Talk:Italian orthography

The foreign letters

The letters J, K, W, X e Y are not part of the Italian alphabet, so why are they in the list?

Because there were taught and used with the other letters; sometimes were used even in italian words (expecially latin and greek derivates, as "fidejussione" (Surety) from the latin "fideiussio" and "xilofono" (Xylophone) from greek ξύλον xylon (wood) + φωνή phone (sound)), Names (Kevin/Jacopo/Walter/Yara common names in Italy, but not italian wich could be Calvino/Iacopo(Giacomo)/Gualtiero/[not traductable]) and for foreing loanwords (as JoYsticK,) . Nickh ²+, --151.18.144.36 (talk) 00:46, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

The letter'x' is found in some placenames such as Arbatax in Sardinia. The letter 'J' is found in some personal names including indegenousIalian surnames. The placename 'Jesolo' is an error for 'Lesolo' and unknwon to Italians. Barney Bruchstein (talk) 18:05, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Substitutes for foreign letters ??

May 5th, 2007

As a native speaker, I'm quite puzzled by the paragraph Substitutes for foreign letters. Said paragraph seems to suggest that foreign words, before being used in Italian texts, undergo a transformation whereby [for example] the spelling of 'whisky' should turn into something like 'uhischi'. I'm not aware of anything like that; I'm indeed quite used to seeing words imported in their original spelling: whisky, jet, ketchup, etc. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the intent behind the paragraph? Rgiuntoli

Such unchanged loanwords are probably not regarded as Italian, but rather as foreign. FilipeS 18:10, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Phonemes R and RR

Someone asked a question in the main article:

<R> may represent one of two rhotics, an alveolar flap / ɾ/ or an alveolar trill /r/ -- is this one or two phonemes?

I believe they are two phonemes. FilipeS 18:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

C

How do the Italians pronounce the name for the letter C? The article says it's "Ci," but is that by the English or Italian pronunciation? In other words, is it "See" or "Chee"? My books on Italian aren't particularly clear on this either.J.J. Bustamante 16:40, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

• it's like "chee". see sounds in italia like "si" - (T.F.S.,from italy) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.48.143.218 (talk) 01:52, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the phonemes of c, In Italian:

• c immediately before y is always pronounced as IPA /s/.[1]
• c immediately before i or e is always pronounced as IPA /tʃ/
• c not immediately before i or e is always pronounced as IPA /k/

However, the article does not say that c in Italian can be pronounced as /s/. Maybe this is because those are not "Italian" words? --Bringback2ndpersonverbs (talk) 19:30, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

C before y is not always pronounced as IPA /s/. It may also be /tʃ/: in the surnames Cya and Cybo, in the name of the liqueur Cynar, in the Latin expression "in cymbalis". "Cyberspazio" may be pronounced in both ways, with /sai-/ or with /tʃi-/, and can also be spelled "ciberspazio". [2] 5.18.238.150 (talk) 21:12, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Letter J's name

Sorry for reverting again, but the only name for letter J in Italian alphabet is i lunga (at most i lungo, in case you consider these names as masculine), not "jay" or "gei". The English word jay, though popular, is still not accepted by dictionaries as a loan word. Even the most flexible Italian linguist, Tullio De Mauro, makes no mention of it. Compare [3]. Best regards, --Erinaceus Italicus (talk) 19:03, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

The only name? I know five: i lunga, i lungo, iod, iota (each of them recognized by Hoepli) plus jay. While jay is not accepted by dictionaries, I believe it's still worth mentioning since everyone uses it. Lupo Azzurro (talk) 11:27, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I do not use it, for it is a useless loanword. In any case, standard Italian is not determined by the popular usage but by a well-educated one (ask the Accademia della Crusca). Finally, please avoid specious arguments: i lunga and i lungo are the same name (though it has two genders), while iod and iota, according to Hoepli[4][5], do not refer to letter j, but to Hebrew letter yodh, Greek iota and the sound /j/. --Erinaceus (talk) 20:03, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Hey, remember that "i lungo" DOES NOT EXIST 'cause in all the Neolatin languages, unlike Greek, letters are always feminine. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.48.169.70 (talk) 15:30, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Picture of Dante

It doesn't seem appropriate to have the picture of Dante in the box on the top right. Does this follow any type of standard? If contributor wants to include Dante, perhaps he can create a section on some of the greatest Italian writers pulled from the Italian writers page. Mjpl (talk) 19:04, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Suggestiongs for improvements

Some spellings are missing from the list: gn, gli, diphthongs, triphthongs, doubled consonants, pronunciation of the trilled r and of sc as the English sh.

