Italian

Linguistic influences on Latin and Tuscan

Before the development of the Roman Empire, it is the Etruscan which was spoken in Toscane and in the north of the Latium. If the Etruscan language did not survive the immense influence which had thereafter the Latin , it has perhaps influenced the Toscan (as a Substrat). However too many facts (date of last certificate of the use of the Etruscan against that of a Romance language in Tuscany, for example) make difficult the confirmation of this assumption. On the other hand, the Etruscan influenced Latin as a Adstrat: the Etruscan Alphabet was used as a basis for the Latin alphabet and of many usual words are of Etruscan origin (like the word “letter”).

During the Roman conquest, the life of Italy - as that of most of Western and central Europe - then lived in Latin. Being given the duration of the Roman domination and probably as its quality, it is normal as Latin constituted the stock of many European languages, the Romance Langues and strongly influenced the others. After the fall of the Roman Empire of Occident in 476, Tuscany lives to arrive the Ostrogoths and the Lombards (5th and 6th centuries), of the Germanic populations originating in the east and the north of Europe. They influenced only very little the language (Superstrat S).

Presence in the world

Italian is spoken primarily in Italy (and with San Marino), where it is national language, but also in the south of the Suisse (Tessin and Grisons), where it is also recognized as Official language (it accounts for approximately 6,5% of the Swiss speakers). With the the Vatican, it is second official language with the Latin .

Moreover, there are many communities italophones in Croatia (Istrie and Dalmatie), in Slovenia and ex- Yugoslavia. As Slovenia it is Official language in unquestionable cities, in particular Capodistria/Koper, in Croatia it is official in Istrie, in particular in the towns of Parenzo/Poreč, Pola/Pula, Umago/Umag and Rovigno/Rovinj.

He is also spoken in France (Corsica, Corsican, Langue Ausbau, being strongly related with the Toscan; Nice, Chin and the Royasque of the valley of the Roya, with Monaco), Malta (where it was official language until 1934), in Albania, with the the United States (approximately 4 million speakers, especially in the big cities), in South America (Argentine, Brésil, Mexico, and Uruguay in particular), in Ethiopia, Érythrée, Somalia and Libya. In Libya it is the commercial language with English, and in Somalia, it was university language until 1991.

Italian seems much to have influenced the Spanish such as it is spoken in Argentine, in Uruguay, with the Mexico, where the presence of Italian emigrants was massive.

Writing

Italian uses 21 letters of the Latin alphabet. Indeed, J , K , W , X and is used there only in the loanwords. One finds however the J ( I lunga or gei ) as well as the there ( ipsilon or I greca ) and the W ( doppia considering ) in certain toponyms and names or first names.

the vowels can carry acute accents or serious (generally). The words normally carry graphic accents only on the last syllable when this one is phonetically accentuated or in rare cases to avoid a Homonymie.

the vowels ò and with always carry the grave accent. The vowel E can have two stamps and thus takes the acute accent when it indicates a E closed /e/ and the grave accent when it is about a E opened, even if this rule is not always respected ( perched , why, because, also is written and pronounced pole )/ɛ/.

For I and U , the use seems to privilege the grave accent ì , ù , but one still finds defenders of the acute accent í , ú , much more adherent with phonetic reality, /i/ and /u/ being the two most closed vowels Italian vowel system.

N.B. : The vowel O has it also two stamps, /o/ and/ɔ/, but with the finale it is always open ò . One finds nevertheless accents, optional, inside the words, intended to avoid confusions: articolatóri , plural of articolatóre (“articulator”) vs articolatòri , plural of articolatòrio (“articulatory”).

Orthography

Like the Croatian , the Spanish , the Slovenien , the Russian and the Czech , Italian has a transparency without fault in the grapho-phonemic transcription. This characteristic points out to Claude Piron in his article Linguistes: ignored ignorance , “In Switzerland, the pupils of Italian language writes correctly at the end of the first primary year, whereas the young French-speaking people do not write yet correctly at the age of 12-13 years. Why? Because the orthography of Italian is simple, coherent, whereas that of French contains a number impressing of arbitrary forms which it is necessary to memorize with the word, without one being able to trust with the way in which it decides. ”

Phonetics and pronunciation

The Italian language owes its sonority with its particular vocalism (conservation of the Voyelle S finales, even dull, and falls of the Consonne S finales) and with its geminated consonants (double consonants). The tonic Accent, is generally placed on before last syllable but also very often on the antepenultimate for the words of three syllables and more. In a number of cases, very minorotaire, it is placed on the last syllable: in this case, the last letter comprises obligatorily a grave accent. Lastly, in certain verbal forms like those of the 3rd person of plural, the tonic accent is placed on the syllable located before the antepenultimate: ( abitano ).

