Ginevra Posted May 11, 2006 Report Share Posted May 11, 2006 a "french r", right. For this problem i cant spell english with the correct pronunciation, but thanks to this i can speak french as a true french Aboute dialects. Young people like me dont speak dialects anymore. I live in the northern Italy, and i cant understand many dialects of the south. So, i can image how hard it's for a foreigner understand us. ^^ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docoflove1974 Posted May 11, 2006 Report Share Posted May 11, 2006 Aboute dialects. Young people like me dont speak dialects anymore. I live in the northern Italy, and i cant understand many dialects of the south. So, i can image how hard it's for a foreigner understand us. ^^ Heh I know. My grandparents' generation only spoke dialect (Milanese and Genovese), and did it sparingly. Once I started taking Italian in school, they stopped speaking all-together...they didn't want to 'corrupt' me! And once I was doing my graduate work, and was trying to get them to speak in dialetto...they wouldn't! They didn't understand that I was trying to learn stuff for my studies! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginevra Posted May 12, 2006 Report Share Posted May 12, 2006 Smart granparents I can understand the Milanese dialect and most part of the northern ones. If I hear someone speaking in Milanese, for example, i understand alla what's saying, but i could never repeat those words. how long have you been studying italian? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docoflove1974 Posted May 12, 2006 Report Share Posted May 12, 2006 The language itself I started taking 14 years ago. But I wrote my master's thesis on an aspect of grammar of 12th and 13th century South-Central Italian (Le Marche, Umbria areas), and it continues to factor in heavily in my doctoral studies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Virgil61 Posted May 12, 2006 Report Share Posted May 12, 2006 The language itself I started taking 14 years ago. But I wrote my master's thesis on an aspect of grammar of 12th and 13th century South-Central Italian (Le Marche, Umbria areas), and it continues to factor in heavily in my doctoral studies. Very interesting docoflove. My mother was born and raised in Giulianova, Abruzzo just south of Marche and speaks with my aunt on a monthly basis in Italian that even I can tell is a bit of a dialect. I spent most of first ten years in Italy in and around Vicenza and Pisa/Livorno and combined a bit of those with the Abuzzese variant of my family's kitchen table and living room. I speak a childlike version of the language, but when given any sort of lessons, read aloud or am coached on more complex words and phrases I'm told my pronounciation is excellent by Italians. Perhaps I'm 'hardwired' for adopting correct pronouciation by virtue of the fact it was my first language. Do you know anything of the Abruzzo dialect, assuming there is one? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docoflove1974 Posted May 12, 2006 Report Share Posted May 12, 2006 Very interesting docoflove. My mother was born and raised in Giulianova, Abruzzo just south of Marche and speaks with my aunt on a monthly basis in Italian that even I can tell is a bit of a dialect. I spent most of first ten years in Italy in and around Vicenza and Pisa/Livorno and combined a bit of those with the Abuzzese variant of my family's kitchen table and living room. I speak a childlike version of the language, but when given any sort of lessons, read aloud or am coached on more complex words and phrases I'm told my pronounciation is excellent by Italians. Perhaps I'm 'hardwired' for adopting correct pronouciation by virtue of the fact it was my first language. That's exactly it. You were highly exposed to the phonetic aspects of the language at an early age, which is why your cadence, stress patterns, and general pronunciation is 'native-like'. You're what is called a 'heritage speaker'--you may not be fully bilingual, but you were exposed to it by your family. It's quite an ecclectic combo of dialects, tho...northern and south-central! Do you know anything of the Abruzzo dialect, assuming there is one? I know aspects of it...what I studied was last chronicled by Rohlfs ini 1968, which is the mass-noun markings. The quick and dirty version: mass nouns are those which must be quantified while being counted. An example is 'rice'; you can't really say 'one rice' (outside of the restaurant scenario), rather 'one grain of rice', 'one cup of rice', 'one bag of rice' and so on. In dialetto, south-central dialects (particularly of Marchese and Umbriano, and some of Abruzzese) will use different definite articles than count nouns (which, yes, can be counted individually, e.g. table, chair, dog, etc.). An example would be lo pesce, lo pane, since 'fish' and 'bread' are often counted in groups, but lu cane since 'dog' is seemingly always a count noun. NOW...it should be said that this is all dialetto...and as we have discussed on here a couple of times, the dialetti are dying out, or are already dead. So, I do want to do more research in these areas of Italy now, to see if these distinctions are still around. There is a similar phenomenon in the Asturias region of Spain, and there's another area of research...but that's for the future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginevra Posted May 13, 2006 Report Share Posted May 13, 2006 It's strange to say Docloflove, but you've been studying italian more years than me! I'm 15. I've been studying english and french for 4 years, italian for 9 and my dream is to learn norwegian or swedish. Everyone loves languages here ^^ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Virgil61 Posted May 13, 2006 Report Share Posted May 13, 2006 ...That's exactly it. You were highly exposed to the phonetic aspects of the language at an early age, which is why your cadence, stress patterns, and general pronunciation is 'native-like'. You're what is called a 'heritage speaker'--you may not be fully bilingual, but you were exposed to it by your family. It's quite an ecclectic combo of dialects, tho...northern and south-central! ... Thanks for that. I've since googled the term "heritage speaker", interesting stuff. I learned Russian later in life attending an Army language program for a year then living and working in Ukraine and St Petersburg. Russian acquisition was a distinctly different experience. Oddly, and maybe surprisingly, I've walked away with a sense of just how similar the structures of Italian, English and Russian are in spite of the differences. