Speaking in tongues

One thing that I have really learned to appreciate in my time here is the significance of dialects-- while in the good ol' USA we have differing accents and maybe a couple of words or phrases that vary by region (think "buggy" vs. "shopping cart"... or "fixin' to do something") the base language undergoes very few changes.  In fact even across the three continents that speak English the language is remarkably homogeneous.  Having grown up being able to understand English-speakers from any region (except for the occasional Kroger cashier...) I assumed that other languages were the same, and that when I read about these "dialects" of German, French, etc. the author simply meant a slightly different intonation.

Not so.  Although I live in a region of Italy that is said to have the "purest" Italian, within my first month of school I had already undergone a lesson on "Our Dialect" put on for me by my classmates.  I learned not only slang phrases typical of the region (like "wanna" or "watcha doin'?" in English) but also words that an Italian from any other area would understand about as well as the average American tourist-- words that simply don't exist in the Italian dictionary.

Attitudes regarding local dialects are conflicted.  On the one hand frequent are the comments on how "brutto" (ugly) the Tuderte (from the Latin name for the town) dialect is, and yet it continues to thrive and people actually take pride "their" dialect.  I think that this feeling of ownership is what really what encourages the dialect to stay alive-- it is a means of showing off one's origins and differentiating the "true" Tuderte from the general Italian population.  I think this is a fairly widespread attitude; while very few will tell you how happy they are to be Italian, they will positively puff up in pride when asked about their dialects.  Along the same lines, one of the surest way for me as a foreigner to earn a smile and to put others at their ease is to throw a few words of their own language at them.  "Ah, already speaking dialect?  You're a real Tuderte, you are!"

One thing that I found very surprising was the small radius in which each dialect circles.  A classmate once looked at me and told me proudly a couple of words in Marsciano dialect.  Marsciano is a town 15 miles away.  Each tiny town literally has its own dialect.

Equally surprising was the strength of various accents, each from its own city.  In Todi, for example, the "t" sound is pronounced very closely to a "d"-- in fact, when feeling particularly patriotic, Tuderti will write their town's name exactly like that: Dodi.  Likewise, the soft "c" and "g" sounds have become practically one.  But these characteristics, together with all the other little differences from the Italian you learn on tapes, are typical only of Todi.  Think about the number of tiny towns in Italy, each with not only its own words but also its own distinct accent.  Last year we had a new teacher, and one of my classmates (actually from Naples herself) turned to her and immediately started talking about the home-city they both shared, guessing the teacher's origin based purely on her accent.  Actually, on our class trip to Naples-- an Italian city, mind you-- my Italian classmates were using this girl as a translator.

So... a few difference to give you an idea about how my "second-and-a-half" language sounds:
 Italian "Andiamo a prendere qualcosa da mangiare" ("let's go get something to eat") becomes "Mo annamo a pija qualcosa da magnà"... "Che facciamo con questi soldi?" (What should we do with this money?) turns into "che famo con sti soldi?"... "dove" (where) is changed to a simple "do"..."sono" (I am, they are) is shortened to "so'"... "buono" (good) loses its "u"...  "dai" (an interjection that I don't really know in English) becomes "daje"...   etc., etc.

Then there are the words that don't even resemble anything in proper Italian... "mollo" (wet)... "prescia" (hurry)... "scialla" (cool)... the list goes on.

So anyway, vo a pija 'n gelato-- se magna tanto bene qua! (vado a prendere un gelato-- si mangia bene qui!  Google translate, y'all!) Ciao!