Some rules of pronunciation can divert the French-speaking people. There are no nasal vowels; the N and m are pronounced in any position. In general, the Italian vowels are closed than in French. There are also misleading consonants: the C followed I or E decides ʧ , whereas he decides K when it is followed by has , O or U . To have the sound K in front of the vowels I and E , one will add a H : chiamo thus decides. To have the sound ʧ in front of the other vowels, one will add a I : ciao thus decides (the I is not marked). In the same way, in front of I or E , G decides ʤ ; he decides G (as in range ) in front of the other vowels. The same applies to the group Sc , palatized ( ʃ CH French of dog , expensive ) so followed I or E (it. scimmia, scena), velar so followed other vowels or of a H ( sk : it. Sc has rto, Sc H iena). One will use also the I or the H after the G to define his pronunciation. Thus, giacca decides. The group gli decides most of the time ʎ ( L wet), and gn groups it decides ɲ ( N wet).

Notes

( ʒ ) is a Xénophonème used in the loanwords, in particular French. It is also employed usually in the regional pronunciation toscane.

the R rolled decides by closing a little more empty space in the mouth that in French. (as if one pronounced good evening by making less effort to articulate)

Grammar

detailed Article: Italian Grammar

Dialects

The many dialects italo-novels can be classified by their common linguistic stocks. Thus, they all are originating in the Latin , but the languages former to the Roman domination, the substrates, are different according to the areas and often conditioned the evolution of the dialects.

North-Italian

The dialects septentrional, also called septentrional north-Italian, Italian or more recently padan (or very seldom cisalpin) form an original dialectal group as a whole Italian.

The Romance Linguistique traditional regards the speeches of septentrional Italy as part of the Italian language. But the difference between Italian septentrional and Italian central-Southerner is marked by a very clear linguistic limit: it is a beam of Isoglosse S important, the Ligne Massed-Senigallia (called in a less exact way Ligne Spezia-Rimini ), which corresponds to the cut of the Romance languages in two great groups: the Western Romania and the Eastern Romania .

That carries out certain linguists (minority) to consider that the septentrional Italian , known as sometimes north-Italian or padan , would be a language independent of the Italian itself. Certain cultural movements assert even the label of language for each one of these dialects, but this opinion has much less echo among the linguists (except perhaps for the Piémontais, which acquired a rather advanced coding and a cultural dynanism compared to the other septentrional varieties).

Here the dialectologic classification of the speeches of septentrional Italian.

Gallo-italic or gallo-Italian (substrate Celtic; a frequent error consists in confusing the gallo-italic with all the north-Italian , whereas it of it is only one part):

Piedmontese (Piedmont, Turin)
lombard (Lombardy, Milan; south of the Swiss , Tessin, area of the Lake Maggiore)
Ligure or Ligurian or génois (of which enclaves with Monaco, Bonifacio and in the small islands of San Pietro and Sant' Antioco in Sardinia; of which also the Intémélien of the area of Vintimille)

Royasque ( Brigasque included), speech of high Roya, transition towards the occitan

émilien-romagnol (Emilie-Romagna, Bologna, Modena, Parma, Pleasure; north of the Steps; San Marino)

Venetian (Venice, Padoue, Vérone, Thirty)
Istriote (southern part of the Istrie, in Croatia), of difficult and discussed classification. One sees it either like a Venetian private individual, or like a dialect distinct from Venetian, or like an intermediate idiom between the Venetian one and the Dalmate.

Italian central-Southerner

Dialects central-Southerners or Italian central-Southerner

Dialects Tuscan (hypothetical Etruscan substrate)

Tuscan (Florence, Pisa, His), as a basis dialect being used for the Italian Corsican standard
(classified in the Italian diasystème, but constituting a Language by development)

cismontano (Corsica: Bastia)
oltramontano (Corsica: Ajaccio and islands of the north of the Sardinia)
Sassarais (north-western of the Sardinia, towards Sassari, distinct from the Sardinian )
Gallurais (northern of Sardinia, distinct from the Sardinian )