Languages of the peoples inhabiting (and previously inhabiting) the globe. The total number of languages is from 2500 to 5000 (the exact figure is impossible to establish due to the conventions of distinction between different languages and dialects of the same language). To the most common Ya. m...
Languages of the world- Languages of the world are the languages of the peoples inhabiting (and previously inhabiting) the globe. The total number is from 2500 to 5000 (the exact figure is impossible to establish, because the difference between different languages and dialects of the same language is arbitrary). To the most common... ...
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Italian languages- (Italic languages), the early Indo-European languages of Italy, which means that Lat was one of them. They were divided into two main ones. branches: Osco-Umbrian (named after two main languages, but also included a number of local dialects of Central Italy) and Latin... ... Peoples and cultures
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Italian belongs to the Romance group of Indo-European languages. The basis of the language is Latin. Italian is spoken not only in Italy, but also in Malta, Corsica, the canton of Ticino (Switzerland), and the state of San Marino. Italian is the official language of the Vatican. About 65 million people in the world speak Italian.
The history of the Italian language is very complex, but the modern standard of the language has been shaped by recent events. The earliest texts at the intersection of Latin and a primitive form of Italian were legislative decrees during the reign of Benevento in 960-963 AD. The standardization of Italian began in the 14th century thanks to the work of Dante Alighieri. His epic poem The Divine Comedy shaped a new language that was somewhere between the dialects of Southern Italy and Tuscany. And since everyone knew Dante’s “Comedy,” its language became a kind of canonical standard.
Linguistically speaking, Italian belongs to the Indo-European family of languages, or more precisely, it belongs to the Romance group of the Italic subfamily. In addition to Italy, it is spoken in Corsica, San Marino, southern Switzerland, on the northeastern coast of the Adriatic, as well as in North and South America.
The grammar of spoken Latin gave birth to modern Italian. This form of grammar was much easier than the grammar of classical Latin literature. This primitive form of the language mixed with dialects that evolved from Latin locally. In Latin there were many declensions of words, which in Italian were expressed by individual words, phrases and word order. There was a big difference between Latin and Italian word order: in Latin everything was much more flexible (logical relationships between words could be revealed from word endings).
Changes in grammar gradually made the Latin of Christian liturgies and official documents difficult to understand for speakers of the regional languages of the Italian peninsula. The latest step in the evolution of Italian was taken by a group of authors who settled in Florence with the goal of raising the status of the Italian language. They created a "new" written Italian, a pure form of the language that included neologisms and phrases inherited from classical Latin. This new language was to become an alternative form of spoken Tuscan speech at the end of the 12th century, it was used by poets and writers such as Boccaccio, Tasso, Ariosto and other Renaissance writers [Titov 2004: 47]
The relationship of the language to the Romance group means that it was formed on the basis of spoken Latin. The basis of literary Italian is the Old Florentine dialect. The Italian literary language was formed earlier than other languages of the Romance group. The first dictionary was published in 1612. It was compiled by Florentine lexicographers.
The literary language was oriented towards the great Florentines who lived and worked in the 14th century. This dialect was first adopted as a literary language, and then, having received the status of the official language of Italy, spread throughout the country. Petrarch, Dante and Boccaccio made a huge contribution to the introduction of the Spanish language.
The territory of Italy in ancient times was inhabited by the Etruscans, Sicans and Ligurians. In the 1st and 2nd centuries BC, most of the Apennine Peninsula was inhabited by Italics. In the 5th-6th centuries BC, the territory of Italy became part of the Roman state, its main part.
At the end of the 5th-8th centuries, the countries were conquered by the Franks, Ostrogoths and Lombards. In the Middle Ages, France and Spain, popes and German emperors fought over the territory of Italy. And by the end of the Middle Ages, the country remained fragmented, which contributed to the stability of the Spanish dialects. Some dialects were so different from the standard language that they could be called separate languages. These are dialects such as Venetian, Neapolitan, Milanese, Sicilian and others.
The official Italian language today includes three dialects: central, northern and southern.
Dialects in Italy today are spoken mainly by older people, and young people use the official language in their conversations, into which certain dialects are occasionally mixed.
