| Florentine | |
| Nativename: | Italian: dialetto fiorentino |
| State: | Italy |
| Region: | Tuscany (Florence) |
| Familycolor: | Indo-European |
| Fam2: | Italic |
| Fam3: | Latino-Faliscan |
| Fam4: | Latin |
| Fam5: | Romance |
| Fam6: | Italo-Western |
| Fam7: | Italo-Dalmatian |
| Fam8: | Italo-Romance |
| Fam9: | Tuscan |
| Isoexception: | dialect |
| Glotto: | fior1235 |
| Glottorefname: | Fiorentino |
| Glottofoot: | no |
| Ietf: | it-u-sd-itfi |
| Imagealt: | C. COLLODI / LE / AVVENTURE DI PINOCCHIO / STORIA DI UN BURATTINO / ILLUSTRATA DA E. MAZZANTI / FIRENZE / FELICE PAGGI LIBRAIO-EDITORE / VIA DEL PROCONSOLO / 1883 |
The Florentine dialect or vernacular (Italian: dialetto fiorentino or Italian: vernacolo fiorentino) is a variety of Tuscan, a Romance language spoken in the Italian city of Florence and its immediate surroundings.
A received pedagogical variant derived from it historically, once called Italian: la pronuncia fiorentina emendata (literally, 'the amended Florentine pronunciation'), was officially prescribed as the national language of the Kingdom of Italy, when it was established in 1861. It is the most widely spoken of the Tuscan dialects.[1]
Important writers such as Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio and, later, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini wrote in literary Tuscan/Florentine, perhaps the best-known example being Dante's Divine Comedy.
It became a second prestige language alongside Latin and was used as such for centuries.[2]
Florentine, and Tuscan more generally, can be distinguished from Standard Italian by differences in numerous features at all levels: phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon.
Perhaps the difference most noticed by Italians and foreigners alike is known as the gorgia toscana (literally 'Tuscan throat'), a consonant-weakening rule widespread in Tuscany in which the voiceless plosive phonemes pronounced as //k//, pronounced as //t//, pronounced as //p// are pronounced between vowels as fricatives pronounced as /[h]/, pronounced as /[θ]/, pronounced as /[ɸ]/ respectively. The sequence pronounced as //la kasa// la casa 'the house', for example, is pronounced pronounced as /[la ˈhaːsa]/, and pronounced as //buko// buco 'hole' is realized as pronounced as /[ˈbuːho]/. Preceded by a pause or a consonant, pronounced as //k// is produced as pronounced as /[k]/ (as in the word casa alone or in the phrase in casa). Similar alternations obtain for pronounced as //t// → pronounced as /[t]/,pronounced as /[θ]/ and pronounced as //p// → pronounced as /[p]/,pronounced as /[ɸ]/.
Strengthening to a geminate consonant occurs when the preceding word triggers syntactic doubling (raddoppiamento fonosintattico) so the initial consonant pronounced as //p// of pipa 'pipe (for smoking)' has three phonetic forms: pronounced as /[p]/ in pronounced as /[ˈpiːɸa]/ spoken as a single word or following a consonant, pronounced as /[ɸ]/ if preceded by a vowel as in pronounced as /[la ɸiːɸa]/ la pipa 'the pipe' and pronounced as /[pp]/ (also transcribed pronounced as /[pː]/) in pronounced as /[tre pˈpiːɸe]/ tre pipe 'three pipes'.
Parallel alternations of the affricates pronounced as //tʃ// and pronounced as //dʒ// are also typical of Florentine but by no means confined to it or even to Tuscan. The word gelato is pronounced with pronounced as /[dʒ]/ following a pause or a consonant, pronounced as /[ʒ]/ following a vowel and pronounced as /[ddʒ]/ if raddoppiamento applies (pronounced as /[dʒeˈlaːθo]/, pronounced as /[un dʒeˈlaːθo]/ un gelato, pronounced as /[ˈkwattro ʒeˈlaːθi]/ quattro gelati, pronounced as /[ˈtre ddʒeˈlaːθi]/ tre gelati. Similarly, the initial consonant of pronounced as //ˈtʃena// cena 'dinner' has three phonetic forms, pronounced as /[tʃ]/, pronounced as /[ʃ]/ and pronounced as /[ttʃ]/. In both cases, the weakest variant appears between vowels (pronounced as /[reˈʒoːne]/ regione 'region', pronounced as /[ˈkwattro ʒeˈlaːθi]/ quattro gelati; pronounced as /[la ˈʃeːna]/ la cena, pronounced as /[ˈbaːʃo]/ bacio 'kiss').
| Io sòn | io sono | i am | |
| Te tu sei | tu sei | You are | |
| Egli l'è | egli è | he/she/it is | |
| Noi s'è/semo | noi siamo | We're | |
| Voi vù siete | voi siete | You're | |
| Essi l'enno | essi sono | They're | |
| Io c'ho | io ho | I have | |
| Te tu c'ha | tu hai | You have | |
| Egli c'ha | egli ha | He/she/it has | |
| Noi ci s'ha | noi abbiamo | We have | |
| Voi vù c'avete | voi avete | You have | |
| Essi c'hanno | loro hanno | They have |
Florentine uses the diminutive case -ino/-ine far more than Italian does, with many surnames also ending in -ini.
| belle | belline | Lovey | |
| povere | poverine/poerine | Poor | |
| poche | pochine/pohine | Little |
Florentine often abbreviates its Articles and pronouns.
| il tuo | i’ tu |
The Florentine dialect has several unique phrases as compared the other Tuscan dialects.
| Maremma | Damn it | |
| Trombaio | Plumber | |
| icchè tu sei grullo | Are you stupid | |
| smettila, se no tu ne buschi | stop it or I will get you | |
| Acquai | Kitchen sink | |
| sei un boccalone | You have a big mouth | |
| Babbo | Dad/Father |