Central Italian Explained
| Central Italian |
| States: | Italy |
| Region: | Umbria, Lazio (except the southeast), central Marche, small parts of southernmost Tuscany, and northwestern Abruzzo |
| Speakers: | ~3,000,000 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| Familycolor: | Indo-European |
| Fam2: | Italic |
| Fam3: | Latino-Faliscan |
| Fam4: | Latin |
| Fam5: | Romance |
| Fam6: | Italo-Western |
| Fam7: | Italo-Dalmatian |
| Fam8: | Italo-Romance |
| Isoexception: | dialect |
| Lingua: | 51-AAA-ra ... -rba |
| Glotto: | none |
| Map: | Central Italian dialects.png |
| Mapcaption: | Dialects that maintain a distinction between final pronounced as //-u// and pronounced as //-o// are outlined in red. |
Central Italian (Italian: dialetti mediani), or Latin–Umbrian–Marchegian and in Italian linguistics as "middle Italian dialects", refers to a language variety or group of dialects of Italo-Romance spoken in the so-called Area Mediana, which covers a swathe of the central Italian peninsula. Area Mediana is also used in a narrower sense to describe the southern part, in which case the northern one may be referred to as the Area Perimediana, a distinction that will be made throughout this article. The two areas are split along a line running approximately from Rome in the southwest to Ancona in the northeast.
Background
In the early Middle Ages, Central Italian extended north into Romagna and covered all of modern-day Lazio. Since then, however, some of the dialects spoken in those areas have been assimilated into Gallo-Italic and Southern Italo-Romance respectively. In addition, the dialect of Rome has undergone considerable Tuscanization from the fifteenth century onwards, such that it has lost many of its Central Italian features.
Dialects
spoken in central Marche.
spoken in the city of L'Aquila (Abruzzo) and the Province of Rieti (Lazio).
Phonological features
Except for its southern fringe, the Area Mediana is characterized by a contrast between the final vowels pronounced as //-u// and pronounced as //-o//, which distinguishes it from both the Area Perimediana and from Southern Italo-Romance. Cf. Spoletine pronounced as /[ˈkreːto, ˈtittu]/ < Latin crēdō, tēctum 'I believe, roof'. An additional isogloss that runs along the border between the two areas, but often overlaps it in either direction, is that of post-nasal plosive voicing, as in pronounced as /[manˈt̬ellu]/ 'cloak'. This is a feature that the Area Mediana shares with neighbouring Southern Italo-Romance.
In the Area Mediana are found the following vocalic phenomena:
- In most areas, stressed mid-vowels are raised by one degree of aperture if the following syllable contains either pronounced as //u// or pronounced as //i//. This is referred to as 'Sabine metaphony'. Compare the following examples from the Ascrean dialect:
- pronounced as /[meːla, miːlu]/ 'apples, apple'
- pronounced as /[ʃpoːsa, ʃpuːsu]/ 'wife, husband'
- pronounced as /[wɛcca, weccu]/ 'old' (/)
- pronounced as /[nᴐːwa, noːwu]/ 'new' (/)
- In a few areas, metaphony results in diphthongization for stressed low-mid vowels, while high-mids undergo normal raising to pronounced as //i, u//. Compare the following examples from the Nursine dialect:
- pronounced as /[metto, mitti]/ 'I put, you put'
- pronounced as /[soːla, suːlu]/ 'alone' (/)
- pronounced as /[bbɛlla, bbjɛjju]/ 'beautiful' (/)
- pronounced as /[mᴐrte, mwᴐrti]/ 'death, dead '
- Southeast of Rome, around Nemi, low-mid vowels undergo metaphonic diphthongization, while high-mids resist raising to pronounced as //i, u//. This was also the case for Old Romanesco, which had alternations such as pronounced as //ˈpɛde, ˈpjɛdi// 'foot, feet'.
- In some areas with Sabine metaphony, if a word has a stressed mid-vowel, then final pronounced as //-u// lowers to pronounced as //-o// in a sort of height-based vowel harmony. Compare pronounced as /
/ > pronounced as //ˈbeʎʎu, ˈfriddu// (metaphony) > Tornimpartese pronounced as //ˈbeʎʎo, ˈfriddu// 'beautiful, cold'.
Sound-changes (or lack thereof) that distinguish most or all of Central Italian from Tuscan include the following, many of them shared with Southern Italo-Romance:
- pronounced as //nd// > pronounced as //nn//, as in Latin vēndere > pronounced as /[ˈwenne]/ 'to sell'.
- pronounced as //mb, nv// > pronounced as //mm//, as in Latin plumbum > pronounced as /[ˈpjummu]/ 'lead'.
- pronounced as //ld// > pronounced as //ll//, as in Latin cal(i)da > pronounced as /[ˈkalla]/ 'hot'.
- Retention of pronounced as //j//, as in Latin Maium > pronounced as /[ˈmaːju]/ 'May'.
- pronounced as //mj// > pronounced as //ɲ(ɲ)//, as in Latin vindēmia > pronounced as /[wenˈneɲɲa]/ 'grape harvest'.
- pronounced as //rj// > pronounced as //r//, as in Latin caprārium > pronounced as /[kraˈpaːru]/ 'goatherd'.
