Latin and Modern Italy
Larry G
newsgroup, but considering there haven't been many posts here lately, I
thought I'd ask it here. :)
Recently, I was looking at photos of old coins from Italy (early 20th
century) and noticed that the coins said "Vittorio Emanvele III, Re
d'Italia" in Italian and not in Latin, as in other monarchies until very
recently. The fact that this was marked in Italian, and not Latin, stood
out to me.
Obviously, there was national awareness with the other Romance languages
(Spain, France, Romania, etc.) that their languages were distinct from
Latin. I would like to know, if there was a consensus that the vernacular
spoken in Italy before unification in 1870 was Italian or a form of Latin?
What did the people of the Papal States call their vernacular language
before 1870? Was there a collective Italian identity before that time? I
would assume that the other Italian dialects called their languages what
they do now. Basically what I'm asking is how long did the people of what
is now Italy consider their spoken tongue to be a dialect of Latin, as this
was the core area of Classical Latin. Of course, all modern Romance
languages are derived from Latin.
Thanks for any info,
Larry
Roberto Waha
> I would like to know, if there was a consensus that the vernacular
> spoken in Italy before unification in 1870 was Italian or a form of Latin?
At first, you have to know that in Italy there are lots and lots of
vernaculars (if you go in Puglia, in the South of Italy, you can find
out that a dialect of a town isn't understood in the town nearby!).
Then, the dialect of Florence was the most used in Italy for commercial
exchanges, so they decided that Dante's dialect was the right one for
the whole Italy.
Nowadays, dialects are every day less used, especially in the big towns
(I'm from Milano, but very few people here, and mostly the oldies, can
still understand or speak a fluent Milanese dialect), mainly because of
the internal flow of people after the second world war.
--
Ciao!
Walla
---------------=* Roberto Waha - walla(a)mac.com*=---------------
El Senyor és la meva força, el Senyor el meu cant.
Ell m'ha estat la salvació. En Ell confío, i no tinc por.
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Rod
"Larry G" <larr...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:9jm6nr$ll8$1...@ID-37509.news.dfncis.de...
the following remarks are based on practical experience rather than theory,
and I expect someone will be happy to point out my errors.
Modern Italian is descended from the everyday speech of the late Roman
Empire, which differed from the classical language in some quite important
respects. As this colloquial dialect gradually evolved into the modern
language it lost many of the inflections that drove generations of
schoolchildren mad, and the syntax changed too.
For instance, a Roman would state his nationality by saying 'Civis romanus
sum' while an Italian would state his or hers by saying 'sono cittadino
italiano/cittadina italiana'; respectively ' (a) citizen roman (I) am' and
'(I) am (an) Italian citizen'.
Some other important differences are: Latin has three genders (masculine,
feminine and neuter), Italian two (masculine and feminine). Latin nouns are
inflected to indicate six grammatical cases as well as singular and plural,
Italian ones just have singular and plural forms. One consequence of this
change is that Italian uses prepositions more often than Latin to indicate
'at', 'on', 'to' and so on.
Italian sounds much more like Latin than Modern English does Old English,
but there are some sounds in Italian that didn't occur in Classical Latin
such as the soft 'g' of 'Giovanni' or the 'ch' of 'ciao'. Italian uses 'Z',
a letter unknown to classical Latin speakers, and 'U' and 'V' are now
distinct in form and pronunciation. 'J', 'K', 'W', and 'Y' have also been
added to the alphabet since classical times, although they are still often
referred to as 'le lettere straniere' - 'the foreign letters'.
As for your query
>I would like to know, if there was a consensus that the vernacular
> spoken in Italy before unification in 1870 was Italian or a form of Latin?
Latin or Italian, as Italian was the accepted standard (if only for talking
to people from other parts of Italy) long before unification. Although Dante
is often called the father of modern literary Italian, his fourteenth
century contemporaries still called their everyday language the vernacular.
It seems that people living in the peninsular were aware of the difference
between their everyday speech and Latin from about the time of the first
millennium or a little later, but the vernacular was not generally called
Italian until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In any case, most
Italians considered themselves to be speakers of their local dialect rather
than Italian or Latin until very recently - the older generation of my wife'
s family still speak Piedmontese in preference to Italian, and have trouble
writing in Italian.
Although Latin displaced the other languages of the peninsular, they left
some traces in the form of place names, local names and people's attitudes.
There was a recording of Piedmontese folk music sub-titled 'musica dall'
area celtica dell'Italia' on the market a few years ago.
