Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/475

 ITALY (LANGUAGE AND LITERATCTZE) 457 and vowels, with or without the sign of the apostrophe, even of initial vowels, as in the following from Dante : and Quando P udi' nomar 83 stesso il padre (mio), lo vo' con voi della mia donna dire (for io udii, -coglio). The construction is di- rect, inversion frequent, and the whole phrase- ology freer, bolder, and more variable than in French. On the other hand, some terminations are fatiguingly long, unless the writer be mas- ter of his style, and ornaments of speech often superfluous. The poetic idiom differs more from the prosaic than in any other living lan- guage of Europe, not only on account of great licenses in the alteration, addition, and omission of sounds, but also by a multitude of exclusive- ly poetic words. The area of the Italian lan- guage comprehends the whole peninsula and the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, &c. ; the Swiss canton of Ticino, and parts of the Orisons and Valais ; south Tyrol, some cities of Istria and of Dalmatia, and partly the Ionian islands. A rough idiom of Mediterranean navigators, and a jargon known as the lingua franca, are spoken in the Levant. Many of the dialects differ as much from the cultivated Italian as it differs from Spanish, and some even more. This is owing to the ancient local varieties of the Romana rustica and of others, as well as to the tongues of foreign invaders. While some words have many significations, as for instance cassa, which has 25 in Milanese, oth- er objects have very many names devoid of analogy of any kind, as for instance turkey (meleagris gallopato), which has about 20 Italian provincial names. Dante (De Vulgari Eloquio) speaks of 14 dialects, one class on the west, the other on the east of the Apennines. Those on the north approach the Provencal language. K. L. Fernow (Biimisehe Studien, Zurich, 1808) distinguishes in the Toscana alone, though considered as the most homo- geneous, 8 sub-dialects. Dante's classification has been somewhat modified. In the " North American Review" for October, 1832, 17 prin- cipal dialects are noticed. All the varieties of idioms amount to nearly 1,000. There are German-speaking communities in the north of Italy, viz., the tette and the tredici comuni ; Greek-speaking villages in Calabria; and Al- banian (Skipetar) settlements in both Sicilies. The Toscano had the principal part in form- ing the volgare nobile, all great writers of the 13th and 14th centuries having been Tuscans. Machiavelli's Ducono asserts that the idiom of Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch, or la lingua fiorentina, is the genuine Italian. Other Ital- ians rebel against this autocracy ; and the de- crees of In Crusca have often been unrecog- nized. The Florentine and Sienese emascu- lated utterance of the c, ch, g, and gh, is ex- tremely unpleasant to an unspoiled ear; but this is in part compensated by a great regularity and uniformity in the pronunciation of the vowels, for which there are fixed and acknowl- edged standards in Tuscany, while elsewhere there seem to exist no authoritative rules for vowel sounds. In the suburbs of Rome there are at least three patoi*. In Tuscany the sub- dialects of Siena, Pisa, Arezzo, Leghorn, Lucca, Fucecchio, and Volterra are worthy of men- tion. The Bolognese drops many medial and final vowels, as for instance : Acqti va tf nostr mond ; o prest o tard al Iso murir (for Co va questo nostro mondo, al bisogno, &c.). Those of Norcia and Spoleto, on the contrary, have lost many consonants. The Perugino, Loretano, and Camerinese are among the most noticeable in the old papal legations. The Venetian softens consonants effeminately, thus : Latsate dar un baio a boccoletto (for Lasciate dar -un bacio, &c.). The Paduan, a transition from this to the Lombard, is one of the least intelligible. The high Lombardic and the Tanzi Milanese drop final vowels, and often medials; they share with the Piedmontese and Genoese in the use of the French vowels eu,, the nasals an, in, on, and also of French,;. These, how- ever, are wanting in the low Lombardic, the Mantuan, and Cremonese. The Bergamask is the rudest of all, from contractions, thus : Za Giote Vhiva fatt el grand decret ; Da colocat o gatt la su in di steli, intern col ca (for Gid Giove aveva fatto il gran decreto ; Di colocar il gatto fra le stelle, insieme col cane). The Piedmontese also contracts much, and has many almost French sounds, thus: bsogne, mange (beioin, manger), &c. The Genoese approaches the Provencal, but has some rough sounds ; it often uses r for I. The Neapolitan transposes many sounds, and rejects many syllables, but is very rich in literature. There are several forms of patois in the city of Naples. The dialects of the Abruzzi, Apulia, Calabria, &c., are very rude. The Sicilian is very mild and graceful, has many Arabic words (from the 9th century), and vestiges of Greek, Punic, Nor- man, French, and Spanish domination. In the Sardinian dialects there occur many Greek, Latin, French, and Catalan words intact, and many roots without known filiation. (See Nou dizionariu universali tardu-italianu, compilau de su sacerdotu benefiziau Vissentu Porru, &c., Casteggio, 1832.) The Corsican is more akin to the Tuscan than to the idioms of the isles of the gulf of Genoa. In the Friulic there are many Slavic and old French words. This and the Tyrolese most differ from the favella illustre. The study of the Italian dialects is now receiving much attention, and the recent labors of Ascoli and Caix, as well as various contributions of Mussafia, and the earlier essays of Biondelli and others, deserve special notice. The linguistic interest of these dialects is great ; but though several of them have been reduced to writing, and many lyrical, satirical, humor- ous, and dramatic compositions of merit have been published in them, yet in no case are these productions sufficiently numerous and comprehensive to constitute a body of litera-