Central Italian Dialects

Central Italian (Italian: ''dialetti mediani'') refers to Italo-Romance varieties spoken in the so-called ''Area Mediana'', which covers a swathe of the central Italian peninsula. ''Area Mediana'' is also used in a narrower sense to describe the southern part, in which case the northern one may be referred to as the ''Area Perimediana'', a distinction that will be made throughout this article. The two areas are split along a line running approximately from Rome in the southwest to Ancona in the northeast.

Background

In the early Middle Ages, Central Italian extended north into Romagna and covered all of modern-day Lazio, Abruzzo, and Molise. Since then, however, the dialects spoken in those areas have been assimilated into Gallo-Italic and Southern Italo-Romance respectively. In addition, the dialect of Rome has undergone considerable Tuscanization from the fifteenth century onwards, such that it has lost many of its Central Italian features.

Phonological features

Except for its southern fringe, the ''Area Mediana'' is characterized by a contrast between the final vowels /-u/ and /-o/, which distinguishes it from both the ''Area Perimediana'' and from Southern Italo-Romance. Cf. Spoletine �kreːto, ˈtittu< Latin ''crēdō'', ''tēctum'' 'I believe, roof'. An additional isogloss that runs along the border between the two areas, but often overlaps it in either direction, is that of post- nasal plosive voicing, as in anˈt̬ellu'cloak'. This is a feature that the ''Area Mediana'' shares with neighbouring Southern Italo-Romance.

In the ''Area Mediana'' are found the following vocalic phenomena:

* In most areas, stressed mid-vowels are raised by one degree of aperture if the following syllable contains either /u/ or /i/. This is referred to as 'Sabine metaphony'. Compare the following examples from the Ascrean dialect:
** eːla, miːlu'apples, apple'
** �poːsa, ʃpuːsu'wife, husband'
** ɛcca, weccu'old' ( f./ m.)
** ᴐːwa, noːwu'new' (f./m.)

* In a few areas, metaphony results in diphthongization for stressed low-mid vowels, while high-mids undergo normal raising to /i, u/. Compare the following examples from the Nursine dialect:
** etto, mitti'I put, you put'
** oːla, suːlu'alone' (f./m.)
** bɛlla, bbjɛjju'beautiful' (f./m.)
** ᴐrte, mwᴐrti'death, dead ( pl.)'
* Southeast of Rome, around Nemi, low-mid vowels undergo metaphonic diphthongization, while high-mids resist raising to /i, u/. This was also the case for Old Romanesco, which had alternations such as /ˈpɛde, ˈpjɛdi/ 'foot, feet'.
* In some areas with Sabine metaphony, if a word has a stressed mid-vowel, then final /-u/ lowers to /-o/ in a sort of height-based vowel harmony. Compare */ˈbɛllu, ˈfreddu/ > /ˈbeʎʎu, ˈfriddu/ (metaphony) > Tornimpartese /ˈbeʎʎo, ˈfriddu/ 'beautiful, cold'.

Sound-changes (or lack thereof) that distinguish most or all of Central Italian from Tuscan include the following, many of them shared with Southern Italo-Romance:

* /nd/ > /nn/, as in Latin ''vēndere'' > �wenne'to sell'.
* /mb, nv/ > /mm/, as in Latin ''plumbum'' > �pjummu'lead'.
* /ld/ > /ll/, as in Latin ''cal(i)da'' > �kalla'hot'.
* Retention of /j/, as in Latin ''Maium'' > �maːju'May'.
* /mj/ > /ɲ(ɲ)/, as in Latin ''vindēmia'' > enˈneɲɲa'grape harvest'.
* /rj/ > /r/, as in Latin ''caprārium'' > raˈpaːru'goatherd'.
Sound-changes with a limited distribution within the ''Area Mediana'' include:

* /ɡ-/ > /j/ or ∅, as in Latin ''cattum'' > �ɡattu> Nursine �jjattu Reatine �attu'cat'.

