# Transition from L to I in Italian words



## Procyon

Salute. One detail I have noticed while becoming educated in Italian language: there are certain words that when translated into Italian, their l's become replaced by i's. Few examples include:

Plate -> Piatto
Flame -> Fiamma
Flower -> Fiore
Plant -> Pianta
Plan -> Piano

Another thing we should consider is the fact that all of these examples have l as their second letter. I was unable to find other examples that had their i's switched out with l's in other letter places.

Is this mere coincidence?


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## Odysseus54

Italian is an offspring of Latin, the language spoken by the Romans, who at one point occupied with their empire a very large portion of what is now Europe.

English, on the other hand, is a Germanic language with a large portion of its vocabulary deriving, directly (borrowing from Medieval Latin) or indirectly (through the neo-latin language spoken by the Normans who invaded England in 1066 A.D.) , from Latin.

In the transition from Latin to Italian, the 'l' following another consonant is often transformed into an 'i'.  English retain a form closer to the original.

Lat. 'flamma' - It. 'fiamma' - En. 'flame'
Lat. 'clarus' - It. 'chiaro' - En. 'clear'
Lat. 'planus' - It. 'piano' - En. 'plane'


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## Riverplatense

The Latin nexus consonant + L is unstable also in other Romance languages:

PLORARE → Sp. _llorar_, Port. _chorar_ etc.
By the way, vocalisation of /l/ is a rather frequent phenomenon in non-Romance languages, too: Old Slavonic _влькъ _(vl'k') → Cr./Bs./Sr. _vuk_, German _Wald _→ Bavarian [vɔjt].



Procyon said:


> [A]ll of these examples have l as their second letter […] Is this mere coincidence?



I would say: yes and no. Consonant + L is very likely to appear in initial position of Latin words, and less frequent in the middle of a word, yet there are such examples, too:

SPECULUM → *_speclum_ → _specchio_


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## Nino83

Initial Latin pl-, kl-, fl-, bl-, gl-:
"l" remained in French, Occitan, Catalan: pluvia(m) > pluie, pluèja, pluja; clave(m) > clé, clau, clau; flamma(m) > flamme, flamba, flama; blastemare > blasmer, blaimar, blasmar, glandula(m) > glande, glandola
"l > i [j]" in Italian: pluvia(m) > pioggia; clave(m) > chiave; flamma(m) > fiamma; blastemare > biasimare; glandula(m) > ghianda
changed in Spanish and Portuguese: pluvia(m) > lluvia, chuva; clave(m) > llave, chave; flamma(m) > llama, chama; blastemare > lastimar
intervocalic -kl-:
"[j]" in French: auric(u)la(m) > oreille
"[ʎ]" in Occitan, Catalan and Portuguese: auric(u)la(m) > aurella, orella, orelha
"[kkj] in Italian: auric(u)la(m) > orecchia

and so on.

in Italian:
pl-, kl-, fl-, bl-, gl- "l > i [j]" in Italian: pluvia(m) > pioggia; clave(m) > chiave; flamma(m) > fiamma; blastemare > biasimare; glandula(m) > ghianda
-kl- > [kkj]: auric(u)la(m) > orecchia
-gl- > [ʎʎ]: teg(u)la(m) > teglia
-mpl- > mpi: reemplire > riempire
-ngl- > n[gj]: ung(u)la(m) > unghia
-ffl- > -ffi: sufflare > soffiare
-skl- > -ski: masc(u)lu(m) > maschio

When the English borrowed Latin words, they kept the original spelling.


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## CapnPrep

See also:
Piatta/Plate - "i" becomes "l"
-ia- -> -la- between Italian / English


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## Procyon

Very interesting! I thank each and every one of you for your detailed responses!

Interesting to see all those correlations between Romance languages!


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## Gwunderi

Interesting also that you say "f*l*oreale" (un motivo floreale, adorni floreali).
Are there more such examples?

And I see now that in (at least) one Italian dialect, Friulano, the "l" remained:
piatto - plat
fiamma - flame
fiore - flor
pianta - plante

Edit: I found one more example:
the planet - il p*i*aneta - il sistema p*l*anetare


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## CapnPrep

Gwunderi said:


> Interesting also that you say "f*l*oreale" (un motivo floreale, adorni floreali).
> Are there more such examples?


Yes, there are a lot. You can open an Italian dictionary and look for words starting with _bl_-, _cl_-, _fl_-, _gl_-, _pl_- (or do it with a digitized dictionary/wordlist and you can search for these sequences in the middles of words, too). You will find many examples. Learned vocabulary reborrowed directly from Latin often retains these clusters.


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## olaszinho

Gwunderi said:


> And I see now that in (at least) one Italian dialect, Friulano, the "l" remained:



Friulan is not an Italian dialect but a separate language. It is quite close to Ladin, a group of languages (Rhaeto Romance family) spoken in the Alps from Switzerland to Friuli (Italy).


