Searching for: Italian language?
Italian is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million
people, most of whom live in Italy. Standard Italian is based on Tuscan dialects and is somewhat
intermediate between the languages of Southern Italy and the Gallo-Romance
languages of the North. The long-established Tuscan standard has,
over the last few decades, been slightly influenced by the variety
of Italian spoken in Milan,
the economic center of Italy. Italian has double (or long)
consonants, like Latin (but
unlike most modern Romance languages, e.g., French and
Spanish). As in most Romance languages (with
the notable exception of French), stress is distinctive.
History
The history of the Italian language is quite complex but the
modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively
recent events. The earliest surviving texts which can definitely be
called Italian (as opposed to its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are
legal formulae from the region of Benevento dating from 960-963
C.E. Italian was first formalized in the 14th century through
the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian
dialects, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his
epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to
which Boccaccio
later affixed the title Divina. Dante's much-loved works
were read throughout Italy and his written dialect became the
canonical standard that others could all understand. Dante is still
credited with standardizing the Italian language.
Italian has always had a distinctive dialect for each city,
since the cities were up until recently city-states. Italians generally believe that
the best spoken Italian is lingua toscana in bocca romana -
'the Tuscan tongue, in a Roman mouth' (Tuscan dialects spoken with
Roman inflection). The Romans are known for speaking clearly and
distinctly, while the Tuscan dialect (supposedly derived from
Etruscan and Oscan), is the closest existing dialect
to Dante's now-standard Italian.
In contrast to the dialects of northern Italy, the older
southern Italian dialects were largely untouched by the
Franco-Occitan influences introduced to Italy,
mainly by bards from France, during the middle ages.
(See La Spezia-Rimini Line.) The economic
might and relative advanced development of Tuscany at the time (late middle ages), gave
its dialect weight, though Venetian remained widespread in medieval
Italian commercial life. Also, the increasing cultural relevance of
Florence during the periods of 'Umanesimo' and Rinascimento (Renaissance) made its
vulgare (dialect) a standard in the arts.
Classification
Italian is a member of the Italo-Dalmatian
group of languages, which is part of the Italo-Western grouping of
the Romance languages, which are a subgroup of
the Italic branch of Indo-European.
Geographic distribution
Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and is an official language in
Ticino and
Grigioni
cantons of Switzerland. It is also the second official
language in Vatican City and in some areas of Istria in Slovenia and Croatia with an Italian
minority. It is widely used by immigrant groups in Luxembourg, the United States,
Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, and Australia, and is also spoken in neighbouring
Malta and Albania. It is spoken, to a
much lesser extent, in parts of Africa formerly under Italian rule such as Somalia, Libya and Eritrea.
Official status
Italian is an official language of Italy, San Marino, Switzerland and Vatican City. It is also an official
language in the Istria County (Croatia) and municipalities of Koper, Piran and Izola
(Slovenia).
Dialects
- See Italian dialects
The dialects of
Italian identified by the Ethnologue are Tuscan, Piemontese, Abruzzese, Pugliese
(Apulian), Umbrian, Laziale, Central Marchigiano,
Cicolano-Reatino-Aquilano, and Molisan. Other dialects are
Milanese, Brescian, Bergamasc, Modenese, Bolognese, Sicilian
and so on, essentially one per city.
Many of the so-called dialects of Italian spoken around the
country are different enough from standard Italian to be considered
separate languages by
most linguists and
some speakers themselves. Thus a distinction can be made between
"dialects of (standard) Italian" and "dialects (or languages) of
Italy".
A link to an Italian site with translation features between
Italian dialects and Italian: [1] (http://www.dialettando.com)
Cultural acceptance of dialects
Dialects are generally not used for general communication, e.g.
on TV, but are limited to groups of people who can actually speak
them and to informal contexts. Speaking dialect is often shunned
upon in Italy as it is a sign of lacking education. The younger
generation speaks almost exclusively standard Italian, usually with
some local accent, but never in such a way that is a barrier to
communication.
Dialects have their share of enthusiasts, but this is a small
niche of the population. The promotion of dialects by some
political forces as the Lega Nord has damaged rather than helped the status
of northern dialects.
Dialects are often used e.g. in movies to provide comic relief
or to produce stereotypes; northern dialects can be connected to
greedy, narrow-minded merchants; Roman accent is associated with
arrogant, simple-minded bullies; Neapolitan reminds of dishonest,
cunning slackers, and Sicilian is for obvious reasons associated
with mafia.
