Italian ( italiano (help·info), or lingua italiana) is a Romance language extinct: Anatolian · Paleo-Balkans (Dacian, spoken by about 60 million people in Italy Italy /ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia, [iˈta:lja]), officially the Italian Republic (Italian: Repubblica Italiana), is a country located partly on the European Continent and partly on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with, and by another 10 million Italian descendants in the world, making it spoken by a total of 70 million native speakers.[1] It is also spoken by an additional 125 million people as a foreign language. In Switzerland Switzerland , officially the Swiss Confederation (Confoederatio Helvetica in Latin, hence its ISO country codes CH and CHE), is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe where it is bordered by Germany to the north, France to the west, Italy to the south,, Italian is one of four official languages The four national languages of Switzerland are German, French, Italian, and Romansh. Only three of these languages, however, maintain equal status as official languages at the national level within the Federal Administration of the Swiss Confederation: German, French, and Italian, spoken mainly in the Swiss cantons of Grigioni Graubünden or Grisons (German: Graubünden, [ɡʁaʊˈbʏndən] ; Italian: Grigioni [ɡɾiˈdʒoni]; Romansh: Grischun [ɡɾiˈʒun]; see also other names) is the largest and easternmost canton of Switzerland. The canton shares international borders with Italy (Trentino-Alto Adige/South Tyrol and Lombardy), Austria (Vorarlberg) and Liechtenstein and Ticino. It is also the official language of San Marino The Most Serene Republic of San Marino /ˌsæn məˈriːnoʊ/ (Italian: Serenissima Repubblica di San Marino) is a country situated in the Apennine Mountains. It is a landlocked enclave, completely surrounded by Italy. Its size is just over 60 km2 with an estimated population of almost 30,000. Its capital is the City of San Marino. One of the, as well as the primary language of Vatican City Vatican City /ˈvætɪkən ˈsɪti/ , officially the State of the Vatican City (Italian: Stato della Città del Vaticano, Italian pronunciation: [ˈsta(ː)to della tʃitˈta del vatiˈka(ː)no]), is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, the capital city of Italy. At approximately 44.[2] Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy Italian unification was the political and social movement that agglomerated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of Italy in the 19th century. Despite a lack of consensus on the exact dates for the beginning and end of this period, many scholars agree that the process began in 1815 with the Congress of Vienna and the end, is based on Tuscan The Tuscan language , or the Tuscan dialect (dialetto toscano) is an Italian dialect spoken in Tuscany, Italy (in particular on the dialects of the city of Florence Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with 367,569 inhabitants (1,500,000 in the metropolitan area)) and is somewhat intermediate between the Italo-Dalmatian languages Italo-Western is, in some classifications of the Romance languages, the largest sub-group of these. It comprises 2 subsets: Italo-Dalmatian, and Western of the South Southern Italy or the Mezzogiorno (Midday) generally refers to the southern portion of the continental Italian peninsula and Sicily, historically forming the Kingdom of Two Sicilies plus the island of Sardinia. It encompasses the modern regions of Basilicata, Campania, Calabria, Apulia and Molise, which lie in Italy's south, and Abruzzo which is and the Gallo-Romance The Gallo-Romance branch of Romance languages includes French, Occitan, Franco-Provençal, and several other languages spoken in modern France and Northern Italy. The Gallo-Romance languages, along with the Ibero-Romance and Rhaeto-Romance groups, form Western Romance. Like all Romance languages, the Gallo-romance languages are derived from Latin Northern Italian languages Northern Italian , Gallo-Italian or Padanian (recent name) or Cisalpine (rare name) is a linguistic set with different definitions. It can be viewed:. Its development was also influenced by the other Italian dialects The Italian people generally refer to Italian dialects as all vernacular idioms spoken in Italy other than Italian and other languages recognised by the Italian state. As a rule of thumb, all Romance languages spoken in Italy are customarily termed as dialects. Ethnologue, the registrar of the ISO 639-3 recognises them as languages of Italy and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman invaders The Migration period, also called the Barbarian Invasions or Völkerwanderung , was a period of human migration that occurred roughly between the years 300 to 700 CE in Europe, marking the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. These movements were catalyzed by profound changes within both the Roman Empire and the so-called '.