Explanations of the pronuciation of these spellings would help English speakers who are learning Italian.

A more complete list of Italian spellings is available here: https://www.ipasource.com/diction-help
Cwkmail (talk) 18:50, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Diacritics

What sound does "ì" make, as in Resìna? ZFT (talk) 20:05, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Asterisk in IPA

User:IvanScrooge98 has been adding "*" to some transcriptions, e.g., "scialo /ˈ*ʃaːlo/". I don't believe * is a standard part of IPA, and I don't understand what it means in this context. Can someone explain? --Macrakis (talk) 23:55, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

It's simple: it's true, * is not part of the official IPA, but it is useful to understand syntactic gemination: when it is after a vowel and before a consonant, that consonant should be pronounced twice as long (e.g. città by itself is transcribed as [tʃitˈta*]; hence, città di Napoli is [tʃitˈta ddi ˈnaːpoli]). It's used in many Italian dictionaries: take a look here. --IvanScrooge98 (talk) 08:37, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Very interesting. But:

• I don't think it's useful to include this in the orthography article, since this feature is not reflected in any way in the orthography.
• As I understand it, syntactic gemination is almost entirely regular (i.e., rule-based, conditioned mostly on phonological context, like where the word has its accent), so does not need to be noted for individual words.
• If the non-standard notation is to be used, it should be explained within the article somewhere.

Thanks for your contributions! --Macrakis (talk) 05:39, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I just added links to Help:IPA for Italian in the very first section, so that a reader who doesn't understand the asterisk can check out (inside the help article there is also a short explanation about syntactic gemination and the link to the main article). --IvanScrooge98 (talk) 10:21, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, that covers my third point. But my first and second remain. What does syntactic gemination have to do with Italian orthography, the topic of this article? And why notate it if it is regular? In English, the "p" of "pin" is aspirated and the "p" of "spin" is not, but this is not notated in phonemic transcriptions //, only in close phonetic ones []. --Macrakis (talk) 10:49, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• Orthography and pronunciation are closely related in languages such as Italian, Spanish or Polish, where to one sound correspond one or at most two spellings, unlike in other languages like French or English. Also, it is useful to mark when any type of consonant gemination occurs in certain languages, to be easier to understand for an English speaker: if scialo was rendered as /ˈʃaːlo/, maybe you wouldn't believe that lo scialo is pronounced /lo ʃˈʃaːlo/; so on English Wikipedia * becomes more necessary than on the Italian one. Syntactic gemination, by the way, isn't completely regular like the aspiration of p in English: for instance, di Dio ("God's") and qualche volta ("sometimes") are read /di dˈdiːo/ and /ˈkwalke vˈvɔlta/. --IvanScrooge98 (talk) 12:05, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I realize that Italian spelling is largely phonetic, except for the voicing of s/z, the quality of vowels, and the position of stress. But I don't see how that is relevant to notating syntactic gemination in the phonemic glosses in this article. There is, after all, a separate article on Italian phonology. As for the irregularities in syntactic gemination, it's an interesting topic, but again completely irrelevant to orthography, and not necessary to notate in the phonemic transcription of every Italian word that is subject to it. And the irregularities may be as much about the context as about the individual word. --Macrakis (talk) 13:05, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

OK, I understand that too many asterisks can be troublesome: so I've just removed them from the article (except those linking to the IPA help page). --IvanScrooge98 (talk) 13:34, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

This phenomenon has nothing to do with orthography. The asterisks are just confusing and not useful to the reader, with or without the link to IPA for Italian. And I think every case in the article is regular (stressed monosyllable etc.), so the notation adds no information. --Macrakis (talk) 08:03, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Relevance of WP Christianity & WP Catholicism?

