The Cimbrians are a population of German ancestry who came from Bavaria to the Italian Alpine foothills of Veneto and Trentino during the middle Ages. Their skills in wood processing and forest clearing made their settling easier. In this way the Cimbrians settled into the newly available farmsteads in the
mountains and developed a culture and language of their own, as they were to a
large extend isolated from the outside world.

Luserna/Lusern, a small mountain village (1333 m) southeast of Trento has now become the last language enclave where Cimbrian is

spoken, an old Bavarian language or an old German dialect that became extinct in Bavaria already centuries ago. And still by 90% of the population, i.e. by circa 300 people. The last census of 2001 however shows a positive trend; in the province of Trento alone 862 “Cimbrians” were counted.