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62-608: Nowadays the name Triveneto is more commonly used in the Northern Italian languages , while its original title is still in use in the Southern Italian languages , and it includes the three administrative regions of Veneto , Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol : that is to say, the provinces of Belluno , Bolzano , Gorizia , Padua , Pordenone , Rovigo , Trento , Treviso , Trieste , Udine , Venice , Verona , and Vicenza . This area also corresponds to

124-491: A standardised written form . This may be widely accepted or used alongside more traditional written forms: Tuscan dialect Tuscan ( Italian : dialetto toscano [djaˈlɛtto tosˈkaːno; di.a-] ; locally: vernacolo ) is a set of Italo-Dalmatian varieties of Romance spoken in Tuscany , Corsica , and Sardinia . Standard Italian is based on Tuscan, specifically on its Florentine dialect , and it became

186-474: A substrate from the Etruscan language of the original inhabitants prior to Romanization. The Etruscan language influence is found most saliently in the toponyms of Tuscany , as well as some parts of neighbouring Umbria and Lazio . The Tuscan gorgia affects the voiceless stop consonants /k/ , /t/ , and /p/ . They are usually pronounced as fricatives in post-vocalic position when not blocked by

248-550: A "peculiar dialect" (all the others). The bill was later implemented, but deemed unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court. Italy is a signatory of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , but has not ratified the treaty, and therefore its provisions protecting regional languages do not apply in the country. The Charter does not, however, establish at what point differences in expression result in

310-511: A continuous transition of spoken dialects between e.g. Venetian and Ladin, or Venetian and Emilio-Romagnolo (usually considered Gallo-Italian). All of these languages are considered innovative relative to the Romance languages as a whole, with some of the Gallo-Italian languages having phonological changes nearly as extreme as standard French (usually considered the most phonologically innovative of

372-487: A direct offshoot from medieval Tuscan, even though they now constitute a distinct linguistic group. Excluding the inhabitants of Province of Massa and Carrara , who speak an Emilian dialect, and people in the area of Tuscan Romagna, speaking Romagnol , around 3.5 million people speak Tuscan. Tuscan as a whole has certain defining features, with subvarieties that are distinguished by minor details. A Romance language variety descending from Vulgar Latin , it also contains

434-467: A normal lengthening of the consonant preceding /j/ . What seems to have taken place is a realignment of the paradigm in accordance with the statistically-minor but highly-frequent paradigms of dare (give) and stare (be, stay). Thus so, sai, sa, sanno (all singulars and the third-person plural of 'know') has come to fit the template of do, dai, dà, danno ('give'), sto, stai, sta, stanno ('be, stay'), and fo, fai, fa, fanno ('make, do') has followed

496-650: A separate language, deeming it an "often controversial issue", and citing the necessity to take into account, other than purely linguistic criteria, also "psychological, sociological and political considerations". According to the UNESCO 's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger , there are 31 endangered languages in Italy. The degree of endangerment is classified in different categories ranging from 'safe' (safe languages are not included in

558-429: A stage / ɔ / , the vowel has then developed as a diphthong [wɔ] . The phenomenon never gained universal acceptance, however, and so forms with the diphthong have come to be accepted as Standard Italian (e.g. fuoco , buono , nuovo , duomo ), but the monophthong remains in popular speech ( foco , bono , novo , domo ). A characteristic of Tuscan dialect is the use of the accusative pronoun te in emphatic clauses of

620-442: A substantial percentage of the population due to immigration . Of the indigenous languages, twelve are officially recognized as spoken by linguistic minorities : Albanian , Catalan , German , Greek , Slovene , Croatian , French , Franco-Provençal , Friulian , Ladin , Occitan and Sardinian ; at the present moment, Sardinian is regarded as the largest of such groups, with approximately one million speakers, even though