Sounds
Vowels
Italian has seven vowel phonemes:
/a/,
/e/,
/ɛ/,
/i/,
/o/,
/ɔ/,
/u/. The 'couples' (
/e/ -
/ɛ/) and (
/o/ -
/ɔ/) get mixed up in spoken Italian, even though each
variety of Italian employs both phonemes consistently: compare, for
example:
/perkɛ/ (because) and
/senti/ (listen, some northern speakers) with
/perke/ and
/sɛnti/ (most cental and southern speakers). As a
result, the usage is strongly indicative of a person's origin. The
correct (Tuscan) usage of these vowels is listed in vocabularies,
and employed outside Tuscany mainly by the more educated people,
especially actors and (television) journalists. These are truly
different phonemes,
however: compare
/ˈpeska/ (fishing) and
/ˈpɛska/ (peach). Similarly
/ˈbotːe/ (barrel) and
/ˈbɔtːe/ (beatings), both spelled as "botte",
discriminate
/o/ and
/ɔ/.
In general, vowel combinations usually pronounce each vowel
separately. Diphthongs exist, (e.g. "uo", "iu", "ie"), but are
limited to the pattern:
(unstressed "u" or "i") + (stressed vowel)
The unstressed "u" in a diphthong approximates the English
semivowel "w", the unstressed "i" approximates the semivowel "y".
E.g.: buono, ieri. As a semivowel, "j" is an
alternate spelling of i, currently obsolete but common until early
20th century and preserved in specific words like "Jesi" (a
town).
Triphthongs
are limited to a diphthong plus an unstressed "i". (e.g.
miei, tuoi.) Other sequences of three vowels exist
(e.g. noia, febbraio), but they are not triphthongs;
they consist of a vowel followed by a diphthong.
Consonants
Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and voiced
consonant, respectively.
The sound
[ŋ] is an allophone of
/n/ when followed by a velar consonant, i.e.,
/k/ or
/g/.
Italian plosives are not aspirated (unlike in English). Italian speakers
hear the difference as a foreign accent.
Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are
distinguished by length. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for
/z/,
/ʃ/,
/ʦ/,
/ʣ/,
/ʎ/
/ɲ/. Geminate plosives and affricates are realized as
lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives, nasals, and
/l/ are realized as lengthened continuants. Geminate
/ɾ/ is realized as the trill
[rː].
Assimilation
Italian has few diphthongs, and so most unfamiliar diphthongs
heard in foreign words (in particular, those with a first vowel
that is not "i" or "u", or a first vowel that is stressed), will be
assimilated as the corresponding dieresis (i.e., the vowel sounds will be pronounced
separately: "strive" and "hive" will rhyme with "naïve").
Grammar
see Italian grammar.
Writing system
Italian is written using the Latin alphabet. The letters J,
K, W, X and Y are not part of the
standard Italian alphabet, but are seen in imported words (such as
jeans, whiskey, taxi). J may also appear in many words from
different dialects. Each of these foreign letters had an Italian
equivalent spelling: gi, ch, u, cs or
s, and i, but these are now obsolete.
- Italian uses the acute accent over the letter E (as in
perché, why) to indicate a closed vowel, and the grave accent (as in
tè, tea) to indicate an open vowel. The grave accent is also
used on letters A, O and U to mark an unusual
stress position (for instance gioventù, youth). Typically,
the penultimate syllable is stressed.
- The letter H is always silent when it begins a word, and
is only used to distinguish ho, hai, ha,
hanno (present indicative of avere, to have) from
o (or), ai (to the), a (to), anno
(year).
- The letter Z is pronounced
/ʦ/, or sometimes
/ʣ/, depending on context, but the sounds are
considered allophones.
- The letters C and G are a soft
/ʧ/ as in "chair" and
/ʤ/ as in "gem", respectively, before the front vowels I
and E. They are pronounced hard
/k/,
/g/ (as in "call" and "gall") otherwise1. But,
the normally silent H is added between CI, CE,
GI or GE if the consonant is to be pronounced hard.
For example:
-
|
Before back vowel: hard |
Before front vowel: soft |
With "H": hard |
| "C" |
cara (
ˈkaːɾa) |
ciao (
/ˈʧaːɔ/) |
chiaro (
/ˈkjaːɾɔ/) |
| "G" |
gallo (
/ˈgalːɔ/) |
genere (
/ˈʤɛːnɛɾɛ/) |
ghetto (
/ˈgɛtːɔ/) |
- 1(Front/back vowel rules for
C and G are similar in French,
Romanian, and to some extent English.
