# Romance languages: ne/en, y/ci



## jazyk

The two Italian pronouns _ne_ and _ci, _the two French pronouns_ en_ et y and the two Catalan pronouns _en _and _hi_ often give trouble to speakers of languages that don't have anything equivalent to them, Portuguese and Spanish included. I wonder how those words were formed and why they have similar purposes in the three languages mentioned below, but do not exist in Portuguese, Spanish and Romanian (possibly Galician as well). What strikes me the most is that Latin didn't have them, but those three above seem to have converged to the same uses. It looks as if a vulgar kind of Latin different from the one that was spoken in Iberia and Romania came up with that innovation and that was carried over in French, Italian and Catalan, languages that hadn't arisen yet.


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## SerinusCanaria3075

I was thinking the same a few days ago, and now I know _ne/ci_ and _en/y_ didn't exist in Latin like they're used today.
_Ne_ can always replace an idea or object in Italian while "en" not always does that in French.
Strangely Spanish and Portuguese chose direct pronouns like "lo/o" where in Italian _ci _would be used, who knows why:
Non ci credi? = ¿No lo crees?
Non posso crederci = No puedo creerlo.

I would say "[_of] *it*_" and "*here/there*" are the most common translations in languages that don't have this pronouns.
fr-J'ai *en* trois (usually as a secondary frase, after an object is introduced)
it-Io *ne* ho tre (as long as a topic or object is said or mentioned but doesn't necessarily go right after)
es- Yo tengo tres *de esto* (Yo tengo *de esto* tres)

fr-Je vais *y* aller
it-*Ci *andr*o*
es- Iré *ahí*.

Perhaps the idea came from Latin "_ecce_".
To my knowledge Spanish is the only one that didn't keep something similar (_ecco/eis/voilà,voici_) probably due to the way it's spoken.

Besides their already mentioned use, _*en*_ serves to help build the _Gérondif _in French (*en* ayant) and _*ne*_ also has some other uses in Italian like in commands (vatte*ne*, devo andarme*ne*)


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## Hulalessar

French "y" comes from Latin "ibi" meaning "there".

"En" (adverb and pronoun) comes from "inde" meaning "from there".

"En" (preposition) comes from "in".


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## CapnPrep

French _en_ (the pronoun/adverb, not the preposition) comes from Latin _inde_ "from there".

French _y_ comes either from Latin _hic_ "here" or _ibi_ "there" (later "to there").
The same element does exist in Spanish, in the verb _hay_.


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## Hulalessar

Some suggest that _hic/ibi_ has also influenced Spanish _soy_ and/or _estoy._ And when I think of it perhaps_ voy._ But not_ doy,_ except perhaps by following the other three!


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## berndf

Hulalessar said:


> ..."En" (adverb and pronoun) comes from "inde" meaning "from there".
> 
> "En" (preposition) comes from "in".


 
Thank you for this bit of information. It always puzzled me why there are two different uses of _en _which seem to have nothing in common. Is there maybe also a double etymology of Italian _ci_ which might explain some of its less straight forward uses?


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## Outsider

SerinusCanaria3075 said:


> Perhaps the idea came from Latin "_ecce_".
> To my knowledge Spanish is the only one that didn't keep something similar (_ecco/eis/voilà,voici_) probably due to the way it's spoken.


In Spanish there is _he_. These are not classified as pronouns, though.


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## SerinusCanaria3075

CapnPrep said:


> French _y_ comes either from Latin _hic_ "here" or _ibi_ "there" (later "to there").
> The same element does exist in Spanish, in the verb _hay_.


Well, the element of "existance" does exist in Spanish but if I'm not mistaken it's like Portuguese _há_, just the 3rd p. form of _haber/haver_.
It's interesting that French and Italian used the forms _*ci/y*_ to construct "_there is_" (_*ci* è_, _il *y* a_) since both only conserved one copula. 
However since _ci/y_ can be either adverb or pronoun a lot of things can be said on this matter.