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docoflove1974 Posted May 13, 2006 Report Share Posted May 13, 2006 It's strange to say Docloflove, but you've been studying italian more years than me! I'm 15. I've been studying english and french for 4 years, italian for 9 and my dream is to learn norwegian or swedish. Everyone loves languages here ^^ Language is the soul of human life...it is through language that we defend our existence. Ok, maybe not, maybe I'm just a biased linguist Thanks for that. I've since googled the term "heritage speaker", interesting stuff. I learned Russian later in life attending an Army language program for a year then living and working in Ukraine and St Petersburg. Russian acquisition was a distinctly different experience. Oddly, and maybe surprisingly, I've walked away with a sense of just how similar the structures of Italian, English and Russian are in spite of the differences. They're all Indo-European languages, and thanks to the Renaissance (I never spell that blasted word correctly) and the Age of Enlightenment, there are a ton of words which were spread all over Europe. Still, it's amazing to look at two distantly related languages and see how much they share in common. I know I tried to learn a little German, and still didn't come back with much. Although I kinda understand many aspects of the grammar, it would definitely take some brain power to learn that one. For me, I would like to improve my Portuguese and learn French (I only have a reading knowledge of it now), but I am dying to learn (Ancient) Greek. So much to do, so little time to do it in! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lex Posted May 13, 2006 Report Share Posted May 13, 2006 (edited) My mother was born and raised in Giulianova, Abruzzo My father is from Giulianova! They speak 'Giuliese'. It's so strange...when I go to Italy, I hope to improve my Italian, but I hardly ever hear it! I almost always only here Giulese....I understand it relatively well, but there are only a few people that still speak the true dialect, mostly the older people, the younger generation speak a toned-down version that's basically half-dialect and half-Italian. The people there always joke that I must learn Giulese and not Italian! My grandmother used to speak to me in the pure dialect and I was able to understand her, since she couldn't really speak Italian. My dad mostly also just mostly speaks Giulese....it's strange but I feel my heritage is more Giulese than Italian! Though my Italian grammer is now really really *bad*, since I haven't really spoken it for the last few years. An example would be lo pesce, lo pane, since 'fish' and 'bread' are often counted in groups, but lu cane since 'dog' is seemingly always a count noun. They would actually say 'lu pa'' and 'lu ca'' , some other exmaples would be the word 'fish' that would be (phonetically) 'puh-sh' instead of 'pesce' and instead of 'siedi' (sit) they would say (phonetically) 'ah-loo-gat-ee) Edited May 13, 2006 by Lex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docoflove1974 Posted May 13, 2006 Report Share Posted May 13, 2006 An example would be lo pesce, lo pane, since 'fish' and 'bread' are often counted in groups, but lu cane since 'dog' is seemingly always a count noun. They would actually say 'lu pa'' and 'lu ca'' , some other exmaples would be the word 'fish' that would be (phonetically) 'puh-sh' instead of 'pesce' and instead of 'siedi' (sit) they would say (phonetically) 'ah-loo-gat-ee) Yeah, that's the pure dialect...I was using the 'standard' words with the 'dialect-ish' articles, since there is a wide variation in pronunciations and article forms. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Virgil61 Posted May 13, 2006 Report Share Posted May 13, 2006 My mother was born and raised in Giulianova, Abruzzo My father is from Giulianova! They speak 'Giuliese'. It's so strange...when I go to Italy, I hope to improve my Italian, but I hardly ever hear it! I almost always only here Giulese....I understand it relatively well, but there are only a few people that still speak the true dialect, mostly the older people, the younger generation speak a toned-down version that's basically half-dialect and half-Italian. The people there always joke that I must learn Giulese and not Italian! My grandmother used to speak to me in the pure dialect and I was able to understand her, since she couldn't really speak Italian. My dad mostly also just mostly speaks Giulese....it's strange but I feel my heritage is more Giulese than Italian! Though my Italian grammer is now really really *bad*, since I haven't really spoken it for the last few years. What a small world it's become because of the internet. This is an incredible coincidence, Giulianova has only about 20,000 people in it. My cousins live there and in Roseto degli Abruzzi just south of Giulianova where I should be visiting within the year. Nice to meet you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lex Posted May 15, 2006 Report Share Posted May 15, 2006 Nice to meet you! Thanks, likewise! I know exactly where Roseto is, it's a nice area. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silentium Posted June 7, 2006 Report Share Posted June 7, 2006 (edited) I've been studying english and french for 4 years, italian for 9 and my dream is to learn norwegian or swedish. Everyone loves languages here ^^ Aren't you a native speaker of Italian? I took up some Finnish while in Finland, extremely beautiful but fifteen cases were a bit too much for my brain to handle . Having other languages to deal with didn't help either =|. Now Swedish would be easier, considering its Germanic roots. They would actually say 'lu pa'' and 'lu ca'' , some other exmaples would be the word 'fish' that would be (phonetically) 'puh-sh' instead of 'pesce' and instead of 'siedi' (sit) they would say (phonetically) 'ah-loo-gat-ee) I think dialetto abruzzese is one of the most diversified Italian dialects, each village seems to have its own code. Forms like "lu" and "lo" for example are probably the most widespread. Another variant of the definite article I've heard in a couple of villages not far from L'Aquila is [ju], apparently the lateral [l] turned into a semivowel [j] for some reason. Very interesting. Edited June 7, 2006 by Silentium Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginevra Posted June 13, 2006 Report Share Posted June 13, 2006 Aren't you a native speaker of Italian? yes i am. I dont like finnish, but i'm looking forward to learn norwegian. It isnt such a difficult language. After, i'd like to learn swedish... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.