Marseille!--How is it Pronounced?

[Primoz]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

I think the reason with Northern Italy at least is that a big piece of it was once in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and hence places evolved Germanic variants: hence Brunico/Bruneck and Bolzano/Bozen. There are still German-speaking minorities in some of these regions, I believe.

What you mentioned is a specific case. Both Brunico/Bruneck and Bolzano/Bozen lie in the autonomous region of South Tyrol (or Alto Adige as the Italians call it), the latter being the region's capital. South Tyrol has a German speaking majority (over 60%) rather than minority (but of course - globally speaking - they are a minority in Italy).

But on the other hand, in the Middle Ages (and later) German emperors ruled over parts of Italy while Germany and France don't have this kind of common history.