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{{Infobox Language|name=Italian|nativename=Italiano|pronunciation=/ita'ljaːno/|region=
Italy, San Marino,
Vatican City, Slovenia,
Switzerland, Croatia.
Used by a significant part of population in: Principality of Monaco, France (
Corsica,
Savoie and
County of Nice), Croatia (Istria), Malta, Albania, Eritrea and Somalia.
significant immigrant communities throughout the
Americas (primarily
Argentina,
Brazil,
Canada, Uruguay, United States of America and
Venezuela),
Australia, and Western Europe (primarily in
Belgium,
France,
Germany,
Luxembourg, and the Britalian).
|speakers= 62 million|rank=19|familycolor=Indo-European|fam2=Italic languages|fam3=
Romance languages|fam4=Italo-Western languages|fam5=Italo-Dalmatian|nation=
Vatican City Sovereign Military Order of Malta (Istria county)
(
Pirano,
Izola and
Capodistria)
]|iso1=it|iso2=ita|iso3=ita|lc1=ita|ld1=Italian (generic)|ll1=none|map=-->
Italian (, or
lingua italiana) is a
Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people,Ethnologue. SIL International. Tue 21 Oct 1997. As collected at: http://www.nicemice.net/amc/tmp/lang-pop.var primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four
Linguistic geography of Switzerlands. It is also the official language of
San Marino and Vatican City. Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on
Tuscan dialect and is somewhat intermediate between Italo-Western of the
Mezzogiorno and Northern Italian dialects of the
Northern Italy.
Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian has retained the contrast between short and
consonant length which existed in Latin. As in most
Romance languages,
stress (linguistics) is distinctive. Of the Romance languages, Italian is considered to be one of the closest resembling
Latin in terms of vocabulary, though
Romanian language most closely preserves the noun
declension system of Classical Latin, and
Spanish language the verb
conjugation system (see
Old Latin#Verbs), while
Sardinian language is the most conservative in terms of
phonology.
It is affectionately called
il parlar gentile (the gentle language) by its speakers.
History
The history of the Italian language is long, but the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. The earliest surviving texts which can definitely be called Italian (or more accurately, vernacular, as opposed to its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae from the region of
province of Benevento dating from 960-963. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the first years of the 14th century through the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian languages, especially Sicilian language, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the
Divine Comedy, to which
Giovanni 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 and, thus, the dialect of Tuscany became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy.
Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city, since the cities were until recently thought of as city-states. As Italian came to be used throughout the nation, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Romanesco and Milanese are the consonant length of initial consonants and the pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" in some cases (e.g.
va bene "all right": is pronounced by a Roman, by a Milanese;
a casa "at home": Roman , Milanese ).
In contrast to the Northern Italian language,
southern Italian dialects were largely untouched by the Franco-
Occitan language influences introduced to Italy, mainly by
bards from France, during the
Middle Ages. Even in the case of Northern Italian dialects, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. (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, Italy during the periods of '
Humanism' and the
Renaissance made its
volgare (dialect), or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts.The re-discovery of Dante's
De vulgari eloquentia and a renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century sparked a debate which raged throughout Italy concerning which criteria should be chosen to establish a modern Italian standard to be used as much as a literary as a spoken language. Scholars were divided into three factions: the
purism, headed by
Pietro Bembo who in his
Gli Asolani claimed that the language might only be based on the great literary classics (notably,
Petrarch, and Boccaccio but not Dante as Bembo believed that the Divine Comedy was not dignified enough as it used elements from other dialects),
Niccolò Machiavelli and other
Florences who preferred the version spoken by ordinary people in their own times, and the Courtesans like
Baldassarre Castiglione and Gian Giorgio Trissino who insisted that each local vernacular must contribute to the new standard. Eventually Bembo's ideas prevailed, the result being the publication of the first Italian dictionary in 1612 and the foundation of the
Accademia della Crusca.
Italian literature's first modern novel, The Betrothed (The Betrothed), by
Alessandro Manzoni further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese 'in the waters of the Arno River" (Florence's river), as he states in the Preface to his 1840 edition.
After unification a huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home dialects ("
ciao" is
Venetian language, "
panettone" is Milanese etc.).
Classification
Italian is most closely related to the other two Italo-Dalmatian languages, Sicilian language and the extinct Dalmatian language. The three are part of the Italo-Western languages grouping of the
Romance languages, which are a subgroup of the
Italic languages branch of
Indo-European language family.
Geographic distribution
Italian is the official language of Italy and
San Marino, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, spoken mainly in Canton Ticino and Graubünden cantons, a region referred to as Italian Switzerland. It is also the second official language in the Vatican City and in some areas of Istria in
Slovenia and Croatia with an Italian minority. It is widely used and taught in
Monaco and
Malta.It served as Malta's official language until Maltese language was enshrined in the 1934 Constitution. It is also widely understood in Corsica,
Savoy and
County of Nice (areas that historically spoke Italian dialects before annexation to
France), and Albania.
Italian is spoken by some in former Italian colonies in
Africa (
Libya, Somalia and Eritrea). However, its use has sharply dropped off since the colonial period. While Italian was the language of instruction in Eritrea during the colonial period, as of 1997, there is only one Italian language school remaining, with 470 pupils.Tekle M. Woldemikael, "Language, Education, and Public Policy in Eritrea," in African Studies Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Apr., 2003), pp. 117-136.
Italian and Italian dialects are widely used by Italian immigrants and their descendants living throughout Western Europe (especially Luxembourg, Germany, the Britalian and Belgium), the Italian Americans,
Italian Canadians,
Italian Australians, and
Latin America (especially Uruguay,
Italian Brazilians,
Argentina, and Venezuela).
In the United States, Italian speakers are most commonly found in four cities:
Boston, Massachusetts (7,000),
Chicago (12,000),
New York City (140,000), and
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (15,000). In Canada there are large Italian-speaking communities in Montreal (120,000) and
Toronto (195,000). Italian is the second most commonly-spoken language in Australia, where 353,605 Italian Australians, or 1.9% of the population, reported speaking Italian at home in the 2001
Census in Australia. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005, "Language other than English" (spreadsheet of figures from 2001 Census) In 2001 there were 130,000 Italian speakers in Melbourne, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Melbourne" and 90,000 in Sydney. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Sydney"
Italian Language Education
Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first non-native language of pupils. In anglophone parts of Canada, Italian is, after
French language, the third most taught language. In the United States and the
United Kingdom, Italian ranks fourth (after Spanish language-French-
German language and French-German-Spanish respectively). Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught non-native language, after
English language, Spanish, French, and German. www.iic-colonia.de
In the
European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 13% of the population (mainly in Italy itself) and as a second language by 3%; among EU member states, it is most likely to be desired (and therefore learned) as a second language in Malta (61%), Croatia (14%),
Slovenia (12%), Austria (11%),
Romania (8%),
France (6%), and
Greece (6%)., February 2006 It is also an important second language in Albania and
Switzerland, which are not EU members or candidates.
Influence and Derived languages
From the late 19th to the mid 20th century, thousands of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, where they formed a very strong physical and cultural presence (see the
Italian diaspora).
In some cases, colonies were established where variants of Italian dialects were used, and some continue to use a derived dialect. An example is Rio Grande do Sul,
Brazil, where
Talian is used and in the town of
Chipilo near Puebla,
Mexico each continuing to use a derived form of Venetian language dating back to the 19th century. Another example is Cocoliche, an Italian-Spanish
pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires, and
Lunfardo.