Although Italian is becoming increasingly standardised as the first language
of the majority of Italians, I still meet a lot of dialect speakers in the
course of my work, even younger people. In parts of Italy you are more
likely to hear French or German than Italian, Albanian is still spoken in
parts of the south, as is Catalan in parts of Sardinia.
You can always stir up trouble by asking which Romance language is the
closest to Latin - personally I think this is silly because they are all
equally as near or as far from Latin in chronological terms, and anyway,
Latin must have changed considerably during the seven centuries of the
Empire.
Rod
squodge
romanian is the closest language to latin because the spelling and grammar
is the closest - if that's how you would guage the closeness of a language.
galician is also a lot closer to latin than italian is (e.g. window in latin
is fenestra, the same in galician, but finestra (i think!) in italian.) in
my opnion, i think italian has strange spelling and the stress doesn't
always fall on the syllable i expect.
strange spellings? here are a few: acqua, meraviglioso, oggi
strange stress? teLEfono, Aquila, BRINdisi
why acqua and not aqua? i don't here them pronounce it ak-kwa, with a
stressed K sound. and oggi is just damn ugly (in contrast, the french
aujourd'hui is far smoother - and i thought italian was supposed to be a
smooth, sexy, musical language!)
so if italian doesn't stress the penultimate syllable, why don't they use
the acute device, just like the spanish do, to mark the stressed syll? i
notice they used it in caffe` citta`, etc. but how about other places to
aid foreigners like me? my italian flatmate is always laughing at my
attempts, although he does pronounce some english words quite laughably -
CEment, ALarm, deMONstrate.
actually, rod, can you tell me why italian uses IL and LO for masculine? i
made the mistake the first time i attempt to say sugar in italian. i said
IL zuCCHEro. of course, i was laughed at, because the stress was in the
wrong place, and the article should have been LO. why LO zucchero and not
IL? is it just for words beginning S and Z (i noticed that scorpion was LO
scorpione from an 883 song)
Rod <r_j...@cableinet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:dxS87.11020$o_.14...@news1.cableinet.net...
Mardy
>than Italian or Latin until very recently - the older generation of my wife'
>s family still speak Piedmontese in preference to Italian, and have trouble
[ia] Nos usa "Piemontese" per "Piedmontese"; il es singular que in
anglese on usa "Piedmontese". Tu sa in qual modo le piemonteses appella
se in lore dialecto?
[it] Noi usiamo "Piemontese" per "Piedmontese"; č curioso che in inglese
si usi "Piedmontese". Sai in che modo i Piemontesi si fanno chiamare nel
loro dialetto?
>Although Italian is becoming increasingly standardised as the first language
>of the majority of Italians, I still meet a lot of dialect speakers in the
>course of my work, even younger people.
[ia] Si, io etiam parla in dialecto con mi familiares (io habita a
Treviso), ma il ha plure parolas (specialmente de origine rural) que io
non conosce; mi dialecto es fortemente influentiate del italiano, e
quandocunque io, in parlar in dialecto, vole dicer un parola que io non
conosce, io "dialectisa" un parola italian. :-)
[it] Sě, anch'io parlo in dialetto coi miei familiari (abito a Treviso),
ma ci sono diverse parole (specialmente di origine contadina) che non
conosco; il mio dialetto č fortemente influenzato dall'italiano, e ogni
volta che io, parlando in dialetto, voglio dire una parola che non
conosco, ne "dialettizzo" una italiana. :-)
--
Saluti,
Mardy
http://www.interlingua.com
Roberto Waha
> is it just for words beginning S and Z
No. In Italian we use "lo" for masculine words beginning with a vowel
(abbreviated in "L'") or with Z, GN, SP, SC, PS, X.
we say:
L'Albero (the tree)
L'Elefante (the elephant)
L'Idioma (the language)
L'Orco (the orc)
L'Unico (the only-one)
LO Zucchero (the sugar)
LO GNomo (the dwarf)
LO SPazio (the space)
LO PSicologo (the psychologist)
LO Xilofono (the xylophone)
Exception: foreign words with a vowel-sounding consonant
IL Whisky
Mardy
>
>galician is also a lot closer to latin than italian is (e.g. window in latin
>is fenestra, the same in galician, but finestra (i think!) in italian.) in
[I write in Interlingua, but if you don't understand it (but make a try,
please!) I will rewrite in English]
Io non comprende como tu pote judicar un lingua in iste modo!
Certemente "fenestra" es plus simile al latino que "finestra", sed iste,
in mi opinion, non face un differentia importante. Tu debe trovar
exemplos de parolas cuje derivationes existe in galiciano sed non in
italiano: iste serea un facto plus probante.