Swedish and Norwegian
have similar rules for K.)
- There are two special digraphs in Italian: GN
and GL. GN is always pronounced /nj/ (IPA
/ɲ/), and GL is pronounced /lj/ (IPA
/ʎ/) but only before i, and never when at the beginning
of the word. (Compare with Spanish "ñ" and "ll", Portuguese "nh" and "lh".)
- In general all letters are clearly pronounced, and always in
the same way. Spelling is clearly phonetic and difficult to mistake
given a clear pronunciation. Exceptions are generally only found in
foreign borrowings. There is less dyslexia than in languages like English.
Dictionaries
The classic Italian dictionary is Lo Zingarelli.
Many Italian/English dictionaries are available.
Examples
- cheers (generic toast): salute
/saˈluːte/
- English: inglese
/iŋˈglɛːze/
- good-bye: arrivederci
/arːiveˈdɛrtʃi/
- hello: ciao
/ˈtʃɑo/ (informal); buon giorno
/ˈbwon ˈdʒɔrno/ (good morning/good
afternoon), buona sera
/ˈbwoːna ˈsːeːra/ (good
evening)
- Yes: sì /'si/
- No: no /'no/
- Sorry: scusi /sku
ːsi/
- Again: di nuovo /di nwo
ːvo/
- Always: sempre /se
ːmpre/
- Because: perché /per'ke/
- how much?: quanto
/ˈkwɑnto/ (masculine); quanta
/ˈkwɑnta/ (feminine)
- thank you!: grazie! /gra
ːtsje/
See Also
External links
0;Italic
Romance
Italo-Western
Italo-Dalmatian
Italian
| Official
status |
| Official
language of: |
Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Slovenia, Vatican City,
Istria
County (Croatia) |
| Regulated by: |
Accademia della Crusca |
| Language
codes |
| ISO 639-1 |
it |
| ISO
639-2 |
ita |
| SIL |
ITN
(http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=ITN) |
|
See also: Language -
List of
languages |
Italian is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million
people, most of whom live in Italy. Standard Italian is based on Tuscan dialects and is somewhat
intermediate between the languages of Southern Italy and the Gallo-Romance
languages of the North. The long-established Tuscan standard has,
over the last few decades, been slightly influenced by the variety
of Italian spoken in Milan,
the economic center of Italy. Italian has double (or long)
consonants, like Latin (but
unlike most modern Romance languages, e.g., French and
Spanish). As in most Romance languages (with
the notable exception of French), stress is distinctive.
History
The history of the Italian language is quite complex but the
modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively
recent events. The earliest surviving texts which can definitely be
called Italian (as opposed to its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are
legal formulae from the region of Benevento dating from 960-963
C.E. Italian was first formalized in the 14th century through
the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian
dialects, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his
epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to
which Boccaccio
later affixed the title Divina. Dante's much-loved works
were read throughout Italy and his written dialect became the
canonical standard that others could all understand. Dante is still
credited with standardizing the Italian language.
Italian has always had a distinctive dialect for each city,
since the cities were up until recently city-states. Italians generally believe that
the best spoken Italian is lingua toscana in bocca romana -
'the Tuscan tongue, in a Roman mouth' (Tuscan dialects spoken with
Roman inflection). The Romans are known for speaking clearly and
distinctly, while the Tuscan dialect (supposedly derived from
Etruscan and Oscan), is the closest existing dialect
to Dante's now-standard Italian.
In contrast to the dialects of northern Italy, the older
southern Italian dialects were largely untouched by the
Franco-Occitan influences introduced to Italy,
mainly by bards from France, during the middle ages.
(See La Spezia-Rimini Line.) The economic
might and relative advanced development of Tuscany at the time (late middle ages), gave
its dialect weight, though Venetian remained widespread in medieval
Italian commercial life. Also, the increasing cultural relevance of
Florence during the periods of 'Umanesimo' and Rinascimento (Renaissance) made its
vulgare (dialect) a standard in the arts.
Classification
Italian is a member of the Italo-Dalmatian
group of languages, which is part of the Italo-Western grouping of
the Romance languages, which are a subgroup of
the Italic branch of Indo-European.