Italian derives diachronically from Latin, and is the closest national language to Latin. Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian retains Latin's contrast between short and long consonants In phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant. As in most Romance languages extinct: Anatolian · Paleo-Balkans (Dacian, , stress In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense is distinctive. In particular, among the Romance languages, Italian is the closest to Latin Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. With the Roman conquest, Latin was spread to countries around the Mediterranean, including a large part of Europe. Romance languages, such as Aragonese, Corsican, Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish, are descended from Latin, while many others, in terms of vocabulary A person's vocabulary is the set of words they are familiar with in a language. A vocabulary usually grows and evolves with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge.[3] Lexical similarity In linguistics, lexical similarity is a measure of the degree to which the word sets of two given languages are similar. A lexical similarity of 1 would mean a total overlap between vocabularies, whereas 0 means there are no common words is 89% with French French is a Romance language globally spoken by about 110 million people as a first language (mother tongue), by 190 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant numbers of speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France, where the language, 87% with Catalan Catalan is a Romance language, the national and official language of Andorra, and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of the Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencià (Valencian), as well as in the city of Alghero on the Italian island of Sardinia. It is also spoken, although with, 85% with Sardinian Sardinian is, after Italian, the main language spoken on the island of Sardinia, Italy. It is considered the most conservative of the Romance languages in terms of phonology and is noted for its Paleosardinian substratum, 82% with Spanish Countries where Spanish has official status. States of the U.S. where Spanish has no official status but is spoken by 25% or more of the population. States of the U.S. where Spanish has no official status but is spoken by 10-20% of the population. States of the U.S. where Spanish has no official status but is spoken by 5-9.9% of the population, 78% with Rhaeto-Romance Rhaeto-Romance languages are a Romance language sub-family which includes multiple languages spoken in North and North-Eastern Italy, and Switzerland. The name "Rhaeto-Romance" refers to the province of Rhaetia once in the Roman Empire and 77% with Romanian Romanian (obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: limba română [ˈlimba roˈmɨnə] ) or Daco-Romanian is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova. It has official status in Romania, Republic of Moldova, and the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia. In the Republic of.[1][4]

Contents

Writing system

Main article: Italian alphabet The Italian alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used by the Italian language. The standard contemporary Italian alphabet has 21 letters, shown in the table below

Italian is written in the Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was borrowed and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome, which alphabet was then adapted and further modified by the ancient. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet The Italian alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used by the Italian language. The standard contemporary Italian alphabet has 21 letters, shown in the table below, 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 The comune of Bajardo, also Baiardo, is a municipality in the Province of Imperia in the Italian region Liguria. At the start of 2008 it had 306 inhabitants: less than a fifth of those counted in 1911. It is about 110 km southwest of Genoa and about 25 km west of Imperia, Bojano Bojano or Boiano is a town and comune in the province of Campobasso, Molise, south central Italy, Joppolo Joppolo is a comune (municipality) in the Province of Vibo Valentia in the Italian region Calabria, located about 70 km southwest of Catanzaro and about 20 km southwest of Vibo Valentia. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 2,150 and an area of 15.3 km², Jesolo Jesolo is a town and comune in the province of Venice, Italy, Jesi Jesi is a town and comune of the province of Ancona in the Marche, Italy, Ajaccio Ajaccio , is a commune in France. It is the capital of the region of Corsica and the prefecture of the department of Corse-du-Sud, among numerous others, and in the alternative spelling Mar Jonio (also spelled Mar Ionio) for the Ionian Sea The Ionian Sea is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, south of the Adriatic Sea. It is bounded by southern Italy including Calabria, Sicily and the Salento peninsula to the west, and by southwestern Albania, including Saranda and Himara, and a large number of Greek islands, including Corfu, Zante, Kephalonia, Ithaka, and Lefkas to the east. The. 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 has an Italian equivalent spelling: gi or i for j, c or ch for k (including chilometro for kilometer in prose), u or v for w (depending on what sound it makes), s, ss, or cs for x, and i for y. (In informal Internet usage and texts, it goes back the other way; for example, ch is replaced with k.)

History

The Italian language has a long history, but the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. The earliest surviving texts that can definitely be called Italian (or more accurately, vernacular, as distinct from its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae from the region of Benevento that date from 960-963.[7] 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, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, 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 all educated Italians could 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.