>my opnion, i think italian has strange spelling and the stress doesn't
>always fall on the syllable i expect.
Io dice semper que le italiano es multo difficile. :-)
>strange spellings? here are a few: acqua, meraviglioso, oggi
Mah. Le unic que pote generar confusion es "acqua"/"aqua", ma tu non
pote haber alicun dubita super "meraviglioso" e "oggi": alicun altere
orthographia cambiarea le pronuncia.
Le spelling del anglese es muuuuuuuuuuuulto plus difficile e irrational!
Si io dice "teil", io non sa si io le debe scriber como "tale" o "tail",
per exemplo.
>strange stress? teLEfono, Aquila, BRINdisi
Si, tu ha ration, ma le mesme cosa vale per le anglese.
Tu dice "TElephon", nonne?
>why acqua and not aqua? i don't here them pronounce it ak-kwa, with a
>stressed K sound.
Si, on deberea pronunciar lo como "ak-kwa"; e in mi pais omnes lo
pronuncia in iste maniera. :-)
>and oggi is just damn ugly (in contrast, the french
>aujourd'hui is far smoother - and i thought italian was supposed to be a
>smooth, sexy, musical language!)
Uh? Perque dicer "aujourd'hui" quando tu pote dicer simplicemente
"oggi"?
Si tu vole parlar plus longemente, tu pote dicer "al giorno d'oggi"
(que, a proposito, me sembla esser le traduction litteral de
"aujourd'hui": au -> al, jour -> giorno, d' -> d', hui ->oggi ?)
>so if italian doesn't stress the penultimate syllable, why don't they use
>the acute device, just like the spanish do, to mark the stressed syll? i
E perque le anglese non face le mesme?
>notice they used it in caffe` citta`, etc. but how about other places to
>aid foreigners like me?
Si, nos los usa solmente per le ultime syllable. Io non sape perque.
> my italian flatmate is always laughing at my
>attempts, although he does pronounce some english words quite laughably -
>CEment, ALarm, deMONstrate.
Etiam io pronuncia "CEment" e "Alarm", ma io non comprende perque ille
pronuncia "deMONstrate": in italiano on dice "dimoSTRAre", e io dice,
consequentemente, "demonSTRAte".
>actually, rod, can you tell me why italian uses IL and LO for masculine? i
No, io non lo sape, e debe dicer que io etiam lo trova pauc logic. In mi
dialecto io dice semper "el" .
>made the mistake the first time i attempt to say sugar in italian. i said
>IL zuCCHEro. of course, i was laughed at, because the stress was in the
>wrong place, and the article should have been LO. why LO zucchero and not
>IL? is it just for words beginning S and Z (i noticed that scorpion was LO
>scorpione from an 883 song)
Io pensa que on lo usa con parolas que inita con 'Z' e con 'S' sequite
de un altere consonante.
"lo scorpione", ma "il suono".
squodge
interlingua - i studied latin, greek, and spanish at school, plus i live
with italians :-)
yes, english does have strange spellings too. but read steven pinker's book
"words and rules" - in it, he explains that there are actually only THREE
truly irregular verbs in english (i think they were 'to be', 'to set', 'to
have'). and what's more, he notes that all english words have logical
spelling. even words like rOUGH, dOUGH, thrOUGH, cOUGH, bOUGH, bOUGHt are
considered regular if you have studied linguistics.
granted that it's not REALLY simple spelling (!), english does have many
things in its favour for foreigners...
THE is used for everything. A/AN likewise, except in the case of words
beginning with the letter 'u' where it's pronounced YU. you can miss out
loads of prepositions and even the article and get all the tenses wrong, and
it's still intelligible. i've tried it in french and italian and have never
been understood.
> "lo scorpione", ma "il suono".
please explain! so why il and not LO suono? i think i'll stick with
english and chinese to be honest :-)
Mardy <ma...@vene.dave.it> wrote in message
news:20010729211228....@pupilla.local...
Brion L. VIBBER
> yes, english does have strange spellings too. but read steven pinker's
> book "words and rules" - in it, he explains that there are actually only
> THREE truly irregular verbs in english (i think they were 'to be', 'to
> set', 'to have').
And if you defined pi as 3, it would be a rational number. That doesn't
help anyone to remember that you have "sink, sank, sunk" but "think,
thought, thought" and "link, linked, linked" without memorizing which group
each word belongs to.
>and what's more, he notes that all english words have logical
> spelling. even words like rOUGH, dOUGH, thrOUGH, cOUGH, bOUGH, bOUGHt are
> considered regular if you have studied linguistics.
