Distance in change

[Frank Rossi]

Rick referring to the possible Etruscan substate in Tuscan wrote:

> What you're saying makes me wonder if there wasn't some sort of diglossia
> going on all along with the upper classes pronouncing casa as /kaza/ and
> the lower classes as /haza/. Would this work?

Possibly, but I still think it's possible that all classes used the same
pronunciation, but they weren't aware of its "strangeness", as the Irish
are not aware of their aspirated consonants, or as some Londoners are not
aware they are saying "fink" and think they are saying "think".

> >>What I notice about Roman speech is
> >	>/-L- > 0/ e.g. figlio > "fio"
> >	>/-nd- > -nn-/ e.g. andiamo > "annamo"

> >The first of these phenomena, although in not so extreme a version, is
> >common in other Romance dialects, cf. "yeismo" in Spanish.

> 	Not quite because whenever I've spoken to Romans, I've noticed a
> complete dropping of /-L-/. I hear /fio/ rather than /fiyo/. But, OTOH,
> I've spoken to Italians in Latin America and the US. Yei/smo is a bit more
> complicated since it runs through a whole gamut of sounds including /y^, j,
> zh & sh/ --with /y^/ representing the "tense <y>" similar to that of <yolk>
> rather than that of <yes>, which in Spanish is represented by <iV> [compare
> <yerba> vs. <hierba>]

Firstly, I must warn you that my opinions on Romanesco and Neapolitan are
those of an outsider. as my native language is English and my other first
language is (or as a child was) the Emilian North Italian dialect, but I
later adopted standard Italian as a second language.
Also, I live in a very North Italian environment among (believe it or not)
(semi-)monolingual speakers of Bergamasco.
Having said this, according to Gerhard Rohlfs, "Grammatica storica della
lingua italiana e dei suoi dialetti", 1949, <gl> in Lazio should be
pronounced /jj/ , i.e. a geminate semi-consonant like English <y>, which
would be a form of "yeismo", right?
In my opinion, the speakers of Romanesco have taken this process to its
ultimate limits:
 /fiLLo/ > /fijjo/ >  /fio/.

> >The second, which is characteristic of Central-Southern Italian dialects,
> >including Neapolitan, etc., but *not* Tuscan and *not* North Italian, is
> >also considered a substrate phenomenon going back to pre Latin times.

> 	"Nabolidan" as I've heard it among both US ethnic Italians and
> Neapolitans visiting the US had /nd/, as in something similar to /andyamu/
> or /andyammu/. But they may have been trying to use a standard
> pronunciation.

Yes, that is standard Italian "andiamo" with a southern pronunciation. The
Neapolitan verb for to go is "jl" or "ghl" and "andiamo" (= let's go)
would be "iamme", at least that's what it is in the song "Funicull,
Funicul`". :)
However, Italian "quando" = Nap. "quanno" (= when); Ital. "colomba" = Nap.
"palomma" (= dove); Ital. "gamba" = Nap. "gamma" (= leg)

> 	It is said that Roman settlers to Spain were principally from the
> area around Naples, who brought in characteristics of Osco-Umbrian as well
> as Greek. But I've usually just heard this remark in passing or seen it as
> a "truism"

So, Miguel thinks too.

Frank Rossi
Bergamo, Italy
iglesias at axia.it