Geographic distribution
Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and is an official language in
Ticino and
Grigioni
cantons of Switzerland. It is also the second official
language in Vatican City and in some areas of Istria in Slovenia and Croatia with an Italian
minority. It is widely used by immigrant groups in Luxembourg, the United States,
Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, and Australia, and is also spoken in neighbouring
Malta and Albania. It is spoken, to a
much lesser extent, in parts of Africa formerly under Italian rule such as Somalia, Libya and Eritrea.
Official status
Italian is an official language of Italy, San Marino, Switzerland and Vatican City. It is also an official
language in the Istria County (Croatia) and municipalities of Koper, Piran and Izola
(Slovenia).
Dialects
- See Italian dialects
The dialects of
Italian identified by the Ethnologue are Tuscan, Piemontese, Abruzzese, Pugliese
(Apulian), Umbrian, Laziale, Central Marchigiano,
Cicolano-Reatino-Aquilano, and Molisan. Other dialects are
Milanese, Brescian, Bergamasc, Modenese, Bolognese, Sicilian
and so on, essentially one per city.
Many of the so-called dialects of Italian spoken around the
country are different enough from standard Italian to be considered
separate languages by
most linguists and
some speakers themselves. Thus a distinction can be made between
"dialects of (standard) Italian" and "dialects (or languages) of
Italy".
A link to an Italian site with translation features between
Italian dialects and Italian: [1] (http://www.dialettando.com)
Cultural acceptance of dialects
Dialects are generally not used for general communication, e.g.
on TV, but are limited to groups of people who can actually speak
them and to informal contexts. Speaking dialect is often shunned
upon in Italy as it is a sign of lacking education. The younger
generation speaks almost exclusively standard Italian, usually with
some local accent, but never in such a way that is a barrier to
communication.
Dialects have their share of enthusiasts, but this is a small
niche of the population. The promotion of dialects by some
political forces as the Lega Nord has damaged rather than helped the status
of northern dialects.
Dialects are often used e.g. in movies to provide comic relief
or to produce stereotypes; northern dialects can be connected to
greedy, narrow-minded merchants; Roman accent is associated with
arrogant, simple-minded bullies; Neapolitan reminds of dishonest,
cunning slackers, and Sicilian is for obvious reasons associated
with mafia.
Sounds
Vowels
Italian has seven vowel phonemes:
/a/,
/e/,
/ɛ/,
/i/,
/o/,
/ɔ/,
/u/. The 'couples' (
/e/ -
/ɛ/) and (
/o/ -
/ɔ/) get mixed up in spoken Italian, even though each
variety of Italian employs both phonemes consistently: compare, for
example:
/perkɛ/ (because) and
/senti/ (listen, some northern speakers) with
/perke/ and
/sɛnti/ (most cental and southern speakers). As a
result, the usage is strongly indicative of a person's origin. The
correct (Tuscan) usage of these vowels is listed in vocabularies,
and employed outside Tuscany mainly by the more educated people,
especially actors and (television) journalists. These are truly
different phonemes,
however: compare
/ˈpeska/ (fishing) and
/ˈpɛska/ (peach). Similarly
/ˈbotːe/ (barrel) and
/ˈbɔtːe/ (beatings), both spelled as "botte",
discriminate
/o/ and
/ɔ/.
In general, vowel combinations usually pronounce each vowel
separately. Diphthongs exist, (e.g. "uo", "iu", "ie"), but are
limited to the pattern:
(unstressed "u" or "i") + (stressed vowel)
The unstressed "u" in a diphthong approximates the English
semivowel "w", the unstressed "i" approximates the semivowel "y".
E.g.: buono, ieri. As a semivowel, "j" is an
alternate spelling of i, currently obsolete but common until early
20th century and preserved in specific words like "Jesi" (a
town).
Triphthongs
are limited to a diphthong plus an unstressed "i". (e.g.
miei, tuoi.) Other sequences of three vowels exist
(e.g. noia, febbraio), but they are not triphthongs;
they consist of a vowel followed by a diphthong.
Consonants
Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and voiced
consonant, respectively.
The sound
[ŋ] is an allophone of
/n/ when followed by a velar consonant, i.e.,
/k/ or
/g/.
Italian plosives are not aspirated (unlike in English). Italian speakers
hear the difference as a foreign accent.
Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are
distinguished by length. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for
/z/,
/ʃ/,
/ʦ/,
/ʣ/,
/ʎ/
/ɲ/. Geminate plosives and affricates are realized as
lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives, nasals, and
/l/ are realized as lengthened continuants. Geminate
/ɾ/ is realized as the trill
[rː].