Which, as we all know, is a required subject for 5-year-old kindergarten
students who are first learning to spell.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox,com)
squodge
called). it's easy enough to understand, but i still wonder why linguists
still felt the need to give it a 'western' grammar. i mean, it appears to
have changes for person, gender, case, tense, probably even mood. why can't
they do it like in chinese where you don't need to inflect a word EVER
because it's ALWAYS obvious from the context?
e.g. in english, we have to learn one MAN, some MEN; one CHILD, some
CHILDREN (this is one of three words that have EN plural, the other two
being BRETHREN and OXEN).
in chinese, you would say YI REN for one man and DWO REN for some men; YI JE
for one child and DWO JE for some children. the REN and JE don't change
spelling or pronounciation. i've heard that danish has become like this
with its verbs, but i'm not sure.
you must have come across GHOTI, whilst we're on this subject... george
bernard shaw's novel way of spelling FISH. or how about phtheighchen for
taken?
Brion L. VIBBER <br...@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:%uk97.8786$0w3.1...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
Brion L. VIBBER
> hmmm, i notice a lot of people here using interlingua (or whatever it's
> called).
You might take a quick look through http://www.interlingua.com/ , or the
grammar reference at http://www.lilak.de/int/int01.htm
> it's easy enough to understand, but i still wonder why linguists
> still felt the need to give it a 'western' grammar.
Interlingua is specifically intended to be a common Western language. To
give it a different kind of grammar would create a different kind of
language from what was desired by its creators and promoters, who seem
quite unabashedly pro-Western about their language's "cultural neutrality".
> i mean, it appears to
> have changes for person, gender, case, tense, probably even mood. why
> can't they do it like in chinese where you don't need to inflect a word
> EVER because it's ALWAYS obvious from the context?
Normally, interlingua doesn't inflect nouns for gender (but sometimes does)
or verbs for person/number (but optionally you can in some instances). As
far as "always obvious from the context", that of course depends on the
context. The information is either left vague, or it is expressed in some
way. Inflections are a way to express that, just as stand-alone particles
or additional phrases.
Personally, I find Interlingua too variant for my taste due to things like
multiple verb stems, loads of synonyms, irregular spelling, etc. before we
even get to whether or not a 'western' grammar is a problem. :)
> e.g. in english, we have to learn one MAN, some MEN; one CHILD, some
> CHILDREN (this is one of three words that have EN plural, the other two
> being BRETHREN and OXEN).
>
> in chinese, you would say YI REN for one man and DWO REN for some men; YI
> JE
> for one child and DWO JE for some children. the REN and JE don't change
> spelling or pronounciation. i've heard that danish has become like this
> with its verbs, but i'm not sure.
That's only a minor point, and could be easily interpreted as a regular
prefixed inflection, no different in essence from a regularized "man,
mans", "homine, homines", "viro, viroj".
Much more important is that if singularity or plurality isn't relevent, you
don't *have* to say the "yi" or "dwo". Simply "ren" will do. The "problem"
isn't that inflections exist in IE and IE-like languages, but rather that:
1) In many languages they're irregular (but not in, say, Interlingua and
Esperanto)
2) Some inflection or another is *mandatory*. You can't have a noun in
most indo-european languages that's neither singular nor plural, nor
a verb that's neither present, past, nor future (or neither perfect
nor imperfect, depending on the tense/aspect system of the language)
Even in invariant forms in English (sheep, moose, haiku) a noun is
inherently singular or plural, as will be shown by the verb if it's used as
a subject: "the sheep is sleeping" vs "the sheep are sleeping" or sometimes
by articles in other places: "I wrote a haiku" vs "I wrote haiku" or "I
wrote some haiku". There's simply no way to express anything without
committing to a number or a tense.
If you're interested, this limitation isn't shared by lojban and Ceqli:
http://www.lojban.org/
http://users.blackhole.com/users/alexbrowne/index.html
> you must have come across GHOTI, whilst we're on this subject... george
> bernard shaw's novel way of spelling FISH. or how about phtheighchen for
> taken?
Certainly. Are you familiar with the Shavian alpabet which he commissioned
in his will? http://www.simonbarne.com/shavian/
Paul O. Bartlett
> and what's more, he notes that all english words have logical
> spelling. even words like rOUGH, dOUGH, thrOUGH, cOUGH, bOUGH, bOUGHt are
> considered regular if you have studied linguistics.
If the rules are complicated enough, then everything is regular.
> THE is used for everything. A/AN likewise, except in the case of words
> beginning with the letter 'u' where it's pronounced YU.
