Italian dialects may sound different, but the lexicons are not

This month’s Italian language lesson focuses on another linguistic divide. We will exclude other romance languages spoken in Italy which are recognized as languages and not dialects, such as Sardinian and Friulian and focus on Italian dialects.

If we listen to various dialects, they sound quite different from each other. Between Calabrian and Romagnolo it almost seems like we are going from Portugal to Russia. Calabrian possesses a distinct sound reminiscent of Greek, while Romagnolo possesses a distinct sound reminiscent of Gallic/French. But if we look at the lexicon, we realize they are much more similar than they seemed at first glance. A majority of linguists who study the grammar of these two dialects and other Italian dialects suggest that all Italian dialects are almost identical.

This is a good indication of which are the most variable components of a language, and which are the most stable. The grammar of Romance languages ​​has had very few innovations since 2,000 years ago. Moreover, they were all called “vulgar Latin.” We recognize numerous identical grammatical structures in Sicilian and Bergamo dialects as well as in in Sardinian and Romanian, and Galician and Rhaeto-Romansh. There are differences, but the “basis” of romance languages ​​is very evident and common in all these languages ​​and dialects.

Meanwhile, the lexicon or vocabulary changes quite a bit from one language to another. Sometimes it is a “choice” between words with the same meaning and origin, which become obsolete in one language but become integrated in another. “Travail” and “lavoro,” or “domu” and “casa” are two such examples. In other situations, changes can take place with the use of words “loaned” from other languages ​​or authentic innovations such as” honte” and “maison” in French.

Pronunciation, on the other hand, can change even in the course of a single person’s life. There are emigrants who return to their country after fifty years and discover that their fellow citizens speak the dialect differently than when they were young. Pronunciation changes occur not only over time but also over space. The same dialect can differ in the way it is pronounced from one country to another ten kilometers away, to the point that native speakers understand which country a speaker of that dialect comes from.

This is the reason for the deviations between Italian dialects: they seem different to us mainly because they are pronounced differently. In reality they are all variants of Vulgar Latin.

This month’s falso amico
It is annoiato. It doesn’t mean annoyed but translates as bored. The word for annoyed is infastidito.

This month’s proverb
It is from Sicily.

Sicilianu: Cu ‘un fa nenti ‘un sbaglia nenti.
Italiano: Solo chi non fa niente non commette errori.
English: One who does nothing, never makes a mistake.