You are here: Home / Culture / Italian Language

Italian Language

speak-italian

Dialects
In Italy, all Romance languages spoken as the vernacular, other than standard Italian and other unrelated, non-Italian languages, are termed “Italian dialects”. Many Italian dialects may be considered as historical languages in their own right. These include recognized language groups such as Friulian, Neapolitan, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian, and others, and regional variants of these languages such as Calabrian. The distinction between dialect and language has been made by scholars (such as Francesco Bruni): on the one hand are the languages that made up the Italian koine; and on the other, those which had very little or no part in it, such as Albanian, Greek, German,Ladin, and Occitan, which are still spoken by minorities.

Non-standard dialects are not generally used for mass communication and are usually limited to native speakers in informal contexts. In the past, speaking in dialect was often deprecated as a sign of poor education. The younger generations, especially those under 35 (though it may vary in different areas), speak almost exclusively dialects of standard Italian in all situations, usually with local accents and idioms. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors: the openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local dialect (for example, annà replacesandare in the area of Rome for the infinitive “to go”).

Not surprisingly, Italian is the language spoken by the vast majority of Italians. The northern part of the Trentino-Alto Adige region (South Tyrol) is predominantly Germanspeaking with Latin, a Rhaeto-Romance language related to Switzerland’s Romansh, also spoken by a minority. There is a small French-speaking minority in the Valle d’Aostaregion and Slovene is spoken by a minority in the Trieste-Gorizia area. There are several small pockets of Greek-speaking communities in the southernregions of Calabria and Puglia.

Local dialects are widely spoken as second language, often its accent is also maintained while speaking Italian. There is a big variety of dialects, often viewed as a result of centuries of division (Italy was not fully unified until 1871) with small difference of accent even in adjacent towns.

English is spoken fairly commonly on the well-traveled path, especially in touristic areas where is widely spoken by sellers and tourist operators. German, French, Japanese and Spanish are often spoken in these areas as well, but a bit less.

In the cities you can often speak English with younger people, aged between 14 and 35: almost everyone had to take English in school since the 80’s, though the result depends on the person. At least the most basic phrases usually stuck, and normally there’s at least one per group with a decent level of English. On the other hand, senior citizens rarely know English, but they’ll try to help you anyway with gestures or similar words. Spanish is spoken by a considerable number of people but not widely, anyway it’s very similar to Italian language and they can be understood if the speakers communicate slowly between them. German and French are known by some people but could be hard for you to find them.

You’ll want a good phrasebook if you’re going anywhere remote, although even this may not help you in the smaller towns and villages as many areas still speak dialects that you won’t find in any phrase-books.