Italian was often an official language of the various Italian states pre-dating unification, slowly usurping Latin, even when ruled by foreign powers (such as the Spanish in the Kingdom of Naples, or the Austrians in the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia), even though the masses spoke primarily vernacular languages and dialects. Italian was also one of the many recognised languages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city since the cities were, until recently, thought of as city-states. Those dialects now have considerable variety, however. As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout Italy, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are the gemination of initial consonants and the pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" in some cases (e.g. va bene "all right": is pronounced [va ˈbːɛne] by a Roman (and by any standard-speaker, like a Florentine), [va ˈbene] by a Milanese (and by any speaker whose native dialect lies to the north of La Spezia-Rimini Line); a casa "at home": Roman and standard [a ˈkːasa], Milanese and generally northern [a ˈkaza]). (See Raddoppiamento fonosintattico).

In contrast to the Northern Italian language, southern Italian dialects and languages were largely untouched by the Franco-Occitan influences introduced to Italy, mainly by bards from France, during the Middle Ages but, after the Norman conquest of southern Italy, Sicily became the first Italian land to adopt Occitan lyric moods (and words) in poetry. Even in the case of Northern Italian language, 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 relatively advanced development of Tuscany at the time (Late Middle Ages), gave its dialect weight, though Venetian language remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life. Also, the increasing political and cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of the rise of Medici's bank, Humanism and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts.

Middle Ages

The re-discovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia and a renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century sparked a debate that raged throughout Italy concerning the criteria that should govern the establishment of a modern Italian literary and spoken language. Scholars divided into three factions:

A fourth faction claimed the best Italian was the one the papal court adopted. Eventually, Bembo's ideas prevailed, and led to publication of the first Italian dictionary in 1612 and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582-3), the official legislative body of the Italian language.

Modern era

Two notable defining moments in the history of the Italian language came between 1500 and 1850. Both events were invasions. The rulers of Spain invaded and occupied Italy down to Rome and the Vatican in the mid-16th century (see the aftermath of the Italian Wars). This occupation left a lasting influence upon the formerly irregular Italian grammar, simplifying it to conform more with the dominant Spanish language. The second was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy, and pushed the Italian language into a lingua franca. The increased unity among people on the Italian peninsula weakened many regional languages.

Contemporary times

Italian literature's first modern novel, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), by Alessandro Manzoni further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese "in the waters of the Arno" (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 languages ("ciao" is Venetian, "panettone" is in the Milanese dialect of the Lombard language etc.). Only 2.5% of Italy’s population could speak standard Italian when the nation unified in 1861.[citation needed]

Classification

Italian is most closely related to the other two Italo-Dalmatian languages, Sicilian and the extinct Dalmatian. The three are part of the Italo-Western grouping of the Romance languages, which are a subgroup of the Italic branch of Indo-European.

Geographic distribution

The geographic distribution of the Italian language in the world: large Italian-speaking communities are shown in green; light blue indicates areas where it was understood and spoken during the Italian colonial period, in the first half of the 20th century .[citation needed]

The total speakers of Italian as a maternal language are between 70 and 80 million. The speakers who use Italian as a second or cultural language are estimated at around 150 million.[8]

Official:

Regional:

Significant:

Historically official:

Used by some immigrant communities in:

Speakers: Maternal language: 65[18] - 75 million [8] Cultural language: c. 120-150 million [8]

Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, spoken mainly in the cantons of Ticino and part of Graubünden (Grigioni in Italian), which together are a region referred to as Italian Switzerland. It is also official language with Croatian and Slovenian in some areas of Istria, where an Italian minority exists. It is the primary language of the Vatican City and is widely used and taught in Monaco and Malta. It served as Malta's official language until the Maltese language was enshrined in the 1934 Constitution. It is also spoken to a significant extent in France, with over 1,000,000 speakers [19] (especially in Corsica and the County of Nice, areas that historically spoke Italian dialects before annexation to France), and it is understood by large parts of the populations of Albania and coastal Montenegro, reached by many Italian TV channels.

