podcast: Play in a new window | download (8.6MB)
subscription: Google Podcast |
Welcome to the Italian podcast. This is the first high-level drama series. Today’s theme is Italian dialect. I personally find it very interesting, but unfortunately it often arouses the suspicion of all foreigners learning Italian.
Maybe you know that there are many dialects in Italy. If you have been to Italy, you may have realized that the way people speak is not always understandable. same (In the same way) In every corner of the boots. It may not be difficult for you to understand the residents of one area, but your understanding will deteriorate significantly if you move elsewhere. Maybe they have explained to you that this is due to the large number of dialects in the Italian soil.
First, we must distinguish between dialects and accents. For example, in English, “dialect” usually means “various English”. However, in Italian, the dialect is different.In fact, the Italian dialect is real (Actual) Separate language.Or more precisely, the “sister” language of Italian, namely Show off (Be different, behave differently/ this is. There are similarities, Current risks, etc.) However there are numerous differences. If someone talks to me in Sicilian dialect, I live in Piedmont (northern) and can hardly understand it.
In Italy, there are actually many dialects. How many? It’s hard to say, because every dialect changes slightly for a few kilometers, therefore, strictly (Logically, it makes sense), There may be thousands.
As a romantic language, Italian is derived from Latin. What you may not know is that Italian is relatively short-lived. The basis of Italian is the Florentine literature of 1300. I think you have heard of Dante, the most famous writer in Italy. Italian is often called “Dante’s language”, ed he himself (he himself) He is called the “Father of Italy”.This title is appropriate because his contribution (contribution) The language is very special. In fact, he was one of the first to choose not only to write in Latin, but also to write in the local language (called “vulgar” at the time). His masterpiece”Divine Comedy“It is written in the Florentine vernacular, which is the language of Florence. He has created many words from scratch. by (On the basis of) Classical Latin, many of which are still in use.
Dante is so important that in fact his Florentine has become the language of people. Literati (Scholars, intellectuals) They come from all over Italy to communicate and write (along with Latin), but this is a language that ordinary people don’t know and cannot speak.Even in Florence, the language changed (Change = change, changed) Centuries from the time of Dante. Due to the political situation in Italy, after the fall of the Roman Empire, the peninsula split into different kingdoms and countries.In each of them, people used (Use=use, use / used) Your language.This Italic idioms (Idiom =Language, But more rare / italic = Ancient italy)-With a few exceptions-are from Latin.
Italy in 1861 became (became / Become = Become) a unified kingdom. Italian is based on Florence and adopted as the national language because of its literary importance. But it took a long time for people to start using it.Decades of compulsory education It is not particularly successful (Not very successful)The world war helps to a certain extent, because people from all corners of the country must communicate with each other. In addition, soldiers often write letters to their families in Italian instead of dialects, because they usually don’t even know how to write words in dialects, and they know the basics of Italian spelling they learned at school.
what Contribute the most (Contribution is more important than anything) The widespread dissemination of language was the emergence of television in the 1950s. Television brought Italian to every corner of the peninsula.This is why Italian is a young language: it is used On a large scale (On a large scale) Only about 70 years.
Today, Italian is used almost throughout the territory. year 2006, 91.8% People who live there He claims to speak Italian.However, dialects have not disappeared, mainly used by the elderly and provincial areas (but not limited to) in familiar and informal environments, but rarely used In the work environment. (working environment / ambito = scope, context, realm).
However, inevitably, the use of dialects is under (decline). Me, for example, Although all my grandparents are from Piedmont, I don’t speak Piedmontese, apart from (apart from) For some words and phrases.The spread of dialect depends on countless (Numerous, innumerable) Factors, including region, age, social class, etc. Such as the Veneto dialect, outstanding (feature /Sin: characterization) From a rich history of literature, still alive today (Very active).
Dialects have influenced and influenced Still today (To today) Italians themselves (Italian itself)In fact, in every region, the characteristics of Italian are derived from the language and customs of the local dialect. For the same reason, the accent of Italian is very changeable (Various, diverse). Therefore, each region has its own “Regional Italian”, and written Italian is clearly more uniform. However, Italians usually have no problems communicating in Italian.In fact, what needs to be communicated is production And make (Making and still making / Rendering = production, rendering) Italian is increasingly consolidated in the country.
I know all this will scare foreign students, not used to one This dialect variant (Not used to so many dialects) In your country. But my advice is: don’t worry. It is difficult to find Italians who do not speak Italian.The main difficulty may be to understand the accent. The accents in different regions are very different, and there are some Regionalism (Regional characteristics). I hope that over time, you will learn to appreciate our rich accents, words and usage They make up (Makeup, makeup) The legacy of the Italian dialect.
/
I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you haven’t understood everything yet, listen to it again, a second time, and a third time. If you have too many questions, you can try to listen to the middle episode of my speaking dialect, because it is actually the same text, but simplified, the words are simpler, and there is no information. As I said, you will find the transcription on the website, and on the website I have left you a map of the Italian dialect. As I said in the episode, it is difficult to determine where one dialect begins, where one dialect ends, and where another dialect begins, but some people have tried, and linguists who deal with dialects try to solve this difficult task. , Even though such a map may not be perfect, it is still very interesting in my opinion.
That’s all for today, and we will hear from you in the next episode.
Until next time!
Untranslated version