Rioplatense Spanish, and particularly the speech of the city of Buenos Aires, has intonation patterns that resemble those of Italian dialects, Unidad en la diversidad – Portal informativo sobre la lengua castellana due to the fact that Argentina had a constant, large influx of Italian settlers since the second half of the nineteenth century; initially primarily from Northern Italy then, since the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly from Southern Italy.
As Lingua Franca
Starting in late
medieval times, Italian language variants replaced Latin to become the primary commercial language for much of Europe (especially the Tuscan and Venetian variants). This became solidified during the
Renaissance with the strength of Italian banking and the rise of
Renaissance humanism in the arts.
During the period of the Renaissance, Italy held artistic sway over the rest of Europe. All educated European gentlemen were expected to make the Grand Tour, visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It thus became expected that educated Europeans would learn at least some Italian; the English poet John Milton, for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. In England, Italian became the second most common modern language to be learnt, after French language (though the classical languages, Latin and
Greek language, came first). However, by the late eighteenth century, Italian tended to be replaced by German language as the second modern language on the curriculum. Yet Italian
loanwords continue to be used in most other
European languages in matters of art and music.
Today, the Italian language continues to be used as a
lingua franca in some environments. Within the Catholic ecclesiastic hierarchy, Italian is known by a large part of members and is used in substitution of
Latin in some official documents as well. The presence of Italian as the second official language in the Vatican City indicates not only use in the seat in Rome, but also in the whole world where an episcopal seat is present.
Other environments in which Italian is considered a "lingua franca" are
List of musical terminology and auto racing.
Italian dialects
In Italy, all Romance languages spoken as the vernacular in Italy, other than standard Italian and other unrelated, non-Italian languages, are termed "Italian dialects". Many Italian dialects are, in fact, historical languages in their own right Ethnologue web reference for Italian. These include recognized language groups such as
Friulian language, Neapolitan language,
Sardinian language,
Sicilian language,
Venetian language, and others, and regional variants of these languages such as Calabrian_languages. Though the division between dialect and language has been used by scholars (such as by Francesco Bruni) to distinguish between the languages that made up the Italian koine, and those which had very little or no part in it, such as
Albanian language, Greek language,
German language,
Ladin language, and
Occitan language, which are still spoken by minorities.
Dialects are generally not used for general mass communication and are usually limited to native speakers in informal contexts. In the past, speaking in dialect was often deprecated as a sign of poor education. Younger generations, especially those under 35 (though it may vary in different areas), speak almost exclusively standard Italian in all situations, usually with local accents and idioms. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors: the openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local dialect (for example,
annà replaces
andare in the area of Rome for the infinitive "to go").
Sounds
Vowels
Italian has seven vowel phonemes: , , , , , , . The pairs - and - are seldom distinguished in writing and often confused, even though most varieties of Italian employ both phonemes consistently. Compare, for example: (why, because) and (you listen, you are listening, listen!), employed by some northern speakers, with and , as pronounced by most central and southern speakers. As a result, the usage is strongly indicative of a person's origin. The standard (Tuscan) usage of these vowels is listed in vocabularies, and employed outside Tuscany mainly by specialists, especially actors and very few (television) journalists.These are truly different
phonemes, however: compare (fishing) and (peach), both spelled
pesca (). Similarly ('barrel') and ('beatings'), both spelled
botte, discriminate and ().
In general, vowel combinations usually pronounce each vowel separately.
Diphthongs exist (e.g.
uo,
iu,
ie,
ai), but are limited to an unstressed
u or
i before or after a stressed vowel.
The unstressed
u in a diphthong approximates the English semivowel
w, the unstressed
i approximates the semivowel
y. E.g.:
buono ,
ieri .
Triphthongs exist in Italian as well, only in the form semiconsonant ( or ), followed by a vowel, followed by a semiconsonant (usually ), as in
miei,
suoi, or two semiconsonants followed by a vowel, as the group
-iuo- in the word
aiuola.
Mobile diphthongs
Many Latin words with a short stressed
e or
o have Italian counterparts with a
mobile diphthong (
ie and
uo respectively). When the vowel sound is stressed, it is pronounced and written as a diphthong; when not stressed, it is pronounced and written as a single vowel.
So Latin
focus gave rise to Italian
fuoco (meaning both "fire" and "optical focus"): when unstressed, as in
focale ("focal") the "o" remains alone. Latin
pes (more precisely its accusative form
pedem) is the source of Italian
piede (foot): but unstressed "e" was left unchanged in
pedone (pedestrian) and
pedale (pedal). From Latin
iocus comes Italian
giuoco ("play", "game"), though in this case
gioco is more common:
giocare means "to play". From Latin
homo comes Italian
uomo (man), but also
umano (human) and
ominide (hominid). From Latin
ovum comes Italian
uovo (egg) and
ovaie (ovaries). (The same phenomenon occurs in Spanish language:
juego (play, game) and
jugar (to play),
nieve (snow) and
nevar (to snow)).
Consonants
Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and voiced consonant, respectively.
{| class="wikitable"!!bilabial consonant!
labiodental consonant!
dental consonant!
alveolar consonant!
postalveolar consonant!palatal consonant!velar consonant|-!plosive consonant| align="center"|, || align="center"|, |||| align="center"|, |-!nasal consonant| align="center"||| align="center"|||| align="center"|||-!trill consonant|||| align="center"|||||-!flap consonant|||| align="center"|||||-!fricative consonant|| align="center"|, || align="center"|, | align="center"||||-!
affricate consonant|||| align="center"|, | align="center"|, |||-!
lateral consonant|||| align="center"||| align="center"|||}
The phoneme undergoes assimilation when followed by a consonant, e.g., when followed by a velar ( or ) it is pronounced , etc.
Italian plosives are not aspiration (phonetics) (unlike in English). Italian speakers hear the difference as a foreign accent.
Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are distinguished by
Consonant length. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for , , , , which are always geminate, and which is always single.Geminate plosives and affricates are realised as lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives, nasals, and are realized as lengthened
continuants. Geminate is realised as the trill .
Of special interest to the linguistic study of Italian is the
Tuscan gorgia, or "Tuscan Throat", the weakening or
lenition of certain
:wiktionary:intervocalic consonants in Tuscan dialects. See also Syntactic doubling.
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 diaeresis (i.e., the vowel sounds will be pronounced separately). Italian phonotactics do not usually permit nouns and verbs to end with consonants, excepting poetry and song, so foreign words may receive extra terminal vowel sounds.
Grammar
Writing system
\mathfrak{N}el mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
che la diritta via era smarrita.
Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura
esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte
che nel pensier rinova la paura!
Tant'è amara che poco è più morte;
ma per trattar del ben ch'i' vi trovai,
dirò de l'altre cose ch'i' v'ho scorte.
(
Dante Alighieri),
La Divina Commedia, Inferno, I, 1-9, 1304-1307 AD
\mathfrak{T}utti li stati, tutti e' dominii che hanno avuto et hanno imperio sopra li uomini, sono stati e sono o repubbliche o principati. E' principati sono o ereditarii, de' quali el sangue del loro signore ne sia suto lungo tempo principe, o e' sono nuovi. E' nuovi, o sono nuovi tutti, come fu Milano a Francesco Sforza, o sono come membri aggiunti allo stato ereditario del principe che li acquista, come è el regno di Napoli al re di Spagna. Sono questi dominii così acquistati, o consueti a vivere sotto uno principe, o usi ad essere liberi; et acquistonsi, o con le armi d'altri o con le proprie, o per fortuna o per virtù.