Italian is also spoken by some in former Italian colonies in Africa (Libya and Eritrea). However, its use has sharply dropped off since the colonial period. In Eritrea, Italian is widely understood [20]. In fact, for 50 years, during the colonial period, Italian was the language of education, but as of 1997[update], there is only one Italian-language school remaining, with 470 pupils. The name of the only Italian-language school in Eritrea is Scuola Italiana di Asmara[21], which was also the only Italian-language school in Ethiopia, when Eritrea was a province of Ethiopia[22]. The number of Italian speakers may increase a little when the number of students at that school increases and because it is still spoken in commerce[23], and Eritrea will be the only African nation where Italian is widely spoken and understood. In Libya, Italian has been wiped out by the Libyan Revolution's Arabization programs in education and media. In Egypt and Tunisia, it is mostly spoken by Italian Egyptians and Italian Tunisians and some professionals of non-Italian descent. In all of the above former Italian African colonies, most of the fluent Italian speakers are people who grew up in officially Italian-speaking nations, most especially Italy, and returned to Africa.

Italian and Italian dialects are widely used by Italian immigrants and many of their descendants (see Italians) living throughout Western Europe (especially France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg), the United States, Canada, Australia, and Latin America (especially Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela).

In the United States, Italian speakers are most commonly found in five cities: Boston (7,000),[24] Chicago (12,000),[25] the Miami region (27,000),[26] New York City (140,000),[27] and Philadelphia (15,000).[28] According to the United States Census in 2000, over 1 million Italian Americans spoke Italian at home, with the largest concentrations (nearly half) found in the states of New York (294,271) and New Jersey (116,365).[29] In Canada, Italian is the fourth most commonly spoken language, with 661,000 speakers (or about 2.1% of the population) according to the 2006 Census. Particularly large Italian-speaking communities are found in Montreal (c. 179,000) and Toronto (c. 262,000).[12] Italian is also strongly visible in the Hamilton area. 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.[30] In 2001 there were 130,000 Italian speakers in Melbourne,[31] and 90,000 in Sydney.[32]

Italian language education

Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language; in fact, Italian generally is the fourth or fifth most taught foreign language in the world.[33]

In anglophone parts of Canada, Italian is, after French, the third most taught language[citation needed]. In Francophone Canada it is third after English[citation needed]. In the United States and the United Kingdom, Italian ranks fourth (after Spanish-French-German and French-German-Spanish respectively). Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught foreign language, after English, Spanish, French, and German.[34]

In the European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 13% of the population (65 million[citation needed], mainly in Italy itself) and as a second language by 3% (14 million); 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%).[35] It is also an important second language in Albania and Switzerland, which are not EU members or candidates.

Influence and derived languages

See also: Italians

From the late 19th to the mid 20th century, thousands of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay, southern Brazil, and Venezuela, 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 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,[36] due to the fact that Argentina has had a continuous large influx of Italian settlers since the second half of the 19th century; initially primarily from Northern Italy; then, since the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly from Southern Italy.

Italian as a lingua franca

See also: Mediterranean Lingua Franca

Starting in late medieval times, Italian language variants replaced Latin to become the primary commercial language in much of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea (especially the Tuscan and Venetian variants). This was consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italian and the rise of humanism in the arts.

During 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 learned, after French (though the classical languages, Latin and Greek, came first). However, by the late 18th century, Italian tended to be replaced by German as the second modern language in the curriculum. Yet Italian loanwords continue to be used in most other European languages in matters of art and music. Within the Catholic church, Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. The presence of Italian as the primary language in the Vatican City indicates use, not only within the Holy See, but also throughout the world where an episcopal seat is present.[citation needed] It continues to be used in music and opera. Other examples where Italian is sometimes used as a means of communication is in some sports (sometimes in football[citation needed] and motorsports) and in the design and fashion industries.

Dialects

Main article: Italian dialects

In Italy, all Romance languages spoken as the vernacular, other than standard Italian and other unrelated, non-Italian languages, are termed "Italian dialects".

Italian dialects

Many Italian dialects may be considered as historical languages in their own right.[37] These include recognized language groups such as Friulian, Neapolitan, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian, and others, and regional variants of these languages such as Calabrian. The distinction between dialect and language has been made by scholars (such as Francesco Bruni): on the one hand are the languages that made up the Italian koine; and on the other, those that had little or no part in it, such as Albanian, Greek, German, Ladin, and Occitan, which some minorities still speak.

