Neapolitan language


Neapolitan is a Romance language of the Italo-Dalmatian group spoken across much of southern Italy, except for southern Calabria, southern Apulia, and Sicily, and spoken in a small part of central Italy. It is not named specifically after the city of Naples, but rather the homonymous Kingdom that once covered most of the area, and of which the city was the capital. On October 14, 2008, a law by the Region of Campania stated that Neapolitan was to be protected.
While the term "Neapolitan language" is used in this article to refer to the language group of related dialects found in southern continental Italy, it may also refer more specifically to the dialect of the Neapolitan language spoken in the Naples area or in Campania. In fact, in a colloquial or non-academic or non-linguist context, “Neapolitan language”, napulitano, or napoletano generally refers specifically to the variety of the language spoken in Naples and the surrounding area; however, this variety is usually mutually intelligible with other related “Neapolitan language” varieties throughout Southern Italy.

Distribution

The Neapolitan dialects are distributed throughout most of continental southern Italy, historically united during the Kingdom of Naples and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, specifically southern Lazio, southern Marche, Abruzzo, Molise, Basilicata, Campania, northern and central Apulia, and northernmost Calabria. The dialects are part of a varied dialect continuum, so the varieties in southern Lazio, Marche, Abruzzo, Molise, Apulia, Lucania and Calabria can typically be recognizable as regional groups of dialects. In western Abruzzo and Lazio the dialects give way to Central Italian dialects such as Romanesco. In central Calabria and southern Apulia, the dialects give way to the Sicilian language. Largely due to massive southern Italian migration in the late 19th century and early 20th century, there are also numbers of speakers in Italian diaspora communities in the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela. However, in the United States traditional Neapolitan has had considerable contact with English, and is significantly different from contemporary Neapolitan spoken in Naples. English words are often used in place of Neapolitan words, especially among second-generation speakers. On the other hand, the effect on Neapolitan in Italy has been similar due to displacement by Standard Italian.
The following dialects constitute Neapolitan; numbers refer to the map:
The southernmost regions of Italy—most of Calabria and southern Apulia, as well as Sicily—are home to Sicilian rather than Neapolitan.

Classification

Neapolitan is a Romance language and is generally considered one of the Italo-Romance branch of the Italo-Dalmatian languages. There are notable differences among the various dialects, but they are all generally mutually intelligible.
Italian and Neapolitan are of variable mutual comprehensibility, depending on factors that are both affective and linguistic. There are notable grammatical differences, such as Neapolitan having nouns in the neuter form and a unique plural formation as well as historical phonological developments, which often obscure the cognacy of lexical items.
Its evolution has been similar to that of Italian and other Romance languages from their roots in Vulgar Latin. It may reflect a pre-Latin Oscan substratum, as in the pronunciation of the d sound as an r sound at the beginning of a word or between two vowels: e.g. doje or duje, meaning "two", is pronounced, and often spelled, as roje/ruje; vedé as veré, and often spelled so; also cadé/caré. Another purported Oscan influence is the historical assimilation of the consonant cluster as, pronounced , along with the development of as ~, also consistently reflected in spelling. Other effects of the Oscan substratum are postulated, but substratum claims are highly controversial. As in many other languages in the Italian Peninsula, Neapolitan has an adstratum greatly influenced by other Romance languages, Germanic languages, Greek and Arabic. The language had never been standardised, and the word for tree has three different spellings:, and.
Neapolitan has enjoyed a rich literary, musical and theatrical history. Thanks to this heritage and the musical work of Renato Carosone in the 1950s, Neapolitan is still in use in popular music, even gaining national popularity in the songs of Pino Daniele and the Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare.
The language has no official status within Italy and is not taught in schools. The University of Naples Federico II offers courses in Campanian Dialectology at the faculty of Sociology, whose actual aim is not teaching students to speak the language, but studying its history, usage, literature and social role. There are also ongoing legislative attempts at the national level to have it recognized as an official minority language of Italy. It is however a recognized ISO 639 Joint Advisory Committee language with the language code of nap.
Here is the IPA pronunciation of the Neapolitan spoken in the city of Naples:
EnglishNeapolitan IPA
Our Father who art in heaven,Pate nuoste ca staje 'n cielo,
hallowed be thy namesantificammo 'o nomme tuojo
Thy kingdom come,faje venì 'o regno tuojo,
Thy will be done,sempe cu 'a vuluntà toja,
on earth as it is in heaven.accussì 'n cielo accussì 'n terra.
Give us this day our daily breadFance avé 'o ppane tutte 'e juorne
and forgive us our trespassesliévace 'e diébbete
as we forgive those who trespass against us,comme nuje 'e llevamme a ll'ate,
and lead us not into temptation,nun ce fa spantecà,
but deliver us from evil.e lliévace 'o mmale 'a tuorno.
Amen.Ammèn.