(Outsider, true, _he aquí_ is the closest to _eis_, but in my opinion it's becoming less frequent to hear as time goes by. I would say it's rare to hear in everyday speech since _he aquí_ is usually worded differently, like _aquí está_ or _es aquí _for example)


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## zpoludnia swiata

There's nothing particularly strange about the fact that French and Italian have certain pronouns that don't translate so directly into Spanish or Portuguese, due to their lack (though they have words that derive from a shared root in Latin).  Those are some of the elements that make them distinct.  Differences in grammar/structure among related languages can be very large, huge even.  Think of the different ways languages deal with "existence constructions"  There is, hay, ci, es gibt, jest... They all convey the same idea in the end, but happen to have developed from different roots.


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## CapnPrep

> French _y_ comes either from Latin _hic_ "here" or _ibi_ "there" (later "to there").
> The same element does exist in Spanish, in the verb _hay_.





SerinusCanaria3075 said:


> Well, the element of "existance" does exist in Spanish but if I'm not mistaken it's like Portuguese _há_, just the 3rd p. form of _haber/haver_.


The 3sg form of _haber _in Spanish is _ha_. The form _ha*y*_ appears in existential sentences because it used to be _habet *ibi*_.


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## OldAvatar

jazyk said:


> The two Italian pronouns _ne_ and _ci, _but do not exist in Portuguese, Spanish and Romanian (possibly Galician as well).



_Ne_, as a reflexive pronoun, exists in Romanian, in Dative and Accusative.

_Nouă ne spunea. _[(He) was telling us.]_
Noi ne gândim._ [We are thinking.]


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## Lumia

In Catalan, the pronoun *en* derives from the Latin _īnde_ and the pronoun *hi*(formerly spelled also *y*, *i*, *ic* and *hic* and dialectally *hey*) derives from the Latin _ĭbi_, from the Latin _hīc_ or perhaps from the concurrence of both:

"[hi] d'un dels adverbis de lloc llatins ĭbi o hīc, o tal vegada de la concurrència de tots dos en el llatí vulgar. Demanen evidentment l'etimologia ĭbi les formes italianes _ivi, vi_, i altres; en canvi, la francesa _y_ i les grafies catalanes _hi_ i _hic_ semblen indicar que, almenys en l'edat mitjana, existia la convicció que calia relacionar aquesta partícula amb l'adverbi llatí hīc. (Cf. Badia Margarit, «Los complementos pronominalo-adverbiales derivados de _ibi_ e _inde_ en la Península Ibérica», Madrid 1947)" 

http://dcvb.iec.cat/


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## jazyk

> _Ne_, as a reflexive pronoun, exists in Romanian, in Dative and Accusative.
> 
> _Nouă ne spunea. _[(He) was telling us.]_
> Noi ne gândim._ [We are thinking.]


I know that and I wasn't talking about this _ne_, I was talking about this:

Italian: Quante mele hai comprato? - Ne ho comprate tre.
Romanian: Câte mere ai cumpărat? - Am cumpărat trei. The Italian _ne _doesn't translate in Romanian either.


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## Outsider

CapnPrep said:


> The 3sg form of _haber _in Spanish is _ha_. The form _ha*y*_ appears in existential sentences because it used to be _habet *ibi*_.


I wonder. Portuguese uses _há_ in both cases. To me, _hay_ just seems like a variant of _ha_. Compare it with the subjunctive forms _haya_, _hayas_, _haya_, etc.


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## CapnPrep

Outsider said:


> I wonder.


OK, but this is the story that Spanish linguists have agreed upon. For example:

J. D. Sadler (1970) "Spanish for the Latin Teacher"_. The Classical Journal_ 66:2, 147-154.
 p. 154: _Ibi_ became _y_ but was lost except in the idiom for "there is," "there are," _hay_ (the same as French _il y a_).
The article is available on JSTOR. There is also:

William T. Starr (1947) "Impersonal _haber_ in Old Spanish"_. PMLA_ 62:1, 9-31. 
This article looks at the use of locative _y_ with forms of _haber_ from the 12th to the 14th century. At first, _y_ was used with all forms of _haber_, and it could appear before or after the verb. Eventually, however, _y_ lost its locative meaning and disappeared except in the present tense _hay_, which had become totally grammaticalized.

The subjunctive forms are the result of the weakening of the Latin /b/ in _habeat_ > _haya_, etc.


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## Outsider

Am I right to assume that Catalan "ha" is a form of a cognate verb to Spanish "haber" and French "avoir"?