Greetings, Wondering what these two WikiProjects have to do with this article? I just don't see the connection. Should these be removed from this talk page? Regards,  JoeHebda (talk)  19:19, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

ZZ

Does anyone know the rules for the pronunciation of ⟨zz⟩ (pazzo, razzo, ragazzo, etc.)? I searched it in Google but I couldn't find anything. Esszet (talk) 20:58, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Razzo's pronunciation is mentioned in the article but illogically presented as an example of single z "⟨z⟩ is pronounced as if doubled".

Your other common words as well as avvezzo are missing. --Espoo (talk) 06:02, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Never mind, I found this. I'll incorporate it into the article within the next day or two. Esszet (talk) 18:51, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

gl

"⟨G⟩ is also used to mark that a following ⟨l⟩ or ⟨n⟩ is palatal, i.e. /ʎ/ (only before ⟨i⟩) or /ɲ/ (everywhere), respectively (this is not true in words derived from Greek, where ⟨gl⟩ is a plain /ɡl/, like in glicine, 'wisteria'). "

Is it only true for words derived from Greek? Negligente is not Greek, but the <g> is pronounced and isn't only a palatal marker. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.146.41.16 (talk) 15:30, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

aglio

"/ˈaʎʎo/ aglio"
What happened to the "i" in aglio?
—DIV (1.129.106.87 (talk) 12:36, 24 February 2021 (UTC))

Do you mean the /i/ in the etymon AL(L)IUM or the i of the spelling aglio? Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 17:49, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree, shouldn't this be considered a trigraph instead? 159.20.29.42 (talk) 10:11, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes. Trigraph in aglio, digraph in agli. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 14:46, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

glissando

The article on glissando says the pronunciation of "glissando" in Italian is [ɡlisˈsando] but this orthography article suggests it is pronounced as [ʎisˈsando] which is probably not correct. Is this word an exception? Because if not, then the rules need to be modified in this article a bit. The ⟨gl⟩ is followed directly by ⟨i⟩ and also the word is not from Greek origin, so it should be pronounced like [ʎ] right? Nope. I found on an external source (from here) that says that at the start of a word, ⟨gl⟩ is pronounced like [gl]. Can anyone verify this, and if this is true, modify the article too? Thanks.

Good catch. Yes, glissando is an exception. It's a partial Italianization of French glissant. I've added it to the exceptions. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 21:02, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

It seems to me that ⟨gli⟩ is pronounced:

• [ʎ(:)] before vowels, e. g. aglio, gliommero;
• usually [ʎi] at the end of words, e. g. consigli (but some words have [gli], e. g. Angli) and as a standalone word gli (elided to [ʎ] before vowels);
• [gli] before consonants, e. g. glicine, glissando, negligente, geroglifico.

Are there any words in which ⟨gli⟩ is pronounced [ʎi] before a consonant? Burzuchius (talk) 13:39, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, there are some words in which ⟨gli⟩ is pronounced [ʎi] before a consonant. I have found in the DOP: coniglicoltore, coniglicoltura, foglifero, maglificio, scioglilingua, pariglina, sbaraglino, incanaglire, inorgoglire, accogliticcio, coglitore, raccoglitticcio, sceglitticcio, as well as some surnames and toponyms: Paglicci, Scoglitti, Foglizzo, Maglizza, Poglizza, and several names with -glin-. Burzuchius (talk) 10:19, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Q

Why is there no reference to Q as one of the few salient exceptions to the shallow orthography of Italian? There ought to be a short note on Q versus C and when each is used. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bearsca (talk • contribs) 16:56, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps because while systemically, C, CH and Q (and little-used K) represent /k/, Q itself is uniquely /k/, i.e. there's nothing exceptional about Q per se... other than (and this could be mentioned) it appears only before U, to represent together /kw/ (or /kʷ/, depending on the analysis), with QU /kw/ normally etymological (QUATUOR > quattro) but CU as /kw/ not (e.g. COR > cuore). Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 18:28, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Section on Z contains too many inaccuracies

