56-528: Nocera Superiore ( Neapolitan : Nucèrë or Nucèrä Superiórë ) is a town and comune in the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-western Italy . It was the core of the ancient city of Nuceria Alfaterna [ it ] , later known as Nuceria Constantia [ it ] , Nuceria Christianorum [ it ] and then Nuceria Paganorum [ it ] ( Italian : Nocera dei Pagani ), which also included
112-512: A in Napoli Naples ieri. Civitas foederata A civitas foederata , meaning "allied state/community", was the most elevated type of autonomous cities and local communities under Roman rule. Each Roman province comprised a number of communities of different status. Alongside Roman colonies or municipia , whose residents held the Roman citizenship or Latin citizenship ,
168-473: A civitas foederata . During the Second Punic War (218 – 201 BC), the city's defences proved formidable enough that Hannibal reduced the city by starvation because of its loyalty to Rome, rather than by direct attack, though subsequently destroyed it in 216 BC. After the war the defences were rebuilt and strengthened with the addition of towers in opus incertum . Its territory was ravaged during
224-753: A ; masc. "long", fem. "long"), whereas in Italian it is expressed by a change in the final vowel. These and other morpho-syntactic differences distinguish the Neapolitan language from the Italian language and the Neapolitan accent. Neapolitan has had a significant influence on the intonation of Rioplatense Spanish spoken in Buenos Aires and the surrounding region of Argentina and in the entire country of Uruguay . While there are only five graphic vowels in Neapolitan, phonemically, there are eight. Stressed vowels e and o can be either " closed " or " open " and
280-410: A or an , are presented in the following table: In Neapolitan there are four finite moods: indicative , subjunctive , conditional and imperative , and three non-finite modes: infinitive , gerund and participle . Each mood has an active and a passive form. The only auxiliary verbs used in the active form is (h)avé (Eng. "to have", It. avere ), which contrasts with Italian, in which
336-458: A channel for the drainage of water, flowed around the orchestra. The steps of cavea are still preserved, from which the tuff cladding blocks have been largely removed. In the western parodos there are frescoes in the third Pompeian style. The oinochoe in bucchero with the inscription Bruties Esum in the Nucerino alphabet comes from a burial in the necropolis of the 6th century BC adjacent to
392-463: A city, giving it her name, Nuceria. Another legend tells that a great flood swept away an entire forest leaving a single walnut tree (from the Latin nux , nucis – Nuceria). The name's origins were uncovered through the study of inscriptions on the city's coins which stated Nuvkrinum Alafaternum . Analysing these two words, linguists have split the terms in this way: The name Nuvkrinum Alafaternum
448-472: A mere difference in Italian pronunciation. Therefore, while pronunciation presents the strongest barrier to comprehension, the grammar of Neapolitan is what sets it apart from Italian. In Neapolitan, for example, the gender and number of a word is expressed by a change in the accented vowel because it no longer distinguishes final unstressed / a / , / e / and / o / (e.g. l uo ngo [ˈlwoŋɡə] , l o nga [ˈloŋɡə] ; Italian lung o , lung
504-499: A province was largely formed by self-governing communities of natives ( peregrini ), which were distinguished according to the level of autonomy they had: the lowest were the civitates stipendariae ("tributary states"), followed by the civitates liberae ("free states"), which had been granted specific privileges. Unlike the latter, the civitates foederatae were individually bound to Rome by formal treaty ( foedus ). Although they remained formally independent,
560-513: A road cut 3 m deep and almost 10 m wide into the ground. Thus travelers could read the messages written on their graves to address them a prayer or a thought. Inside the funerary enclosures, some individual tombs are marked by columellas . Of the funerary buildings, a tumulus built by the important Numisia gens (Numisia family) recalls the mausoleum of Augustus in Rome. It is flanked by the Mausoleum of
616-406: A word beginning with a consonant: "C:" = the initial consonant of the following word is geminated if followed by a vowel. These definite articles are always pronounced distinctly. Before a word beginning with a vowel, l’ or ll’ are used for both masculine and feminine, singular and plural. Although both forms can be found, the ll’ form is by far the most common. In Neapolitan,
