fled north to Trentino. And here, unexpectedly, goats were waiting for me—along with the Cimbrian language and… my beloved Morena, who I have to listen to. She’s the boss. And when she said ‘goats,’ I bought goats. Well, first just one. Her name was Gertrude. And all these here are her children…” He points to the hundred-strong herd and to Fritzl, the billy goat who fathers all of Serafino’s kids. He calls every nanny goat by name, and when he speaks about the herd, it’s as if he’s talking about his family. Children laugh, goats bleat, and the shepherd continues: “In Sardinia, you graze sheep—but here in the mountains, goats are real fun. They go their own way, but still keep to the herd. Just like the Cimbrians.”

Then Serafino’s son appears, leading the company’s celebrity—Gertrude II, with the brown heart on her side.

“Do you speak Cimbrian?” I ask the twenty-year-old Simone.

“Ya, guet wia die Muatr. Koa schtòll z’Sant Sebastiaan,” he answers, and I don’t understand a word. “You know, Cimbrian isn’t just a language—it’s also home.”

Later, I decipher from the educational panels: Koa schtòll z’Lusérn—“There’s no better place than Luserna.”