The section on Z needs serious re-working, as it's full of inaccuracies (even ignoring the conflation of phones and phonemes, which I will for the nonce). As a start, I've stuck in for this: ⟨zz⟩ is generally voiceless /tts/. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 15:05, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Are what is listed official rules for voiced vs unvoiced Z? I don't see a source. Or is it original research? Is there a real rule for voiced vs unvoiced Z, or is it (apparently like open vs closed E and O) something that you just have to know for each specific word? Mitsguy2001 (talk) 16:17, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Added a source. Burzuchius (talk) 16:23, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the section is still riddled with errors and falsehoods. Sadly, DOP is perhaps the least trustworthy of sources for description of contemporary Italian phonology. This, for example, is simply not true:

It (grapheme z) is normally voiceless /ts/: At the start of a word in which the second syllable starts with a voiceless consonant (zampa /ˈtsampa/, zoccolo /ˈtsɔkkolo/, zufolo /ˈtsufolo/)

Realizations with /dz/ are highly frequent for all three of those. Yet even some of their forms are reported erroneously in the article, such as azienda and grazia with geminate consonant, not singleton. Azalea, not surprisingly, is pronounced with [ddz]; naso, mese and others can be heard with [z] even in Tuscany. And several other "infelicities" (at best). Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 19:22, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Open vs closed E and O

Is there any rule for determining whether an E or O is open or closed? When I learned Italian in the early 90s, we were only taught the open versions. Is that common in the US? Since it was obvious to me that there were at least 2 different versions of E and O, I would always ask my teacher about it, and she would just yell at me, insisting that there is only one pronunciation for each letter. Mitsguy2001 (talk) 17:42, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

You've just cited why language teachers -- and language students -- absolutely must do some basic linguistics. Unfortunately, there's no easy way to predict open/closed e or o synchronically, and more than a few items vary geographically. But you can find a good guide in Canepari's online pronunciation dictionary. Just google dipi Canepari and it should pop up. One caveat: it's phonemic, not phonetic, so non-distinctive details don't show up, but the open/closed questions are answered item by item. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 18:42, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I do know that in accented syllables, a grave accent indicates an open vowel, and an acute accent indicates a closed vowel (although in practice this only helps if the accent is on the last syllable). However, in school, I only learned the grave accent, including on words that should have an acute accent according to everything I read online. When I asked about the acute accent, I was told that it was not used in Italian. In common usage, is the grave accent used where the acute accent should be used? Should it be mentioned in the article? Or is it something commonly taught to beginners? Or were my teacher and our textbook both incorrect?

As a side note: is it common to teach beginners in the US that only the open vowels exist? Do you think my teacher was just trying to make things easier, and was yelling at me because I blew her cover? Or did she really think only the open vowels existed? Mitsguy2001 (talk) 20:14, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Aside from occasional use to distinguish minimal pairs such as prìncipi 'princes' - principi 'principles', the major use of accent diacritics in writing Italian is to denote word-final stressed vowels, such as finì, virtù, metà. For those three vowels, there's no question of open or closed. Final stressed o exists as well, very frequently in può, and also frequently in 3rd person singular passato remoto forms such as parlò, firmò, etc. In those cases the vowel is normally open. For all of these any mark would do, but perhaps influenced partly by French custom, the choice was grave. That leaves final stressed e, appearing most frequently in [per'ke] and a few other compounds with -che bearing stress. For most native speakers the vowel is closed [e]. What to do? General consensus seems to have opted for é -- perché, benché, poiché...-- with the diacritic thus serving two functions, i.e. signaling stress and indicating vowel quality. (But if every Italian who writes perchè were to be sentenced to a day behind bars, the prison system would overflow immediately.) -- The only teaching myth I'm aware of re open or closed vowels was circulating many years ago: a stressed e before a geminate consonant is open, otherwise it's closed. Nonsense, predating the label "fake news". No idea if your teacher truly believed what she was telling you. Two things are clear, though: she hadn't discovered that "I'm not sure. I'll check that out" is far preferable to pretending to know something; she was in dire need of a crash course in basic Italian phonology. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 17:11, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Should the article maybe mention that many Italians use only the grave accent, even in cases where the acute accent is correct? Also, my understanding is that in some regions, there is no distinction between the open and closed versions of E and O. Is it possible that my school district was teaching a version of Italian that used only the open versions of E or O? Perhaps that was taught to make it simpler, or it was thought (whether rightly or wrongly) that version would be more useful for Americans, or maybe that was just the version that my teacher and the author of our textbook were familiar with? In any case, should this be mentioned in the article?