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#1733085368238672-540: A word or between two vowels: e.g. doje (feminine) or duje (masculine), meaning "two", is pronounced, and often spelled, as roje / ruje ; vedé ("to see") as veré , and often spelled so; also cadé / caré ("to fall") and Madonna / Maronna . Another purported Oscan influence is the historical assimilation of the consonant cluster /nd/ as /nn/ , pronounced [nː] (this is generally reflected in spelling more consistently: munno vs Italian mondo "world"; quanno vs Italian quando "when"), along with
728-640: Is a Romance language of the Italo-Romance group spoken in Naples and most of continental Southern Italy . It is named after the Kingdom of Naples , which once covered most of the area, and the city of Naples was its capital. On 14 October 2008, a law by the Region of Campania stated that Neapolitan was to be protected. While this article mostly addresses the language group native to much of continental Southern Italy or
784-558: Is derived from nuv + krin-um + alafatern-um : nuv ('new'), krin ('fortress') of the Alfaterni, an Italic people of the Agro Nocerino Sarnese . Archaeological evidence from the necropoli shows that at the end of the 7th century BC the native Oscan populations of the valley went to settle towards the sea for mainly strategic reasons, some founding Pompeii , others towards the interior, giving life to Nuvkrinum . The city
840-490: Is only to demonstrate where the stress, or accent, falls in some words. Also, the circumflex is used to mark a long vowel where it would not normally occur (e.g. sî "you are"). The following clusters are always geminated if vowel-following. The Neapolitan classical definite articles (corresponding to the English word "the") are a (feminine singular), o (masculine singular) and i (plural for both). Before
896-541: Is recorded in a fresco) and which led the Roman senate to send the Praetorian Guard to restore order and to ban further events for a period of ten years. The earthquake in 62 and the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 caused serious damage to the town which never regained its previous prosperity. Nuceria lay on the via Popillia , the great road linking Capua to southern Italy, as well as on the via Stabiana (towards Stabiae) and
952-534: The civitates foederatae in effect surrendered their foreign relation to Rome, to which they were bound by perpetual alliance. Nevertheless, the citizens of these cities enjoyed certain rights under Roman law , like the commercium and the conubium . In the Greek East , many of the Greek city-states ( poleis ) were formally liberated and granted some form of formal guarantee of their autonomy. As they had
1008-465: The comune of Pagani ; Sperandei merged into San Matteo Tre Casali , forming the comune of Nocera San Matteo ; while Nocera Corpo , Sant'Egidio and Corbara stayed autonomous. In 1834, the remnants of Nocera Soprana ( Nocera Corpo and Nocera San Matteo ) merged back into a single comune , but fourteen districts of Nocera Corpo (including Pucciano ) later asked for self-administration, which
1064-452: The Social War (90 BC) and by the troops of Spartacus . During the period of the triumvirate , the city became a colonia as Nuceria Constantia , but the city proudly kept its origins and Greek was still written and spoken as a sign of cultural distinction. In AD 59, there was a serious riot and bloodshed in the nearby Pompeii Amphitheatre between Pompeians and Nucerians (which
1120-755: The United States , Canada , Australia , Brazil , Argentina , Uruguay , Mexico , and Venezuela . However, in the United States, traditional Neapolitan has had considerable contact with English and the Sicilian languages spoken by Sicilian and Calabrian immigrants living alongside Neapolitan-speaking immigrants and so the Neapolitan in the US is now significantly different from the contemporary Neapolitan spoken in Naples . English words are often used in place of Neapolitan words, especially among second-generation speakers . On
1176-458: The gender of a noun is not easily determined by the article, so other means must be used. In the case of ’o , which can be either masculine singular or neuter singular (there is no neuter plural in Neapolitan), the initial consonant of the noun is doubled when it is neuter. For example, the name of a language in Neapolitan is always neuter, so if we see ’o nnapulitano we know it refers to
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#17330853682381232-610: The Byzantines won the Battle of Mons Lactarius . During the 6th century the Lombards , under King Alboin , forced Nuceria to surrender: they placed it under the supremacy of the Duchy of Benevento . After the mid-9th century the town was part of the principality of Salerno first, and then of the principality of Capua . The citadel of Nuceria, located where the future Nocera Inferiore would rise,
1288-520: The Neapolitan language, whereas ’o napulitano would refer to a Neapolitan man. Likewise, since ’e can be either masculine or feminine plural, when it is feminine plural, the initial consonant of the noun is doubled. For example, consider ’a lista , which in Neapolitan is feminine singular, meaning "the list". In the plural, it becomes ’e lliste . There can also be problems with nouns whose singular form ends in e . Since plural nouns usually end in e whether masculine or feminine,