682-508: A synthetic pronoun form, mi (to me). The Tuscan dialect makes use of both in the same sentence as a kind of intensification of the dative/indirect object: This usage is widespread throughout the central regions of Italy, not only in Tuscany, and is often considered redundant and erroneous by language purists. It is also a standard feature in Spanish: a mí me gusta ("I like it") In some dialects,

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744-599: Is a dialect complex composed of many local variants, with minor differences among them. The main subdivisions are between Northern Tuscan dialects, the Southern Tuscan dialects, and Corsican. The Northern Tuscan dialects are (from east to west): The Southern Tuscan dialects are (from east to west): Corsican on the island of Corsica and the Corso-Sardinian transitional varieties spoken in northern Sardinia ( Gallurese and Sassarese ) are classified by scholars as

806-548: Is difficult and not agreed-upon, due both to the variations among the languages and to the fact that they share isoglosses of various sorts with both the Italo-Romance languages to the south and the Gallo-Romance languages to the northwest. One common classification divides these languages into four groups: Any such classification runs into the basic problem that there is a dialect continuum throughout northern Italy, with

868-654: Is given the same consideration. All of them still bear strong social pressure to assimilate to Italian, and some of them do not even have a widely acknowledged standard to be used for official purposes. In fact, the discrimination lay in the urgent need to award the highest degree of protection only to the French-speaking minority in the Aosta Valley and the German one in South Tyrol , owing to international treaties. For example,

930-481: Is not pronounced and so anar is pronounced /ə'na/. A phenomenon similar in origin in French has led to loss of both /r/ and final /e/ in the - are class of infinitives at an early stage and so the final syllable of Modern French aimer , chanter etc. is pronounced as stressed [e] . The most important differences among dialects is in the lexicon , which also distinguishes the different subdialects. The Tuscan lexicon

992-613: Is pronounced as a voiceless post-alveolar fricative between two vowels: The sequence /la ˈtʃena/ la cena , 'the dinner', in Standard Italian is pronounced [la ˈtʃeːna] , but in Tuscan, it is [la ˈʃeːna] . As a result of the weakening rule, there are a few minimal pairs distinguished only by length of the voiceless fricative (e.g. [laʃeˈrɔ] lacerò 'it/he/she ripped' vs. [laʃʃeˈrɔ] lascerò 'I will leave/let'). A less common phonetic phenomenon

1054-606: Is proposed by Maiden: The Northern Italian languages are conventionally defined as those Romance languages spoken north of the La Spezia–Rimini Line , which runs through the northern Apennine Mountains just to the north of Tuscany; however, the dialects of Occitan and Franco-Provençal spoken in the extreme northwest of Italy (e.g. the Valdôtain in the Aosta Valley) are generally excluded. The classification of these languages

1116-555: Is realized as voiced post-alveolar fricative (s and z in the English mea s ure and a z ure ): This phenomenon is very evident in daily speech (common also in Umbria and elsewhere in Central Italy): the phrase la gente , 'the people', in Standard Italian is pronounced [la ˈdʒɛnte] , but in Tuscan it is [la ˈʒɛnte] . Similarly, the voiceless post-alveolar affricate

1178-493: Is the realization of "voiceless s" ( voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ ) as the voiceless alveolar affricate [ts] when preceded by /r/ , /l/ , or /n/ . For example, il sole (the sun), pronounced in Standard Italian as [il ˈsoːle] , would be in theory pronounced [il ˈtsoːle] in Tuscan. However, since assimilation of the final consonant of the article to the following consonant tends to occur in exactly such cases (see "Masculine definite articles" below)

1240-408: Is universal in some subtypes such as Pisano-Livornese, but in the vicinity of Florence , alternations are regular and so the full infinitive (e.g. vedere 'to see') appears before a pause , and the clipped form ( vedé ) is found otherwise. The consonant of an enclitic is lengthened if it is preceded by stressed vowel ( vedéllo 'to see it', portàcci 'to bring us') but not when the preceding vowel of