Excuse me, but your dialect is showing. ;-) In many parts of the
USA, 'u' as /ju/ has full consonantal value, so that we say "a
universal truth" rather than "an universal truth." Similarly, many
Americans have "a horrific experience," not "an horrific one." English
is not quite as monolithic as some people would like to present it as,
although the various dialects tend to fall into (what I call for lack
of a better term) British-style and American. I am supposing that in
Europe, English teaching tends to present British English more than
American English.
--
Paul Bartlett
bart...@smart.net
PGP key info (superseded address) in message headers
Paul O. Bartlett
> hmmm, i notice a lot of people here using interlingua (or whatever it's
> called). it's easy enough to understand, but i still wonder why linguists
> still felt the need to give it a 'western' grammar. i mean, it appears to
> have changes for person, gender, case, tense, probably even mood.
Not really that complicated. You just need to look a little
closer. For example, there are no gramatical genders or cases for
nouns, although there are sex-specific pronouns as there are in many
languages. Verbs inflect for tense but not number or person. And so
on.
> why can't
> they do it like in chinese where you don't need to inflect a word EVER
> because it's ALWAYS obvious from the context?
Because they didn't *decide* to do it this way. The basic idea
behind the grammar of Interlingua is that it is the least common
denominator, so to speak, of the control languages from which the
vocabulary was drawn. In my opinion they goofed in one particular
(i.e., infinitives in English are not normally preceded with
counterparts to 'a' and 'de'), but otherwise I think they came fairly
close.
It was simply a decision that was made. If you want a completely
isolating auxiliary language, look at Hogben's Interglossa, or its
later development (which I think is not as good) Glosa.
Of course, there is no end to the battles over constructed
auxiliary languages. One man's essential feature is another's fatal
flaw. Looking from afar (as an American, not a European), I think that
generally the matter of languages in a European context is what this
forum is all about, but I hope it won't turn into a "my auxiliary
language is better than your auxiliary language" battleground.
> [...]
squodge
my point was the same as yours - that when a word beginning with a U is
pronounced as if it was spelt YU (or JU as you put it), then it takes A and
not AN. i did forget the H words. sometimes we say AN, such as AN honorary
person, AN hourglass. generally, if the H is pronounced, it's A, otherwise
AN.
Paul O. Bartlett <bart...@smart.net> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.4.21.010730...@smarty.smart.net...
squodge
Brion L. VIBBER <br...@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:tJm97.9004$0w3.1...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
Mardy
>vocabulary was drawn. In my opinion they goofed in one particular
>(i.e., infinitives in English are not normally preceded with
>counterparts to 'a' and 'de'), but otherwise I think they came fairly
Probabilemente iste es un aspecto commun a la major parte del linguas
neolatin, e su elimination provocarea importante modificationes al
structura del phrases.
Io non vide comocunque un grande problema: le anglese usa le
prepositiones ante le verbos con suffixo "-ing", quando interlingua usa
le prepositiones con le infinitive.
O forsan io non ha comprendite lo que tu voleva dicer.
Mardy
>spelling. even words like rOUGH, dOUGH, thrOUGH, cOUGH, bOUGH, bOUGHt are
>considered regular if you have studied linguistics.
Si, ma circa le pronuncia?
Tu dice "rough" in un modo differente que "though" o "through", nonne?
>granted that it's not REALLY simple spelling (!), english does have many
>things in its favour for foreigners...
Certemente le anglese es plus facile que le italiano (excepte per le
pronuncia). Si tu studiara interlingua, tu videra que illo es ancora
plus facile del anglese.
>> "lo scorpione", ma "il suono".
>please explain! so why il and not LO suono? i think i'll stick with
>english and chinese to be honest :-)
Eheh :-)
Roberto Waha te ha respondite in un modo melior que le mie.
Paul O. Bartlett
> and what dialect would that be :-o
>
> my point was the same as yours - that when a word beginning with a U is
> pronounced as if it was spelt YU (or JU as you put it), then it takes A and
> not AN. i did forget the H words. sometimes we say AN, such as AN honorary
> person, AN hourglass. generally, if the H is pronounced, it's A, otherwise
> AN.
>
> Paul O. Bartlett <bart...@smart.net> wrote in message
> [cut]
Quite possibly I misinterpreted you. If so, my apology. I took it
that you were speaking in reference to some British dialects of English
which differ in their use of 'a/an' from my American dialect.
Paul O. Bartlett
On Tue, 31 Jul 2001, Mardy wrote:
> Paul O. Bartlett <bart...@smart.net> scripsit:
> >vocabulary was drawn. In my opinion they goofed in one particular
> >(i.e., infinitives in English are not normally preceded with
> >counterparts to 'a' and 'de'), but otherwise I think they came fairly
>
> Probabilemente iste es un aspecto commun a la major parte del linguas
> neolatin, e su elimination provocarea importante modificationes al
> structura del phrases.