The Italian language was hardly used until the end of World War II. It was only the written language of the ruling class, pundits and administrative institutions.
The advent of television played a major role in the spread of the Italian language.
The Italian language has many advantages. Firstly, it is very melodic, because it is not for nothing that it has become the language in which operas are performed all over the world.
Secondly, the Italian language has semantic freedom (the ability to change the meaning of words using multiple endings for adjectives and nouns). In addition, the origin of many musical terms originates in the Italian language.
We use a large number of words from the Italian language when naming food products, culinary dishes and drinks. For example, pizza, pasta, mozzarella, amaretto, cappuccino.
Italian, as the language of the Renaissance, had a huge influence on Spanish, English, French and German. Each of these languages has several hundred words borrowed from Italian. All of them mainly relate to the field of literature, art, and culture.
The Italians themselves successfully use Anglicisms in their speech and assign other meanings to English words. For example, such a neologism as “body”, thanks to the Italians, means an item of women’s clothing, and not just the torso (translated from English). In Italy there is a dictionary of neologisms, which is periodically updated with new terms.
Let's return to Italian dialects. As you remember, there are three of them and they are very different from the official Italian language.
The northern group includes the Gallo-Italian dialects spoken in Piedmotna, Liguria, Venice, Lombardy, and Emiline-Romagna.
The central-south group includes the dialects of Apulia, Basilicata, Abruzzo, Lazio, Umbria, Campania, Molise and Marche.
The Tuscan group includes dialects spoken in Florence, Pisa, Arezzo and Siena.
Some dialects have not only an oral form, but also a written form. These include Venetian, Neopolitan, Sicilian and Milanese dialects. The dialects that exist on the island of Sicily are so different from others that they sometimes even recognize the existence of a Sardinian language.
If in cities people mostly speak the official Italian language, then in villages people speak local dialects and dialects. And quite often residents of one region do not understand the language of residents of another.
The European Parliament carried out research into the field of national minorities and their language in Europe, and it turned out that there are a total of 28 languages spoken by representatives of national minorities, and 13 of them are spoken in Italy. For example, in Puglia people speak Albanian and Greek, on the island of Sardinia they speak Catalan, in Vale d'Aosta they speak French, in Trieste they speak Slovenian, Serbian and Croatian, and in Alto Adige they speak German.
In Italy, 60% of residents speak some kind of dialect, and 14% use only a dialect in their speech.
The abundance of dialects and dialects, some of which have their own literature, is explained by the diversity of the population of ancient Italy, the conditions of Romanization of the Apennine Peninsula and the centuries-old political fragmentation of the country.
Considered one language with numerous dialects, Italian, like other Romance languages, is a direct descendant of Latin, which was spoken by the Romans, a language they imposed on all the territories they conquered. Of all the Rowan languages, Italian is the most similar to Latin.
Modern Italian retains the Latin qualities of the Florentine dialect, but the vocabulary of Latin has changed to suit the changing conditions of Italian life. The simplified phonetic rules of Latin, together with a perfect phonetic orthography, make learning Italian very easy for those who know Latin or one of its modern Romance forms [Titov 2004: 53].
The dialects of Italian are ethnologically divided into Tuscan, Bolognese, Piedmontese, Central Michigan, Sardinian, Abruzian, Pugliese, Umbrian, Lazialian, Cicolono-Reatino-Aqualian and Molisan. Other dialects are Bergamascan, Milanese, Brescian, Venetian, Modenese, Sicilian, etc., in each city.
There are many dialects of Italian, and some of them are so different from the standard language that they are considered separate languages. Despite this, we can draw a line between “dialects (languages) of Italy” and “dialects of standard Italian”.
Italian dialects are divided into two main groups, divided along the Spesia-Remini line, which runs from east to west Italy along the border between Emilia Romanga and Tuscany. We can distinguish between the northern dialects, which are spoken above the above line, and the southern dialects, which we find below this line. And what's more, there are also Sardinian dialects that are considered a separate language. The northern dialects are called setentional dialects, and the southern dialects are called central meridian dialects.