(
Niccolò Machiavelli),
Principe, Ch. 1, 1513 AD
\mathfrak{Q}uel ramo del lago di Como, che volge a mezzogiorno, tra due catene non interrotte di monti, tutto a seni e a golfi, a seconda dello sporgere e del rientrare di quelli che, vien, quasi a un tratto, a ristringersi, e a prender corso e figura di fiume, tra un promontorio a destra, e un'ampia costiera dall'altra parte; e il ponte, che ivi congiunge le due rive, par che renda ancor più sensibile all'occhio questa trasformazione, e segni il punto in cui il lago cessa, e l'Adda ricomincia, per ripigliar poi il nome di lago dove le rive, allontanandosi di nuovo, lascian l'acqua distendersi e rallentarsi in nuovi golfi e nuovi seni.
(Alessandro Manzoni),
I promessi sposi, Ch.1, 1840 AD
Italian is written using the
Latin alphabet. The letters
J,
K,
W,
X and
Y are not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet, but appear in loanwords (such as
jeans,
whisky,
taxi).
X has become a commonly used letter in genuine Italian words with the prefix
extra-.
J in Italian is an old-fashioned orthographic variant of
I, appearing in the first name "Jacopo" as well as in some Italian place names, e.g., the towns of Bajardo,
Bojano,
Joppolo,
Jesolo, Jesi, among numerous others, and in the alternate spelling
Mar Jonio (also spelled
Mar Ionio) for the Ionian Sea.
J may also appear in many words from different dialects, but its use is discouraged in contemporary Italian, and it is not part of the standard 21-letter contemporary Italian alphabet. Each of these foreign letters had an Italian equivalent spelling:
gi for
j,
c or
ch for
k,
u or
v for
w (depending on what sound it makes),
cs or
s for
x, and
i for
y.
- Italian uses the acute accent over the letter E (as in perché, why/because) to indicate a front mid-close vowel, and the grave accent (as in tè, tea) to indicate a front mid-open vowel. The grave accent is also used on letters A, I, O, and U to mark stress (linguistics) when it falls on final vowel of a word (for instance gioventù, youth). Typically, the penultimate syllable is stressed. If syllables other than the last one are stressed, the accent is not mandatory, unlike in Spanish language, and, in virtually all cases, it is omitted. In some cases, when the word is ambiguous (as principi), the accent mark is sometimes used in order to disambiguate its meaning (in this case, prìncipi, princes, or princìpi, principles). This is however not compulsory. Rare words with three or more syllables can confuse Italians themselves, and the pronunciation of Istanbul is a common example of a word in which placement of stress is not clearly established. Another instance is the American State of Florida: the correct way to pronounce it in Italian is like in Spanish, "Florìda", but since there is an Italian word meaning the same ("flourishing"), "flòrida", many Italians pronounce it that way.
- The letter H at the beginning of a word is used to distinguish ho, hai, ha, hanno (present indicative of avere, 'to have') from o ('or'), ai ('to the'), a ('to'), anno ('year'). In the spoken language this letter is always silent for the cases given above. H is also used in combinations with other letters (see below), but no phoneme exists in Italian. In foreign words entered in common use, like "hotel" or "hovercraft", the H is commonly silent. You commonly pronounce them as and
- The letter Z represents , for example: Zanzara (mosquito), or , for example: Nazione (nation), depending on context, though there are few minimal pairs. The same goes for S, which can represent or . However, these two phonemes are in complementary distribution everywhere except between two vowels in the same word, and even in such environment there are extremely few minimal pairs, so that this distinction is being lost in many varieties.
- The letters C and G represent affricates: as in "chair" and as in "gem", respectively, before the front vowels I and E. They are pronounced as plosives , (as in "call" and "gall") otherwise. Front/back vowel rules for C and G are similar in French language, Romanian language, Spanish language, and to some extent English language (including Old English). swedish language and Norwegian language have similar rules for K and G. (See also palatalization.)
- However, an H can be added between C or G and E or I to represent a plosive, and an I can be added between C or G and A, O or U to signal that the consonant is an affricate. For example:
{| class="wikitable"
!!colspan="2"|Before back vowel (A, O, U)!colspan="2"|Before front vowel (I, E)|-!rowspan="2"| Plosive!
C|caramella !
CH|china |-!
G|gallo !
GH|ghiro |-!rowspan="2"| Affricate!
CI|ciaramella !
C|Cina |-!
GI|giallo !
G|giro |}
Note that the
H is
silent letter in the digraphs
CH and
GH, as also the
I in
cia,
cio,
ciu and even
cie is not pronounced as a separate vowel, unless it carries the primary stress. For example, it is silent in
ciao and cielo , but it is pronounced in
farmacia and
farmacie .
- There are three other special digraph (orthography) in Italian: GN, GL and SC. GN represents and GL represents only before i, and never at the beginning of a word, except in the personal pronoun and definite article gli. (Compare with Spanish language ñ and ll, Portuguese language nh and lh.) SC represents fricative before i or e. Except in the speech of some Northern Italians, all of these are normally geminate between vowels.
- In general, all letters or digraphs represent phonemes rather clearly, and in standard varieties of Italian, there is little allophonic variation. The most notable exceptions are assimilation of /n/ in point of articulation before consonants, assimilatory voicing of /s/ to following voiced consonants, and vowel length (vowels are long in stressed open syllables, and short elsewhere) — compare with the enormous number of allophones of the English phoneme /t/. Spelling is clearly phonemic and difficult to mistake given a clear pronunciation. Exceptions are generally only found in foreign borrowings. There are fewer cases of dyslexia than among speakers of languages such as English , and the concept of a spelling bee is strange to Italians.
Common variations in the writing systems
Some variations in the usage of the writing system may be present in practical use. These are scorned by educated people, but they are so common in certain contexts that knowledge of them may be useful.
- Usage of x instead of per: this is very common among teenagers and in Text messaging abbreviations. The multiplication operator is pronounced "per" in Italian, and so it is sometimes used to replace the word "per", which means "for"; thus, for example, "per te" ("for you") is shortened to "x te" (compare with English "4 U"). Words containing per can also have it replaced with x: for example, perché (both "why" and "because") is often shortened as xché or xké or x' (see below). This usage might be useful to jot down quick notes or to fit more text into the low character limit of an SMS, but it is considered unacceptable in formal writing.
- Usage of foreign letters such as k, j and y, especially in nicknames and SMS language: ke instead of che, Giusy instead of Giuseppina (or sometimes Giuseppe). This is curiously mirrored in the usage of i in English names such as Staci instead of Stacey, or in the usage of c in Northern Europe (Jacob instead of Jakob). The use of "k" instead of "ch" or "c" to represent a plosive sound is documented in some historical texts from before the standardization of the Italian language; however, that usage is no longer standard in Italian. Possibly because it is associated with the German language, the letter "k" has sometimes also been used in satire to suggest that a political figure is an authoritarian or even a "pseudo-nazi": Francesco Cossiga was famously nicknamed Kossiga by rioting students during his tenure as minister of internal affairs. the alternative political spelling#"K" replacing "C" in the USA.]
- Usage of other abbreviations: nn instead of non (not), cmq instead of comunque (anyway, however), cm instead of come (how, like, as), d instead of di (of), (io/loro) sn instead of (io/loro) sono (I am/they are), (io) dv instead of (io) devo (I must/I have to) or instead of dove (where), (tu) 6 instead of (tu) sei (you are).
