Aspects of this topic are discussed in the following places at Britannica.
...however, these variant dialects form a continuum of intelligibility, although geographically distant dialects may be radically different. The northern dialects include what are often called the Gallo-Italian dialects (Piedmontese, Lombard, Ligurian, Emilian-Romagnol), in which some linguists discern the influence of a Celtic (Gaulish) substratum (i.e., the traces of a language...
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