1302-591: The Italian Constitution was drafted by the Founding Fathers to show sympathy for the country's historical linguistic minorities, in a way for the newly founded Republic to let them become part of the national fabric and distance itself from the Italianization policies promoted earlier because of nationalism , especially during Fascism . Since 1934, Minister Francesco Ercole had excluded in fact from

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1364-731: The Italic branch of the Indo-European languages , consisting of Latino-Faliscan and Osco-Umbrian languages. Furthermore, Celtic languages were spoken in Cisalpine Gaul and ancient Greek was spoken in Magna Graecia . Latin emerged out of the Latino-Faliscan group and replaced the other languages spoken in Italy following the Romanization of the whole peninsula; it is the ancestor of all

1426-873: The Republic of Venice and the Austrian Empire . Currently, Italian is used as the official language in all the regions, but other local languages are spoken by the population: Venetian , Friulian , German , Ladin , and Slovene , in their several dialects. German is a co-official language in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol; Friulian is co-official language in Friuli-Venezia Giulia; Slovene (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) and Ladin (Veneto, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol) are co-official languages in some municipalities. Northern Italian languages The languages of Italy include Italian , which serves as

1488-596: The Roman Catholic Ecclesiastical Region of Triveneto . The entire area was under Austrian rule in 1863; Italy annexed Venezia Euganea in 1866, following the Third Italian War of Independence and a controversial plebiscite (see Venetian nationalism ); Venezia Giulia and Venezia Tridentina passed under the Italian rule in 1919, following the end of World War I . After World War II , Italy retained

1550-448: The Romance languages of Italy is controversial, and listed here are two of the generally accepted classification systems. Loporcaro proposes a classification of Romance languages of Italy based on Pellegrini, who groups different Romance languages according to areal and some typological features. The following five linguistic areas can be identified: The following classification

1612-541: The Romance languages , the only living subgroup of the Italic languages. Almost all of the Romance languages spoken in Italy are native to the area in which they are spoken. Apart from Standard Italian , these languages are often referred to as dialetti " dialects ", both colloquially and in scholarly usage; however, the term may coexist with other labels like "minority languages" or " vernaculars " for some of them. The label "dialect" may be understood erroneously to imply that

1674-484: The double accusative pronoun me mi vedi (lit: Me you see me ) can be heard, but that is considered to be an archaic form. The singular and plural masculine definite articles can both be realized phonetically as [i] in Florentine varieties of Tuscan but are distinguished by their phonological effect on following consonants. The singular causes the lengthening of the following consonant: [i kkaːne] 'the dog'. However,

1736-473: The reflexive si ), as the first-person plural. That is basically the same as the use of on in French . It is possible to use the construction si + third-person in singular verb , which can be preceded by the first-plural person pronoun noi . The phenomenon is found in all verb tenses, including compound tenses. In those tenses, the use of si requires a form of essere ( to be ) as auxiliary verb. If

1798-469: The Romance languages as a whole, with Sardinian being the most conservative of them all. Although "[al]most all Italian dialects were being written in the Middle Ages, for administrative, religious, and often artistic purposes", use of local language gave way to stylized Tuscan, eventually labeled Italian. Local languages are still occasionally written, but only the following regional languages of Italy have

1860-575: The Romance languages). This distinguishes them significantly from standard Italian, which is extremely conservative in its phonology (and notably conservative in its morphology ). Approximate distribution of the regional languages of Sardinia and Southern Italy according to the UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger: One common classification divides these languages into two groups: All of these languages are considered conservative relative to

1922-518: The Sardophone community is overall declining. However, full bilingualism ( bilinguismo perfetto ) is legally granted only to the three national minorities whose mother tongue is German, Slovene or French, and enacted in the regions of Trentino-Alto Adige , Friuli-Venezia Giulia and the Aosta Valley , respectively. Numerous languages were spoken in ancient Italy. These included Etruscan and

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1984-567: The Slovene-speaking minority in the Province of Udine and the Germanic populations ( Walser , Mocheni and Cimbri) residing in provinces different from Bolzano. Some now-recognized minority groups, namely in Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Sardinia , already provided themselves with regional laws of their own. It has been estimated that less than 400.000 people, out of the two million people belonging to