- Inexperienced typists often replace accents with apostrophes, such as in perche' instead of perché. Uppercase È is particularly rare, as it is absent from the Keyboard layout#Italian, and is very often written as E' (even though there are :it:Aiuto:Manuale di stile#Scrivere .C3.88 of producing the uppercase È on a computer). This never happens in books or other professionally typeset material.
- Few are aware of the distinction between grave and acute accents, so it is also common to see perchè. Modern word processing systems, however, tend to correct this mistake (unlike the previous one).
Samples
{| class="wikitable"! English || Italian || Audio|-||Italian||
italiano|| (Media:Italian italiano.ogg)|-||English ||
inglese|| (Media:Italian inglese.ogg)|-||Yes ||
Sì|| (
Media:Italian sì.ogg)|-||No ||
No|| (
Media:Italian no.ogg)|-||Of course! ||
Certo! / Certamente!|||-||Hello! ||
Ciao! (informal)
/ Salve (greeting)! (general)|| (Media:Italian ciao.ogg)|-||How are you? ||
Come stai? (informal)
/ Come sta? (formal)
/ Come state? (plural)
/ Come va? (general) |||-||Good morning! ||
Buon giorno! (= Good day!)|||-||Good afternoon! ||
Buon pomeriggio! (unusual)
/ Buona sera! (more usual)|||-||Good evening! ||
Buona sera!|||-||Good night! ||
Buona notte! (for a good night sleeping)
/ Buona serata! (for a good night awake)|||-||Have a good lunch/dinner! ||
Le (plural,
Vi)
auguro un buon pranzo/una buona cena! (formal)
/ Buon appetito! (informal)|||-||Welcome ||
Benvenuto/-i (for male/males or mixed)
/ Benvenuta/-e (for female/females) / in...|||-||Goodbye! ||
Arrivederci/-rLa (formal) /
Ci vediamo! or simply
Ciao! (informal)|| (
Media:Italian arrivederci.ogg)|-||Have a nice day! ||
Buona giornata! (formal)|||-||Good luck! Thank you!||
Buona fortuna! Grazie! (general)
/ In bocca al lupo! Crepi (il lupo)! (to wish s.o. to overcome a difficulty)|||-||Please ||
Per piacere / Per favore / Per cortesia|| (Media:Italian per favore.ogg)|-||Thank you! ||
Grazie! (general)
/ Ti ringrazio! (informal)
/ La ringrazio! (formal) /
Vi ringrazio! (plural) || (
Media:Italian grazie.ogg)|-||You're welcome! ||
Prego! /
Di niente!|||-||I'm sorry ||
Mi dispiace (general)
/ Scusa(mi) (informal)
/ Mi scusi (formal)
/Scusatemi (plural) / Sono desolato
(if male) / Sono desolata
(if female)|| (Media:Italian scusi.ogg)|-||Excuse me || Scusa(mi)
(informal) / (Mi) scusi
(formal) / Scusate(mi)
(plural) / (Con) permesso!
(in order to pass on, to advance) |||-||Who? || Chi?
|||-||What? || Che cosa? / Cosa? / Che?
|||-||When? || Quando?
|||-||Where? || Dove?
|||-||Why? || Perché?
|||-||What's your name? || Come ti chiami?
(informal) / Come si chiama?
(formal) / Come vi chiamate?
(plural)|||-||Because || Perché
|||-||How? || Come?
|||-||How much? / How many? || Quanto? / Quanti?
|||-||I do not understand. || Non capisco. / Non ho capito.
|| (Media:Italian non capisco.ogg)|-||Yes, I understand. || Sì, capisco. / Ho capito.
|||-||Help me!|| Aiutami!
(informal) / Mi aiuti!
(formal) / Aiutatemi!
(plural) / Aiuto!
(general)|||-||You're right/wrong! || (Tu) hai ragione/torto!
(informal) / (Lei) ha ragione/torto!
(formal) / (Voi) avete ragione/torto!
(plural)|||-||What time is it?|| Che ora è? / Che ore sono?
|||-||Where is the bathroom?|| Dov'è il bagno?
|| (Media:Italian dov'è il bagno.ogg)|-||Do you speak English? || Parli inglese?
(informal) / Parla inglese?
(formal) / Parlate inglese?
(plural)|| (Media:Italian parlate inglese.ogg)|-||I don't understand Italian.|| Non capisco l'italiano. / Non comprendo l'italiano.
|||-||The check, please. (In restaurant)|| Il conto, grazie.
|||-||The study of Italian sharpens the mind.|| Lo studio dell'italiano aguzza l'ingegno.
|||-|}
Examples
- Cheers (generic toast): cin cin
- English: inglese
- Good-bye: arrivederci
- Hello: ciao
- Good morning/good day: buon giorno
- Good evening: buona sera
- Yes: sì
- No: no
- How are you? : Come stai (informal); Come sta (formal)
- Sorry: mi dispiace
- Excuse me: scusa (informal); scusi (formal)
- Again: di nuovo, //; ancora //
- Always: sempre //
- When: quando
- Why/Because: perché
- How much: quanto
- Thank you!: grazie!
- Bon appetit: buon appetito
- You're welcome!: prego!
- I love you: Ti amo , Ti voglio bene . The difference is that you use "Ti amo" when you are in a romantic relationship, "Ti voglio bene" in any other occasion (to parents, to relatives, to friends...)
Counting to twenty:
- One: uno
- Two: due
- Three: tre
- Four: quattro
- Five: cinque
- Six: sei
- Seven: sette
- Eight: otto
- Nine: nove
- Ten: dieci
- Eleven: undici
- Twelve: dodici
- Thirteen: tredici
- Fourteen: quattordici
- Fifteen: quindici
- Sixteen: sedici
- Seventeen: diciassette
- Eighteen: diciotto
- Nineteen: diciannove
- Twenty: venti
The days of the week:
- Monday: lunedì (the day of the Moon)
- Tuesday: martedì (the day of Mars, the Roman god of war)
- Wednesday: mercoledì (the day of Mercury, the Roman god of commerce)
- Thursday: giovedì (the day of Jupiter, the Roman god of sky and weather)
- Friday: venerdì (the day of Venus, the Roman goddess of love)
- Saturday: sabato (the day of rest, from Hebrew)
- Sunday: domenica (the day of the Lord)
Sample texts
You can hear a recording of
Dante's
Divine Comedy read by
Lino Pertile at http://etcweb.princeton.edu/dante/pdp/
From the Bible, -7You can listen to a rendition of this text as recorded by an Italian native speaker from Milan.
2:1 In quei giorni, un decreto di Cesare Augusto ordinava che si facesse un censimento di tutta la terra.
2 Questo primo censimento fu fatto quando Quirino era governatore della Siria.
3 Tutti andavano a farsi registrare, ciascuno nella propria città.
4 Anche Giuseppe, che era della casa e della famiglia di Davide, dalla città di Nazaret e dalla Galilea si recò in Giudea nella città di Davide, chiamata Betlemme,
5 per farsi registrare insieme a Maria, sua sposa, che era incinta.
6 Proprio mentre si trovavano lì, venne il tempo per lei di partorire.
7 Mise al mondo il suo primogenito, lo avvolse in fasce e lo depose in una mangiatoia, poiché non c'era posto per loro nella locanda.
