# The Italian Dialects and their usage



## davidl243

Hi all,

I am writing an essay on minority languages in Europe (more specifically the European Charter for Regional or Minority languages) and I wanted to ask about the current status of the Italian dialects: 

Are they used in any form of public life whatsoever, or are they purely spoken at home/with friends?
Are they taught in schools or passed on from parents? 
Are they present in the media - radio stations, newspapers etc?
Do they receive any kind of state support whatsoever?

Thanks in advance for your help, David


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## TrentinaNE

davidl243 said:
			
		

> Are they used in any form of public life whatsoever, or are they purely spoken at home/with friends?
> Are they taught in schools or passed on from parents?
> Are they present in the media - radio stations, newspapers etc?
> Do they receive any kind of state support whatsoever?


I can't address the question in general, but my experience of my parents' Trentino dialect is that it is not spoken or taught at school or used in the media. I'm not sure what you mean by "any form of public life whatsoever." We were given a tour of a local castel by a man who seemed to speak only the dialect and not Italian, yet I imagine that he works at something. So perhaps it is used within small, local businesses.

I'll try to direct some more knowledgeable Italians to this thread.  

Elisabetta


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## DDT

TrentinaNE said:
			
		

> So perhaps it is used within small, local businesses.



I wouldn't say so. It is a shame most dialects are progressively disappearing, yet it is a fact it is better to privilege a unique language (Italian) since our history led to a great richness of dialects which to a certain extent might be a further obstacle to the birth (someday I hope) of a national civic sense/feeling. I am split in two about this subject 
The fact most Italian people are still terribly bound to local interests proves that we're still pretty far from being effectively united. But the existence of so many different idioms is a cultural richness we cannot deny...it's a very difficult matter, I'm afraid  

DDT


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## davidl243

DDT said:
			
		

> I wouldn't say so. It is a shame most dialects are progressively disappearing, yet it is a fact it is better to privilege a unique language (Italian) since our history led to a great richness of dialects which to a certain extent might be a further obstacle to the birth (someday I hope) of a national civic sense/feeling. I am split in two about this subject
> The fact most Italian people are still terribly bound to local interests proves that we're still pretty far from being effectively united. But the existence of so many different idioms is a cultural richness we cannot deny...it's a very difficult matter, I'm afraid
> 
> DDT


 
Well it comes down to whether one is prepared to sacrifice regional languages, and such 'cultural richness' as you say, in order to create/preserve this sense of unity of 'one Italian people' - my own opinion is that it is a crime to let languages die out, but my opinion is not relevant to the information I am after.

The fact that they are still referred to as 'dialects' does imply that they have no official government recognition, but I thought that perhaps in the most 'seperatist' parts of Italy, such as Sardinia and Sicily, the dialects may be used to some extent in the public ambit, such as schools, the media etc. From your answers it appears that they are not...


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## You little ripper!

I know that in the seventies when I last visited Italy, there was some push to include the dialect of the region as part of the curriculum in schools. From what I've heard it didn't happen.


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## DDT

davidl243 said:
			
		

> my own opinion is that it is a crime to let languages die out



As I said I consider a shame the fact they're disappearing...but I cannot say what the right solution is (if there is one)

I just realised I didn't answer your questions in a precise way  

_Are they used in any form of public life whatsoever, or are they purely spoken at home/with friends?_ Spoken at home/with friends
_Are they taught in schools or passed on from parents?_ Passed on from parents
_Are they present in the media - radio stations, newspapers etc?_ Rarely, yet there are some cases  
_Do they receive any kind of state support whatsoever?_ Not that I'm aware...but I could be wrong

DDT


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## dassin

You might be interested in checking *Totò che visse due volte *at *imdb.*

It's a 1998 film I've seen at a Film Festival several years ago: it's mostly spoken in Sicilian. I understand most Italian stuff, but Sicilian proved too much for me. :S 

I've also seen several Neapolitan movies (I remember filmmakers Antonio Capuano, Vincenzo Marra, Paolo Sorrentino) in the last few years which make generous display of the dialectal reality of popular Neapolitan quarters (these I manage to understand better, I'd say differences here are mainly of spelling, and a few lexical stuff too but this must come only in second term).

My grandmother who died in the '70s was from Calabria, and I remember she used to say 'mo' for 'now'. Later on as I started to study Italian, I noticed the word for 'now' was 'adesso'. At first I said to myself 'mo' must come from Arabic or something, but it seems it comes from Latin 'momentum'.  When I was briefly in Calabria a couple of years ago, I didn't talk to many people, but I remember they told me dialect was mainly used in a private environment. I didn't ask nor investigate about the existence of 'Calabrian' broadcast somewhere.


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## moodywop

I agree with DDT's answers to your questions so I'd like to add some information based on personal experience - with the caveat that it is limited to the South and Veneto.