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## panjabigator

Not the best source Outsider, but the Spanish "hay" and Portuguese "ha" in Catalan is composed of two words, "hi ha."  "Ha" is derived from "haver," which I'm sure you recognize.  I don't quite recognize why Catalan uses "hi" in "hi ha."  What grammatical significance does it have?  I do understand that it means "there is" but I'm confused to its purpose.


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## Outsider

It's easily understandable to me, because French has the same structure, "il y a" (the "il" is a mandatory dummy subject). Literally, considering that "haver/avoir" means "to have", you can parse it as "it has there", or "it there has". A bit less literal, but perhaps an enlightening translation: "(it) is _there_". In French and Catalan, you make the location of what exists explicit. So it's not so different from the English phrase, "there is".


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## Beachxhair

How did the adverbial pronouns develop from Latin to Old Romance in the first place?


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## fdb

The original question was why en/ne (let us stick to this one for the moment) is used as a partitive pronoun in French, Catalan and Italian, but not in other Romance languages. Perhaps the simplest answer is that it is a borrowing (or syntactic calque) from French into Catalan and Italian.


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## Ben Jamin

SerinusCanaria3075 said:


> I would say "[_of] *it*_" and "*here/there*" are the most common translations in languages that don't have this pronouns.
> fr-J'ai *en* trois (usually as a secondary frase, after an object is introduced)


 Isn't it "J'*en* ai trois" in French?


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## Beachxhair

Yes, it's _j'en ai trois. _


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## bearded

Hello fdb
I do not think that Italian 'ne' is a calque from French: it is rather directly derived from Latin 'inde' originally meaning 'from there, therefrom', and later 'thereof'. Why should it be a borrowing or a calque, and not a parallel, autonomous formation?


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## fdb

The question was why this particular syntagma occurs in only in the three mentioned languages. No one is denying that Italian “ne” comes from “inde”, we are only asking how it came to be used in this particular way. It is generally held that the use of “del, degli” etc. to mean “some” is a Gallicism in Italian and as such is disapproved of by some Italian purists.


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## Nino83

fdb said:


> The original question was why en/ne (let us stick to this one for the moment) is used as a partitive pronoun in French, Catalan and Italian, but not in other Romance languages. Perhaps the simplest answer is that it is a borrowing (or syntactic calque) from French into Catalan and Italian.
> 
> The question was why this particular syntagma occurs in only in the  three mentioned languages. No one is denying that Italian “ne” comes  from “inde”, we are only asking how it came to be used in this  particular way. It is generally held that the use of “de” to mean “some”  is a Gallicism in Italian and as such is disapproved of by some Italian  purists.



I think that this statement is a bit hurried and imprecise. 

_Ne_ in Italian means: 

1) *from there*: _*Ne* siamo usciti con le ossa rotte_ literally _We came out *from there* with broken bones_. 
2) *of it, about it*: _Non me *ne* importa nulla_ literally _I don't care *about it*_. 
3) *partitive*: _Ne ho mangiate_ literally _I ate them_ (note that in French after the partitive _ne_ past participle doesn't agree in number and gender but in Italian it does). 

About _ci_ I'd say that Italian is the only Romance language that uses this particle also for accusative/dative case of the pronoun _noi_ (we, nous, nos). 

_Dac*ci* da bere_ means _give some beverage *to us*_ (literally _give some beverage *here*_). 

EDIT: 

Some Southern Italian dialects utilize _ndi/nni_ for _us_ (derived from _ne/inde_). 

The usage of _ne_ and _ci_ are not recent, also Dante and Boccaccio utilized these pronouns (and _ne_ as partitive pronoun). 
The first meaning was _from there_, then the partitive and the latter meaning was the genitive (developed from the partitive).


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## Cossue

fdb said:


> The original question was why en/ne (let us stick to this one for the moment) is used as a partitive pronoun in French, Catalan and Italian, but not in other Romance languages. Perhaps the simplest answer is that it is a borrowing (or syntactic calque) from French into Catalan and Italian.