References and notes
See also
External links
{{Infobox Language|name=Italian|nativename=Italiano|pronunciation=/ita'ljaːno/|region=
Italy, San Marino, Vatican City, Slovenia,
Switzerland,
Croatia.
Used by a significant part of population in: Principality of Monaco,
France (
Corsica,
Savoie and
County of Nice), Croatia (
Istria),
Malta,
Albania,
Eritrea and
Somalia.
significant immigrant communities throughout the
Americas (primarily Argentina, Brazil,
Canada, Uruguay, United States of America and Venezuela),
Australia, and Western Europe (primarily in
Belgium,
France, Germany,
Luxembourg, and the Britalian).
|speakers= 62 million|rank=19|familycolor=Indo-European|fam2=Italic languages|fam3=
Romance languages|fam4=
Italo-Western languages|fam5=Italo-Dalmatian|nation=
Vatican City
Sovereign Military Order of Malta (Istria county)
(
Pirano, Izola and Capodistria)
]|iso1=it|iso2=ita|iso3=ita|lc1=ita|ld1=Italian (generic)|ll1=none|map=-->
Italian (, or
lingua italiana) is a
Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people,Ethnologue. SIL International. Tue 21 Oct 1997. As collected at: http://www.nicemice.net/amc/tmp/lang-pop.var primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four
Linguistic geography of Switzerlands. It is also the official language of
San Marino and
Vatican City. Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on Tuscan dialect and is somewhat intermediate between
Italo-Western of the Mezzogiorno and
Northern Italian dialects of the Northern Italy.
Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian has retained the contrast between short and consonant length which existed in Latin. As in most Romance languages, stress (linguistics) is distinctive. Of the Romance languages, Italian is considered to be one of the closest resembling
Latin in terms of vocabulary, though Romanian language most closely preserves the
noun declension system of
Classical Latin, and
Spanish language the
verb conjugation system (see Old Latin#Verbs), while
Sardinian language is the most conservative in terms of phonology.
It is affectionately called
il parlar gentile (the gentle language) by its speakers.
History
The history of the Italian language is long, but the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. The earliest surviving texts which can definitely be called Italian (or more accurately, vernacular, as opposed to its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae from the region of
province of Benevento dating from 960-963. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the first years of the 14th century through the works of
Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian languages, especially
Sicilian language, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the
Divine Comedy, to which
Giovanni 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 and, thus, the dialect of
Tuscany became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy.
Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city, since the cities were until recently thought of as
city-states. As Italian came to be used throughout the nation, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. The most characteristic differences, for instance, between
Romanesco and
Milanese are the
consonant length of initial consonants and the pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" in some cases (e.g.
va bene "all right": is pronounced by a Roman, by a Milanese;
a casa "at home": Roman , Milanese ).
In contrast to the Northern Italian language, southern Italian dialects were largely untouched by the Franco-
Occitan language influences introduced to Italy, mainly by
bards from
France, during the Middle Ages. Even in the case of Northern Italian dialects, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. (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, Italy during the periods of 'Humanism' and the Renaissance made its
volgare (dialect), or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts.The re-discovery of Dante's
De vulgari eloquentia and a renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century sparked a debate which raged throughout Italy concerning which criteria should be chosen to establish a modern Italian standard to be used as much as a literary as a spoken language. Scholars were divided into three factions: the purism, headed by Pietro Bembo who in his
Gli Asolani claimed that the language might only be based on the great literary classics (notably,
Petrarch, and Boccaccio but not Dante as Bembo believed that the Divine Comedy was not dignified enough as it used elements from other dialects), Niccolò Machiavelli and other Florences who preferred the version spoken by ordinary people in their own times, and the Courtesans like
Baldassarre Castiglione and
Gian Giorgio Trissino who insisted that each local vernacular must contribute to the new standard. Eventually Bembo's ideas prevailed, the result being the publication of the first Italian dictionary in 1612 and the foundation of the
Accademia della Crusca.
Italian literature's first modern novel, The Betrothed (The Betrothed), by
Alessandro Manzoni further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese 'in the waters of the Arno River" (Florence's river), as he states in the Preface to his 1840 edition.
After unification a huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home dialects ("ciao" is
Venetian language, "
panettone" is Milanese etc.).
Classification
Italian is most closely related to the other two Italo-Dalmatian languages, Sicilian language and the extinct Dalmatian language. The three are part of the Italo-Western languages grouping of the
Romance languages, which are a subgroup of the
Italic languages branch of Indo-European language family.
Geographic distribution
Italian is the official language of
Italy and San Marino, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, spoken mainly in
Canton Ticino and Graubünden cantons, a region referred to as
Italian Switzerland. It is also the second official language in the Vatican City and in some areas of Istria in
Slovenia and Croatia with an Italian minority. It is widely used and taught in
Monaco and Malta.It served as Malta's official language until
Maltese language was enshrined in the 1934 Constitution. It is also widely understood in Corsica,
Savoy and County of Nice (areas that historically spoke
Italian dialects before annexation to France), and Albania.
Italian is spoken by some in former Italian colonies in Africa (
Libya,
Somalia and Eritrea). However, its use has sharply dropped off since the colonial period. While Italian was the language of instruction in Eritrea during the colonial period, as of 1997, there is only one Italian language school remaining, with 470 pupils.Tekle M. Woldemikael, "Language, Education, and Public Policy in Eritrea," in African Studies Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Apr., 2003), pp. 117-136.
Italian and Italian dialects are widely used by Italian immigrants and their descendants living throughout Western Europe (especially
Luxembourg, Germany, the
Britalian and Belgium), the Italian Americans, Italian Canadians, Italian Australians, and Latin America (especially Uruguay,
Italian Brazilians,
Argentina, and Venezuela).
In the United States, Italian speakers are most commonly found in four cities:
Boston, Massachusetts (7,000),
Chicago (12,000),
New York City (140,000), and
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (15,000). In Canada there are large Italian-speaking communities in
Montreal (120,000) and Toronto (195,000). Italian is the second most commonly-spoken language in Australia, where 353,605
Italian Australians, or 1.9% of the population, reported speaking Italian at home in the 2001 Census in Australia. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005, "Language other than English" (spreadsheet of figures from 2001 Census) In 2001 there were 130,000 Italian speakers in
Melbourne, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Melbourne" and 90,000 in
Sydney. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Sydney"
Italian Language Education
Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first non-native language of pupils. In
anglophone parts of Canada, Italian is, after
French language, the third most taught language. In the United States and the United Kingdom, Italian ranks fourth (after
Spanish language-French-
German language and French-German-Spanish respectively). Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught non-native language, after English language, Spanish, French, and German. www.iic-colonia.de
In the
European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 13% of the population (mainly in Italy itself) and as a second language by 3%; among EU member states, it is most likely to be desired (and therefore learned) as a second language in Malta (61%), Croatia (14%),
Slovenia (12%),
Austria (11%),
Romania (8%), France (6%), and
Greece (6%)., February 2006 It is also an important second language in
Albania and Switzerland, which are not EU members or candidates.
Influence and Derived languages
From the late 19th to the mid 20th century, thousands of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, where they formed a very strong physical and cultural presence (see the
Italian diaspora).
In some cases, colonies were established where variants of
Italian dialects were used, and some continue to use a derived dialect. An example is Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where Talian is used and in the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico each continuing to use a derived form of Venetian language dating back to the 19th century. Another example is Cocoliche, an Italian-Spanish pidgin once spoken in
Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires, and
Lunfardo.