First of all there are a lot of misconceptions about "dialects". They *are* languages - they have their own distinct phonology, grammar and lexis. And yet when we discussed the subject in IE some Italians said that dialects are varieties of Italian or "corrupted Latin" . 

For centuries Italian(based on Tuscan usage) was mainly a literary language. Most people only spoke dialects. This explains why modern Italian is still very similar to Dante's Italian. It also explains why Italian, although it is a beautiful language, still feels a bit "stilted" - and why many Italians switch to dialect in more relaxed situations or when expressing strong feelings. I would argue that someone who speaks both Italian and the local dialect fluently has a much wider range of expressive resources at his/her disposal. I myself am in the process of re-learning my dialect (Neapolitan), which I could understand but never spoke as a kid because its use was discouraged at home and at school.

I don't think that any government measures could stop the decline of dialects. Unfortunately when measures are taken to "save" a language it means it is already on the way out. It is a question of social attitudes. In my area the use of dialect has sadly become a "social marker". As a teacher I have witnessed this first-hand. When I taught in "licei"(grammar schools) none of the kids spoke Neapolitan to each other. In Italy education is not "comprehensive" after the age of 14. It's a bit like when British kids went either to grammar schools or "secondary modern" schools at 11. In the "lower-level" secondary schools the use of Neapolitan is more common. I discussed it with my pupils the other day. Many girls said they didn't like Neapolitan because it sounds "volgare"(coarse).

A forero who visited me in Naples a while back was surprised to hear a mother saying to her small child "Don't speak Neapolitan! Speak Italian".

The only area I'm aware of in which dialect is still used by all social classes without any stigma is Veneto.

I only disagree with DDT about dialects being an obstacle to national cohesiveness. It is perfectly possible to be fluent in both standard Italian and the local dialect. Many of our greatest writers were fluent in both.

Maybe schools could do more to change attitudes but my feeling is that the decline of dialects cannot be halted.


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## mansio

Davidl243

By Italian dialects do you mean local variations of Italian, or independant languages as Occitan in the Sestriere valley or Friulian in the Friuli province?


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## ampurdan

Maybe we should not translate "dialetto" as "dialect"... Maybe we should say "local language" or something like that...


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## davidl243

It's ok people, I did a course at University a couple of years ago about the Italian dialects, so I am aware that they all constitute independent languages, and that 'toscano' was chosen as the dialect which would become standard Italian. It is confusing when people refer to the Italian 'dialects', but I am clear that they are different to what would be 'dialects of Italian'.

I disagree that languages cannot be saved. Languages can even be brought back from the dead - take the example of Hebrew. But a major obstacle to this is the unwillingness of governments to encourage what they see as a threat to national unity and cohesiveness, as is the case in France and seemingly Italy too - one has to judge which is the more important.


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## mansio

To me Italian has many dialects, but Occitan, Friulian, Rumantsch, French, German, Sardinian (not to mention Greek, Albanese and Slovenian), all of them spoken in Italy, are independant languages, not dialects of Italian.


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## davidl243

mansio said:
			
		

> To me Italian has many dialects, but Occitan, Friulian, French, German, Sardinian (not to mention Greek, Albanese and Slovenian), all of them spoken in Italy, are independant languages, not dialects of Italian.


 
Exactly, they are not *'dialects of Italian' *but rather *'the Italian dialects'. *I assure you it was not me who denominated them as such - in Italian they are referred to as *'i dialetti'* and in English (at least on the course I did) that is translated purely as 'dialects'. By 'the Italian dialects', I refer to Emiliano, Siciliano, Romano, Genovese etc etc,* not *variants of Standard Italian, or any other minority languages in Italy.


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## moodywop

I very much want dialects to survive. It saddens me to see my dialect being abandoned by the younger generation and by people who see it as an obstacle to social advancement. However maybe I was indeed too pessimistic in my previous post.

Although linguists use the word "dialect" for social and regional varieties,  in Italy we make a clearcut distinction between dialects proper and regional varieties of Italian. The latter are basically standard Italian with local pronunciation and a few local words. Let me give you an example from my area. Take the sentence _will you be here at midday tomorrow? _In Standard Italian it's _(Lei) sarà qui domani a mezzogiorno?. _In the dialect-influenced regional variety it's (_Voi) sarete qua domani a mezzogiorno?(_pronounced as if it were written _mezzo*gg*iorno)._ In Neapolitan_: Vuje stat' ccà a mjezz'juorn' riman?_

In _The Italian Language Today _the foremost Italian language scholar Giulio Lepschy has argued that examples such as mine do not give the full picture - there are intermediate forms more or less influenced by the dialect. He gives several examples from his area(Veneto).