Alphabet and pronunciation

Neapolitan orthography consists of 22 Latin letters. Much like Italian orthography, it does not contain k, w, x, or y even though these letters might be found in some foreign words; unlike Italian, it does contain the letter j. The English pronunciation guidelines that follow are based on General American pronunciation and the values used may not be applicable to other dialects.
All Romance languages are closely related. Although Neapolitan shares a high degree of its vocabulary with Italian, the official language of Italy, differences in pronunciation often make the connection unrecognizable to those without knowledge of Neapolitan. The most striking phonological difference is the Neapolitan weakening of unstressed vowels into schwa. However it is also possible to speak standard Italian with a "Neapolitan accent"; that is, by pronouncing un-stressed vowels as schwa or by pronouncing the letter s as instead of when the letter is in initial position followed by a consonant, but not when it is followed by a dental occlusive or but by otherwise using only entirely standard words and grammatical forms. This is not Neapolitan proper, but a mere difference in Italian pronunciation.
Therefore, while pronunciation presents the strongest barrier to comprehension, the grammar of Neapolitan is what sets it apart from Italian. In Neapolitan, for example, the gender and number of a word is expressed by a change in the accented vowel, whereas in Italian it is expressed by a change in the final vowel. These and other morpho-syntactic differences distinguish the Neapolitan language from the Italian language and the Neapolitan accent.
Neapolitan has had a significant influence on the intonation of Rioplatense Spanish, of the Buenos Aires region of Argentina, and the whole of Uruguay.

Vowels

While there are only five graphic vowels in Neapolitan, phonemically, there are eight. Stressed vowels e and o can be either "closed" or "open" and the pronunciation is different for the two. The grave accent is used to denote open vowels, and the acute accent is used to denote closed vowels, with alternative ì and ù. However, accent marks are not commonly used in the actual spelling of words except when they occur on the final syllable of a word, such as Totò, arrivà, or pecché and when they appear here in other positions it is only to demonstrate where the stress, or accent, falls in some words. Also, the circumflex is used to mark a long vowel where it wouldn't normally occur.
LetterIPAPronunciation guide
a~
a is usually open and is pronounced like the a in father
when it is the final, unstressed vowel, its pronunciation is indistinct and approaches the sound of the schwa
e

stressed, open e is pronounced like the e in bet
stressed, closed e is pronounced like the a in fame except that it does not die off into ee
unstressed e is pronounced as a schwa
i
i is always closed and is pronounced like the ee in meet
when it is initial, or preceding another vowel
o

stressed, open o is pronounced like the o in often
stressed, closed o is pronounced like the o in closed except that it does not die off into oo
unstressed o is pronounced as a schwa
u
u is always closed and is pronounced like the oo in boot
when it is initial, or preceding another vowel

Consonants

LetterIPAPronunciation guide
bpronounced the same as in English, always geminated when preceded by another vowel
c~


when followed by e or i the pronunciation is somewhere between the sh in share and the ch in chore, especially after a vowel
otherwise it is like the k in skip
in both cases voiced after n
ddental version of the English d
fpronounced the same as in English
g,
when followed by e or i the pronunciation is like the g of germane, always geminated when preceded by another vowel
otherwise it is like the g in gum
hh is always silent and is only used to differentiate words pronounced the same and otherwise spelled alike
and after g or c to preserve the hard sound when e or i follows
jreferred to as a semi-consonant, is pronounced like English y as in yet
lpronounced the same as in English
mpronounced the same as in English
npronounced the same as in English; if followed by a consonant, it variously changes its point of articulation
p
pronounced the same as the p in English spill
voiced after m
qrepresented by orthographic qu, pronounced the same as in English
r~when between two vowels it is sounds very much like the American tt in butter but in reality it is a single tic of a trilled r
when at the beginning of a word or when preceded by or followed by another consonant, it is trilled
s