Rioplatense Spanish, and particularly the speech of the city of Buenos Aires, has intonation patterns that resemble those of Italian dialects, Unidad en la diversidad – Portal informativo sobre la lengua castellana due to the fact that Argentina had a constant, large influx of Italian settlers since the second half of the nineteenth century; initially primarily from Northern Italy then, since the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly from Southern Italy.
As Lingua Franca
Starting in late medieval times, Italian language variants replaced Latin to become the primary commercial language for much of Europe (especially the Tuscan and Venetian variants). This became solidified during the
Renaissance with the strength of Italian banking and the rise of
Renaissance humanism in the arts.
During the period of the Renaissance, Italy held artistic sway over the rest of Europe. All educated European gentlemen were expected to make the Grand Tour, visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It thus became expected that educated Europeans would learn at least some Italian; the English poet John Milton, for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. In England, Italian became the second most common modern language to be learnt, after French language (though the classical languages, Latin and Greek language, came first). However, by the late eighteenth century, Italian tended to be replaced by German language as the second modern language on the curriculum. Yet Italian
loanwords continue to be used in most other
European languages in matters of art and music.
Today, the Italian language continues to be used as a
lingua franca in some environments. Within the Catholic ecclesiastic hierarchy, Italian is known by a large part of members and is used in substitution of Latin in some official documents as well. The presence of Italian as the second official language in the
Vatican City indicates not only use in the seat in Rome, but also in the whole world where an episcopal seat is present.
Other environments in which Italian is considered a "lingua franca" are List of musical terminology and auto racing.
Italian dialects
In Italy, all Romance languages spoken as the vernacular in Italy, other than standard Italian and other unrelated, non-Italian languages, are termed "Italian dialects". Many Italian dialects are, in fact, historical languages in their own right Ethnologue web reference for Italian. These include recognized language groups such as Friulian language,
Neapolitan language,
Sardinian language,
Sicilian language,
Venetian language, and others, and regional variants of these languages such as
Calabrian_languages. Though the division between dialect and language has been used by scholars (such as by
Francesco Bruni) to distinguish between the languages that made up the Italian
koine, and those which had very little or no part in it, such as Albanian language, Greek language, German language,
Ladin language, and
Occitan language, which are still spoken by minorities.
Dialects are generally not used for general mass communication and are usually limited to native speakers in informal contexts. In the past, speaking in dialect was often deprecated as a sign of poor education. Younger generations, especially those under 35 (though it may vary in different areas), speak almost exclusively standard Italian in all situations, usually with local accents and idioms. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors: the openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local dialect (for example,
annà replaces
andare in the area of Rome for the infinitive "to go").
Sounds
Vowels
Italian has seven
vowel phonemes: , , , , , , . The pairs - and - are seldom distinguished in writing and often confused, even though most varieties of Italian employ both phonemes consistently. Compare, for example: (why, because) and (you listen, you are listening, listen!), employed by some northern speakers, with and , as pronounced by most central and southern speakers. As a result, the usage is strongly indicative of a person's origin. The standard (Tuscan) usage of these vowels is listed in vocabularies, and employed outside Tuscany mainly by specialists, especially actors and very few (television) journalists.These are truly different
phonemes, however: compare (fishing) and (peach), both spelled
pesca (). Similarly ('barrel') and ('beatings'), both spelled
botte, discriminate and ().
In general, vowel combinations usually pronounce each vowel separately. Diphthongs exist (e.g.
uo,
iu,
ie,
ai), but are limited to an unstressed
u or
i before or after a stressed vowel.
The unstressed
u in a diphthong approximates the English semivowel
w, the unstressed
i approximates the semivowel
y. E.g.:
buono ,
ieri .
Triphthongs exist in Italian as well, only in the form semiconsonant ( or ), followed by a vowel, followed by a semiconsonant (usually ), as in
miei,
suoi, or two semiconsonants followed by a vowel, as the group
-iuo- in the word
aiuola.
Mobile diphthongs
Many Latin words with a short stressed
e or
o have Italian counterparts with a
mobile diphthong (
ie and
uo respectively). When the vowel sound is stressed, it is pronounced and written as a diphthong; when not stressed, it is pronounced and written as a single vowel.
So Latin
focus gave rise to Italian
fuoco (meaning both "fire" and "optical focus"): when unstressed, as in
focale ("focal") the "o" remains alone. Latin
pes (more precisely its accusative form
pedem) is the source of Italian
piede (foot): but unstressed "e" was left unchanged in
pedone (pedestrian) and
pedale (pedal). From Latin
iocus comes Italian
giuoco ("play", "game"), though in this case
gioco is more common:
giocare means "to play". From Latin
homo comes Italian
uomo (man), but also
umano (human) and
ominide (hominid). From Latin
ovum comes Italian
uovo (egg) and
ovaie (ovaries). (The same phenomenon occurs in Spanish language:
juego (play, game) and
jugar (to play),
nieve (snow) and
nevar (to snow)).
Consonants
Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and voiced consonant, respectively.
{| class="wikitable"!!bilabial consonant!labiodental consonant!
dental consonant!alveolar consonant!postalveolar consonant!
palatal consonant!velar consonant|-!plosive consonant| align="center"|, || align="center"|, |||| align="center"|, |-!nasal consonant| align="center"||| align="center"|||| align="center"|||-!
trill consonant|||| align="center"|||||-!flap consonant|||| align="center"|||||-!
fricative consonant|| align="center"|, || align="center"|, | align="center"||||-!
affricate consonant|||| align="center"|, | align="center"|, |||-!
lateral consonant|||| align="center"||| align="center"|||}
The phoneme undergoes assimilation when followed by a consonant, e.g., when followed by a velar ( or ) it is pronounced , etc.
Italian plosives are not aspiration (phonetics) (unlike in English). Italian speakers hear the difference as a foreign accent.
Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are distinguished by
Consonant length. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for , , , , which are always geminate, and which is always single.Geminate plosives and affricates are realised as lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives, nasals, and are realized as lengthened
continuants. Geminate is realised as the trill .
Of special interest to the linguistic study of Italian is the
Tuscan gorgia, or "Tuscan Throat", the weakening or lenition of certain
:wiktionary:intervocalic consonants in Tuscan dialects. See also
Syntactic doubling.
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
diaeresis (i.e., the vowel sounds will be pronounced separately). Italian phonotactics do not usually permit nouns and verbs to end with consonants, excepting poetry and song, so foreign words may receive extra terminal vowel sounds.
Grammar
Writing system
\mathfrak{N}el mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
che la diritta via era smarrita.
Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura
esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte
che nel pensier rinova la paura!
Tant'è amara che poco è più morte;
ma per trattar del ben ch'i' vi trovai,
dirò de l'altre cose ch'i' v'ho scorte.
(Dante Alighieri),
La Divina Commedia, Inferno, I, 1-9, 1304-1307 AD
\mathfrak{T}utti li stati, tutti e' dominii che hanno avuto et hanno imperio sopra li uomini, sono stati e sono o repubbliche o principati. E' principati sono o ereditarii, de' quali el sangue del loro signore ne sia suto lungo tempo principe, o e' sono nuovi. E' nuovi, o sono nuovi tutti, come fu Milano a Francesco Sforza, o sono come membri aggiunti allo stato ereditario del principe che li acquista, come è el regno di Napoli al re di Spagna. Sono questi dominii così acquistati, o consueti a vivere sotto uno principe, o usi ad essere liberi; et acquistonsi, o con le armi d'altri o con le proprie, o per fortuna o per virtù.