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## Juri

If Dante and Petrarca, (the fathers of the italian language) wouldn't be born in Tuscany, but for instance in  Naples,the official Italian language could be today,  more or less easily , the Neapolitan dialect  !
(Not quite a joke!)


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## Outsider

davidl243 said:
			
		

> The fact that they are still referred to as 'dialects' does imply that they have no official government recognition, but I thought that perhaps in the most 'seperatist' parts of Italy, such as Sardinia and Sicily, the dialects may be used to some extent in the public ambit, such as schools, the media etc. From your answers it appears that they are not...


Sardinian is officially considered a separate language by the Italian government, if I remember well.


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## mansio

Sardinian is in my list of non Italian languages.


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## Outsider

Indeed it is, but I wanted to make clear that Sardinian is a separate language from Italian officially, not just for emotional reasons, or according to the opinions of some linguists.


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## mansio

It was hard for me to believe it but since the Italian government says so...


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## Outsider

mansio said:
			
		

> It was hard for me to believe it but since the Italian government says so...


It does, indeed:


> Art. 2.
> 
> In attuazione dell'articolo 6 della Costituzione e in armonia con i princípi generali stabiliti dagli organismi europei e internazionali, la Repubblica tutela la lingua e la cultura delle popolazioni albanesi, catalane, germaniche, greche, slovene e croate e di quelle parlanti il francese, il franco-provenzale, il friulano, il ladino, l'occitano e *il sardo*.
> 
> Legge n. 482 - 15 Dicembre 1999
> "Norme in materia di tutela delle minoranze linguistiche storiche"
> Gazzetta Ufficiale n. 297 del 20 dicembre 1999





> Art. 1.
> Finalità
> 
> La Regione Autonoma della Sardegna assume l' identità culturale del popolo sardo come bene primario da valorizzare e promuovere e individua nella sua evoluzione e nella sua crescita il presupposto fondamentale di ogni intervento volto ad attivare il progresso personale e sociale, i processi di sviluppo economico e di integrazione interna, l' edificazione di un' Europa fondata sulla diversità nelle culture regionali.
> A tal fine garantisce, tutela e valorizza la libera e multiforme espressione delle identità , dei bisogni, *dei linguaggi* e delle produzioni culturali in Sardegna, in conformità ai principi ispiratori dello Statuto speciale.
> 
> LEGGE REGIONALE n. 26, del 15 ottobre 1997
> Promozione e valorizzazione della cultura e della lingua della Sardegna.


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## moodywop

Actually the different status of Sardinian is acknowledged by all Italians. We say _la lingua sarda _or _il sardo. _It would actually be incorrect to speak of a Sardinian dialect, since Sardinian comprises several dialects:

"I dialetti del sardo (esclusi gallurese e in un certo senso anche il sassarese che essendo simili al corso, sono da ricollegarsi al toscano)...  non possono a rigore essere considerati dialetti "italiani" e costituiscono gruppi linguistici a se stanti"(Wikipedia)

A committee of scholars has put forward a working proposal for a standard form of Sardinian to be used in official contexts.

I'd like to add that when I say that an Italian dialect is a "language" I am speaking in purely linguistic terms - what I mean is a "language system", with its own phonological, grammatical and lexical systems. There is nothing "emotional" about this. I'm actually perfectly happy to call mine a "dialect". I suppose that what sets a dialect apart from a national language is its lack of standardization, a more limited variety of registers, its limited use in writing(although many dialects have a written corpus of poetry, prose and drama).


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## Cnaeius

Juri said:
			
		

> If Dante and Petrarca, (the fathers of the italian language) wouldn't be born in Tuscany, but for instance in Naples,the official Italian language could be today, more or less easily , the Neapolitan dialect !
> (Not quite a joke!)


 
If Romans hadn't won Hannibal, now we would talk a non-latin language  
I am joking  
But, notice, we do not speak Tuscan dialect now: the fact that Tuscan has been chosen in 1200-1300 to be a cultural language blocked and enriched it for centuries, inhibiting its evolution as dialect. Also the dialect that now is spoken in tuscany has been influenced in its evolution by these historical facts. So, if we want to make a parallel comparison according to history of italian language, hypotetical Neapolitan would have been blocked also and now we would speak a language surely very different from today's Neapolitan dialect.


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## dassin

Cnaeius said:
			
		

> If Romans hadn't won Hannibal, now we would talk a non-latin language


There's a short story by Adolfo Bioy Casares ("La trama celeste") that deals with a parallel world where Romans _*didn't*_ defeat Carthage... Anyway, they speak at least one Latin language there (Spanish)... Hmm, I've always attributed this to a poetic licence! 

*ed.* btw, there's for sure a political & economic side in "Roman spelled Tuscan's" being the official Italian language, I wouldn't reduce this just to Dante and Petrarca...


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