2046-472: The Standard Italian linguistic majority; outside of such epicenters are, on the other hand, Friulian, Ladin, Sardinian, Franco-Provençal and Occitan, which are recognized as distinct languages. Michele Salazar found Bonamore's explanation "new and convincing". Italian was first declared to be Italy's official language during the Fascist period, more specifically through the R.D.l., adopted on 15 October 1925, with

2108-651: The actual pronunciation will be usually [is ˈsoːle] . Affrication of /s/ can more commonly be heard word-internally, as in falso (false) /ˈfalso/ → [ˈfaltso] . It is a common phenomenon in Central Italy but is not exclusive to that area; for example, it also occurs in Switzerland ( Canton Ticino ). It does not occur in a small area including Florence (except Rifredi  [ it ] ) and Prato. There are two Tuscan historical outcomes of Latin ŏ in stressed open syllables. Passing first through

2170-449: The atlas) to 'extinct' (when there are no speakers left). The source for the languages' distribution is the Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger unless otherwise stated, and refers to Italy exclusively. All living languages indigenous to Italy are part of the Indo-European language family . They can be divided into Romance languages and non-Romance languages. The classification of

2232-401: The competing phenomenon of syntactic gemination : A similar phonological alternation is the intervocalic weakening of the Italian "soft" g , the voiced affricate /dʒ/ ( g as in j ud g e ) and "soft" c , the voiceless affricate /tʃ/ ( ch as in ch ur ch ), known as attenuation , or, more commonly, as deaffrication . Between vowels, the voiced post-alveolar affricate consonant

2294-402: The country's national language , in its standard and regional forms , as well as numerous local and regional languages , most of which, like Italian, belong to the broader Romance group . The majority of languages often labeled as regional are distributed in a continuum across the regions' administrative boundaries, with speakers from one locale within a single region being typically aware of

2356-464: The currently recognized twelve with the further addition of the Sinti and Romani -speaking populations. The original list was approved, with the only exception of the nomadic peoples, who lacked the territoriality requisite and therefore needed a separate law. However, the draft was presented to the law-making bodies when the legislature was about to run its course, and had to be passed another time. The bill

2418-472: The exclusion of others is a matter of some controversy. Daniele Bonamore argues that many regional languages were not recognized in light of their communities' historical participation in the construction of the Standard Italian language: Giacomo da Lentini 's and Cielo d'Alcamo 's Sicilian , Guido Guinizelli 's Bolognese , Jacopone da Todi 's Umbrian , Neapolitan , Carlo Goldoni 's Venetian and Dante 's Tuscan are considered to be historical founders of

2480-608: The features distinguishing their own variety from others spoken nearby. The official and most widely spoken language across the country is Italian, which started off based on the medieval Tuscan of Florence . In parallel, many Italians also communicate in one of the local languages, most of which, like Tuscan, are indigenous evolutions of Vulgar Latin . Some local languages do not stem from Latin, however, but belong to other Indo-European branches, such as Cimbrian (Germanic), Arbëresh (Albanian), Slavomolisano (Slavic) and Griko (Greek). Other non-indigenous languages are spoken by

2542-499: The fundamental principles of the current constitutional system". However, more than a half century passed before the Art. 6 was followed by any of the above-mentioned "appropriate measures". Italy applied in fact the Article for the first time in 1999, by means of the national law N.482/99. According to the linguist Tullio De Mauro , the Italian delay of over 50 years in implementing Article 6

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2604-516: The infinitive is unstressed ( lèggelo 'to read it', pèrdeti 'to lose you'). A similar process is found in Romanian , with infinitives cited as a ("to") + the verb, and the -re has been dropped. As in Tuscan, the stress is on the same syllable that had it before the loss of -re . In Catalan and its dialects, in Campidanese Sardinian and for some Portuguese-speakers, final infinitive -r