(Niccolò Machiavelli),
Principe, Ch. 1, 1513 AD
\mathfrak{Q}uel ramo del lago di Como, che volge a mezzogiorno, tra due catene non interrotte di monti, tutto a seni e a golfi, a seconda dello sporgere e del rientrare di quelli che, vien, quasi a un tratto, a ristringersi, e a prender corso e figura di fiume, tra un promontorio a destra, e un'ampia costiera dall'altra parte; e il ponte, che ivi congiunge le due rive, par che renda ancor più sensibile all'occhio questa trasformazione, e segni il punto in cui il lago cessa, e l'Adda ricomincia, per ripigliar poi il nome di lago dove le rive, allontanandosi di nuovo, lascian l'acqua distendersi e rallentarsi in nuovi golfi e nuovi seni.
(
Alessandro Manzoni),
I promessi sposi, Ch.1, 1840 AD
Italian is written using the
Latin alphabet. The letters
J,
K,
W,
X and
Y are not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet, but appear in loanwords (such as
jeans,
whisky,
taxi).
X has become a commonly used letter in genuine Italian words with the prefix
extra-.
J in Italian is an old-fashioned orthographic variant of
I, appearing in the first name "Jacopo" as well as in some Italian place names, e.g., the towns of
Bajardo, Bojano,
Joppolo,
Jesolo,
Jesi, among numerous others, and in the alternate spelling
Mar Jonio (also spelled
Mar Ionio) for the
Ionian Sea.
J may also appear in many words from different dialects, but its use is discouraged in contemporary Italian, and it is not part of the standard 21-letter contemporary Italian alphabet. Each of these foreign letters had an Italian equivalent spelling:
gi for
j,
c or
ch for
k,
u or
v for
w (depending on what sound it makes),
cs or
s for
x, and
i for
y.
- Italian uses the acute accent over the letter E (as in perché, why/because) to indicate a front mid-close vowel, and the grave accent (as in tè, tea) to indicate a front mid-open vowel. The grave accent is also used on letters A, I, O, and U to mark stress (linguistics) when it falls on final vowel of a word (for instance gioventù, youth). Typically, the penultimate syllable is stressed. If syllables other than the last one are stressed, the accent is not mandatory, unlike in Spanish language, and, in virtually all cases, it is omitted. In some cases, when the word is ambiguous (as principi), the accent mark is sometimes used in order to disambiguate its meaning (in this case, prìncipi, princes, or princìpi, principles). This is however not compulsory. Rare words with three or more syllables can confuse Italians themselves, and the pronunciation of Istanbul is a common example of a word in which placement of stress is not clearly established. Another instance is the American State of Florida: the correct way to pronounce it in Italian is like in Spanish, "Florìda", but since there is an Italian word meaning the same ("flourishing"), "flòrida", many Italians pronounce it that way.
- The letter H at the beginning of a word is used to distinguish ho, hai, ha, hanno (present indicative of avere, 'to have') from o ('or'), ai ('to the'), a ('to'), anno ('year'). In the spoken language this letter is always silent for the cases given above. H is also used in combinations with other letters (see below), but no phoneme exists in Italian. In foreign words entered in common use, like "hotel" or "hovercraft", the H is commonly silent. You commonly pronounce them as and
- The letter Z represents , for example: Zanzara (mosquito), or , for example: Nazione (nation), depending on context, though there are few minimal pairs. The same goes for S, which can represent or . However, these two phonemes are in complementary distribution everywhere except between two vowels in the same word, and even in such environment there are extremely few minimal pairs, so that this distinction is being lost in many varieties.
- The letters C and G represent affricates: as in "chair" and as in "gem", respectively, before the front vowels I and E. They are pronounced as plosives , (as in "call" and "gall") otherwise. Front/back vowel rules for C and G are similar in French language, Romanian language, Spanish language, and to some extent English language (including Old English). swedish language and Norwegian language have similar rules for K and G. (See also palatalization.)
- However, an H can be added between C or G and E or I to represent a plosive, and an I can be added between C or G and A, O or U to signal that the consonant is an affricate. For example:
{| class="wikitable"
!!colspan="2"|Before back vowel (A, O, U)!colspan="2"|Before front vowel (I, E)|-!rowspan="2"| Plosive!
C|caramella !
CH|china |-!
G|gallo !
GH|ghiro |-!rowspan="2"| Affricate!
CI|ciaramella !
C|Cina |-!
GI|giallo !
G|giro |}
Note that the
H is silent letter in the digraphs
CH and
GH, as also the
I in
cia,
cio,
ciu and even
cie is not pronounced as a separate vowel, unless it carries the primary stress. For example, it is silent in
ciao and cielo , but it is pronounced in
farmacia and
farmacie .
- There are three other special digraph (orthography) in Italian: GN, GL and SC. GN represents and GL represents only before i, and never at the beginning of a word, except in the personal pronoun and definite article gli. (Compare with Spanish language ñ and ll, Portuguese language nh and lh.) SC represents fricative before i or e. Except in the speech of some Northern Italians, all of these are normally geminate between vowels.
- In general, all letters or digraphs represent phonemes rather clearly, and in standard varieties of Italian, there is little allophonic variation. The most notable exceptions are assimilation of /n/ in point of articulation before consonants, assimilatory voicing of /s/ to following voiced consonants, and vowel length (vowels are long in stressed open syllables, and short elsewhere) — compare with the enormous number of allophones of the English phoneme /t/. Spelling is clearly phonemic and difficult to mistake given a clear pronunciation. Exceptions are generally only found in foreign borrowings. There are fewer cases of dyslexia than among speakers of languages such as English , and the concept of a spelling bee is strange to Italians.
Common variations in the writing systems
Some variations in the usage of the writing system may be present in practical use. These are scorned by educated people, but they are so common in certain contexts that knowledge of them may be useful.
- Usage of x instead of per: this is very common among teenagers and in Text messaging abbreviations. The multiplication operator is pronounced "per" in Italian, and so it is sometimes used to replace the word "per", which means "for"; thus, for example, "per te" ("for you") is shortened to "x te" (compare with English "4 U"). Words containing per can also have it replaced with x: for example, perché (both "why" and "because") is often shortened as xché or xké or x' (see below). This usage might be useful to jot down quick notes or to fit more text into the low character limit of an SMS, but it is considered unacceptable in formal writing.
- Usage of foreign letters such as k, j and y, especially in nicknames and SMS language: ke instead of che, Giusy instead of Giuseppina (or sometimes Giuseppe). This is curiously mirrored in the usage of i in English names such as Staci instead of Stacey, or in the usage of c in Northern Europe (Jacob instead of Jakob). The use of "k" instead of "ch" or "c" to represent a plosive sound is documented in some historical texts from before the standardization of the Italian language; however, that usage is no longer standard in Italian. Possibly because it is associated with the German language, the letter "k" has sometimes also been used in satire to suggest that a political figure is an authoritarian or even a "pseudo-nazi": Francesco Cossiga was famously nicknamed Kossiga by rioting students during his tenure as minister of internal affairs. the alternative political spelling#"K" replacing "C" in the USA.]
- Usage of other abbreviations: nn instead of non (not), cmq instead of comunque (anyway, however), cm instead of come (how, like, as), d instead of di (of), (io/loro) sn instead of (io/loro) sono (I am/they are), (io) dv instead of (io) devo (I must/I have to) or instead of dove (where), (tu) 6 instead of (tu) sei (you are).
