Central Marchigiano refers to a group of

Romance Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to: Common meanings * Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings * Romance languages, ...

varieties spoken in the central part of the

Marche Marche ( , ) is one of the twenty regions of Italy. In English, the region is sometimes referred to as The Marches ( ). The region is located in the central area of the country, bordered by Emilia-Romagna and the republic of San Marino to the ...

region of Italy, in an area that includes the provinces of

Ancona Ancona (, also , ) is a city and a seaport in the Marche region in central Italy, with a population of around 101,997 . Ancona is the capital of the province of Ancona and of the region. The city is located northeast of Rome, on the Adriatic ...

Macerata Macerata () is a city and '' comune'' in central Italy, the county seat of the province of Macerata in the Marche region. It has a population of about 41,564. History The historical city centre is on a hill between the Chienti and Potenza r ...

and

Fermo Fermo (ancient: Firmum Picenum) is a town and '' comune'' of the Marche, Italy, in the Province of Fermo. Fermo is on a hill, the Sabulo, elevation , on a branch from Porto San Giorgio on the Adriatic coast railway. History The oldest ...

. It is one of the

Central Italian 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 t ...

dialects and forms part of a continuum that also encompasses

Umbrian Umbrian is an extinct Italic language formerly spoken by the Umbri in the ancient Italian region of Umbria. Within the Italic languages it is closely related to the Oscan group and is therefore associated with it in the group of Osco-Umbrian ...

and Tuscan. There are notable grammatical, lexical and idiomatic differences between Marchigiano and

standard Italian Italian (''italiano'' or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Together with Sardinian, Italian is the least divergent language from Latin. Spoken by about 85 m ...

, but it is considered, along with the rest of

dialects, to be fairly intelligible to a speaker of Standard Italian. According to internal variation, Marchigiano is divided into two main areas: * The dialect of

(Anconitano), to which the dialects of

Osimo Osimo is a town and ''comune'' of the Marche region of Italy, in the province of Ancona. The municipality covers a hilly area located approximately south of the port city of Ancona and the Adriatic Sea. , Osimo had a total population of 35,037. ...

Jesi Jesi, also spelled Iesi (), is a town and ''comune'' of the province of Ancona in Marche, Italy. It is an important industrial and artistic center in the floodplain on the left (north) bank of the Esino river before its mouth on the Adriatic ...

and

Fabriano Fabriano is a town and '' comune'' of Ancona province in the Italian region of the Marche, at above sea level. It lies in the Esino valley upstream and southwest of Jesi; and east-northeast of Fossato di Vico and east of Gubbio (both in Umbri ...

also belong. *The dialect of

and

(Fermano-Maceratese) and that of

Camerino Camerino is a town in the province of Macerata, Marche, central-eastern Italy. It is located in the Apennines bordering Umbria, between the valleys of the rivers Potenza and Chienti, about from Ancona. Camerino is home to the University of C ...

Common features

Features that distinguish Marchigiano in general from Italian include: *

Apocope In phonology, apocope () is the loss ( elision) of a word-final vowel. In a broader sense, it can refer to the loss of any final sound (including consonants) from a word. Etymology ''Apocope'' comes from the Greek () from () "cutting off", fro ...

in words stressed on a penultimate syllable followed by . The equivalents of Italian , '','' and ('farmer, pigeons, dog') are , , and .Massimo Morroni, ''Vocabolario del dialetto osimano'' *The presence of the ending or (from Latin ) where Italian instead has . *The fact that the general masculine singular ending in nouns and adjectives may be , rather than the found in Italian. *The vocalization of older . The equivalent to Italian ''figlio'' may be '', fiiu'', ''or '' ''.'' *The loss of in infinitives (also found in Tuscan). The equivalents of Italian ', ', and ' ('love, put, die) are , , and .Carlo Grillantini, ''Saggi e studi sul dialetto osimano'' *The change of older to , such that ' 'we eat' corresponds to Italian '. *Isomorphism of certain third-person plural and first-person singular verb endings, such that may mean either 'he/she/it loves' or 'they love'. The verbs meaning 'be' and 'have' inflect as follows in the present indicative:

Features of the three areas

Ancona dialect

The Ancona dialect is spoken only in

and has only recently spread its influence elsewhere ( Falconara,

, Chiaravalle,

Porto Recanati Porto Recanati () is a town with some 12,500 inhabitants in the province of Macerata, in the Marche region. of central Italy. It is the northeast coastal town of the province. It was made an independent town on 15 January 1893, when, due to a D ...

, Loreto and Senigallia). Of the Marchigiano varieties, it is the one that shows the most

Gallo-Italic The Gallo-Italic, Gallo-Italian, Gallo-Cisalpine or simply Cisalpine languages constitute the majority of the Romance languages of northern Italy. They are Piedmontese, Lombard, Emilian, Ligurian, and Romagnol. Although most publications de ...

traits. For instance, the masculine singular definite article is always , without anything comparable to the Italian variation, according to phonetic context, between and . Only the speakers from towns which are closer to

(Osimo,

Castelfidardo Castelfidardo (Marchigiano: ''Castello'') is a town and '' comune'' in the province of Ancona, in the Marche region of central-eastern Italy. It is remembered for a Piedmontese victory over an army composed of foreign volunteers defending th ...

, Loreto, Porto Recanati) use the form as in Italian. These cities also undergo other influences from the Macerata dialect, due to proximity.

Fabriano dialect

The Fabriano dialect is spoken in Fabriano (closer to

Umbria it, Umbro (man) it, Umbra (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , ...

) and nearby towns.

Rhotacism Rhotacism () or rhotacization is a sound change that converts one consonant (usually a voiced alveolar consonant: , , , or ) to a rhotic consonant in a certain environment. The most common may be of to . When a dialect or member of a language ...

of occurs in this dialect, such that the local equivalents of Italian 'sock' and 'lightning' are and .

Macerata dialect

The Macerata dialect is spoken in the provinces of Macerata and Fermo. Its speakers use (masculine singular) and (neuter singular) as definite articles. Notable features are rhotacism of and various assimilations that are absent from Italian:

Vocabulary

The following is a list of Marchigian words; note that the Anconitan forms do not show

gemination In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...

('','' '','' , etc.) * (adv. by this time; now); Anconitano: * (n. dad; father) * or (n. boy; child); Anconitano: * or (n. poplar) * or (adj. bitter; sour) * or (n. toad/clumsy) * (adv. in this way) * (n. hail) * (vb. to shout; to scream); Anconitano: * (adj. thick) * or (adj. red) * or (vb. to slide) * (adv. yes) *jèmmete (n. cliff) *mata (n. mud)

External links

A website about the dialect of AnconaA blog about the dialect of Macerata

Notes

{{Languages of Italy Dialects of Italian Culture in le Marche