En/em/ende/inde was also used in medieval Galician and Portuguese as a partitive pronoun (cf. Clarinda de Azevedo Maia, _Historia do Galego-Português_, p. 693), as seen in documents from the 13th and 14th centuries.  Today this form exists only in the composite adverb which is spelled Gal. _porén_, Port. _porém  _< Latin POR INDE. De Azevedo also affirms that this pronoun simply felt out of use in Spanish, Galician and Portuguese.


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## Cenzontle

On the Spanish "he aquí", mentioned in #7 and #8—
to further complicate matters, that "he", which looks so much like the first-person singular of "haber",
is derived by Corominas from an Arabic etymon ("que tiene el mismo valor"—the same deictic function)
which Corominas transcribes as "hê".


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## bo-marco

In Emilian language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emilian_language
there are IN (/in/) with the same use of EN/NE and GH (/g/) with the same use of CI/Y.

Italian: Quante mele hai comprato? - *Ne* ho comprate tre.
Emilian: Quant póm à't cumprâ? - A *'n* ò cumprâ tri.

Italian: *Ci* andrò
Emilian: A *gh* andrò


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## Beachxhair

Cossue said:


> En/em/ende/inde was also used in medieval Galician and Portuguese as a partitive pronoun (cf. Clarinda de Azevedo Maia, _Historia do Galego-Português_, p. 693), as seen in documents from the 13th and 14th centuries.  Today this form exists only in the composite adverb which is spelled Gal. _porén_, Port. _porém  _< Latin POR INDE. De Azevedo also affirms that this pronoun simply felt out of use in Spanish, Galician and Portuguese.



How was the adverbial pronoun lost from Portuguese? In Old Spanish, according to an article http://ddd.uab.es/record/2228?ln=en, one of the contributing factors to loss of Castillian _y _and _ende _was the fact there were often stressed, thus preventing cliticisization to the verb. However, in Old Portuguese, these elements were unstressed. Sánchez Lancis talks about the the syntactic reasons for their loss; "Secondly, we analyse the syntactic behaviour of these deictic adverbs in an Old Spanish corpus, where one can observe that there is little difference among the adverbs of the same group, and that there is a progressive grammaticalization of ende and ´y." 

Since the Old Portuguese pronominal adverbs were stressed, could the other factors (the grammatical and lexical factors) account for their loss, and stress was of little importance?


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## Cossue

I think that they were also stressed in Galician and Portuguese... Just checking, in the 13th century Galician _Cantigas de Santa Maria_ _en _rhymes with _ren _'nothing', _ten _'it/he/she has" (cf. CSM 15 in http://www.cantigasdesantamaria.com/csm/15/rhyme/c16), which are stressed:



E se daquesto, pela ventura,que digo non me creedes *ên*:éu fui catar a sa sepulturae das sas armas non vi *i* *ren*.Mas tornemos* i* lóg'a cordura,por Déus que o mund'en poder *ten*,ca este feit'é de tal naturaque dev'óm'*ên *seer sabedor.”


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## Epilio

Aragonese is another language that has clitic pronouns.


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## Montesacro

Nino83 said:


> EDIT:
> 
> Some Southern Italian dialects utilize _ndi/nni_ for _us_ (derived from _ne/inde_).



It happens in Northern dialects as well.

Venetian:

_I ne ga dà *na* man_ (*Ci* hanno dato una mano / they have given *us* a hand)


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## roboir

> It happens in Northern dialects as well.
> 
> Venetian:



Montesacro, 

I don't mean to politicise this thread, much less to presume that you meant any disrespect, but Venetian is not a dialect of Italian. It's a bona fide language and it is not part of the same group as the Central (Italian) and Southern (Neapolitan) Italo-Romance languages. In fact, it's not even part of the Italo-Dalmatian sub-family is part of the Western Romance group. To attribute to Venetian an Italian dialect status is like making the same claims between, say, Frisian and Swedish.

I know that it is an Italian force of habit, but it is not helpful (much less is it accurate) to wield these terms as the regional languages of Italy continue to die a death and all to be buried under an inaccurate and neglectful epitaph. Imagine if we continued to refer to Catalan or Galician as 'dialects' in a Spanish context.


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## Nino83

roboir said:


> I know that it is an Italian force of habit, but it is not helpful (much less is it accurate) to wield these terms as the regional languages of Italy continue to die a death and all to be buried under an inaccurate and neglectful epitaph. Imagine if we continued to refer to Catalan or Galician as 'dialects' in a Spanish context.



