Between Rome and Sicily: dialects of the Italian language. Official languages of Italy Main language in Italy

Legislatively, the highest legal status on the Apennine Peninsula is assigned to Italian. In other words, the official language of Italy is the only one - Italian. However, not only nature, cuisine, songs and customs, but also dialects in Italy are very different, and therefore an islander from Capri will not understand a resident of Milan from the first seven notes.

Some statistics and facts

The northern dialects of Italian traditionally include idioms distributed above the conventional line between La Spezia and Rimini.
The central ones are in use further south, all the way to the Rome-Ancona line.
South-central can be heard in northern Umbria, Perugia, the center of the Marche region and northwestern Lazio. This also includes the Roman dialect.
The southern ones are the dialects of Abruzzo, Molise, Apulian, Lucanian and Campanian dialects.
The far south speaks Salentine, Southern Calabrian and Sicilian dialects.
In total, there are more than a hundred dialects and dialects in Italy.

History and modernity

The official language of Italy was formed on the basis of Romance dialects, which appeared as a result of the transformation of the folk version of Latin. The dialect of Tuscany is taken as the basis for literary Italian. This area was once home to Etruscan tribes.
The history of the Italian language, as well as the culture of the country, has several periods. The first written evidence of its existence appeared in the 10th century. In the 12th century, Italian was cultivated in the Montecassino monastery, where the largest library of ancient and early Christian literature in Europe was gradually assembled. Two centuries later, the Tuscan dialect was finally established as the literary language of Italy.
The position of Italian dialects, despite their vitality, was significantly weakened during the First World War, when soldiers from different regions were forced to communicate in a single literary Italian.

Note to tourists

The country, oriented towards foreign travelers, makes every effort to make foreigners feel as comfortable as possible in its cities. The vast majority of Italians employed in the service sector and travel services - waiters, salespeople in stores and hotel receptionists - speak English.
In tourist information centers you can find a lot of information and audio guides in English, German and French, and in popular beach resorts, some restaurant menus and hotel information are also duplicated in Russian.

The official language adopted in Italy is Italian- a beautiful melodic language of the Romance group, belonging to the Indo-European family. It is generally believed to be spoken by all Italians, although in fact it is divided into such a huge number of dialects and dialects, diverging from each other, that often the inhabitants of the north and south do not understand each other.

Films released in the northern part of the country are even dubbed for showing in the southern regions. Moreover, some dialects, according to linguists, do not belong to the Romance group and can be considered as separate languages.

Literary Italian, adopted as the official language in Italy and disseminated through television, goes back to the vernacular Latin spoken by the inhabitants of the late Roman Empire. Its formation was also influenced by Old French and Old Provençal languages. The first records in Italian date back to the 10th century AD, after which the Florentine dialect began to dominate in Italy. And from the end of the 13th century, the new literary Italian style was based on Tuscan dialect, in which the main authors of Italy of the Middle Ages wrote - Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio. Their language was essentially taken as the basis of common Italian, as the standard of the classical literary language. Thus, modern literary Italian is based on the Tuscan dialect.

Italians have a very developed division into ethnic groups, so despite the spread of a common language throughout the country, dialects continue to play a large role in everyday life. About 86% of the country's residents know the national language, but most of them also use dialects. 13%, according to a 1992 study, cannot even speak standard Italian. Ligurian, Florentine, Venetian, Neapolitan, Sicilian and other dialects are common. Sardinian and Friulian are so different from Italian that they are considered separate languages. In total, there are more than a hundred dialects and dialects in the country.

Italian is the official language of San Marino, Vatican City, Switzerland and is accepted as one official language in the European Union. Also common in Italy are Albanian, French, Croatian, Slovenian, and German - they are spoken mainly in the border areas. Due to the large number of immigrants in the country, there are many speakers of languages from the Middle East, Maghreb countries, and Asia.

Italian uses the Latin alphabet with additional characters- diacritics and digraphs. In oral speech, Italians are accustomed to supplementing what is said with abundant gestures, which give expressiveness to the language. A large number of metaphors, proverbs and sayings give Italian great imagery, although many foreigners believe that such complex speech only masks the meaning of what is said.

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Books

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The history of the Italian language is rich and fascinating, as it comes from the vernacular Latin of the Roman Empire. It has ancient roots, but nevertheless is considered quite young, since the modern dialect was formed only in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Unlike other languages of the Romance group, it did not receive such distribution. It is officially recognized in four states - directly in Italy, the Vatican, San Marino and Switzerland. The total number of speakers is almost 64 million people.

However, learning it does not mean understanding everything that is said in Italy. This territory is famous for its dialects, which can differ significantly from each other.

Classical Italian and dialects

The most commonly studied language in the world is the so-called lingua italiana. It is spoken by more than 60 million people. However, in Italy itself there is a huge number of dialects that are radically different from each other. Their differences reach the point that residents of different regions do not understand each other’s speech. This is due to historical events.