Assimilation
Italian has few diphthongs, and so most unfamiliar diphthongs
heard in foreign words (in particular, those with a first vowel
that is not "i" or "u", or a first vowel that is stressed), will be
assimilated as the corresponding dieresis (i.e., the vowel sounds will be pronounced
separately: "strive" and "hive" will rhyme with "naïve").
Grammar
see Italian grammar.
Writing system
Italian is written using the Latin alphabet. The letters J,
K, W, X and Y are not part of the
standard Italian alphabet, but are seen in imported words (such as
jeans, whiskey, taxi). J may also appear in many words from
different dialects. Each of these foreign letters had an Italian
equivalent spelling: gi, ch, u, cs or
s, and i, but these are now obsolete.
- Italian uses the acute accent over the letter E (as in
perché, why) to indicate a closed vowel, and the grave accent (as in
tè, tea) to indicate an open vowel. The grave accent is also
used on letters A, O and U to mark an unusual
stress position (for instance gioventù, youth). Typically,
the penultimate syllable is stressed.
- The letter H is always silent when it begins a word, and
is only used to distinguish ho, hai, ha,
hanno (present indicative of avere, to have) from
o (or), ai (to the), a (to), anno
(year).
- The letter Z is pronounced
/ʦ/, or sometimes
/ʣ/, depending on context, but the sounds are
considered allophones.
- The letters C and G are a soft
/ʧ/ as in "chair" and
/ʤ/ as in "gem", respectively, before the front vowels I
and E. They are pronounced hard
/k/,
/g/ (as in "call" and "gall") otherwise1. But,
the normally silent H is added between CI, CE,
GI or GE if the consonant is to be pronounced hard.
For example:
-
|
Before back vowel: hard |
Before front vowel: soft |
With "H": hard |
| "C" |
cara (
ˈkaːɾa) |
ciao (
/ˈʧaːɔ/) |
chiaro (
/ˈkjaːɾɔ/) |
| "G" |
gallo (
/ˈgalːɔ/) |
genere (
/ˈʤɛːnɛɾɛ/) |
ghetto (
/ˈgɛtːɔ/) |
- 1(Front/back vowel rules for
C and G are similar in French,
Romanian, and to some extent English.
Swedish and Norwegian
have similar rules for K.)
- There are two special digraphs in Italian: GN
and GL. GN is always pronounced /nj/ (IPA
/ɲ/), and GL is pronounced /lj/ (IPA
/ʎ/) but only before i, and never when at the beginning
of the word. (Compare with Spanish "ñ" and "ll", Portuguese "nh" and "lh".)
- In general all letters are clearly pronounced, and always in
the same way. Spelling is clearly phonetic and difficult to mistake
given a clear pronunciation. Exceptions are generally only found in
foreign borrowings. There is less dyslexia than in languages like English.
Dictionaries
The classic Italian dictionary is Lo Zingarelli.
Many Italian/English dictionaries are available.
Examples
- cheers (generic toast): salute
/saˈluːte/
- English: inglese
/iŋˈglɛːze/
- good-bye: arrivederci
/arːiveˈdɛrtʃi/
- hello: ciao
/ˈtʃɑo/ (informal); buon giorno
/ˈbwon ˈdʒɔrno/ (good morning/good
afternoon), buona sera
/ˈbwoːna ˈsːeːra/ (good
evening)
- Yes: sì /'si/
- No: no /'no/
- Sorry: scusi /sku
ːsi/
- Again: di nuovo /di nwo
ːvo/
- Always: sempre /se
ːmpre/
- Because: perché /per'ke/
- how much?: quanto
/ˈkwɑnto/ (masculine); quanta
/ˈkwɑnta/ (feminine)
- thank you!: grazie! /gra
ːtsje/
See Also
External links
Italian
language edition of
Wikibooks has more about this subject:
Italian
language
-
Why learn Italian ? - a profile of the Italian
language
(http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/languages/italian/index.html)
- All
free Italian dictionaries
(http://www.dicts.info/dictlist1.php?k1=53)
- Centro Studi Italiani (http://www.locuta.com/)
- Italian course
search
(http://www.applelanguages.com/en/learn/italian.php)
-
Online Italian language course
(http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/modlang/carasi/site/pageone.html)
Wiktionary information
- For more information: Italian
|