Italian

· The Italian language

Italian is the official language of Italy.

It is also spoken as first language in San Marino, Vatican City and Canton Ticino (Switzerland).

Italian is spoken in also in Corsica and Malta.

Immigration à US

Canada

Argentina (cocoliche)

Australia

Colonization à Somalia

Ethiopia

· Brief history of the language

· From Latin to Romance languages: ca.

§ Latin as official language vs. volgare as language of everyday communication.

· Volgare starts to acquire strength and increase in diffusion during the 13^th century. But we do not have a single volgare, rather a number of different regional volgari.

· First Italian documents:

Indovinello Veronese (Verona’s riddle), 800 ca.

Placito di Capua, 960. Notes on a court proceeding written in Latin.

§ Dichotomy between the written official language which is still Latin, and the spoken language of the testimonies written in volgare.

§ Volgare really implies volgari, i.e. many dialects.

· The dialect of Sicily

§Volgare acquires prestige and becomes a literary language.

· The dialect of Florence

§The Tre corone (three crowns): Dante, Petrarca and Boccaccio, 14^th century.

§Florentine à Modern Standard Italian

· Standard lg. vs. dialects

· Unification of Italy: 1861 (1870) à Unification of the language

§ Which factors contributed to the process of unification/standardization?

1) Alphabetization

2) Urbanization

3) Industrialization

4) Mass media

· Dialects as languages

· Italian dialects are not mutually intelligible; they are autonomous linguistic systems separated from the standard language both in terms of structure and historical development.

§ Differences between standard and dialects:

1) codification

2) written vs. spoken

3) prestige

4) cultural relevance

5) geographical distribution

· Stigmatization of dialects/accents

§ Dialect as ‘simpler’ primitive language

§ Dialect as synonymous of uneducated, inferior, (poor)

· Dialects are being gradually absorbed into the standard

§ The revival of dialects

§ Are dialects destined to become dead languages?

· What language do Italians speak?

§ Multilingualism

1) Standard Italian: official language.

2) Regional Italian: regional features at the level of pronunciation and (partially) at the level of the lexicon. All Italian speakers understand it.

3) Regional dialect: a variety of dialect that has been influenced by standard Italian at the level of phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon. Speakers from distant regions might easily have problems in understanding each other.

4) Dialect.

· Classification of Italian dialects

1) Northern dialects

2) Central-Southern dialects

§ The Rimini-La Spezia line

§ Sardinian (Sardo) and Ladino

· Northern dialects vs. Std. Italian

§ loss of double consonants

§ weakening/loss of intervocalic consonants

§ vocalic differences; vowel/syllable loss

Lat. caballu(m) ‘horse’

Std. It cavallo kavalo

Kaval

Lat. maritu(m) ‘husband’

Std. It marito marido

marì_o

Lat. sellariu(m) ‘’

Std. It. sellaio slèr

· Central-Southern dialects vs. Std. It.

§ assimilation

§ metaphony

Lat. quando ‘when’

Std. It. quando quanno

Lat. *denti ‘teeth’

Std. It. denti dienti

dient

Gender and number agreement

Sg. masculine feminine

N bambino bambina ‘child’

ragazzo ‘boy’ ragazza ‘girl’

Adj. bello bella ‘beautiful’

buono buona ‘nice, good’

bambino bello, bambina bella

ragazzo simpatico, ragazza simpatico

· bambino bella, ragazza simpatico

Pl. masculine feminine

N bambini bambine

ragazzi ragazze

Adj. belli belle

simpatici simpatiche

bambini belli, bambine belle

ragazzi simpatici, ragazze simpatiche

· bambini belle, ragazze simpatici

Sg. tavolo ‘table’ nuovo ‘new’

sedia ‘chair’ nuova

matita ‘pencil’ nuov__

quadro ‘painting’ nuov__

Pl. tavol__ nuov__

sedi__ nuov__

matit__ nuov__

quadr__ bell__

Adjectives

Noun + Adjective

quadro bello, libro ‘book’ nuovo,

sedia comoda ‘comfortable’

Adverbs

Verb + Adverb

Dorme pacificamente

‘He/she sleeps peacefully’

Cammino lentamente

‘I walk slowly’

Adverb + Sentence/Sentence + Adverb

Improvvisamente Carlo entrò nella stanza

‘Suddenly Carlo entered into the room’

Carlo entrò nella stanza improvvisamente

Adverb + Adjective

Un quadro estremamente bello

a picture extremely beautiful

‘An extremely beautiful picture’

Una macchina davvero nuova

a car really beautiful

‘A really beautiful car’

Adverb + Adverb

Corre davvero velocemente

run 3 sg p really fast

‘He/she runs really fast’

Parla Italiano estremamente bene

speak 3sg p Italian extremely well

‘He/she speaks Italian extremely well’

· Adjective + Adverb

· bambino bello davvero

· macchina nuova estremamente

1) Molto ‘much, many’ Adjective

vs.

2) Molto ‘very’ Adverb

molto cibo ‘a lot of food’

molta frutta ‘a lot of fruit’

· molto frutta

molti bambini ‘many children (mas.)’

molte bambine ‘many children (fem.)’

· molto bambini

· molto bambine

bambino molto bello

bambina molto bella

· bambina molta bella

bambini molto belli

bambine molto belle

· bambini molti belli

· bambine molte belle

Adverb or Adjective?

1) libro molt__ bello

2) molt__ libri belli

3) molt__ cioccolata

4) molt__ pizza

5) libri molt__ belli

6) cioccolata molt__ buona ‘good’

7) Carlo corre molt__ velocemente

8) ragazzi molt__ cattivi

9) molt__ ragazzi cattivi

Italian Homework assignment

A. Answer the following questions.

1) How would you briefly describe multilingualism in Italy?

2) Which are some differences between Standard Italian and Italian dialects?

B. Fill in the blanks with the right form of molto

(1) __________ ragazzi simpatici.

(2) __________ belle ragazze.

(3) Bambine __________ buone.

(4) __________ quadri.

(5) Corre __________ velocemente.

(6) Quadro __________ bello.

(7) Bambina __________ buona.

(8) Parlo Italiano __________ bene.

(9) Pizza __________ buona.

(10) __________ pizze buone.