The Septentrional dialects or Northern dialects include two main groups: the most geographically widespread is the Gallo-Italic group, spoken in Piedmont, Lombardy, Emilia-Romagnia, Liguria and parts of Trentino alto Adige. The next major group is Venetic, spoken in Veneto.
As for the central maridional dialects, four groups can be distinguished. In Tuscany they speak the Tuscan dialect, northern Latium (including Rome), several regions of the Marches and all of Umbria speak the Latin-Umbrian-Marschegian dialect. Sometimes these two dialects are combined together under the name of central dialects. In southern Italy we find two main meridional dialects, which include southern Latia, Ambruso, Basilicata, part of Apulia, Molis and Champagne. We find extreme meridional dialects in Calabria, Apulia and Sicily.
The state language is Italian, divided into three groups of dialects - northern, central and southern (including dialects, the total number of dialects reaches 40).
The literary language was formed on the basis of the Tuscan dialect (transitional between the northern and southern language groups). At the same time, local dialects and patois are widely used (primarily Sardinian, Neapolitan and Friulian), which have a completely official status within the historical regions. Numerous borrowings from Latin, Spanish and French, organically integrated into modern everyday language, are also easily noticeable.
English and French are understood almost everywhere in the tourism industry. German is widely used in the foothills of the Alps and in the resort areas of the northern Adriatic. In the Valle d'Aosta region there are many French-speaking residents, and in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region many understand Slovenian and Austrian. At the same time, at the everyday level, the number of speakers of foreign languages is quite small - the Italians themselves prefer to use their dialects, leaving foreign languages only for highly specialized professional activity.
In addition to the country itself, Italian is considered the official language of the Vatican (along with Latin), San Marino, Switzerland and the EU.
Italian belongs to the Romance language group of the Indo-European family. Moreover, in essence, it is a rather young language - literary Italian was formed on the basis of the Tuscan dialect in the 18th-19th centuries, and dialects that are noticeably different from each other are still used in different regions of the country (Tuscan, Neapolitan, Venetian, Sicilian, Ligurian and others - only about a hundred). In the north they speak dialects of the Gallo-Roman group, in the south - Italo-Roman, but the picture is complicated by a number of dialects that are considered separate languages, and not dialects of Italian (primarily Sardinian and Friulian). For Italians, language is a way to emphasize their national and ethnic identity, which is why all regional languages coexist on equal terms.
Only with the development of television did the spoken language throughout the country begin to more or less “even out.” Literary Italian is taught in schools, most television programs are broadcast in it, literally thousands of newspapers are published in it, and it is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union and the UN. But at the same time, during a special study (1992), it turned out that 86% of the country’s residents use the Italian language and dialects simultaneously in everyday communication, while 13% do not know the literary national language at all! And they don’t suffer from this at all, by the way, since in return they know 3-4 dialects of their “neighbors,” which makes it easy to communicate with any resident of the Apennines (in the middle of the 20th century the picture was completely different - even the soldiers of the Italian Expeditionary Force in Russia often simply did not understand each other). The echoes of this linguistic diversity can be traced even now - even films made in the south of the country are dubbed for distribution in the north!
Communication with local residents
Knowledge of foreign languages in Italy leaves much to be desired. In popular tourist areas, staff mostly speak fluent English, but in smaller towns and in the provinces, almost no one understands it. In the northern regions of Italy, many local residents speak fluent German (including Swiss and Austrian dialects) and French, in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region many understand Serbo-Croatian, in Sardinia - Catalan and Spanish, but on the Apennine Peninsula itself You can only communicate with a local resident in Italian or using sign language (which is strongly not recommended). However, young Italians, as a rule, speak English quite well, and recently the staff of Russian-speaking sellers and guides has noticeably increased.
A characteristic feature of local communication is the abundant use of body language and gestures - often gesticulation completely changes the meaning of what is said, but more often serves as a means of adding emphasis and imagery to speech. Moreover, many familiar gestures may have a completely different meaning here, so you should not use them thoughtlessly.