It's normal. In Italy we call _dialetti_ the Italian languages and _accenti_ the varieties of Regional Italian. 



roboir said:


> In fact, it's not even part of the Italo-Dalmatian sub-family  is part of the Western Romance group. To attribute to Venetian an  Italian dialect status is like making the same claims between, say,  Frisian and Swedish.



This classification is debatable because Venetian, unlike Gallo-Italic languages, hasn't front rounded vowels [y] [ø], mantains Latin final unstressed vowels [e] _ [o]  (these and final syllables are elided in Gallo-Italic languages, es. denaro becomes dne in Piedmontese) doesn't rise unstressed [a] to [e] (as it is in Gallo-Italic and French), Latin ct is not jt but t (factum --> fajt Piedmontese, fait French, fato Venetian), negation is in pre-verbal position (as in Italian) and not in post-verbal position (as in Gallo-Italic and French). 
Also Wikipedia put Venetian into Italo-Dalmatian languages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo-Dalmatian_languages adding that sometimes it's considered Gallo-Italic._


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## francisgranada

I think that while we speak about Northern or Southern dialects in a geographical sense it's ok. Finally, the Venetian also has it's dialects. What is _not _correct in my opinion is to consider or to call the Venetian (language) a dialect of the Italian (language).

(of course, the term _dialect _is a bit "problematic", but it's an other question ...)


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## Nino83

francisgranada said:


> What is _not _correct in my opinion is to consider or to call the Venetian (language) a dialect of the Italian (language).



The problem is that in Italian language the word _dialect_ is the right word (also encyclopedias call them _dialetti_). It's a mistake of translation.


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## Ben Jamin

Nino83 said:


> The problem is that in Italian language the word _dialect_ is the right word (also encyclopedias call them _dialetti_). It's a mistake of translation.



Isn't this a rather politically motivated classification? The speakers of the official language in the country don't like to admit that there exist other languages than dialects of their own language. 
The foreign linguists usually pioneer the reclassification of dialects to separate languages, with the local ones to join reluctantly after. 
In China they call even completely mutually unintelligible langauges "dialects of Chinese" in English.


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## Nino83

It seems that it isn't a politically motivated classification. 
Also specialistic works call them _dialetti_ (if they're wrote in Italian language), but also _lingue italiane_. 
This happens also on wikipedia: 
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Linguistic_map_of_Italy.png 
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Dialetti_parlati_in_Italia.png 

The same photo has two different titles: 
_linguistic map of Italy_ in English
_mappa delle lingue e dei dialetti d'Italia_ in Italian


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## Ben Jamin

Nino83 said:


> It seems that it isn't a politically motivated classification.
> Also specialistic works call them _dialetti_ (if they're wrote in Italian language), but also _lingue italiane_.
> This happens also on wikipedia:
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Linguistic_map_of_Italy.png
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Dialetti_parlati_in_Italia.png
> 
> The same photo has two different titles:
> _linguistic map of Italy_ in English
> _mappa delle lingue e dei dialetti d'Italia_ in Italian


Your link to maps shows that the Sardinian, Piemontese, Veneto, Emiliano Romagnolo. etc are called "lingue romanze", not "dialetti", so I don't see how the links can confirm your statement, that "dialetti" is used in Italy for all local languages (but I know that it was so in the past).


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## francisgranada

One thing is the correct usage of the terms _dialetto/__lingua _and an other thing is to say e.g. _il veneto è un dialetto dell'italiano_. This is not correct because the Venetian is neighter a variant nor a descendant of the language that we call "Italian". To say _il veneto è un dialetto italiano _is, in my opinion, misleading or at least ambiguous: _italiano _can indicate the _Italian language_ and the _adjective of Italia_ as well.


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## Nino83

Ben Jamin said:


> Your link to maps shows that the Sardinian, Piemontese, Veneto, Emiliano Romagnolo. etc are called "lingue romanze", not "dialetti", so I don't see how the links can confirm your statement, that "dialetti" is used in Italy for all local languages (but I know that it was so in the past).



http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/dialetti_(Enciclopedia_dell'Italiano)/ 
This is an article about Italian languages. Treccani is one of the most eminent Italian encyclopedias. 

