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The Tuscan dialect (Il dialetto toscano) or the Tuscan language (La lingua toscana) is an Italian dialect spoken in Tuscany, Italy. It wandered less than other dialects from Latin language, and evolved linearly and homogenously, without big influences from other foreign languages.

It is the basis dialect for the Italian language, thanks to the masterpieces of Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarca and Giovanni Boccaccio, but also thanks to Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini, that made it the "literary language" of the peninsula.

When Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed in 1861, a unique national language was needed to communicate among Italian regions, in which people spoke different dialects or languages. With the support of the writer Alessandro Manzoni, the literary version of Tuscan dialect was chosen.

Subdialects

The Tuscan dialect is an ensemble with many lesser local dialects, with small differences among them.

The main subdivision is between Northern Tuscan dialects and Southern Tuscan dialects.

The Northern Tuscan dialects are (from east to west):

  • the Fiorentino, main dialect of the city of Florence, of Casentino and Mugello, also spoken in Prato and along the river Arno until the city of Fucecchio.
  • the Pistoiese, spoken in the city of Pistoia and nearest zones (some linguists think this dialect is not independent from Fiorentino).
  • the Pesciatino or Valdinievolese, spoken in Valdinievole valley, in the cities of Pescia and Montecatini Terme (some linguists think this dialect is not independent from Lucchese).
  • the Lucchese, spoken in Lucca and nearest hills (named Lucchesia).
  • the Viareggino spoken in Viareggio and the whole northern coast (named Versilia)
  • the Pisano-Livornese spoken in Pisa and in Livorno and nearest zones along the southern coast until Piombino city.

The Southern Tuscan dialects are (from east to west):

  • The Aretino-Chianaiolo, spoken in Arezzo and Chiana-valley
  • The Senese, spoken in Siena and its province
  • The Grossetano spoken in Grosseto and its province

Speakers

The speakers talking a Tuscan dialect are about 3,500,000 people, all inhabitants of Tuscany, without the inhabitants of Massa-Carrara province, that speak Emiliano-Romagnolo.

Dialectal features

The Tuscan dialect has homogenous features inside itself but all subdialects have some small differences among themselves.

Phonetics

Tuscan gorgia
Main article: Tuscan gorgia

Weakening of G and C
A phonetic phenomenon is the intervocalic weakening of the Italian soft g IPA (g in George) and soft c IPA [ (ch in church), known as attenuation.

Between two vowels, the voiced post-alveolar affricate consonant changes to voiced post-alveolar fricative:

→ [.

This phenomenon is very evident and you can clearly listen to it in the daily speech (also in Umbria): the word la gente, the people, in standard Italian is spoken as // but in Tuscan dialect is spoken as [.

By this way, the voiceless post-alveolar affricate consonant changes to voiceless post-alveolar fricative between two vowels:

→ [.

The word la cena, the dinner, in standard Italian is spoken as // but in Tuscan dialect it is spoken as [.

Affrication of S
A common phonetical phenomenon is the transformation of voiceless s or voiceless alveolar fricative IPA into the voiceless alveolar affricate IPA [ when preceded by a consonant.

→ [.

For example, "il sole" (the sun), pronounced in standard Italian //, it will be pronounced by a Tuscan speaker //; this changing can be heard also in the mid of the word as in "falso" (false) // → //. It is a common phenomenon in Central Italy.

Monothongation of uò
This phenomenon involves the diphthong (rising, stressed, ending) uò (IPA /'#…#/), which comes from a single Latin phoneme ŏ // and which becomes again a monopthong, so:

// → (// *.

Example:

The Latin word bŏnum // (good) becomes in (14th century dialect and so in) standard Italian buono //, but in modern Tuscan dialect it comes again to be bono // (Nowadays we know that the reduced form has always existed together with the literary diphtonged form).

Morphology

Double dative pronoun
A morphological phenomenon, cited also by Alessandro Manzoni in his masterpiece "I promessi sposi" (The Betrothed), is the doubling of the dative pronoun.

For the use of a personal pronoun as indirect object (to someone, to something), also called dative case, the standard Italian makes use of a construction preposition + pronoun a me (to me), or it makes use of a syntethic pronoun form, mi (to me). The Tuscan dialect makes use of both them in the same sentence as a kind of intensifying of the dative/indirect object:

This form is widespread thrughout the central regions of Italy, not only in Tuscany, and until a recently, it was considered redundant and erroneous by Italian linguists. Nowadays linguists no longer inveigh against it. More on this issue (in Italian) can be found at article.