Italians have always been distinguished by their mobility, lively temperament, figurative speech and love for various proverbs and sayings. Many foreigners consider this trait to be the desire of a local resident to disguise the true meaning of what was said, attributing cunning and resourcefulness to the Italians. However, in reality this is far from the case - figurative speech is intended to add weight to what is being said, and not to veil its meaning. But lies and cunning are far from being held in high esteem here - the Italians even have a saying Le bugie hanno le gambe corte, which can be translated as “A lie has legs too short to take you far.” What about cunning and swindlers? Well, where are they not? Like any other country in the world, the tourist places in Italy are filled with those who make “easy money” from numerous visitors, and therefore do not disdain all sorts of tricks and deception.
The official language of Italy is Italian. It is also spoken in Switzerland, San Marino, France, Slovenia, Croatia, Argentina and, of course, in the Vatican. As you can see, knowing Italian is just as beneficial as knowing English if a person travels a lot.
Having delved into our Russian vocabulary, each of us will find at least 5-6 words of Italian origin that we use every day. For example, lovers of delicious coffee love cappuccino, most of the population has a weakness for pizza, men often buy anchovies with beer, and tiramisu has become so included in the usual menu of every self-respecting cafe that many do not even think about the origin of its name dessert. “Tira mi su” literally translates as “lift me up” due to the airiness of the delicacy.
Dialects
In addition to the official language, there are a lot of dialects on the Apennine Peninsula, and if - 34. Almost every region has its own “layering” of local dialect on the former basis in the form of the Latin language, which was spread throughout the country by the Roman conquerors. So it often happens, for example, that the residents of Lombardy make a lot of effort to understand the residents of Campania. In such cases, literary Italian comes to the rescue.
What is it, Italian language?
Italian is much easier to learn than Russian and English. Firstly, the Italian alphabet has only 21 letters. Words are read strictly as they are written, with a clear pronunciation of each letter. By changing just one sound to another, a word takes on a completely different meaning.
Italian is a Romance language, so it has some similarities with French, Portuguese and Spanish. You should not look for associations with some words in English and Russian. For example, the word “camera” will not mean a camera, but a hotel room. But if you need a camera, it will sound like “macchina fotografica”.
You will be surprised to learn that in Italy they speak not only Italian... When moving between different cities and regions, those who know at least a little Italian can hear that not only do the accents of the residents change, but sometimes it becomes truly incomprehensible, as if no longer They speak Italian, but some other language or languages. That's right - these are dialects.
Thousands of dialects coexist in Italy, which vary from place to place. I'm not exaggerating when I say that there is a dialect for every Italian village. A citizen of Milan speaks Milanese, while a citizen of Bergamo speaks Bergamasco, and despite the fact that the two cities are very close to each other, the dialects are completely different!
Italian dialects are not variants of Italian, but are considered to be real languages that have developed over centuries.
Main dialect groups of Italy
The Italian language, which is studied in schools and spoken in Italy, is also a dialect. During the unification of Italy in the late 1800s, they also decided to unify the country linguistically, and the Tuscan dialect was chosen as the official language in Italy, which was spoken in the areas of Florence, Pisa and Siena. The choice was not accidental - this particular dialect has great cultural weight, as the language in which many literary works were written. One of them, and probably the most important one, is the “Divine Comedy”, which is considered the first literary work written in the new Italian language.
But with the introduction of a single official language, all of Italy did not speak the same language. This happened later, with the advent of television in Italian homes. And still, if you go to remote villages or cities (especially in the south), many people still do not speak Italian, perhaps they understand, but do not speak it.
While in big cities Italian is generally spoken, and the dialect is spoken only by part of the older population or regionalists.
Some characteristics of Italian dialects:
- Milanese. It is a northern dialect, characterized by pronunciation and words very similar to German and French.
- Venetian. This is also one of the northern dialects, but it is not characterized by the influence of Germanic languages, but rather developed under the influence of the south.
- Florentine. Perhaps the most elegant in Italy. And it differs from Italian almost only in pronunciation.
- Neapolitan. This is perhaps the most famous Italian dialect, very melodious (remember “O Sole Mio”?)
In fact, there are many more dialects (see photo).