1344-426: The Roman phase). The Scaenae frons consisted of a wall with three niches (the central one semicircular and the two lateral ones rectangular). The pulpitum , the low front wall that supported the stage made of wooden boards in front of the scaenae frons , was also decorated with alternate semicircular and rectangular niches. The orchestra preserves the remains of a rich pavement in polychrome marble. The euripus ,
1400-467: The Via Nuceria from Pompeii. At its greatest expansion, Nuceria, famous for the robustness of the town walls, enclosed the current districts of Pareti, San Pietro, Pucciano, Grotti, Portaromana, Santa Maria Maggiore and San Clemente. There are astonishing similarities between the fortifications of Nuceria and Pompeii . Nuceria is rectangular with scarps defending the north, west, and east of the city while
1456-481: The centre is octagonal on the outside and circular inside, surrounded by eight columns (five originals). The building reuses older materials, both in the thick outer cylinder, and for the columns in Pentelic marble recovered from temple buildings of the 2nd and 3rd centuries. These columns are unequal in shape and height and give the baptistery a lively polychromy. The capitals are also completely different, some taken from
1512-696: The city castle by Charles III of Naples . In the XV century the town name was changed to Nuceria Paganorum ( Italian : Nocera dei Pagani ) in honor to the Pagano family, itself named after the Saracen pagans who previously inhabited the area. Throughout the Spanish domination, the town was subdivided into two departments ( Nocera Soprana and Nocera Sottana ), each one composed of multiple municipalities. Every year in August,
1568-438: The connection unrecognizable to those without knowledge of Neapolitan. The most striking phonological difference is the Neapolitan weakening of unstressed vowels into schwa ( schwa is pronounced like the a in about or the u in upon ). However, it is also possible (and quite common for some Neapolitans) to speak standard Italian with a "Neapolitan accent"; that is, by pronouncing un-stressed vowels as schwa or by pronouncing
1624-434: The current Pareti and Pucciano districts. This site was chosen due to its favourable geographic position with water sources and a very fertile hinterland protected from winds. It became one of the most important cities of ancient Campania and the capital of a confederation ( Lega nucerina ) which included Pompeii, Herculaneum , Stabiae and Sorrento . It minted its own money on which the expression Nuvkrinum Al (a) faternum
1680-639: The development of /mb/ as /mm/ ~ [mː] ( tammuro vs Italian tamburo "drum"), also consistently reflected in spelling. Other effects of the Oscan substratum are postulated, but substratum claims are highly controversial. As in many other languages in the Italian Peninsula , Neapolitan has an adstratum greatly influenced by other Romance languages ( Catalan , Spanish and Franco-Provençal above all), Germanic languages and Greek (both ancient and modern). The language had never been standardised, and
1736-532: The eastern side. It is a 6th-century circular domed structure, of Byzantine style with a double row of 15 columns topped by arches. As the baptistery is usually an annex to the cathedral, the cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary probably collapsed. It was built in the centre of the city by removing the previous civil buildings of which some floor mosaics are visible. The baptismal font (the second largest in Italy) in
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1792-491: The former Kingdom of Naples, the terms Neapolitan , napulitano or napoletano may also instead refer more narrowly to the specific variety spoken natively in the city of Naples and the immediately surrounding Naples metropolitan area and Campania . Largely due to massive Southern Italian migration in the late 19th century and 20th century, there are also a number of Neapolitan speakers in Italian diaspora communities in
1848-454: The important Cornelia gens similar to the monument of Porta Marina in Ostia with the square lower part surmounted by a tholos . A third building with a square plan, of the important Lutatia gens , is connected to the street below by two scenographic stairs. Neapolitan language Neapolitan ( autonym : ('o n)napulitano [(o n)napuliˈtɑːnə] ; Italian : napoletano )
1904-511: The intransitive and reflexive verbs take èssere for their auxiliary. For example, we have: Aggio AUX .have. 1SG . PRES stato be. PTCP . PAST a in Napule Naples ajere. yesterday Aggio stato a Napule ajere. AUX.have.1SG.PRES be.PTCP.PAST in Naples yesterday I was in Naples yesterday. Sono AUX .be. 1S . PRES stato be. PTCP . PAST
