Hej Eirikr,
I think that the Germanic languages I have been studying are not so difficult...the only one which I need to consolidate is German,because as I said I gave it up after I had left high school,so now I need to polish it up again (I need to speak it)..but music helps me to refresh it a lot (I love German black metal and there are many groups who sing in German).Of course Germanic languages are quite different from Italian,but I think that in some cases they are actually easier! Now to your question:In our dialect there are many words (which mainly refer to everyday life)which come from Lombardic words,e.g."tusa", which means girl(in Swedish there is a similar word,"tosen"but it is now quite rare),"erbion" which means "peas" (German: Erbsen)and many more.The sounds of our dialect are quite similar to those of Swedish and German,especially the wovels which have a long and closed sounds.However,it can be quite difficult to separate the Germanic influence on these sounds from Celtic influence,because as you'll certainly know our territory was dominated by the Celts (Insubres)before the Romans came (Insubria= Lombardy). An important Lombard vestigian can be found,on the other hand,in place names.We have indeed many place names which contain the words Fara or Sala:these prove that in those places there were the monthly meetings of the Thing (Sala equates the German Saal and the Swedish salen,the big hall).Fara,which corresponds to the German verb "fahren" and to the Swedish "att fara" (to go),means originally a whole clan with a common chieftain who "moved",travelled together to the same destination.Near my home town there are Fara d'Adda and Sala Comacina.