* /ɡn/ > /(i̯)n/, as in Latin ''agnum'', ''ligna'' > Tagliacozzese /ˈai̯nu, ˈlena/ 'lamb, firewood'.
* /d, v/ > ∅ word-initially and intervocalically, as in Latin ''dentem'', ''vaccam, crudum, ovum'' > /ɛnte akka kruː ou/ in Rieti and L'Aquila.
** Around Terni, and to its immediate northeast, this deletion only applies in intervocalic position.
In the north of the ''Area Perimediana'', a number of Gallo-Italic features are found:

* /a/ > /ɛ/ in stressed open syllables, as in /ˈpa.ne/ > /ˈpɛ.ne/ 'bread', around Perugia and areas to its north.
** In the same area, habitual reduction or deletion of vowels in unstressed internal syllables, as in /ˈtrappole/ > /ˈtrapp(ə)le/ 'traps'.
* Voicing of intervocalic /t/ to /d/ and degemination of long consonants around Ancona and to its west.
* In both of the aforementioned areas: lack, or reversal, of the sound-changes /nd/ > /nn/ and /mb, nv/ > /mm/ that are found in the rest of Central Italian.
The following changes to final vowels are found in the ''Area Perimediana'':

* /-u/ > /-o/, as in Latin ''musteum'' > Montelaghese �moʃʃo everywhere except for a small 'island' around Pitigliano.
* /-i/ > /-e/, as in /i ˈkani/ > /e ˈkane/ 'the dogs', in some of the dialects situated along a long arc from Montalto di Castro in the southwest to Fabriano in the northeast.

Morphological features

* In part of the ''Area Mediana'', below a line running northeast from Rome to Rieti and Norcia, the 3 PL ending of non-first conjugation verbs is, unusually, /-u/ (rather than /-o/), which acts as a trigger for metaphony. Cf. Latin ''vēndunt'' > Leonessan �vinnu'they sell'.
** In the same area, a series of irregular first-conjugation verbs also show 3PL /-u/ (as opposed to the /-o/ or /-onno/ found elsewhere). Examples include u, dau, fau, vau'they have/give/do/go'.

* Latin fourth-declension nouns have been retained as such in many cases. Cf. Latin ''manum'', ''manūs'' 'hand(s)' > Fabrichese �maːno(invariant) and Latin ''fīcum'', ''fīcūs'' 'fig(s)' > Canepinese �fiːko(invariant).
* Latin neuters of the -''um''/-''a'' type survive more extensively than in Tuscan. Cf. Latin ''olīvētum, olīvēta'' > Roiatese iˈviːtu, leˈveːta'olive-grove(s)'. Even originally non-neuter nouns are sometimes drawn into this class, as in Latin ''hortum'', ''hortī'' > Segnese �ᴐrto, ˈᴐrta'garden(s)'.
** The plurals, which are grammatically feminine, are replaced by the feminine ending /-e/ in some dialects, leading to outcomes such as Spoletine �labbru, ˈlabbre'lip(s)'. Both plurals may also alternate within the same dialect, as in Treiese �ᴐːa~ˈᴐːe'eggs'.
** The Latin neuter plural /-ora/, as in ''tempora'' 'times', was extended to several other words in medieval times, but today the phenomenon is limited to areas such as Serrone, where one finds cases like �raːmo, ˈraːmora'branch(es)'. In Serviglianese, the final vowel changes to /-e/, as in �fiːko, ˈfiːkore'fig(s)'.

* In several dialects, final syllables beginning with /n/, /l/, or /r/ may be deleted in masculine nouns. In varieties such as Matelicese, this occurs only in the singular, not the plural, leading to outcomes such as */paˈtrone, paˈtroni/ > aˈtro, paˈtruːni'lord, lords'. In varieties such as Serviglianese, this deletion occurs both in the singular and the plural, resulting in aˈtro, paˈtru with metaphony-induced vowel distinctions remaining as a marker of number.

Syntactic features

* Direct objects are often marked by the preposition ''a'' if they are animate.Vignuzzi 1997: 315; Loporcaro & Panciani 2016: 237

See also

* Central Marchigiano dialect
*Languages of Italy

Bibliography

* Loporcaro, Michele & Paciaroni, Tania. 2016. The dialects of central Italy. In Ledgeway, Adam & Maiden, Martin (eds.), ''The Oxford guide to the Romance languages'', 228–245. Oxford University Press.
*Vignuzzi, Ugo. 1997. Lazio, Umbria, and the Marche. In Maiden, Martin & Parry, Mair (eds.), ''The dialects of Italy'', 311–320. London: Routledge.

References

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Dialects of Italian