1960-426: The letter j . The following English pronunciation guidelines are based on General American pronunciation, and the values used may not apply to other dialects. (See also: International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects .) All Romance languages are closely related. Although Neapolitan shares a high degree of its vocabulary with Italian, the official language of Italy, differences in pronunciation often make
2016-420: The letter s as [ ʃ ] (like the sh in ship ) instead of / s / (like the s in sea or the ss in pass ) when the letter is in initial position followed by a consonant, but not when it is followed by a dental occlusive / t / or / d / (at least in the purest form of the language) but by otherwise using only entirely standard words and grammatical forms. This is not Neapolitan properly, but rather
2072-408: The male adults of each municipality gathered in public assembly to elect their particular mayor ; then – in a different assembly – each department elected the universal mayors : two for Nocera Soprana and one for Nocera Sottana , which together led Nocera dei Pagani as a triumvirate . The town survived until 1806. In 1807 five comuni were established: Barbazzano merged into
2128-406: The masculine plural is often signaled orthographically, that is, by altering the spelling. As an example, consider the word guaglione , which means "boy" or (in the feminine form) "girl": More will be said about these orthographically changing nouns in the section on Neapolitan nouns. A couple of notes about consonant doubling: The Neapolitan indefinite articles, corresponding to the English
2184-407: The middle of the 1st century BC with renovations from the end of the 1st century AD. The name of the district where the buried amphitheatre is called Grotti ('caves') which refers to the vaulted rooms ( vomitoria ) of the structure discovered in the foundations of the subsequent structures. Through the elliptical form of the road and houses, and after explorations in the cellars of the houses, it
2240-593: The national level to have it recognized as an official minority language of Italy. It is a recognized ISO 639 Joint Advisory Committee language with the ISO 639-3 language code of nap . Here is the IPA pronunciation of the Neapolitan spoken in the city of Naples: Neapolitan orthography consists of 22 Latin letters. Much like Italian orthography , it does not contain k, w, x, or y even though these letters might be found in some foreign words; unlike Italian, it does contain
2296-502: The neuter form and a unique plural formation, as well as historical phonological developments, which often obscure the cognacy of lexical items. Its evolution has been similar to that of Italian and other Romance languages from their roots in Vulgar Latin . It may reflect a pre-Latin Oscan substratum , as in the pronunciation of the d sound as an r sound ( rhotacism ) at the beginning of
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2352-698: The north. After the defeat of 474 BC at the Battle of Cumae the Etruscans abandoned the region and Nuvkrinum passed to the Samnites. In the 5th century BC the city changed its name by adding Alfaternum from the name of the Samnite tribe of the Alfaterni. Around the 6th century BC the Osci , an Italic people of Campania , probably gave rise to the original settlement of Nuceria Alfaterna, located in Nocera Superiore, between
2408-637: The nowadays territories of Nocera Inferiore , Pagani and smaller towns. In other respects, its history up until 1851 is held in common with the adjacent Nocera Inferiore : the two towns share a common origin. The town is located on the northern ridge of the Monti Lattari , in the Agro Nocerino Sarnese . Its seismic hazard rating puts it in zone 2 (medium hazard level), according to Ordinance PCM n. 3274 of 20 March 2003. According to legend, an Etruscan princess escaped from her hometown for love and came to die in these areas. In her memory, her father erected
2464-619: The other hand, the effect of Standard Italian on Neapolitan in Italy has been similar because of the increasing displacement of Neapolitan by Standard Italian in daily speech . Neapolitan is a Romance language and is considered as part of Southern Italo-Romance. There are notable differences among the various dialects, but they are all generally mutually intelligible. Italian and Neapolitan are of variable mutual comprehensibility, depending on affective and linguistic factors. There are notable grammatical differences, such as Neapolitan having nouns in
2520-470: The pronunciation is different for the two. The grave accent ( à , è , ò ) is used to denote open vowels, and the acute accent ( é , í , ó , ú ) is used to denote closed vowels, with alternative ì and ù . However, accent marks are not commonly used in the actual spelling of words except when they occur on the final syllable of a word, such as Totò , arrivà , or pecché , and when they appear here in other positions, it