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elenco_dei_dialetti_d'Italia 
This is an article of Wikipedia about Italian languages. 
If you go to the English version there is a disambiguation page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_dialects 

It's another proof that in Italian language the term _dialetti_ is applied to Italian languages. 



francisgranada said:


> One thing is the usage of the terms _dialetto, __lingua _and an other thing is to say e.g. _il veneto è un dialetto dell'italiano_. This is not correct because the Venetian is neighter a variant nor a descendant of the language that we call "Italian". To say _il veneto è un dialetto italiano _is, in my opinion, is at least ambiguous: _italiano _can indicate the _Italian language_ and the _adjective of Italia_ as well.



Yes, technically only Tuscan language is a dialect of Italian (or in a less stringent view, Romanesco and Marchigiano). 

In Italy no one is hurt about it. 
There aren't nationalist movements based on linguistic differences (except for Sardinia). 
We call _minoranze linguistiche_ only French speaking people in Valle d'Aosta, German in South Tyrol and Slovenian minorities in Friuli. 

All other languages are called _dialetti_.


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## Ben Jamin

Nino83 said:


> http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/dialetti_(Enciclopedia_dell'Italiano)/
> This is an article about Italian languages. Treccani is one of the most eminent Italian encyclopedias.
> 
> http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elenco_dei_dialetti_d'Italia
> This is an article of Wikipedia about Italian languages.
> If you go to the English version there is a disambiguation page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_dialects
> 
> It's another proof that in Italian language the term _dialetti_ is applied to Italian languages.



I knew that in Italy the term _dialetti_ has been applied to Italian languages, but you sent me a link showing something else. 

At the same time it does not change the fact that linguists in other countries call only dialects of Tuscany, Lazio, Marche and Umbria "dialects of Italian", while they call Sardinian, Piemontese, Veneto, Emiliano Romagnolo. etc "languages".  This discrepancy must have a reason, and it is most likely political (preserving the national unity) as it has been in many other countries. For example in Poland the Kashubiam language has been called a dialect of Polish until recently, but now it is recognized as an "own language", which was claimed by linguists for a very long time.

Italy is a signatory of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, but is yet to ratify the treaty, but Sardinian is nevertheless recognized as a regional  language.


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## roboir

> It's normal. In Italy we call _dialetti the Italian languages and accenti the varieties of Regional Italian. _



Right, and I accept that no disrespect is intented by this terminology, but it is nonetheless inaccurate for it then follows that most of humanity is speaking forms of dialect and not languages (patently ridiculous). It's unhelpful when it comes to upholding the status of these languages (and helped foster neglectful attitudes on the part of the Italian state towards its constituent languages).

You mention the _accenti_ ... is that term normally used as an attempt to differ the constituent dialect forms of the Italian language (Tuscan, Romanesco, Marchigian etc) from the _dialetti _(regional languages)? Or is it also extended to mean the variety of the Standard Italian language as spoken in traditionally non-Standard zones (above the local linguistic substratum)?




> This classification is debatable because Venetian, unlike Gallo-Italic languages



Yes, I concede that the classification is debatable; it may or may not be part of Italo-Dalmation (hence Eastern Romance) and it's certainly not Gallo-Italic (despite sharing many features and geographically coinciding on a dialect continuum) - but at the very least it is not part of the Central (Italian), Southern (Campanian) or Extreme-Southern (Sicilian) groups.



> mantains Latin final unstressed vowels [e] _ [o] _


_ Interestingly, some dialects of Venetian discard unstressed vowel in final poistion. I've attested to this in Southern Brazil among my in-laws (mostly from Treviso, Belluno and other inland areas - it appears that immigration from the lagoon itself was less prevalent): El gat gà magnà el osel ... (Que)'sto Bepi el sà far un bon vin._


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## roboir

> In Italy no one is hurt about it.
> There aren't nationalist movements based on linguistic differences (except for Sardinia)



Nor should there be. The profliteration or absence of linguistic-based political separatism can be irrelevant to a debate on regional linguistic protection. Italy could perfectly well recognise institutionally its linguistic reality and then centrifugal agitators would have one less argument (disrespect towards their local languages) in a debate on administrative structure and territorial composition.