2666-503: The institutional websites are only in Italian with a few exceptions, like a French version of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. A bill proposed by former prime minister Mario Monti 's cabinet formally introduced a differential treatment between the twelve historical linguistic minorities, distinguishing between those with a "foreign mother tongue" (the groups protected by agreements with Austria , France and Slovenia ) and those with

2728-607: The language of culture throughout Italy because of the prestige of the works by Dante Alighieri , Petrarch , Giovanni Boccaccio , Niccolò Machiavelli , and Francesco Guicciardini . It later became the official language of all the Italian states and of the Kingdom of Italy when it was formed. In De vulgari eloquentia ( c. 1300), Dante Alighieri distinguishes four main subdialects: fiorentino ( Florence ), senese ( Siena ), lucchese ( Lucca ) and aretino ( Arezzo ). Tuscan

2790-593: The latter. Conversely, with the spread of Standard Italian throughout Italy in the 20th century, local varieties of Standard Italian have also developed throughout the peninsula, influenced to varying extents by the underlying local languages, most noticeably at the phonological level; though regional boundaries seldom correspond to isoglosses distinguishing these varieties, these variations of Standard Italian are commonly referred to as Regional Italian ( italiano regionale ). Twelve languages have been legally granted official recognition as of 1999, but their selection to

2852-485: The most part of Tre Venezie, but lost Slovenian and Croatian majority areas of the upper Isonzo valley (together with the eastern part of Gorizia, today called Nova Gorica ), the city of Fiume , most part of Carso region and most part of Istria to Yugoslavia . The areas of Trieste ( Zone A ) and north-west Istria ( Zone B ) were formed in the Free Territory of Trieste : in 1954, Italy reannexed Zone A, while Zone B

2914-552: The name of Sull'Obbligo della lingua italiana in tutti gli uffici giudiziari del Regno, salvo le eccezioni stabilite nei trattati internazionali per la città di Fiume . The original Italian constitution does not explicitly express that Italian is the official national language. Since the constitution was penned, there have been some laws and articles written on the procedures of criminal cases passed that explicitly state that Italian should be used: The Republic safeguards linguistic minorities by means of appropriate measures. Art. 6 of

2976-430: The native languages spoken in Italy are "dialects" of Standard Italian in the prevailing English-language sense of " varieties or variations of a language ". This is not the case in Italy, as the country's long-standing linguistic diversity does not actually stem from Standard Italian. Most of Italy's variety of Romance languages predate Italian and evolved locally from Vulgar Latin , independently of what would become

3038-469: The plural permits consonant weakening: [i haːni] 'the dogs'. As in Italian, the masculine singular lo occurs before consonants long by nature or not permitting /l/ in clusters ( lo zio 'the uncle', lo studente 'the student'), but forms such as i zio can be heard in rustic varieties. A morpholosyntactic phenomenon that is found throughout Tuscany is the personal use of the particle identical to impersonal si (not to be confused with passive si or

3100-426: The present tense of fare ( to do , to make ) and andare ( to go ). These forms have two origins. Natural phonological change alone can account for loss of /d/ and reduction of /ao/ to /o/ in the case of /vado/ > * /vao/ > /vo/ . A case such as Latin sapio > Italian so (I know), however, admits no such phonological account since the expected outcome of /sapio/ would be * /sappjo/ , with

3162-417: The reason for their inclusion. The nominated people were Tullio de Mauro, Giovan Battista Pellegrini and Alessandro Pizzorusso, three notable figures who distinguished themselves with their life-long activity of research in the field of both linguistics and legal theory . Based on linguistic, historical as well as anthropological considerations, the experts eventually selected thirteen groups, corresponding to

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3224-793: The same measures of protection; furthermore, the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities , signed and ratified by Italy in 1997, applies to all the twelve groups mentioned by the 1999 national law, therefore including the Friulians , the Sardinians , the Occitans , the Ladins etc., with the addition of the Romani . In actual practice, not each of the twelve historical linguistic minorities