Non-standard dialects are not generally used for 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. In parts of Italy, the younger generations tend to speak standard Italian, rather than dialects, in all situations, albeit usually with local accents and idioms.[citation needed] 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 the contraction annà replaces andare in the area of Rome for the infinitive "to go").

Sounds

Main article: Italian phonology
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Vowels

Italian has seven vowel phonemes: /a/, /e/, /ɛ/, /i/, /o/, /ɔ/, /u/, represented by five letters: "a, e, i, o, u". The pairs /e/-/ɛ/, and /o/-/ɔ/ are seldom distinguished in writing and often confused, even though most varieties of Italian employ both phonemes consistently. Compare, for example standard "perché" [perˈke] (why, because) and "senti" [ˈsɛnti] (you hear), as pronounced by most central and southern speakers, with [perˈkɛ] and [ˈsenti], employed by most northern 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 /ˈpeska/ (fishing) and /ˈpɛska/ (peach), both spelled pesca ( listen (help·info)). Similarly /ˈbotte/ ('barrel') and /ˈbɔtte/ ('beatings'), both spelled botte, discriminate /o/ and /ɔ/ ( listen (help·info)).

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, and the unstressed i approximates the semivowel y. E.g.: buono [ˈbwɔːno], ieri [ˈjɛːri].

Triphthongs exist in Italian as well, like "continuiamo" ("we continue"). Three vowel combinations exist only in the form semiconsonant (/j/ or /w/), followed by a vowel, followed by a desinence vowel (usually /i/), as in miei, suoi, or two semiconsonants followed by a vowel, as the group -uia- exemplified above, or -iuo- in the word aiuola.[38]

Mobile diphthongs

Many Latin words with a short 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 (a game)". 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: 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.

Consonants of Italian[39]
Bilabial Labio- dental Alveolar Post- alveolar Palatal Velar
Nasal m n ɲ
Plosive p, b t̪, d̪ k, ɡ
Affricate t̪s̪, d̪z̪ tʃ, dʒ
Fricative f, v s, z ʃ, (ʒ)
Trill r
Lateral l ʎ
Approximant j w

Nasals undergo assimilation when followed by a consonant, e.g., when preceding a velar (/k/ or /ɡ/) only [ŋ] appears, etc.

Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are distinguished by length. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for /ʃ/, /ts/, /dz/, /ʎ/ /ɲ/, which are always geminate, and /z/, which is always single. Geminate plosives and affricates are realised as lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives, nasals, and /l/ are realized as lengthened continuants. The flap consonant /ɾ/ is typically dialectal. The correct standard pronunciation is [r].

Of special interest to the linguistic study of Italian is the gorgia toscana, or "Tuscan Throat", the weakening or lenition of certain intervocalic consonants in Tuscan dialects. See also Syntactic doubling.

The voiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/ is only present in loanwords. For example, garage [ɡaˈraːʒ].

Assimilation

Italian has few diphthongs, so most unfamiliar diphthongs that are heard in foreign words (in particular, those beginning with vowel "a", "e", or "o") will be assimilated as the corresponding diaeresis (i.e., the vowel sounds will be pronounced separately). Italian phonotactics do not usually permit verbs and polysyllabic nouns to end with consonants, excepting poetry and song, so foreign words may receive extra terminal vowel sounds.

Grammar

Main article: Italian grammar

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.

Examples

Look up Category:Italian language in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Conversation