Meanwhile, the languages are dying ...


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## francisgranada

Nino83 said:


> ... Yes, technically only Tuscan language is a dialect of Italian ...


Perhaps technically rather _the Italian is the dialect of the (old) Tuscan _... (the standard Italian derives from the Tuscan and not the other way around).


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## Nino83

roboir said:


> Italy could perfectly well recognise institutionally its linguistic reality



Should Italy recognise 20 Italian languages?  
According to our Costitution not even Italian language is recognised. There's no official language   (but Civil Procedure Code says that Italian language is used in tribunals and the Costitution and laws are written in Italian, so Italian is a _de facto_ language). 



roboir said:


> You mention the _accenti_ ... is that term normally used as an attempt to differ the constituent dialect forms of the Italian language (Tuscan, Romanesco, Marchigian etc) from the _dialetti _(regional languages)? Or is it also extended to mean the variety of the Standard Italian language as spoken in traditionally non-Standard zones (above the local linguistic substratum)?



The second thing you said.  
_Accento_ is used to denote _regional varieties of Italian language_, i.e how vernacular Italian is spoken in the various Regions (change little things, as open and closed mid vowels distribution, pronunciation of some consonant, for example if so*gn*o is pronounced as a geminate, like in Standard Italian, or as a single consonant, as in North Regions, slang...). 
_Dialetto_ is used to denote _Italian languages_ (also Tuscan, Romanesco, Marchigiano). 



Ben Jamin said:


> I knew that in Italy the term _dialetti_ has been applied to Italian languages, but you sent me a link showing something else.



Treccani's page is a contemporary page (it isn't written 50 years ago).


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## roboir

> Should Italy recognise 20 Italian languages?
> According to our Costitution not even Italian language is recognised. There's no official language



You're right, hehehe. It would be unwieldy and, besides, the damage has been done; and sadly it looks irreparable. Although, who knows for how much longer this Constitution will exist, and whether Italy, a relatively young polity, will continue to be a going concern one century from now (the Kingdom of Naples lasted six centuries, comparatively less of a blip in humanity).

I guess the lower status of Italian regional languages is not exactly comparable to regional language treatment in France or Spain (where elevation/denigration went hand-in-hand with political centralisation). The regional Italian languages had to contend with an even deeper-running "foe",i.e.; the sheer cultural weight of the 





> tre coronne


.
_
Dialetto is used to denote Italian languages (also Tuscan, Romanesco, Marchigiano). 

_So, it would appearthat this accenti-dialetti distinction serves little to clarify things. 

I've listened to debates on the motion of preserving regional languages such as Venetian which have completely lost all coherence becausesomeone raises the example of Romanesco (a dialect, a variant of Italian) which only serves to further confuse concepts and drag down the status of the actual regional languages. 
In other words, defenders of the status quo can always argue that all countries and all languages have these charming expressions of local speech (rustic and peasant) that nonetheless should not displace the standardised language to which they belong, which I think we would all accept as a reasonable and practical posture (for instance Balearic, Valencian and Lleridan speakers of Catalan as a matter of pragmatism have to accept some literary form of linguistic convergence centred in the Catalan spoken in and around Barcelona). So, they argue, why can't Neapolitan/Sicilian/Lombard speakers just do the same, relax and accept a smattering of their colorful speech on RAI every now and then, as per the case with Romanesco. And yet they are completely missing the point.


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## bo-marco

To understand difference between accent and dialect, see this video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ELhtGIA9_c
Journalist is Daria Bignardi, politician is minister Dario Franceschini. Both are from emilian city of Ferrara. Although Franceschini has a strong ferrarese accent, roman audience understands him  perfectly because he speaks in Italian. During the interview Daria and Dario speak some proverbs in Ferrarese dialect but people can't understand what they said.


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## Nino83

There is an example on Wikipedia: 
we are arriving (English)
stiamo arrivando (Standard Italian)
stémo rivando (Regional Italian, Veneto) 
sémo drio rivàr (Venetian language) 

Venetian variety of Regional Italian is mutually intelligible, Venetian language isn't so.


