Dialicts in Italian

Rolando   Mon Oct 15, 2007 6:59 pm GMT
I read somewhere that in Italy in diffrent regions they speak diffrent types of Italian with diffrent seplling systems, such as standard italian and so on... can anyone explain that to me... I'm plaing on studying italian and it will readlly upset me that i have to study diffrents type of italian dialicts...
Guest   Mon Oct 15, 2007 7:37 pm GMT
You don't need to study different types of Italian there's a standard italian, the one used by national tv channels and newspapers. The main differences concern some specific sounds like open and closed o and e vowels and s, z, dz and tz sounds. Nevertheless every good italian dictionary can suggest the right pronunciation.
Guest   Mon Oct 15, 2007 8:11 pm GMT
What happen if you dont distinguish between open and closed e and o? Do They understand you or not? I'm a native spanish speaker and I'm in trouble trying to pronounce closed e and o.
Guest   Mon Oct 15, 2007 8:44 pm GMT
Yes, we do. Many italians, particularly in the north and in the south, don't pronounce them properly.
Guest   Mon Oct 15, 2007 9:17 pm GMT
"Many italians, particularly in the north and in the south, don't pronounce them properly."

Because of this, Italian sounds less melodic, which in turn is similar to standard Spanish pronunciation.

Ad esempio:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=J83mRgPQuLg
Guest   Mon Oct 15, 2007 9:21 pm GMT
Sicilians speak a quite melodic Italian, in my opinion.
Guest   Tue Oct 16, 2007 7:26 am GMT
Italian sounds less melodic

this is just your opinion. Many people think that italian is much more melodic than Spanish.
closed and open vowels and the difference between double and simple consonants makes italian much richer than Spanish, that's a fact.
konez   Tue Oct 16, 2007 10:52 am GMT
Rolando, don't worry!

If you learn standard italian, you can talk with everyone all around the country.
People who usually speak a dialect (every city's got a different one) are able to speak and understand standard italian.
R. Prodi   Tue Oct 16, 2007 10:56 am GMT
Many Italian "dialects" are, in fact, historical languages in their own right which are older than standard Italian and stem from the middle ages like Lombardian, Friulian, Neapolitan, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian etc. Their area of circulation corresponds to former kingdoms and dominions of cities. Dialects are generally not used for general mass communication and are usually limited to native speakers in informal contexts.
konez   Tue Oct 16, 2007 11:01 am GMT
R. Prodi, proprio un nick a casaccio.... eheh ^_^
Guest   Tue Oct 16, 2007 11:44 am GMT
Mr Prodi Sardinian according to the experts in the romance languages is a separate language not a dialect, because of its morphological, syntactic and lexical features.