3286-623: The same pattern. The form vo , while quite possibly a natural phonological development, seems to have been reinforced by analogy in this case. A phonological phenomenon that might appear to be morphological is the loss of the infinitival ending -re of verbs. Stress remains on the same vowel that is stressed in the full form and so the infinitive may coincide with various conjugated singulars: pèrde 'to lose', pèrde 's/he loses'; finì 'to finish', finì 's/he finished'. This homophony seldom, if ever, causes confusion, as they usually appear in distinct syntactic contexts. The infinitive without -re

3348-607: The school curriculum any language other than Italian, in accordance with the policy of linguistic nationalism. For the Constitutional Court of the Italian Republic , Article 6 of the Constitution represents "the overcoming of the closed notion of the 19th-century national State and a reversal of great political and cultural significance, compared to the nationalistic attitude manifested by Fascism" as well as being "one of

3410-492: The standard national language, long before the fairly recent spread of Standard Italian throughout Italy. In fact, Standard Italian itself can be thought of as either a continuation of, or a dialect heavily based on, the Florentine dialect of Tuscan . The indigenous Romance languages of Italy are therefore classified as separate languages that evolved from Latin just like Standard Italian, rather than "dialects" or variations of

3472-483: The twelve historical minorities (with Sardinian being the numerically biggest one ), enjoyed state-wide protection. Around the 1960s, the Italian Parliament eventually resolved to apply the previously neglected article of the country's fundamental Charter. The Parliament thus appointed a "Committee of three Sages" to single out the groups that were to be recognized as linguistic minorities, and further elaborate

3534-568: The twelve minority languages into two groups, with the first including the non-Latin speaking populations (with the exception of the Catalan-speaking one) and the second including only the Romance-speaking populations. Some other interpretations state that a further distinction is implied, considering only some groups to be "national minorities". Regardless of the ambiguous phrasing, all the twelve groups are technically supposed to be allowed

3596-428: The type "You! What are you doing here?". A morphological phenomenon, cited also by Alessandro Manzoni in his masterpiece " I promessi sposi " (The Betrothed), is the doubling of the dative pronoun . For the use of a personal pronoun as indirect object ( to someone, to something ), also called dative case , the standard Italian makes use of a construction preposition + pronoun a me (to me), or it makes use of

3658-417: The verb is one that otherwise selects auxiliary avere in compound constructions, the past participle does not agree with the subject in gender and number: If the verb normally requires essere , the past participle is marked as plural: Usually, si contracts before è : si è → s'è . Another morphological phenomenon present in Tuscan is what might appear to be shortening of first singular verb forms in

3720-729: Was caused by "decades of hostility to multilingualism" and "opaque ignorance". Before said legal framework entered into force, only four linguistic minorities (the French-speaking community in the Aosta Valley; the German-speaking community and, to a limited extent, the Ladin one in the Province of Bolzano ; the Slovene-speaking community in the Province of Trieste and, with less rights, the Province of Gorizia ) enjoyed some kind of acknowledgment and protection, stemming from specific clauses within international treaties. The other eight linguistic minorities were to be recognized only in 1999, including

3782-557: Was ceded to Yugoslavia. This territory [specifically Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol and Friuli-Venezia Giulia] is known well for its close ties with the German and Slavic worlds. Its cultural history dates back to the people who inhabited the area before and during the Roman Empire ( Euganei , ancient Veneti , Raeti , Carni , and Cenomani ); to the Medieval duchies of Bavaria and Carinthia , Patriarchate of Aquileia and comuni ; to

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3844-449: Was met with resistance by all the subsequent legislatures, being reluctant to challenge the widely-held myth of "Italian linguistic homogeneity", and only in 1999 did it eventually pass, becoming a law. In the end, the historical linguistic minorities have been recognized by the Law no. 482/1999 ( Legge 15 Dicembre 1999, n. 482, Art. 2, comma 1 ). Some interpretations of said law seem to divide

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