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## Ben Jamin

The distinction between "language" and "dialect" is fuzzy, and there are no good linguistic ciriteria to make a sharp delimitation. It is often a matter of convention and tradition, and I am by no means a partisan of quarrels about the issue. I only pointed out that the official Italian denomination is not consistent with linguistic classification, and that it is most likely a political motive that lies behing this policy, wiithout criticizing this fact. Actually, the preservation of local languages and dialects has gone too far in many countries, causing communication problems, when people use their local speech in public (radio, television, political arenas, schools, etc) and giving a damn if the listeners understand them well enough or not. I attended once a congress where a participant spoke a so strongly local variety of English, that it was not possible to catch more than 10% of the meaning.


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## Nino83

Ben Jamin said:


> I only pointed out that the official Italian denomination is not consistent with linguistic classification, and that it is most likely a political motive that lies behing this policy, wiithout criticizing this fact.



I only said that this term (_dialetto_) is still the most used term. Despite it could be technically wrong, nobody complains about it. 
About 60% of the Italians can speak both Standard Italian and an Italian language so there's no reason to safeguard these languages. Italian languages (or _dialetti_) enjoy good health.


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## roboir

> no reason to safeguard these languages. Italian languages (or _dialetti) enjoy good health._



I sincerely hope that this long continues to be the case. And without any wish to incentivise territorial-political agitation, it would be nice if these languages could enjoy more public use at a local level (local TV news broadcasts, street signs, comune-sponsored festivals etc.).


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## roboir

> the preservation of local languages and dialects has gone too far in many countries



When we see the equivalent of early 20th-century schoolteachers humiliating students by instructing them to stand by the wall or to tie their boots around their necks for speaking in the national language as opposed to the local one, when we see signs hanging from classroom walls haranguing children to "Parlez patois, soyez propres", then I will start to be concerned. 

So far, it was been very one-way (and state-directed) this traffic.


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## Ben Jamin

roboir said:


> When we see the equivalent of early 20th-century schoolteachers humiliating students by instructing them to stand by the wall or to tie their boots around their necks for speaking in the national language as opposed to the local one, when we see signs hanging from classroom walls haranguing children to "Parlez patois, soyez propres", then I will start to be concerned.
> 
> So far, it was been very one-way (and state-directed) this traffic.


The situation is very different in different countries. Using local languages should be encouraged in surroundings where all people understand them, not talking to people that have problems understanding you.


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## Gavril

SerinusCanaria3075 said:


> I would say "[_of] *it*_" and "*here/there*" are the most common translations in languages that don't have this pronouns.
> fr-J'ai *en* trois (usually as a secondary frase, after an object is introduced)
> it-Io *ne* ho tre (as long as a topic or object is said or mentioned but doesn't necessarily go right after)
> es- Yo tengo tres *de esto* (Yo tengo *de esto* tres)



In Spanish, the indirect object pronouns *le*_/_*les*_/_etc. are sometimes used analogously to Italian _ne_ / French _en_:

_No *le* sé el nombre _"I don't know *his/its* name" (cf. French _Je n'*en* sais pas le nom_)

This kind of construction doesn't seem as common in Spanish as the use _en _/ _ne_ is in French and Italian, and I wonder if it originates as a calque from another Romance language.

Spanish also shows (to some degree) the same "ablative" usage of the indirect pronouns seen in French/Italian:

Sp. _Me *le* fui_ "I went away *from him/it*" (cf. Fr._ Je m'*en* suis allé_)
Sp. _*Le* borró su nombre_ "He erased his name *from it*" (cf. Italian _*Ne* cancellò il suo nome_)



> fr-Je vais *y* aller
> it-*Ci *andr*o*
> es- Iré *ahí*.


 
You can also say _*Ahí *iré_, which at least has the same syntax as Fr./Italian.


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## Nino83

roboir said:


> I sincerely hope that this long continues to be the case. And without any wish to incentivise territorial-political agitation, it would be nice if these languages could enjoy more public use at a local level (local TV news broadcasts, street signs, comune-sponsored festivals etc.).



Yes but it could be, very often, funny (hilarious), because (this is sure for languages under La-Spezia-Rimini line) the difference would be very little (especially in written language). 
A few examples about street signs: _Palermo_ (Italian) --> _Palemmu_ (Sicilian), _Napoli_ (Italian) --> _Napule_ (Neapolitan).


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