I agree. However, in that case the design of Interlingua's grammar
does not meet the specification of excluding a feature that does not
appear in one of the source languages (in this instance, English).
> Io non vide comocunque un grande problema: le anglese usa le
> prepositiones ante le verbos con suffixo "-ing", quando interlingua usa
> le prepositiones con le infinitive.
> O forsan io non ha comprendite lo que tu voleva dicer.
In English, the infinitive is formed with the preposited particle
'to', although in some contexts it can be (and usually is) elided. In
Interlingua, the marker of the infinitive is '-r'. However, in IA
there are forms in which the infinitive is *also* preceded by 'a' or
'de'. English grammar has no counterparts to these forms in addition
to the infinitive marker itself. (And I have noticed that Interlingua
writers do not seem to use 'a' and 'de' entirely consistently.) So
according to the "least common denominator" (so to speak) specification
for IA grammar, 'a' and 'de' preceding infinitives should have been
excluded.
As for the '-ing' English form, this can be either a present
participle or a gerund. Other source languages for IA have no such
dual usage, so it was excluded. However, to the best of my knowledge,
all the source languages, including English (although the gerund seems
more common), do use the infinitive substantivally, so the usage is a
feature of Interlingua grammar.
Roberto Waha
Italian is well known as a "musical language". Try to speak out in a
sentence "il suono" and "lo suono". You'll notice that "il suono" sounds
a lot better and more musical! :-)
squodge
ear - i happen to speak one of those tonal languages, chinese, two
dialects, and the rules in italian seem to break too often for a gweilo like
me. is there an litan equivalent of the chinese word gweilo? gweilo
literally means 'ghost man', or evil spirit, and is used of foreigners.
i came across a gianna nannini song recently and in it she uses the word
'jukebox' as in english (well, she pronounces it 'jooogbogz') - is there a
'proper' italian word for jukebox? surely il guicobuco? LOL
Roberto Waha <walla....@galactica.it> wrote in message
news:1exj7hl.tvk4ega9gsdfN%walla....@galactica.it...
Roberto Waha
> but il zucchero sounds just as good to me as lo zucchero!
It depends on how you pronounce the initial "z".
In the North we say DZùcchero, in the rest of Italy, they say TSùcchero.
> the rules in italian seem to break too often
It's like pronounciation in English... In Italian (but the tonic stress)
we have sure rules for pronunciation.
> i came across a gianna nannini song recently and in it she uses the word
> 'jukebox' as in english (well, she pronounces it 'jooogbogz') - is there a
> 'proper' italian word for jukebox? surely il guicobuco? LOL
No, there isn't :-(
Sometimes, when we 'import' a word from another language, we try to
translate it literally. For example, the computer becomes "calcolatore".
squodge
alessandria which he says is near genova. he says that the 'peasants' (as
he calls them) from southern italy can't pronounce italian. lo DZucchero
sounds fine, but i think IL TSucchero sounds better, mainly because the T
needs a liquid consonant to soften is, something that a vowel can't do.
so why not ordinatore instead of calcolatore like in spanish and french?
what's italian for calculator? in french it's la calculatrice (or something
like that!).
so, do you have lo sandwich, il hotdog, l'hamburger, il internet, la Web,
etc? i've never understood why languages re-spell words, or pronounce them
as if it's from their language. i mean, the chinese say KEJAP for tomato
sauce (that's where the word comes from), so why couldn't the english just
say Kejap? ketchup is a bad spelling because northern english (like where i
come from - liverpool) pronounce it ketchOOP. this phenomenon also occurred
in indian words like pandit which is spelt PUNDIT in english. also, the
chinese say DAIFUNG for 'big gust of wind', so why typhoon? daifung is just
as easy to spell.
okay, here's real poser that massimo can't answer - what's the difference
between lasagnA and lasagnE? he doesn't know. is the second one the plural
of the first one?
i have to commend the spanish and italians for calling our language
inglesa/inglese - we still spell it with an initial E despite it not being
prounced ENGlish! but why couldn't the italians go one further and call it
inglisce? LOL :-)
Roberto Waha <walla....@galactica.it> wrote in message
news:1exki3n.16ic2061dubhuhN%walla....@galactica.it...
Dkcsac
>inglesa/inglese - we still spell it with an initial E despite it not being
>prounced ENGlish! but why couldn't the italians go one further and call it
>inglisce? LOL :-)
You'll like the Portuguese; they pronounce "inglês" like "ing-GLESH".
squodge
portuguese certainly are an advanced bunch!