- Inexperienced typists often replace accents with apostrophes, such as in perche' instead of perché. Uppercase È is particularly rare, as it is absent from the Keyboard layout#Italian, and is very often written as E' (even though there are :it:Aiuto:Manuale di stile#Scrivere .C3.88 of producing the uppercase È on a computer). This never happens in books or other professionally typeset material.
- Few are aware of the distinction between grave and acute accents, so it is also common to see perchè. Modern word processing systems, however, tend to correct this mistake (unlike the previous one).
Samples
{| class="wikitable"! English || Italian || Audio|-||Italian||
italiano|| (Media:Italian italiano.ogg)|-||English ||
inglese|| (
Media:Italian inglese.ogg)|-||Yes ||
Sì|| (Media:Italian sì.ogg)|-||No ||
No|| (
Media:Italian no.ogg)|-||Of course! ||
Certo! / Certamente!|||-||Hello! ||
Ciao! (informal)
/ Salve (greeting)! (general)|| (Media:Italian ciao.ogg)|-||How are you? ||
Come stai? (informal)
/ Come sta? (formal)
/ Come state? (plural)
/ Come va? (general) |||-||Good morning! ||
Buon giorno! (= Good day!)|||-||Good afternoon! ||
Buon pomeriggio! (unusual)
/ Buona sera! (more usual)|||-||Good evening! ||
Buona sera!|||-||Good night! ||
Buona notte! (for a good night sleeping)
/ Buona serata! (for a good night awake)|||-||Have a good lunch/dinner! ||
Le (plural,
Vi)
auguro un buon pranzo/una buona cena! (formal)
/ Buon appetito! (informal)|||-||Welcome ||
Benvenuto/-i (for male/males or mixed)
/ Benvenuta/-e (for female/females) / in...|||-||Goodbye! ||
Arrivederci/-rLa (formal) /
Ci vediamo! or simply
Ciao! (informal)|| (
Media:Italian arrivederci.ogg)|-||Have a nice day! ||
Buona giornata! (formal)|||-||Good luck! Thank you!||
Buona fortuna! Grazie! (general)
/ In bocca al lupo! Crepi (il lupo)! (to wish s.o. to overcome a difficulty)|||-||Please ||
Per piacere / Per favore / Per cortesia|| (
Media:Italian per favore.ogg)|-||Thank you! ||
Grazie! (general)
/ Ti ringrazio! (informal)
/ La ringrazio! (formal) /
Vi ringrazio! (plural) || (
Media:Italian grazie.ogg)|-||You're welcome! ||
Prego! /
Di niente!|||-||I'm sorry ||
Mi dispiace (general)
/ Scusa(mi) (informal)
/ Mi scusi (formal)
/Scusatemi (plural) / Sono desolato
(if male) / Sono desolata
(if female)|| (Media:Italian scusi.ogg)|-||Excuse me || Scusa(mi)
(informal) / (Mi) scusi
(formal) / Scusate(mi)
(plural) / (Con) permesso!
(in order to pass on, to advance) |||-||Who? || Chi?
|||-||What? || Che cosa? / Cosa? / Che?
|||-||When? || Quando?
|||-||Where? || Dove?
|||-||Why? || Perché?
|||-||What's your name? || Come ti chiami?
(informal) / Come si chiama?
(formal) / Come vi chiamate?
(plural)|||-||Because || Perché
|||-||How? || Come?
|||-||How much? / How many? || Quanto? / Quanti?
|||-||I do not understand. || Non capisco. / Non ho capito.
|| (Media:Italian non capisco.ogg)|-||Yes, I understand. || Sì, capisco. / Ho capito.
|||-||Help me!|| Aiutami!
(informal) / Mi aiuti!
(formal) / Aiutatemi!
(plural) / Aiuto!
(general)|||-||You're right/wrong! || (Tu) hai ragione/torto!
(informal) / (Lei) ha ragione/torto!
(formal) / (Voi) avete ragione/torto!
(plural)|||-||What time is it?|| Che ora è? / Che ore sono?
|||-||Where is the bathroom?|| Dov'è il bagno?
|| (Media:Italian dov'è il bagno.ogg)|-||Do you speak English? || Parli inglese?
(informal) / Parla inglese?
(formal) / Parlate inglese?
(plural)|| (Media:Italian parlate inglese.ogg)|-||I don't understand Italian.|| Non capisco l'italiano. / Non comprendo l'italiano.
|||-||The check, please. (In restaurant)|| Il conto, grazie.
|||-||The study of Italian sharpens the mind.|| Lo studio dell'italiano aguzza l'ingegno.
|||-|}
Examples
- Cheers (generic toast): cin cin
- English: inglese
- Good-bye: arrivederci
- Hello: ciao
- Good morning/good day: buon giorno
- Good evening: buona sera
- Yes: sì
- No: no
- How are you? : Come stai (informal); Come sta (formal)
- Sorry: mi dispiace
- Excuse me: scusa (informal); scusi (formal)
- Again: di nuovo, //; ancora //
- Always: sempre //
- When: quando
- Why/Because: perché
- How much: quanto
- Thank you!: grazie!
- Bon appetit: buon appetito
- You're welcome!: prego!
- I love you: Ti amo , Ti voglio bene . The difference is that you use "Ti amo" when you are in a romantic relationship, "Ti voglio bene" in any other occasion (to parents, to relatives, to friends...)
Counting to twenty:
- One: uno
- Two: due
- Three: tre
- Four: quattro
- Five: cinque
- Six: sei
- Seven: sette
- Eight: otto
- Nine: nove
- Ten: dieci
- Eleven: undici
- Twelve: dodici
- Thirteen: tredici
- Fourteen: quattordici
- Fifteen: quindici
- Sixteen: sedici
- Seventeen: diciassette
- Eighteen: diciotto
- Nineteen: diciannove
- Twenty: venti
The days of the week:
- Monday: lunedì (the day of the Moon)
- Tuesday: martedì (the day of Mars, the Roman god of war)
- Wednesday: mercoledì (the day of Mercury, the Roman god of commerce)
- Thursday: giovedì (the day of Jupiter, the Roman god of sky and weather)
- Friday: venerdì (the day of Venus, the Roman goddess of love)
- Saturday: sabato (the day of rest, from Hebrew)
- Sunday: domenica (the day of the Lord)
Sample texts
You can hear a recording of
Dante's
Divine Comedy read by Lino Pertile at http://etcweb.princeton.edu/dante/pdp/
From the Bible, -7You can listen to a rendition of this text as recorded by an Italian native speaker from Milan.
2:1 In quei giorni, un decreto di Cesare Augusto ordinava che si facesse un censimento di tutta la terra.
2 Questo primo censimento fu fatto quando Quirino era governatore della Siria.
3 Tutti andavano a farsi registrare, ciascuno nella propria città.
4 Anche Giuseppe, che era della casa e della famiglia di Davide, dalla città di Nazaret e dalla Galilea si recò in Giudea nella città di Davide, chiamata Betlemme,
5 per farsi registrare insieme a Maria, sua sposa, che era incinta.
6 Proprio mentre si trovavano lì, venne il tempo per lei di partorire.
7 Mise al mondo il suo primogenito, lo avvolse in fasce e lo depose in una mangiatoia, poiché non c'era posto per loro nella locanda.
References and notes
See also
External links
BBC - Languages - Italian
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