Florentine dialect
| Florentine | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Italy |
| Region | Tuscany (Florence) |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | fior1235 |
The Florentine dialect or vernacular (dialetto fiorentino or vernacolo fiorentino) is a variety of Tuscan, a Romance language, spoken in the Italian city of Florence and its immediate surroundings.
A received pedagogical variant derived from it historically, once called la pronuncia fiorentina emendata (literally, 'the amended Florentine pronunciation').
Literature[edit]
Important writers such as Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio and, later, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini wrote in literary Tuscan/Florentine, perhaps the best-known example being Dante's Divine Comedy.[1]
Differences from Standard Italian[edit]
Florentine, and Tuscan more generally, can be distinguished from Standard Italian by differences in numerous features at all levels: phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon.
Perhaps the difference most noticed by Italians and foreigners alike is known as the gorgia toscana (literally 'Tuscan throat'),[1] a consonant-weakening rule widespread in Tuscany in which the voiceless plosive phonemes /k/, /t/, /p/ are pronounced between vowels as fricatives [h], [θ], [ɸ] respectively. The sequence /la kasa/ la casa 'the house', for example, is pronounced [la ˈhaːsa], and /buko/ buco 'hole' is realized as [ˈbuːho]. Preceded by a pause or a consonant, /k/ is produced as [k] (as in the word casa alone or in the phrase in casa). Similar alternations obtain for /t/ → [t],[θ] and /p/ → [p],[ɸ].
Strengthening to a geminate consonant occurs when the preceding word triggers syntactic doubling (raddoppiamento fonosintattico) so the initial consonant /p/ of pipa 'pipe (for smoking)' has three phonetic forms: [p] in [ˈpiːɸa] spoken as a single word or following a consonant, [ɸ] if preceded by a vowel as in [la ɸiːɸa] la pipa 'the pipe' and [pp] (also transcribed [pː]) in [tre pˈpiːɸe] tre pipe 'three pipes'.
Parallel alternations of the affricates /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ are also typical of Florentine but by no means confined to it or even to Tuscan. The word gelato is pronounced with [dʒ] following a pause or a consonant, [ʒ] following a vowel and [ddʒ] if raddoppiamento applies ([dʒeˈlaːθo], [un dʒeˈlaːθo] un gelato, [ˈkwattro ʒeˈlaːθi] quattro gelati, [ˈtre ddʒeˈlaːθi] tre gelati. Similarly, the initial consonant of /ˈtʃena/ cena 'dinner' has three phonetic forms, [tʃ], [ʃ] and [ttʃ]. In both cases, the weakest variant appears between vowels ([reˈʒoːne] regione 'region', [ˈkwattro ʒeˈlaːθi] quattro gelati; [la ˈʃeːna] la cena, [ˈbaːʃo] bacio 'kiss').
Examples; (Florentine dialect, standard Italian, English):
- Io sòn = io sono = I am
- Te tu sei = tu sei = you are
- Egli l'è = egli è = he/she/it is
- Noi s'è/semo = noi siamo = we are
- Voi vù siete = voi siete = you are
- Essi l'enno = essi sono = they are
- Io c'ho = io ho = I have
- Te tu c'hai = te hai = you have
- Egli c'ha = egli ha = he/she/it has
- Noi ci s'ha = noi abbiamo = we have
- Voi vù c'avete = voi avete = you have
- Essi c'hanno = essi hanno = they have
References[edit]
- ^ a b "'La Lingua Toscana' – The Tuscan Dialect | TN&M". blog.tuscanynowandmore.com. Archived from the original on 5 January 2017. Retrieved 20 March 2017.
- ^ vohabolario del Vernacolo fiorentino e del dialetto Toscano di ieri e di oggi
- Cory Crawford. "A Brief History of the Italian Language". Retrieved 2007-01-15.
- Giacomelli, Gabriella. 1975. Dialettologia toscana. Archivio glottologico italiano 60, pp. 179-191.
- Giannelli, Luciano. 2000. Toscana. (Profilo dei dialetti italiani, 9). Pisa: Pacini.
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