2576-568: The songs of Pino Daniele and the Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare . The language has no official status within Italy and is not taught in schools. The University of Naples Federico II offers (from 2003) courses in Campanian Dialectology at the faculty of Sociology, whose actual aim is not to teach students to speak the language but to study its history, usage, literature and social role. There are also ongoing legislative attempts at
2632-510: The southern side had the strongest fortifications as the most vulnerable section and, like Pompeii, featured a tufa opus quadratum double wall with an agger behind. It was a bishopric as early as the 3rd century AD. The first bishop was Saint Priscus . During the Gothic War (535–554) , the Byzantines and Goths faced each other a few km away along the banks of the Sarno river for months until
2688-527: The temple of Neptune and adorned with dolphins. The discovery of the monumental necropolis of Pizzone, in the locality of Taverne, is due to the systematic control of the territory by the Nocera Excavation Office. It lies 800 m outside the eastern city walls, along the Via Popilia. It dates back to the 1st century BC. Excavations from 1994 to 1997 brought to light funerary monuments on the sides of
2744-481: The theatre. Built in the 2nd c. BC against the city walls, it was located along the axis of the north–south road in front of the gate called Porta Romana. The theatre used the slope of the ground. The remains of the oldest part made with large rectangular blocks dates to the Samnite era. There was an integral school and gymnasium. The theatre was then restored in the Augustan age which transformed it into Roman form. It
2800-449: The word for tree has three different spellings: arbero , arvero and àvaro . Neapolitan has enjoyed a rich literary, musical and theatrical history (notably Giambattista Basile , Eduardo Scarpetta , his son Eduardo De Filippo , Salvatore Di Giacomo and Totò ). Thanks to this heritage and the musical work of Renato Carosone in the 1950s, Neapolitan is still in use in popular music, even gaining national popularity in
2856-460: Was besieged by Roger II of Sicily in the battle in 1132 , after four months he razed the town to the ground. After its reconstruction, the birth of the modern Nocera began with many hamlets and villages which gradually expanded and became small towns. During the Angevin dominion (1266–1435) Nocera was rebuilt and took the name of Nuceria Christianorum . In 1385 Pope Urban VI was besieged in
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#17330853682382912-544: Was engraved using a particular alphabet (Nucerian alphabet) based on the Greek and Etruscan alphabets. Nuceria's first mention in history is in 315 BC when, during the Second Samnite War , it was an ally of the Romans but was persuaded to abandon the alliance and join the Samnite cause. In 310 BC the Romans ravaged the territory of Nuceria but in the end it obtained favourable treatment and entered into an alliance with Rome as
2968-510: Was founded by the union of several scattered villages, colonising a strategic well-defended place guarding a fertile valley and a route between the gulfs of Naples and Salerno. It was centred on the suburb of Pareti. It became an Etruscan settlement and possibly part of the dodecapolis (the twelve most important cities) of the Etruscan colonisation in Campania to block the Greek expansion towards
3024-432: Was granted by decree No. 1960 on 11 November 1850, with effect from 1 January 1851; thus were born the contemporary comuni of Nocera Superiore (corresponding to most of Nocera Corpo ) and Nocera Inferiore (formerly Nocera San Matteo ). The Hellenistic-Roman Theatre was identified between Pareti and Pucciano and brought to light in the 1970-80s. It was one of the largest in Campania (96 m diameter in
3080-399: Was possible to reconstruct the size of the amphitheatre at 125 x 102 m. The double-curtain city walls were built in the 2nd century BC and have a thickness of 1.5 m and a height of 5 m while the distance between the two curtains was about 12 m. A section of them with a two towers is preserved in a sports field on via Pucciano. A second tower, known today as Cantina Vecchia, is preserved on
3136-528: Was restored after the damage of the earthquake of 62 and the eruption of Vesuvius in 79. Abandoned since the 4th century, it was used as a stone quarry and then progressively buried during the Middle Ages. The cavities in the walls were used as prisons where prisoners were lowered from above, hence this was commonly called the prisons. Parts of the amphitheatre were discovered in 1926 incorporated in more recent houses. The visible structures seem to date from around
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