Dkcsac <dkc...@aol.comment> wrote in message
news:20010803215404...@ng-xa1.aol.com...
Roberto Waha
> so why not ordinatore instead of calcolatore like in spanish and french?
Because "ordinatore" means "the thing that collates, sorts". A computer
in Italy can do many other things! Doesn't it?
> what's italian for calculator? in french it's la calculatrice (or something
> like that!).
In Italian it's "calcolatrice".
Thinking about "calculatrice" and "calcules", I'm thinking that in
Milanese dialect we have a terrific pun. If in French you talk about the
reckonings of Ada's Granny ("Les calcules de la grandmère de Ada") with
a perfect French pronounciation, in perfect Milanese dialect it sounds
like "Suck the *ss after the big sh*t" :-)
If in Milanese I say that "oil drops make spots" (i gutt d'oli fann i
macc), it seems a strange English sentence, because it sounds like "He
good only funny much".
Milanese dialect is an international language!!! :-)))))
squodge
french have chosen the wrong word? but the word calculate, from latin
calculus (meaning pebble), means to add up, in latin slang. so that word is
correct for the english calculator. the chinese say DIN LO (pronounce it as
if it's italian) which literally means electric brain - surely THAT's a more
accurate word?
i like your formations that sound like other things in other languages. i
think if i spoke chinese, well the slang anyway, some of it might sound
rude! chinese (in my dialect - hakka) for "episode 3" sounds like F*ck Sam!
here are some things that some of you might have come across that come from
chinese...
the game Tekken comes from both chinese and japanese, meaning Iron Fist
the character lei wu long in tekken, wu long means black dragon
the character Shang Tsung in the game/film mortal kombat - his name means
Silkworm because he transforms
and while i'm on the topic of the chinese, how about a saying from
confucius:
"Man who walk sideway through airport barrier, He is going to Bangkok."
Roberto Waha <walla....@galactica.it> wrote in message
news:1exmuw7.1n88kjb778qsnN%walla....@galactica.it...
Nicola Nobili
> lo DZucchero
> sounds fine, but i think IL TSucchero sounds better, mainly because the T
> needs a liquid consonant to soften is, something that a vowel can't do.
The rule is arguable in this particular case only. In general, the
masculine definite article is "il" in all cases, except when the following
word:
-starts with "s + consonant"
-starts with "gn"
-starts with any other complex consonant clustes (cl, pn, etc.), if the
sequence L + cluster is not possible in Italian, for euphonic reasons.
As fas as "z" is concerned, -lz- is perfectly possible in Italian
(alzare, calza, etc.), therefore some people claim that "il zucchero" is
correct. Our great poet Leopardi wrote "il zappatore" in a famous poem
(which was an artistic work, however, not a linguistic one). Eventually, for
unknown reasons, "lo" consolidated as the article to use before "z" and we
are taught so in schools. I personally wouldn't mind "il + z" if the person
who says so is deliberately choosing to ignore the rule, but I would avoid
it in anything "official".
> so why not ordinatore instead of calcolatore like in spanish and french?
We say "computer", rarely "elaboratore". "Ordinatore" simply doesn't
exist in this sense, I can't tell you why.
> what's italian for calculator?
Calcolatore or calcolatrice, both exist.
Bye,
Nicola (Mr.)
--
Multa non quia difficilia sunt non audemus, sed quia non audemus sunt
difficilia (Seneca).
Nicola Nobili
> so, do you have lo sandwich, il hotdog, l'hamburger, il internet, la Web,
IL sandwich, l'hot dog ("h" is silent in Italian, so the first sound is
actually a vowel), Internet (generally without the article, which would
however be "l'Internet"), l'web (cfr. l'uovo).
> i've never understood why languages re-spell words, or pronounce them
> as if it's from their language.
Because words are imported and used by common people, not linguists. And
because some sounds which are common in the language of origin may be
extremely hard to pronounce for a native speaker of the language which
imported a particular word.
> i mean, the chinese say KEJAP
What Chinese? This doesn't sound like Mandarin. By the way, many foreign
words undergo the same changes when Chinese imports them. Look at Karl
Marx's name...
> okay, here's real poser that massimo can't answer - what's the difference
> between lasagnA and lasagnE?
The correct Italian term is "lasagnE", plural (I happen to live in the
town where lasagne WERE - plural - invented). "Lasagna" is a colloquial form
used in some areas, especially abroad, but it is not correct.
> but why couldn't the italians go one further and call it
> inglisce?