All dialects can be divided into three geographical groups - central, southern and northern. The central region became a kind of language center - the Tuscan dialect was widespread there, which later became the basis for modern Italian. But in Rome they speak colloquial Latin with shades of Neapolitan and Tuscan dialects.
In the north, Gallo-Italian dialects are common, some of which are considered separate languages. In total, this part of the country is divided into eight regions, each of which has its own dialect. For example, the Valle d'Aosta region borders France, so the French-Provençal dialect is spoken here.
In the south of the country they used to speak Neapolitan, but now it is more Italian with a Neapolitan accent. In some regions you can find an Albanian accent. By the way, the islands also have their own dialects - Sicilian, for example, is divided into Western, Eastern and Central. Just a few centuries ago, Italians from different parts of the country did not understand each other. Nowadays, the dialects are closer to Italian and have common roots.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, folk Latin, a previously unpopular colloquial variant, spread throughout Italy. Of course, its development was affected by the fact that the entire period of the Middle Ages was divided.

It was only after the Renaissance that a single dialect based on Tuscan was created. We can say that in the 18th and 19th centuries the language of literature and art was artificially formed based on the dialect used by the greatest Italians - Dante and Petrarch.

Now this version can be heard on television, cinema, literature and art. But in order to understand the dialects of some regions, you need to study them directly in the places of distribution.

Vatican

In the smallest state in the world, Italian is officially recognized on a par with Latin. Of course, on the latter you can only find documents.

The population of the Vatican is only 1000 people, and half of them are ministers of the Holy See. This tiny state is completely surrounded by Roman territory and has always been part of Italy. The Vatican gained its independence from the country only in 1929.

San Marino

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Another small state in Italy is San Marino. Its territory is only 60 square meters. km. surrounded on all sides by Italian, so it is not surprising that this language is recognized as the official language here. San Marino has a rich history despite its size. The state was founded in 301, making it the oldest in Europe.

Switzerland

In Switzerland, Italian is officially recognized along with three others - French, German and Romansh. This is due to the ethnic composition of the country, which was formed due to its location.

Now Switzerland is a stronghold of reliability and stability, but since ancient times this territory has been a tasty morsel. Even the inhabitants of Ancient Rome wanted to conquer these Alpine valleys. Soon the territory of Switzerland became a transition between Italy and the north of Europe, which made its inhabitants Italian-speaking.

Slovenia

Slovenia has Slovenian as its official language, but in some areas of the country Italian and Hungarian are used as the second official language. This is due to its geographical location, because the country’s neighbors are Italy and Hungary. On the Istrian peninsula near the border with Italy, this language is recognized as the second official language. In total, about 2,500 thousand Italians live in Slovenia.

If you gather all Italians at one big table and ask them a topic for communication, it is quite possible that many interlocutors will not understand each other. It's all about dialects, each of which has the history of the country, its development and formation. Today, Italian is spoken by about 65 million people in the world and not only within the country: in Malta, Corsica, Ticino, San Marino, in South America, on the northeastern part of the Adriatic coast. The modern normative language was formed gradually, based on literary canons, with the integration of local dialects.
We invite you to delve into the history of Italian - one of the most beautiful languages in the world - and trace how it was formed, what it was like hundreds of years ago, and what we hear today.

Birth of the Italian language

Italian belongs to the Romance group, the Italic subfamily, with a base from Latin (more precisely, its colloquial form). Literary Latin remained only in Christian liturgies and ancient scientific works.

The primitive form of Latin, having entered the territory of Italy, quickly merged with dialects and gave rise to various linguistic subtypes, differing from each other phonetically and semantically. And today, misunderstandings may arise between residents of the South and the North when pronouncing the same word.

Writers from Florence contributed a significant linguistic role to Italian. They “cleaned up” the vocabulary, improved grammar and phonetics. The language became closer to literary - it included neologisms, phrases and word forms from classical Latin. Not without Florentine peculiarities in the pronunciation of sounds, which later began to be perceived as normative. This became the generally accepted written and oral italiano in the 12th century. It was spoken by the heroes of the works of Ariosto, Boccaccio, Tasso and other authors of the Renaissance period. The first dictionary, collected by lexicographers from Florence, was published in 1612 and for a long time remained unique among other languages of the Romance group.

Italian Dante Alighieri refreshed. The legendary poem “The Divine Comedy”, presented to the public, won incredible success. And the language of the work began to be projected onto the colloquial speech of the inhabitants of Italy. Thus, italiano included the dialects of Tuscany and parts of Southern Italy.

The language of numbers. Today, 60% of Italian residents use dialects in their speech, and 14% speak them exclusively, considering them their only native language.

How dialects were formed

Let's look at why Italian is considered one of the most linguistically fragmented languages. Temperamental Italians are not at all to blame for this. This is how it happened historically. Over several centuries, the country fell into the hands of various rulers many times, was conquered and changed its political status.

If we start from the very beginning, in ancient times the Ligurians, Etruscans and Sicans lived in Italy. They were replaced in the 1st-2nd centuries BC by the Italics, who occupied almost the entire Apennine Peninsula. A few centuries later the country became part of the Roman Empire. At the end of the 8th century, Italy again changed its status and found itself in the hands of the Franks and Lombards. This continued until the Middle Ages, when France and Spain began to fight for Italy. By the way, the Spanish language has tightly integrated into the dialects; some phonetic nuances of Spanish can still be traced today.