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## Gwunderi

CapnPrep said:


> Yes, there are a lot. You can open an Italian dictionary and look for words starting with _bl_-, _cl_-, _fl_-, _gl_-, _pl_- (or do it with a digitized dictionary/wordlist and you can search for these sequences in the middles of words, too). You will find many examples. Learned vocabulary reborrowed directly from Latin often retains these clusters.



I had a quick look in my Italian-German dictionary (a book) only for words starting with pl-, and didn't find really many: planetario, plùmbeo (piombo), pluviale (pioggia) and perhaps planimetria. But I think you're right that there are a lot more, only I don't have a digitized dictionary/wordlist (and can't find one online).

To make things more complicated:
fiume - fluviale
pioggia - pluviale

Here not only the "l" remained, but the whole word is closer to Latin:
"Rain" in Latin is "pluvia" (very close to "pluviale"), and "river" according to the dictionary is "flumen" or "fluvius"; I don't know if there's a difference between the two, but "fluvius" is also very close to "fluviale".

(And also here Friulano seems closer to Latin:
pioggia - pluje
piove (verb) - al plov
That's not really the topic, but interesting for me )



olaszinho said:


> Friulan is not an Italian dialect but a separate language. It is quite close to Ladin, a group of languages (Rhaeto Romance family) spoken in the Alps from Switzerland to Friuli (Italy).



Yes, it was recognized as a separate language in 1999 by the Italian state. Also the signboards with the city and village names are bilingual in Friuli since one or two decades (maybe since 1999?).

When I was a child, it was mostly regarded as a dialect, although there were always claims that it's a language for its own. I also didn't see why Ladin is considered a language, but Furlan, also a branch of the Rhaeto Romance family, not.

I can speak and read (but not really write) Furlan, but I feel as if I was cheating saying that I know a language more … I'll ask my relatives once.


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## Nino83

Gwunderi said:


> I had a quick look in my Italian-German dictionary (a book) only for words starting with pl-


Also: _clausura_ vs. _chiusura_, _glaciale_ vs. _ghiaccio (< glacium < glacies)_.
The difference is between learned and popular vocabulary.


Gwunderi said:


> it was mostly regarded as a dialect


It's a Raetho-Romance language, like Tuscan, Neapolitan and Sicilian are Italo-Romance languages and Piedmontese, Lombard, Emiliano-Romagnolo are Gallo-Italic Romance languages.
All these are "languages" in linguistic terms, not dialects.


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## Gwunderi

Nino83 said:


> It's a Raetho-Romance language, like Tuscan, Neapolitan and Sicilian are Italo-Romance languages and Piedmontese, Lombard, Emiliano-Romagnolo are Gallo-Italic Romance languages.
> All these are "languages" in linguistic terms, not dialects.



Interesting, I didn't know. But I have now more questions than answers:

So Piemontese, Lombard etc. are separate languages and not dialects of the Gallo-Italic Romance language? (Also there isn't one or THE Gallo-Italic Romance language, so there can't be dialects of it too?)

And mustn't there be an official written form of an "idiom" to be considered as a separate language? (Maybe not …)

And what language is Italian than? If there are only Raetho-Romance, Italo-Romance and Gallo-Italic Romance languages, what is Italian? Maybe the "standard" language of Tuscany since Dante (evolved in time of course)?

And it's languages only *in strictly linguistic terms*? I never heard of a Milanese saying he speaks the Lombard language, but an Italian dialect, Lombardic. Don't know if perhaps also in other regions apart from Friuli they claim to speak a language and not a dialect? And who establishes if it's a language or a dialect (in not strictly linguistic terms), is it the state?

Questions above questions …


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## Nino83

Gwunderi said:


> So Piemontese, Lombard etc. are separate languages and not dialects of the Gallo-Italic Romance language?


Yes, like Galician and Portuguese, Castillan and Asturian, Catalan and Occitan, are different languages of the same sub-group.
Then there are, for example, Western and Eastern Lombard dialects (Lombard language), Emilian, Bolognese, Ferrarese, Romagnolo dialects (Emiliano-Romagnolo language), Neapolitan and Barese dialects (Neapolitan language), Sicilian and Salentine dialects (Sicilian language) and so on. 


Gwunderi said:


> I never heard of a Milanese saying he speaks the Lombard language, but an Italian dialect, Lombardic.


This is another story. Normally, as you say, in Italy we call them _dialetti_.


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## Gwunderi

Thanks, now it's more clear. I even have a little book "The Romance languages" (in German), but never read it till now . Would be interesting one day …


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## Sardokan1.0

Look at the map below, you can have a clearer idea of how Romance languages are subdivided

Romance languages - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Romance-lg-classification-en.png


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## Gwunderi

Sardokan1.0 said:


> Look at the map below, you can have a clearer idea of how Romance languages are subdivided
> 
> Romance languages - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
> 
> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Romance-lg-classification-en.png



Oh, I see this only now. Thanks a lot, Sardokan, I'm very interested in old languages and writing systems (but didn't go into "details" till now) and these two maps are very instructive, have copied them to my PC.

Thanks again,
Gwunderi


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