Sound-changes with a limited distribution within the Area Mediana include:
- pronounced as //ɡ-// > pronounced as //j// or ∅, as in Latin cattum > pronounced as /[ˈɡattu]/ > Nursine pronounced as /[ˈjjattu]/, Reatine pronounced as /[ˈattu]/ 'cat'.
- pronounced as //ɡn// > pronounced as //(i̯)n//, as in Latin agnum, ligna > Tagliacozzese pronounced as //ˈai̯nu, ˈlena// 'lamb, firewood'.
- pronounced as //d, v// > pronounced as /∅/ word-initially and intervocalically, as in Latin dentem, vaccam, crudum, ovum > pronounced as //ɛnte akka kruː ou// in Rieti and L'Aquila.
- Around Terni, and to its immediate northeast, this deletion only applies in intervocalic position.
In the north of the Area Perimediana, a number of Gallo-Italic features are found:
- pronounced as //a// > pronounced as //ɛ// in stressed open syllables, as in pronounced as //ˈpa.ne// > pronounced as //ˈpɛ.ne// 'bread', around Perugia and areas to its north.
- In the same area, habitual reduction or deletion of vowels in unstressed internal syllables, as in pronounced as //ˈtrappole// > pronounced as //ˈtrapp(ə)le// 'traps'.
- Voicing of intervocalic pronounced as //t// to pronounced as //d// and degemination of long consonants around Ancona and to its west.
- In both of the aforementioned areas: lack, or reversal, of the sound-changes pronounced as //nd// > pronounced as //nn// and pronounced as //mb, nv// > pronounced as //mm// that are found in the rest of Central Italian.
The following changes to final vowels are found in the Area Perimediana:
- pronounced as //-u// > pronounced as //-o//, as in Latin musteum > Montelaghese pronounced as /[ˈmoʃʃo]/, everywhere except for a small 'island' around Pitigliano.
- pronounced as //-i// > pronounced as //-e//, as in pronounced as //i ˈkani// > pronounced as //e ˈkane// 'the dogs', in some of the dialects situated along a long arc from Montalto di Castro in the southwest to Fabriano in the northeast.
Morphological features
- In part of the Area Mediana, below a line running northeast from Rome to Rieti and Norcia, the 3PL ending of non-first conjugation verbs is, unusually, pronounced as //-u// (rather than pronounced as //-o//), which acts as a trigger for metaphony. Cf. Latin vēndunt > Leonessan pronounced as /[ˈvinnu]/ 'they sell'.
- In the same area, a series of irregular first-conjugation verbs also show 3PL pronounced as //-u// (as opposed to the pronounced as //-o// or pronounced as //-onno// found elsewhere). Examples include pronounced as /[au, dau, fau, vau]/ 'they have/give/do/go'.
- Latin fourth-declension nouns have been retained as such in many cases. Cf. Latin manum, manūs 'hand(s)' > Fabrichese pronounced as /[ˈmaːno]/ (invariant) and Latin fīcum, fīcūs 'fig(s)' > Canepinese pronounced as /[ˈfiːko]/ (invariant).
- Latin neuters of the -um/-a type survive more extensively than in Tuscan. Cf. Latin olīvētum, olīvēta > Roiatese pronounced as /[liˈviːtu, leˈveːta]/ 'olive-grove(s)'. Even originally non-neuter nouns are sometimes drawn into this class, as in Latin hortum, hortī > Segnese pronounced as /[ˈᴐrto, ˈᴐrta]/ 'garden(s)'.
- The plurals, which are grammatically feminine, are replaced by the feminine ending pronounced as //-e// in some dialects, leading to outcomes such as Spoletine pronounced as /[ˈlabbru, ˈlabbre]/ 'lip(s)'. Both plurals may also alternate within the same dialect, as in Treiese pronounced as /[ˈᴐːa~ˈᴐːe]/ 'eggs'.
- The Latin neuter plural pronounced as //-ora//, as in tempora 'times', was extended to several other words in medieval times, but today the phenomenon is limited to areas such as Serrone, where one finds cases like pronounced as /[ˈraːmo, ˈraːmora]/ 'branch(es)'. In Serviglianese, the final vowel changes to pronounced as //-e//, as in pronounced as /[ˈfiːko, ˈfiːkore]/ 'fig(s)'.
- In several dialects, final syllables beginning with pronounced as //n//, pronounced as //l//, or pronounced as //r// may be deleted in masculine nouns. In varieties such as Matelicese, this occurs only in the singular, not the plural, leading to outcomes such as pronounced as /
/ > pronounced as /[paˈtro, paˈtruːni]/ 'lord, lords'. In varieties such as Serviglianese, this deletion occurs both in the singular and the plural, resulting in pronounced as /[paˈtro, paˈtru]/, with metaphony-induced vowel distinctions remaining as a marker of number.
Syntactic features
- Direct objects are often marked by the preposition a if they are animate.
See also
References
Bibliography
- Book: Loporcaro . Michele . Paciaroni . Tania . 2016 . The dialects of central Italy . The Oxford guide to the Romance languages . Ledgeway . Adam . Maiden . Martin . 228–245 . Oxford University Press . 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199677108.003.0015.
- Book: Vignuzzi, Ugo
. 1997 . Lazio, Umbria, and the Marche . The dialects of Italy . Maiden . Martin . Parry . Mair . 311–320 . London . Routledge.
Notes and References
- Pellegrini G., Carta dei dialetti d'Italia, CNR – Pacini ed., Pisa, 1977