pronounced the same as in English sound unless it comes before a consonant other than
pronounced as ds in lads after n
pronounced as English z before d
s
pronounced sh when followed by a voiceless consonant
zh when followed by a voiced consonant
t
dental version of the English t as in state
voiced after n
vpronounced the same as in English
xpronounced like the cks in backs or like the cchus in Bacchus; this consonant sequence does not occur in native Neapolitan or Italian words
z
voiced z is pronounced like the ds in lads
unvoiced z is pronounced like the ts in jetsam

Digraphs and trigraphs

The following clusters are always geminated if vowel-following.
LetterIPAPronunciation Guide
gnpalatal version of the ni in the English onion
gl~palatal version of the lli in the English million, most commonly realized like a strong version of y in the English yes.
scwhen followed by e or i it is pronounced as the sh in the English ship

Grammar

Definite articles

The Neapolitan classical definite articles are la, lo and li, but in reality these forms will probably only be found in older literature, of which there is much to be found. Modern Neapolitan uses, almost entirely, shortened forms of these articles which are:
Before a word beginning with a consonant:
SingularPlural
Masculine’o’e
Feminine’a’e
Neuter’o–

These definite articles are always pronounced distinctly.
Before a word beginning with a vowel, l’ or ll’ are used
for both masculine and feminine, for both singular and plural. Although both forms can be found, the ll’ form is by far the most common.
It is well to note that in Neapolitan the gender of a noun is not easily determined by the article, so other means must be used. In the case of ’o which can be either masculine singular or neuter singular, when it is neuter the initial consonant of the noun is doubled. As an example, the name of a language in Neapolitan is always neuter, so if we see ’o nnapulitano we know it refers to the Neapolitan language, whereas ’o napulitano would refer to a Neapolitan man.
Likewise, since ’e can be either masculine plural or feminine plural, when it is feminine plural, the initial consonant of the noun is doubled. As an example, consider ’a lista which in Neapolitan is feminine singular for "list." In the plural it becomes ’e lliste.
There can also be problems with nouns whose singular form ends in e. Since plural nouns usually end in e whether masculine or feminine, the masculine plural is often formed by orthographically changing the spelling. As an example, consider the word guaglione :
SingularPlural
Masculine’o guaglione’e guagliune
Feminine’a guagliona’e gguaglione

More will be said about these orthographically changing nouns in the section on Neapolitan nouns.
A couple of notes about consonant doubling:
The Neapolitan indefinite articles, corresponding to the English a or an, are presented in the following table:

Verbal conjugation

In Neapolitan there are four finite moods: indicative, subjunctive, conditional and imperative, and three non-finite modes: infinitive, gerund and participle. Each mood has an active and a passive form. The only auxiliary verbs used in the active form is , which contrasts with Italian in which the intransitive and reflexive verbs take èssere for their auxiliary. For example, we have:
Nap.Aggio stato a Nnapule ajere.AUX-HAVE-1st-SING-PRES "be"-PART-PAST "in"-PREP "Naples"-NOUN "yesterday"-ADVERB
It.Sono stato a Napoli ieri.AUX-BE-1st-SING-PRES "be"-PART-PAST "in"-PREP "Naples"-NOUN "yesterday"-ADVERB
Eng.I was in Naples yesterday.-

Doubled initial consonants

In Neapolitan, many times the initial consonant of a word is doubled. This is called raddoppiamento sintattico in Italian as it also applies to the Italian phonology.
However, when there is a pause after the "trigger" word, the phonological doubling does not occur. Neither does doubling occur when the initial consonant is followed by another consonant.
This is what happens phonologically and no orthographic change is required. The same thing happens in Italian, where multiple words trigger first-consonant doubling, e.g. la casa but a casa, io e te, etc.

Words that trigger doubling in pronunciation