English (inglese) Italian (italiano) Pronunciation
Yes Sì (listen) /si/
No No (listen) /nɔ/
Of course! Certo! / Certamente! / Naturalmente!
Hello! Ciao! (informal) / Salve! (general) (listen) /ˈtʃao/
Cheers! Salute! /saˈlute/
How are you? Come stai? (informal) / Come sta? (formal) / Come state? (plural) / Come va? (general) /ˈkomeˈstai/ ; /ˈkomeˈsta/
Good morning! Buon giorno! (= Good day!) /bwɔnˈdʒorno/
Good evening! Buona sera! /bwɔnaˈsera/
Good night! Buona notte! (for a good night sleeping) / Buona serata! (for a good night awake)
Have a nice day! Buona giornata! (formal)
Enjoy the meal! Buon appetito! /ˌbwɔn appeˈtito/
Goodbye! Arrivederci (general) / Arrivederla (formal) / Ciao! (informal) (listen) /arriveˈdertʃi/
Good luck! - Thank you! Buona fortuna! - Grazie! (general) / In bocca al lupo! - Crepi [il lupo]! (to wish someone to overcome a difficulty, similar to "Break a leg!"; literally: "Into the mouth of the wolf!" - "May the wolf die!"
I love you Ti amo (between lovers only) / Ti voglio bene (in the sense of "I am fond of you", between lovers, friends, relatives etc.) /ti ˈvɔʎʎo ˈbɛne/ ; /ti ˈamo/
Welcome [to...] Benvenuto/-i (for male/males or mixed) / Benvenuta/-e (for female/females) [a / in...]
Please Per piacere / Per favore / Per cortesia (listen)
Thank you! Grazie! (general) / Ti ringrazio! (informal) / La ringrazio! (formal) / Vi ringrazio! (plural) (listen) /ˈɡrattsje/
You are welcome! Prego! /ˈprɛɡo/
Excuse me / I am sorry Mi dispiace (only "I am sorry") / Scusa(mi) (informal) / Mi scusi (formal) / Scusatemi (plural) / Sono desolato ("I am sorry", if male) / Sono desolata ("I am sorry", if female) (listen) /ˈskuzi/ ; /ˈskuza/ ; /mi disˈpjatʃe/
Who? Chi?
What? Che cosa? / Cosa? / Che?
When? Quando? /ˈkwando/
Where? Dove? /ˈdove/
How? Come? /ˈkome/
Why / Because perché /perˈke/
Again di nuovo / ancora /di ˈnwɔvo/; /aŋˈkora/
How much? / How many? Quanto? / Quanta? / Quanti? / Quante?
What is your name? Come ti chiami? (informal) / Come si chiama? (formal)
My name is ... Mi chiamo ...
This is ... Questo è ... (masculine) / Questa è ... (feminine)
Yes, I understand. Sì, capisco. / Ho capito.
I do not understand. Non capisco. / Non ho capito. (listen)
Do you speak English? Parli inglese? (informal) / Parla inglese? (formal) / Parlate inglese? (plural) (listen) /parˈlate.iŋˈɡlese/
I do not understand Italian. Non capisco l'italiano. /noŋkaˈpiskolitaˈljano/
Help me! Aiutami! (informal) / Mi aiuti! (formal) / Aiutatemi! (plural) / Aiuto! (general)
You are 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? (listen)
How much is it? Quanto costa? /ˈkwanto ˈkɔsta/
The bill, please. Il conto, per favore.
The study of Italian sharpens the mind. Lo studio dell'italiano aguzza l'ingegno.

Numbers

English Italian IPAIPA
One uno /ˈuno/
Two due /ˈdue/
Three tre /tre/
Four quattro /ˈkwattro/
Five cinque /ˈtʃiŋkwe/
Six sei /ˈsɛi/
Seven sette /ˈsɛtte/
Eight otto /ˈɔtto/
Nine nove /ˈnɔve/
Ten dieci /ˈdjɛtʃi/
English Italian IPA
Eleven undici /ˈunditʃi/
Twelve dodici /ˈdoditʃi/
Thirteen tredici /ˈtreditʃi/
Fourteen quattordici /kwatˈtorditʃi/
Fifteen quindici /ˈkwinditʃi/
Sixteen sedici /ˈseditʃi/
Seventeen diciassette /ditʃasˈsɛtte/
Eighteen diciotto /diˈtʃɔtto/
Nineteen diciannove /ditʃanˈnɔve/
Twenty venti /ˈventi/
English Italian IPA
Twenty-one ventuno /ventˈuno/
Twenty-two ventidue /ventiˈdue/
Twenty-three ventitre /ventiˈtre/
Twenty-four ventiquattro /ventiˈkwattro/
Twenty-five venticinque /ventiˈtʃiŋkwe/
Twenty-six ventisei /ventiˈsɛi/
Twenty-seven ventisette /ventiˈsɛtte/
Twenty-eight ventotto /ventˈɔtto/
Twenty-nine ventinove /ventiˈnɔve/
Thirty trenta /ˈtrenta/