You're missing the historic perspective. "Inglese" is a word which
originated a loooong time ago, when the phonetics of English was rather
different.
Bye,
Nicola
squodge
words as in the target language. e.g. the Chinese word for Greece is Hela,
similar to what the Greeks call their country (Hellada). In that respect,
we've done well - Westerners call Hellada (Greece) by a word that comes from
Latin (Graecus). And we call Germany 'De-Guo', 'De' as in 'Deutsch' and
'Guo' which is Chinese for 'country'.
The English should have at least spelled the word Ketchap.
Thanks for the lasagne explanation - my flatmate didn't know that and he's
Italian.
Roberto Waha
> And we call Germany 'De-Guo', 'De' as in 'Deutsch' and
> 'Guo' which is Chinese for 'country'.
A friend of mine's name is Pan I-sheng where "I-sheng" means "born in
Italy". He says that in Chinese Italy is simply called "I", like on the
car plates!
Roberto Waha
> l'web (cfr. l'uovo).
Well... I say "il web" and "il whisky"...
I suppose it's because of the consonantic initial "u"...
squodge
Anyway, Italy in Chinese is I Tai Li. We don't really shorten it unless it
gets absorbed in a phrase such as the one you mentioned ('from Italy').
It's unusual for someone to have a name that says where their from - in
Chinese, we normally give attributes such as beautiful, strong, etc. My
Chinese name (Wai Hung) means Heroic. I tell the girls it means 'Well
Hung'...
I prefer il web and il whisky because l'web and l'whisky sound real awkward.
The French say le whisky and le weekend, not l'whisky and l'weekend. They
even say le hot dog and le hamburger! Arguably (pls don't rap me on this!),
French is the most fluid language to my ears.
Philippe Vigeral
<KFpe7.5990$6R6.5...@news1.cableinet.net> :
> I prefer il web and il whisky because l'web and l'whisky sound real awkward.
> The French say le whisky and le weekend, not l'whisky and l'weekend.
Indeed, since the letter "w" is always considered a consonant in French
and the definite article "le, la" becomes " l' " before vowels and mute
h only.
> They even say le hot dog and le hamburger!
There are (classically) two different h in French : mute "h", as in
"l'homme" and "les hommes" (pronounced with a liaison : "les_zommes"),
and aspirate "h", as in "le hibou" and "les hiboux" (with no liaison).
French aspirate "h" is not as aspirated as English one actually but, of
course, when dealing with English words like "hot dog" and "hamburger",
we rather use aspirate "h". ;-)
> Arguably (pls don't rap me on this!),
I certainly won't. :-)
> French is the most fluid language to my ears.
Italian also sounds really musical IMO.
--
Philippe Vigeral
[fr,en,es]
Nicola Nobili
> Seems you can't agree on IL or LO!
For a limited number of words, mostly of foreign origin, there may be
differences in the usage. We have dealt with this topic quite estensively in
it.cultura.linguistica.italiano. My usage is probably, in this respect, not
the most widespread, since before a "w" the most widely used article is
"il". But it doens't really matter, since the problem rarely pops up.
> Anyway, Italy in Chinese is I Tai Li.
In Cantonese, maybe? In Mandarin it should be "Yėdālė".
squodge
Mandarin (except the odd word or two). Although the Chinese do use Chinese
words to transliterate foreign words, we usually pronounce them very close
to what the 'foreigner' would say. My mother now even says Griiss for
Greece, instead of Hela. The times, they are a-changing!
We have proper words for things, like Din Lo for computer (literally
'electric brain'), but my mother and father still say Kom Pju Ta. I always
correct them as I can't believe my parents would be so lax!
Raghav Krishnapriyan
the chinese say DIN LO (pronounce it as
> if it's italian) which literally means electric brain - surely THAT's a more
I thought it was ji shran ji?
Nicola Nobili
> Although the Chinese do use Chinese
> words to transliterate foreign words, we usually pronounce them very close
> to what the 'foreigner' would say.
That's why in Mandarin people say "Yědŕlě"!
However, "very close" is a relative term. I would rather say "as close
as possible, according to our own phonetic system".
squodge
don't have an 'r' pronunciation, or a 'sh'. If it's Mandarin, have you
written it wrong?
A lot of words in Chinese are formed from two characters and would therefore
be only two syllables long. Computer (Din Lo) is one of them, along with an
array of other modern things like television (Din Si - electric view),
telephone (Din Wa - electric voice), aeroplane (Fei Gei - flying machine..
!), and battery (Din Sam - electric heart; or Din Chi - electric cell).
Raghav Krishnapriyan <ragm...@Hotmail.com> wrote in message
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