In some dialects the double accusative pronoun (me mi vedi (litt: You see me me) can be heard, but it is considered an archaic form and is nolonger current.

Noi + impersonal Si
A morphological phenomenon, spread in the whole Tuscan dialect, is the personal use of the particle impersonal Si (which has not to be confused with passive Si and the reflexive Si), at the first plural person.

It's possible to make use of the construction Si + Third person in singular, which can be joined by the first plural person pronoun Noi, because the particle "si" is no more perceived as an independent particle, but as a piece of verbal conjugation.

The phenomenon happens in every verbal tense, also in composed tenses. In these tenses, the substitution of noi with si compel the speaker to use the verb essere (to be) as auxiliary verb, even if the verb would require avere (to have) as auxiliary verb. The past participle must agree with the subject in genre and number if the verb usually would require essere as auxiliary, while it does not agree in genre and number if the verb usually require avere as auxiliary.

Usually Si becomes S' before è.

"Fare (Facere)" and "Andare"
Another morphological phenomenon in the Tuscan dialect is the shortening of the first singular persons for the present tense of the verbs fare (to do, to make) and andare (to go).

  • Fare: faccio → fo (I do, I make)
  • Andare: vado → vo (I go)

These shortenings of these verbs are due to the continuous use of these forms in all day speech, and it caused a loss of internal sounds between the first consonant and the personal ending -o, taking as model:

  • Latin: sapio → Italian so (I know)

Possessive adjectives
Another morphological phenomenon in Tuscan dialect is the loss of number and gender endings in the 3rd singular persons possessive adjectives in proclitic position:

  • mio, mia, miei, mie → mi’, (my)
  • tuo, tua, tuoi, tue → tu’, (your singular)
  • suo, sua, suoi, sue → su’. (his, her, its)

This loss looks very much like that one which formed the Spanish possessive adjectives (they are identical in the appearance).

Possessive pronouns do not undergo these changing, as the same adjectives if used after a verb or after their substantives (Italian adjectives can follow their nouns):

In Tuscan: la casa è mia (the house is mine), a casa mia (to my house), but la mi’ casa (my house) possessive adjectives allow the use of defined and undefined articles.

Loss of infinitival "-re"
A phonological phenomenon that might appear morphological, quite naturally native to Tuscany, is the loss of the infinitival ending -re of verbs.

  • andàre → andà
  • pèrdere → pèrde
  • finìre → finì

An important feature of this loss is that main stress does not shift to the new penultimate syllable, as phonological rules of Italian might suggest. Thus infinitive forms can come to coincide with various conjugated singulars: pèrde 'to lose', pèrde 's/he loses'; finì 'to finish', finì 's/he finished'. Distinctions in syntax assure that this homophony seldom, if ever, causes confusion.

The motionless stress can be explained with an intermediate form in -r (as the Spanish verbal infinitive).

This phenomenon does not happen in the zones of Florence and Prato.

Syntax

The belief (even amongst ardent linguists) that there are not syntactic differences between the Tuscan dialect and Standard Italian is misguided. It probably stems from the fact that there is no such thing as a 'Tuscan Dialect' and as we see above there are a number of dialects within this Tuscan Dialect. Grossetano (better referred to as Maremmano) has a number of syntactic differences which can be shown by differences between standard and non-standard clitic movement, agreement and verb movement generally, and of course, notoriously the me mi.

This is hardly studied and thus patience is asked for, a section on Grossetano (Maremmano) is forthcoming, it will not include dialect phenomena in common which are shared with all the other dialect phenomena (as found on this page) but will highliht syntactic differences in the language.

Lexicon

The biggest differences among dialects are in the lexicon, which also distinguishes the different subdialects.

The Tuscan lexicon share with standard Italian the almost totality of its words, but has a good number of only regional words.

We show now only the most known Tuscan words in Italy:

  • garbare for piacere (to like) (but also piacere is widely used in Tuscany)
  • babbo (which was since now considered the only real Italian form) for papà (daddy)
  • gota (which is a literary form in standard Italian) for guancia (cheek)
  • in some dialects ire for andare (to go) (only some forms as ito (gone))

See also

  • Pinocchio is written in Italian but has frequent Florentinisms.

External links

Languages of Italy | Italian languages | Tuscany

Toscan | Dialetto toscano | Dyalektong Toskano ng Italyano

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Tuscan dialect".

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