Days of the week

English Italian IPA
Monday lunedì /luneˈdi/
Tuesday martedì /marteˈdi/
Wednesday mercoledì /merkoleˈdi/
Thursday giovedì /dʒoveˈdi/
Friday venerdì /venerˈdi/
Saturday sabato /ˈsabato/
Sunday domenica /doˈmenika/

Sample texts

There is a recording of Dante's Divine Comedy read by Lino Pertile available at http://etcweb.princeton.edu/dante/pdp/

See also

Look up Italian in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Italian language edition of Wiktionary, the free dictionary/thesaurus
Italian language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of Italian
Italian Wikisource has original text related to this article: Pagina principale
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Italian language

References and notes

  1. ^ a b Ethnologue report for language code:ita (Italy) - Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Online version
  2. ^ Legge sulle fonti del diritto of 7 June 1929, laws and regulations are published in the Italian-language Supplemento per le leggi e disposizioni dello Stato della Città del Vaticano attached to the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. See also Languages of the Vatican City
  3. ^ Grimes, Barbara F. (October 1996). Barbara F. Grimes. ed. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. Consulting Editors: Richard S. Pittman & Joseph E. Grimes (thirteenth edition ed.). Dallas, Texas: Summer Institute of Linguistics, Academic Pub. ISBN 1-55671-026-7.
  4. ^ Brincat (2005)
  5. ^ (Italian) Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia
  6. ^ E. Paulescu et al., Dyslexia - cultural diversity and biological unity, "Science", vol. 291, pp. 2165–2167.
  7. ^ "History of the Italian language.". http://www.italian-language.biz/italian/history.asp. Retrieved 2006-09-24.
  8. ^ a b c Microsoft Word - Frontespizio.doc
  9. ^ 1,500,000 mother tongue Italian speakers in Brazil
  10. ^ 1,500,000 mother tongue Italian speakers in Argentina
  11. ^ over 1 million Americans speak Italian at home
  12. ^ a b Statistics Canada 2006
  13. ^ 548,000 mother tongue Italian speakers in Germany
  14. ^ Vannini, Marisa. Italia y los Italianos en la Historia y en la Cultura de Venezuela. Oficina Central de Información (Ministerio del Interior). Caracas, 1966
  15. ^ 353,605 mother tongue Italian speakers in Australia
  16. ^ 200,000 mother tongue Italian speakers in the UK
  17. ^ 72,400 mother tongue Italian speakers in Egypt
  18. ^ "Languages Spoken by More Than 10 Million People". Microsoft Encarta 2006. Archived from the original on 2009-10-31. http://www.webcitation.org/query?id=1257013011437361. Retrieved 2007-02-18.
  19. ^ Ethnologue report for France
  20. ^ Languages of Eritrea - Tigrinya
  21. ^ Scuola Italiana di Asmara (in Italian)
  22. ^ Tekle M. Woldemikael, "Language, Education, and Public Policy in Eritrea," in African Studies Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Apr., 2003), pp. 117–136.
  23. ^ http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/profiles/Eritrea.pdf
  24. ^ Boston, Massachusetts, MLA Data Center
  25. ^ Chicago, Illinois, MLA Data Center
  26. ^ http://www.mla.org/cgi-shl/docstudio/docs.pl?map_data_results
  27. ^ New York, New York, MLA Data Center
  28. ^ Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, MLA Data Center
  29. ^ [1]
  30. ^ Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005, "Language other than English" (spreadsheet of figures from 2001 Census)
  31. ^ Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Melbourne"
  32. ^ Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Sydney"
  33. ^ 9
  34. ^ www.iic-colonia.de
  35. ^ Eurobarometer – Europeans and their languagesPDF (485 KiB), February 2006
  36. ^ Unidad en la diversidad – Portal informativo sobre la lengua castellana
  37. ^ Ethnologue web reference for Italian
  38. ^ Serianni, Luca; Castelvecchi, Alberto (1997). Italiano. Garzanti. pp. 15.
  39. ^ Rogers & d'Arcangeli (2004:117)

Bibliography

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