To explain a few things that we were taught, that could maybe shed some light on what version of Italian I was taught: We learned only the open version of E and O, and used only the grave accent, even in cases where other sources say acute is correct. We were taught that an S in between vowels is pronounced like an American English Z. We were taught both the passato prossimo and the passato remoto. We were taught about the existence of egli, ella, esso, essa, essi, and esse, but never actually used them, and always used lui, lei, and loro. My understanding is that we were taught a central Italian version used in Rome, but I honestly don't know. Mitsguy2001 (talk) 16:20, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

The section in the article on diacritics is pretty well done. Perhaps some minor tweaking could clarify a couple of matters. I can't guess why you were taught what you were. True enough that some simplification works, i.e. "intervocalic orthographic s can be rendered [z] unproblematically" is close enough to true that non-native speakers can get away with it. Collapse of open/closed e and o can cause problems, though, most obviously if è 'is' and e 'and' are pronounced identically. -- Aside from acute/grave accents, but even to some extent in those cases, it seems that your questions might be more about the language per se, rather than how to represent it in writing. If you haven't studied the Italian phonology article, that might be a place to find answers to many of your questions -- and then the books and articles cited. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 21:14, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

My understanding is that in Northern Italy, only the open vowels are used, and in Southern Italy, only the closed vowels are used. Is that not true? è and e are still pronounced differently since the former would be stressed, the later would not. At least that's how we were taught. A better example may be pèsca vs pésca, although I vaguely also remember getting yelled at for asking about that one. As for the acute vs grave accents, that is definitely a question of orthography. Should it say that in practice, most Italians use only the grave accent, even when it is technically wrong? If you click on the 2nd link in the Notes section of the article (Italian Extraction Guide), it even says that the grave accent is the only accent that is used. Mitsguy2001 (talk) 18:14, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Briefly (I hope), because we're starting to re-hash the same things, and this isn't really the place for most of these basics.

My understanding is that in Northern Italy, only the open vowels are used, and in Southern Italy, only the closed vowels are used. Is that not true?

Definitely not true. See the Wikipedia article Regional Italian -- ['beːne] is so noticeable that it's a shibboleth/caricature of northern Italian speech. Here's one brief, incomplete, but careful characterization of the north:

Italiano di area settentrionale. A livello fonico sono peculiari: la scarsa sensibilità alla distinzione tra timbro aperto e chiuso delle vocali e, o (con tendenza alla generalizzazione del tipo chiuso)

è and e are still pronounced differently since the former would be stressed, the later would not. At least that's how we were taught. A better example may be pèsca vs pésca

There's no reason whatsoever to assume stress difference in normal discourse, as in Maria e Beppe vs. Maria è bella. The distinction is [e] vs. [ɛ]. pèsca vs pésca works as an example, but it's a bit less trustworthy than 'is', 'and' because it's not all that difficult to find native speakers who don't really distinguish pèsca/pésca.

If you click on the 2nd link in the Notes section of the article (Italian Extraction Guide), it even says that the grave accent is the only accent that is used.

That doc is a guide to deciphering handwritten parish and civil records of a century and more ago, not a description of Modern Italian usage. (It also contains a few obvious (minor) errors and authorship is unknown. On the last count alone, it should not be used as a source in Wikipedia.)

If you want to discuss this further, we can do it on my or your talk page. But please first consult the experts. For a basic textbook, Aski and Musumeci's Avanti. As a trustworthy reference grammar, Maiden and Robustelli cited in the article (I don't have my copy with me, but I assume they go on a bit about diacritics). For phonology, the best accessible source for great detail is Bertinetto and Loporcaro "The sound pattern..." cited in the Italian phonology article, especially p. 137:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/3BD6A21BBF1225A1ED46F6E984131AD3/S0025100305002148a.pdf

No easy simplifications in their findings. Again, I don't have my copy with me, but Stephan Schmid's Fonetica e fonologia dell'italiano might offer somewhat more digestible fare by way of a bit less excruciating detail (WorldCat can locate a copy near you). Buon lavoro! Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 17:46, 14 December 2021 (UTC)