Ce cu voli a butti ghina e a mugghieri 'briaca\u201d<\/strong><\/p>What you just read are sentences in different Italia dialects! As you know, Italy is divided in 20 regions and each one of them has a dialect of its own.<\/p>
Dialects differ greatly from the area they are spoken, and sometimes different cities of the same region have different dialects, making Italy a country with a big variety of (unofficial) spoken languages.<\/p>
We can divide Italy in 2 parts, regarding dialects: Northern and Central-Southern. What are the differences between these two areas? In what the Sicilian dialect is different from the one spoken in Naples? Do people who live in Milan understand someone from Bologna?<\/p>
Let\u2019s try to answer to all of these questions and more!<\/p>\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/danteinlinea.com\/aug162023\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Picture1.jpg\")
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History of dialects <\/h2>\t\t\n\t\t
Since the first expansion of the\u00a0Roman dominion\u00a0on the peninsula, there has always been a coexistence of a\u00a0cultured language, classic Latin, and various\u00a0local variations, called \u200b\u200bvulgar or vernacular, not codified nor written, spoken in the various parts of the country.<\/p>
Each area, even the tiniest, has developed over time a\u00a0specific way of speaking. Since communications between close areas were somehow frequent, there\u2019s a\u00a0dialectal continuum between neighboring dialects, while the differences gradually increase if we compare two distant dialects.<\/p>
It follows that\u00a0Italian dialects are not variants of Italian. They were born\u00a0before modern Italian, and therefore they cannot derive from it.\u00a0They derive however from dialects of vulgar Latin, i.e. the Latin spoken by the people.<\/p>
The only variety of Italian language is in the\u00a0Tuscan dialect, because, as you may know, standard Italian mostly derives from Tuscan language, with\u00a0roots in the works of great writers of 1200 like Dante, Boccaccio and Petrarca.<\/p>\t\t\n\t\t\t
Northern dialects <\/h2>\t\t\n\t\t
The Northern dialects are in turn divided into two main groups: The\u00a0Gallo-ltalic group and Venetic group<\/strong>.<\/p>The first encompasses the regions of Liguria, Piemonte, Lombardia and Emilia-Romagna as well as parts of Trentino Alto Adige. It is a grouping named after the Gauls who once inhabited this part of Italy and who left traces of their Celtic speech in the modern dialects.<\/p>
The other is the Venetic group whose borders loosely follow the region of Veneto.<\/p>\t\t\n\t\t\t
Central \u2013 Southern dialects<\/h3>\t\t\n\t\t
The\u00a0Central-Meridional dialects are of four distinct groups.<\/p>
The specific central grouping occupies an area roughly that of the region of Tuscany. To the immediate south are the Latin-Umbrian-Marchegian dialects which occupy the northern half of Latium (including Rome), most of Umbria and some of the Le Marche. These two are also sometimes grouped together as the Central dialects.<\/p>
Directly below them are the Southern dialects divided into two major types. The Intermediate occupies the bottom half of the peninsula and includes the regions of southern Lazio, Abruzzo, Molise, Campania, Basilicata and parts of Apulia.<\/p>
The tips of Calabria and Apulia, together with Sicily, delineate the zone of the extreme Meridional dialects. Finally, Sardinia has a category of its own.<\/p>\t\t\n\t\t\t
What\u2019s more?<\/h3>\t\t\n\t\t
The use of dialects in Italy represents a\u00a0unique situation compared to the rest of Europe. Even today in many different parts of Italy dialects are used as an informal way of communicating in different social settings and within families.<\/p>
Contrary to popular belief, in certain Italian regions\u00a0dialects are widely used, and not only within the older generations. Even though the use of standard Italian prevails in the younger generations, many young people can express themselves in their own dialect, or at least understand it, in informal social situations.<\/p>
It is also worth remembering that dialects, as well as accents,\u00a0can change a lot even within the same region. Of course, major cities in Italy also have wonderful dialects of their own. So, in Milan, Turin, Rome, Florence you will hear people talking in Milanese, Torinese, Romanesco, Napoletano and Fiorentino. And all of them have different characteristics.<\/p>\t\t\n\t\t\t
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