Modern Italian includes three dialectical directions: south, center and north.

Dialects of modern Italian

If five hundred years ago the inhabitants of the peninsula from the southern and northern parts had difficulty finding a common language - the dialects were so different from each other that they were perceived as the sound of different languages - then today Italian is united. But dialects still have a place. Let us divide them into three main geographical groups.

Language of the inhabitants of Central Italy

Tuscany is considered the linguistic center of the country. It was here that vocabulary and phonetics acquired a normative, literary form. The Tuscan dialect is not essentially a dialect, but rather a canon of pronunciation. Perhaps, if the historical situation had been different, Italiano would not have been so beautiful, melodic and characteristic.

The Tuscan group includes dialects characteristic of the residents of Arezzo, Pisa, Siena, and Florence.

If we talk about the neighboring regions - Marche and Umbria - their speech is close to ideal (by modern standards), that is, it is based on the Tuscan dialect. But in some cities and towns you can still hear notes of the Sabine dialect.

How to communicate in Rome

Here the colloquial speech is based on the origins, the Latin base - more precisely, its colloquial form, on the basis of which Italian was built. The modern Roman dialect also includes Tuscan and Neapolitan features. These linguistic features are also characteristic of the inhabitants of the Lazio region.

Southern dialects of Italy

Hundreds of years ago, residents of the southern part of the country spoke Neapolitan. Let us note: it is a language, and not a dialect - because it was difficult to call it a dialect, there were too many lexical, grammatical and phonetic differences in it with standard Italian. Today in the south of the peninsula, spoken Italian is recognized as the main language, but Neapolitan notes can still be traced.

The southern dialects include the linguistic features of speech in Abruzzo and Molise, which differ from the neighboring Neapolitan dialect and have their own unique features. In Apulia and Calabria they speak with an Albanian accent, and sometimes in pure Albanian - part of the population is ethnic Albanians. In Calabria you can also hear the Sicilian dialect.

As they say in Northern Italy

This part of the country is divided into eight administrative regions, each of which has its own dialects. If earlier they were very different from each other, today they are still close to the normative Italiano.

The northwestern region, bordering Switzerland and France, is designated the Aosta Valley region. The place is picturesque: beautiful landscape, mountains, forests. The language of the inhabitants has absorbed the features of neighboring French; the dialect is called Franco-Provençal, but French is often used in its pure form. Also, one of the dialects of Valle d'Aosta is Occitan (or Provençal).

A little further south is the Piedmont region. The Piedmontese dialect dominates here, reaching 2 million Italians. In the western part, the Occitan dialect is widespread; residents of eastern Piedmont speak Lomard.

Following Piedmont is Liguria, a resort region comfortably located by the sea. Here you can hear several local spoken subtypes based on the Ligurian dialect. One of the most common dialects is Genoese, born in the regional center of Liguria, Genoa.

One of the densely populated and economically developed regions of Italy is Lombardy. The majority of local residents, not counting visitors, speak the Lombard language, which is divided into dialects: Eastern Lombard and Western Lombard. Italian is considered the second spoken Italian language in this area. More than 10 million people communicate on it.

Moving northeast, we find ourselves in Trentino-Alto Adige, an area bordering Switzerland and Austria. Hence the dialects: the local population speaks German and Ladin (which combine the features of Italian and Romansh languages).

To the east of Lombardy is the administrative region of Veneto with the legendary capital, attracting the attention of tourists from different parts of the world - Venice. Several types of Venetian dialect are used in this territory. The Friulian language is spoken by residents of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, bordering Slovenia and Austria. Geographical location played a significant role in the change of Italian, which included phonetic features of the Romansh group.

The southern part of northern Italy is the Emilia-Romagna region. Here you can hear the Romagnol and Emilin dialects. These linguistic features have entered the speech of more than 3 million people.

Dialects of the Italian islands

Sicily and Sardinia are iconic resort places in Italy, where connoisseurs of quality holidays and Mediterranean cuisine from all over the planet come every year. For many hundreds of years, these islands were under different rulers, cultures and languages. The changes could not affect the language of the local residents, which absorbed various ethnic features: Greek, Arabic, Roman.

Today the language of Sicily can be divided into three main dialects: Western, Central and Eastern. In Sardinia the situation is different, there are many more dialects: Nuoran, Logudorian, Gallurian, Sassarian, and features of the Spanish language can be traced. In the northern part of Sardinia, Corsican is widely spoken, and in Alghero - Catalan.

Let's sum it up

When starting to learn Italian, answer the question: for what purpose do you need it? If you are planning to change your place of residence and move to a specific area of the peninsula, initially focus on colloquial speech using specific phonetic features.

This way you will quickly and easily establish contact with Italians, find pleasant interlocutors, business partners and new friends.

It might be useful to read:

Between Rome and Sicily: dialects of the Italian language. Official languages ​​of Italy Main language in Italy